But I'm not here to get up on my soapbox about global warming. I'm no expert. I haven't read An Inconvenient Truth, I don't drive an electric car, and I haven't even seen the electric car movie (although I hope to do all of these things sooner than later).
No, I'm here to talk about the draft. Wait, I'm actually here to talk about the Bible. Again. I was watching The Search for Noah's Ark (one of my favorite Biblical subjects) on The History Channel the other day. In addition to searching for the physical location of Noah's big boat, various well-educated people were exploring theories about what (aside from the wrath of God, that is) might have caused such a large-scale flood that people would be talking about it for thousands of years. And the most interesting theory (to me, anyway), was that Noah's flood was caused by global warming. That's right. The Earth got too warm, the oceans started to rise, and the Mediterranean spilled into the Black Sea through a narrow isthmus. There is archealogical evidence of this, in fact, in the form of underwater beaches. While this may or may not be the origin of the Biblical flood story, it's certainly worth thinking about.
Am I saying global warming is not caused by humans, if it was happening thousands of years ago? Not really. The people in the Bible didn't have cars, but they certainly burned a lot of stuff (all those animal sacrifices, for one thing). I'm no scientist, but I don't think it's improbable that people could have been the cause of global warming all the way back then. What I'm really trying to say is that, when the oceans start rising, it's a big deal, and when they say that the oceans will rise 7-23 inches in the next 100 years, I find it pretty scary.
What should we do? Whatever we can, I guess. There are some good ideas here. Check out these awesome solar panels Japanese engineers are working on. Thanks, Japanese engineers! Maybe by the time I buy a house (or an ark) they'll have the technology perfected.
(edited to add that my awesome sister has listed some great suggestions for fighting global warming in the comments section: check it out!)
2 comments:
So I do like water, and hanging out on a big ark sounds kind of fun. But I also am quite fond of the coast and too to be honest and I don't know if I'm quite ready to let the oceans rise and leave lots of people without homes in places like San Fransisco(even if we might have waterfront property here in Oakland) Anyways, anyone who knows me knows that I worked for an energy conservation program for two years and have become a little bit of an energy nazi, or guru maybe is a more appropriate word...So I can't pass up an opportunity to give people hope that they can personally do things every day that help stop global warming:
Here are some of my ideas and some links:
-http://www.humboldt.edu/~greenhsu/cms/gc/
main/resources
-http://www.focusthenation.org/resources.php
-www.ase.org
-http://renu.citizenre.com/
Krystal's top ten list
1-switch out incandescent light bulbs with CFLs. There are often rebates and deals with your energy provider company.
2-drive less. walk, bike, carpool take public transport as often as possible. even 1 day a week that you would've been driving can make a difference!
3-Turn off lights and electronics when not in use.
4-Plug electronics like steros and DVDs into power strips and turn the switch off when you leave or go to bed. Electronics like these (many have the digital clocks that no one really needs anyways) are drawing power all the time even when turned "off" (phantom loads)
5-Buy food and other products that are grown and/or produced locally (within 250 miles of your home) to reduce the amount of fuel needed to ship stuff to you (the average food item at the store travels 1000-3000 miles! That's a lot of fuel and Co2!)
6-Support/invest in renewable energy
7-Buy carbon credits to offset your emissions from travel
8-Take shorter showers and wash full laundry loads. (Air dry your laundry whenever possible)
9-Use a programable thermostat and wear a sweater
10-Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rot (compost food waste)
Hey Krystalmae, thanks for these fabulous suggestions. I actually intended to write another post (after doing some more research, of course) about things people could do to help stop global warming. As usual, you have done a much more thorough job than I ever could have. Love ya!
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