In one hundred years, children in Houston will barely remember what a snowflake was, the way it lilted in the air before it hit the ground, clung to a stalk of grass and held on till morning. The way we counted down towards winter, watching the weather each night in the hopes that it would happen. In the past decade, it has snowed twice. In the next hundred years, snow may be a distant memory, waiting so earnestly to fall again.
Behind her back
Global warming is real, and that much is true. From An Inconvenient Truth to ABC's new documentary, Last Days On Earth, the public is slowly being informed. But information such as that is unnerving, even frightening. The thought that we, the industrious children of Mother Earth, are sucking her dry. That soon, our planet may become as brittle and dry as a blister, that the Sahara may be surpassed in size, that killer heat waves will decimate all that we have held dear. Desertification, ice caps melting, rising sea levels — will there ever be an end?
Thankfully, where there were only questions before, now there are answers.
Preventing the spread
We cannot control global warming through information alone; that much is certain. And as much as we try to invent new fuels, how effective are they going to be? It's not possible to have all cars, all homes running off of solar, hydroelectric, or nuclear power in a decent time frame, nor is it cost effective. That requires eradicating all our technology and starting fresh.
It also means disintegrating a resurrected economy for many nations. We speak of developing nations with such pride sometimes, that it's hard to understand the years it took to achieve such technology — things we have been using for years without any special notice. How could you take away a child's first teddy bear and replace it with a new one without knowing what it meant? That all the money, all the efforts were for nothing?
Instead, to look for answers, we have to look for effective innovation. Already, there are talks and summits - people who realize the implications of rising sea levels and soaring heatwaves. This summer and the one before stood as examples. I personally have been in the middle of a desert and in the middle of a monsoon — I do not want to see the world's visage become a veil of tears and debilitating fever for the rest of its life.
Where do we look now?
In the future, interplanetary travel, Justice League style, might become widely used. There may be domed cities with self sustaining atmospheric conditions, and a cautionary glimpse of the world outside. But who among us, if able to look through the dome, would not see the land that could have been green — the water where there is only an expanse of gas and a twist of hope? If it is possible to save our planet, we should start now. As an individual though, I don't know how. Ethanol doesn't provide enough miles/hour, nor is it widely manufactured enough. Gas prices are lowering, which indicates greater usage of cars. But in spite of this, individual cities, Houston included, are starting to make efforts to clean the air (this, ironically, occurred directly after Last Days On Earth).
The power of words
The world must take small steps now, and instill steady goals. First, leaders must take initiative. Second, there should be an annual panel to discuss a country's progress in helping the environment (Kyoto Conference, anyone?). Third, we must decrease our dependence on burning fossil fuels or, if not, conceive a way to lower emissions or destroy them all together.
If there was a way to neutralize part of the carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere without adverse affects, I would be the one right in there doing it. But as it is, we have two choices: we can let the earth live, or slowly watch it die.
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Elizabeth said:
LOL we get snow all the time up here in Canada, so we will know what snow is fr a long time… I hope snow doesnt go away!! I like it. I’M scared about Global Warming. We learned about it at school.
Posted on September 2, 2006 7:41 AM; Permalink