The Coming Apocalypse---Climate Change

ARKANSAS

BY

Richard Mason

The Coming Apocalypse---Climate Change

Hurricanes with 200 MPH winds so large they cover half the Gulf of Mexico, 10 to 15 foot rise in sea level makes hundreds of coastal cities un-inhabitable, millions of acres of farm lands lost to cultivation, several billion of the earth’s people starving, heat waves that render millions of acres of crop land a desert, and sectional wars to secure food supplies.

Yes, that’s what is facing the world today, and scientists tell us that another three degrees of warming will set off an irreversible tipping point where there will be no recovery. Is this really our future? Has Climate Change, caused by human activity, become a fact instead of a theory, and we are domed if we don’t reverse the problem?

Over the past five years the numbers of scientists who have said “Climate Change is real,” has skyrocketed to where the actual numbers of documented scientists who have signed on as believers are almost 100%. As numbers reach these heights “theory” becomes fact, and if we look at the past, we can see “Flat Earth, Evolution, and now Climate Change,” have all become fact instead of theory. Of course, it’s easy to see why Climate Change is real. The Earth’s temperature is setting records each year, and this last year’s average temperature is the hottest year on record.  And as the ice melts in the Arctic and Antarctic and five hundred years floods become common, many scientists believe we will soon reach the desperation stage of a crisis.

Just looks at last year’s weather; the Texas coastal area around Houston received unbelievable amounts of rain this past year, and in north Louisiana a 23 inches of rain was dumped on the area during one storm. That was a five hundred year rain---one that may become commonplace in the years ahead. The tornado season now extends into areas of the country were they have never been recorded. For the past several years world record average temperatures have been set each year. This has caused many scientists to call the situation a Climate Emergency.

We are already seeing the results of a 1.6 degree temperature rise on earth as melting polar ice has caused a rise in sea level that has already put 5 Solomon Islands underwater. As we look at our recent ultra-severe weather we can expect an increase in wildfires, an ever increasing intensity of hurricanes, the continued extinction of wildlife, and an increase melt of polar ice, which of course, will give a rise in sea levels.

India recorded its highest ever temperature ever on May 19^th, 2016 when the heat in the town of Phalodi, in the western state of Rajasthan, shot up to a burning 51 degrees Celsius (123.8 degrees Fahrenheit). 

But let’s look a little closer to home. As we look back at our August 2016 rainfall here in Arkansas, we marvel at the all-time record that was set, but look farther south to Louisiana. The increased warming of the Gulf and the change in wind patterns that has occurred makes South Louisiana tropical. That right and that August rainfall we had was a taste of being in the tropics. Tornadoes up north, floods down south, wild fires in the west are all the result of Climate Change. In five year it will reach the crisis level and the night of a 100 tornadoes or a 25 inch rain will occur every year. We must react to this impending disaster!

In the United States, the most powerful nation in the world, the apathy about Climate Change must be encountered with facts until even the rigid of the doubters’ cave in. We must hurry the demise of coal fired plants that produce electricity no matter what the cost, and new automobile and truck standards of emissions must be strengthened. And our country must take the lead, and not be dragged into the situation kicking and screaming. We must use our economic clout to demand countries like China and India, which heavily trade with the United States, will have enhanced controls on emitting carbon dioxide, or there won’t be any trade.

We can’t allow the nay-sayers to prevail in this fight. Our grandchildren and their children will never forgive us if we hand off to them a world that has been damaged so severely the life on the planet is tenuous for millions.

I guess you might wonder why I seem so concerned about the effects of Climate Change? Well, twenty-years from now when my great grandchildren are feeling the effects of ignoring Climate Change, and they ask me, “Jocko (that’s what my grandchildren call me), why didn’t you do something before it was too late?” At least I can say, “I tried.”