Day 17

Denial of the fact that we are experiencing climate change in our country is unthinkable.  We have had the most severe storms coming through since Katrina hit the gulf.  A tornado becomes a hurricane when it is over water.  A tornado is caused by the mixing of cool air and warm air.  We have seen the devastation left and the lives lost from the results of these torrid winds.  No one can say for absolute certainty what the exact cause is but global warming does look like a very strong possibility.  The reason for global warming in my opinion would be given to the use of fossil fuel.  There may be also some evidence that this may be a cycle that the earth just goes through but to me we have added to the issue with the use of fossil fuels.  When I was a kid we felt that we would be using flying cars by now by watching the cartoon The Jetsons or at least the space age looking cars of the future we saw at auto shows.  When I was in school in the early 70’s my geology teacher made us aware of the fact that  oil was a product that was limited in nature and that we would need to be moving away from it’s use in order to maintain the energy production of our country.  He also talked about New Orleans and told us about how it was a basin next to the ocean that was being eroded and that it was going to take some heroic work to hold the ocean back from that city.  He felt that they needed to move the people of New Orleans out and start them a new city in another location.  We have seemed to be able to ignore what science is telling us as a fact that cannot be denied by any one lets forget about how the exhaust that comes from our cars is causing global warming the fact that there is only so much oil in the world is a fact we are not making more oil any time soon.  We have had the knowledge for years to better the mileage that cars get from gas and to me unless government demands better from car makers we will continue to see what I consider a conspiracy of the oil companies and car makers to keep oil in place as the fuel for our cars.  There has been over the years people that have developed better engines that use much less oil or no oil at all and some how the people that have made them have been paid off to keep them out of use.  I believe we should be driving cars that get a hundred or more miles per gallon in fuel efficiency by now but it is not happening.  The government plays its part in this in a much bigger way then any of us realize.  Our congress is in the pockets of big oil and the auto manufacturers.  We give money to oil companies when they are making record profits.  We require nothing but what Detroit wants to give us in the form of better gas mileage.  This is where our government has failed us.  We should be the leaders of the world in this matter instead of following what these companies want to give us.  Must we completely run out of oil before we wake up and demand better?  Once again as I see things the lobby system in DC is making things bad for us while the pockets of our congress is being lined with the oil and auto money.  This process needs to end so that our government is responsive to the needs of the one and only world that we all live in.  China cannot continue on its course of ignoring the environment either.  The pollution of the ground and air over there is the same air that we all breathe and a part of our world.  The issue of global warming is not just on us it is what it says global.    We can look at what happened to the people of Easter Island as a model for the over use of our world.  These people being ignorant of ecology stripped their island of trees until there were none to make boats to travel elsewhere or out to fish.  This caused the people of the island to not have any food and they in the end days turned to eating each other.  Are we going to with open eyes drive off this cliff?  The earth is a unique planet that is in what is called the range from the sun that is just right not too hot not too cold.  We do not have the technology to even take let’s say ten people to Mars let alone everyone to a planet that is in another planetary system that has all the features of earth.  So we must take great care with how we treat the earth.  The American Indians had it right in this regard and they used resources very carefully.  When they killed an animal they used every part of it and thanked their God that it was provided for their use.  We must adopt this attitude of respect for the earth and not treat the earth as our trash dump.