The world is flat.
Yes nice and flat. It’s so obvious: when you look out at the sea there’s a straight skyline, a clear indication that if you sailed too close, you would surely perish, falling off Earth’s edge.
Sound ridiculous?
Of course it does’mdash;now’mdash;but at the time, the argument was popular; still scientists provided evidence proving the world had many dimensions.
But the real humor lies in how history repeats itself.
It seems there are always a group of people who want to oppose the obvious.
Maybe it’s because new notions are too scary.
It’s understandable how someone who lived his or her life under one idea would be hesitant to accept the new reality.
The new way in which history is repeating itself over the obvious being combated by sophistries and weak arguments is the fight over global warming.
Global Warming?
It’s a surprise this is still being presented as a phenomenon up for debate. For example, the argument that the Earth heats and cools naturally is true.
But what people who might use that argument fail to mention is that temperatures have risen in the past hundred years faster than have ever been seen in recorded time.
There was a ‘Medieval Warm Period’ where average temperatures did increase slightly and then afterward in the 1600s what we call ‘The Little Ice Age’ occurred, but since the mid 1800s, average world temperatures have skyrocketed past any ‘natural’ level.
Arguing whether or not global warming is truly occurring is the same as arguing whether or not smoking as bad for you.
There are plenty of tobacco companies that have ‘scientists’ performing studies to find how smoking isn’t all that bad for consumers or how it only gives ‘a certain percentage’ of people cancer.
Just like some will say CO2 emissions have only increased ‘so and so’ amount and twist the numbers around in order to make the phenomenon seem harmless.
But instead of giving you numbers to confuse people and take the focus off of the true argument, I’ll just give a bit of perspective.
‘ Without elaborating carbon emissions have gotten so bad they are causing the acidification of the oceans. Meaning, there is so much carbon in the air it is acidifying the greatest component to the surface of our planet.
But it’s only the ocean right?
We don’t need fish and stuff. They’re trivial to our life here on earth.
In all seriousness, the time for arguing about global warming’s existence is over. It is time for some action.
Chloroflouro carbons are ripping a hole in the ozone layer. Stop using products that contribute to pollution of the ozone.
Clearly, we have technologies that contribute to higher carbon levels in the atmosphere that people during medieval times didn’t have like cars and buses.
A solution to this problem might be to stop going on joy rides even though gas prices are low’hellip;for now.
While there were many arguing whether the world was flat famous explorers were discovering the wonders of our planet; so while all these people with their fallacious studies and arguments are arguing over the existence of global warming, let’s be the ones who actually did something about it.
Nicole Robinson may be reached at nrobinson@ut.edu.
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