Sometimes the answer to an important question is so obvious that it’s easily overlooked. Think about this when you think about climate change:
What’s so abundant that we hardly consider it as pivotal? Try water.
Oceans cover more than 70% of the Earth. Water vapor is an integral part of the atmosphere. It makes up 75% of all greenhouse gases. And the human body is largely water, as are the bodies of other animals, and plants.
Water exists in all three forms of matter – solid, liquid and gas – and is virtually indestructible, changing form easily within a temperature range tolerable by life. What else is so rapidly adaptable to change?
The Earth’s water remains balanced between its three phases, transferring easily between the lithosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere so easily that we don’t even notice it. Water changes temperature readily, providing a stabilizing influence. It’s natural. It provides a mechanism whereby the Earth is kept in balance.
Changes in the Earth’s temperature are unremitting and automatic, part of the planet’s ability to sustain itself. Earth has survived glacial ages and periods of excessive warmth and will survive this one. We just have to accept it for what it is, and don’t try to change it because we can’t. That these conditions will not last forever should be obvious, but just as obvious should be the fact that life adapts as the Earth adjusts – slowly.
Humanity and the world we live in are compatible. That’s what nature’s all about. So long as we live responsibly, it will all work out for us.
Fred L. Fox
Durango
