Oh, I do love a good "climate change" debate! Ok, my background: B.S. in Earth and Environmental Sciences from Penn State. I've studied climate change under some of the best names in the country: Dr. Eric Barron (Director NCAR, testified to congress on climate concerns and is presently FSUs president), Dr. Richard Alley (Nobel Prize recipient with Al Gore for his contributions with the UNIPCC) and Dr. Wally Broecker (miss-coined the phrase "global warming" in the 1970s). So, here's the bottom line (and why I don't recycle).
The earth does things to keep itself in check. It goes through cycles, sometimes those cycles transition quickly (10-15 years) other times they happen slowly (exiting the last ice age. Ok, technically we're still in an "ice age" because we have ice caps, but that's for another debate.). What humans have done is "forced" the system to do things it naturally wouldn’t do (eruptions are natural). But, the earth will recover. One small example is the melting of the ice caps. When they melt, they freshen the water at the poles, which decreases downwelling of the ocean water as it cools near the poles. This effectively cuts off the earth’s heat transport from the equator and freezes out the poles…back into a more sever ice age. There are thousands of examples like this so understand…do what you want to feel better about “saving” the earth…but it doesn’t matter. The earth’s climate will change no matter what we do/don’t do. The climate researchers today are simply trying to figure out what it’s doing and what we’re doing that may affect it.
Oh, and why don’t I recycle….who cares if it takes 65,000 years for a plastic container to biodegrade?...have you seen the age of the earth?…that’s a drop in the bucket. Again, say you recycle because you don’t want the next generation to look at your trash, but don’t do it to “save” the earth. The earth is just fine, with or without us!
