Global Warming. Climate change.Blah blah blah. It's all the same, and it's everywhere. But, what exactly is it? One year it's people saying the Earth is heating up dangerously. The next year it's, oh wait just kidding its getting colder and hotter at the same time. It's seems funny that millions of people can agree on the fact that climate change (or whatever they're calling it these days) exisits, but they can't exactly tell you what it is in the same words. Everyone has their opinion and so do I, and you, lucky person reading this, get to read all about it.
Climate change, at least in the popular media sense, to me is a bunch of hogwash. If I had to say if it was man made or "natural", I would say it was both. If you look at the temperature records over the Earth's history you can see a gradual rise in the temperature every decade or more. This is what I would consider natural. Even those people who believe that crazy Big Bang Theory can attest to the Earth's continual rise and fall in temperature since its creation. Is there concrete and sound proof? The real answer to that is, is there ever? I can truly say that I do think that some of the natural climate change is coming from man-made things. We aren't helping anything by genetically manufacturing more cows than ever before that produce harmful chemicals into the air (and yes I'm talking about their farting). Factories, cars and other man-made emissions aren't helping the Earth, but it's definitely not the only thing changing the climate out there.
I'm not a world renown scientist that studies things like the environment or the climates, however, I do (unlike MANY people in my generation) research what I hear and form my own opinion. I grew up with an environmental scientist for a father and even from his mouth and the mouthes of many of his co-workers, climate change is a natural occurring process. Many things that I have read even mention that the Earth is getting gradually hotter because the rotation of the earth around the Sun gets closer to the Sun every couple thousand of years and then backs away again. It's like a rinse and repeat thing, but with planets. That information is from NASA and some of those special guys that
don't believe in God, I mean that believe in the Big Bang Theory. This is not me saying that the climate change isn't going to effect some people. I understand that the more the climate changes the more out of sync the ecosystems become. And, with that comes more natural disasters. Its a scary thought but it's how this planet works.
I don't take all my advice from my dad or his co-workers, I listen to the news and to the other people around me. I read the newspaper and I research what I've heard on the internet. I don't know who I would say is the best source, but in my honest opinion I think one of the better sources is going to talk to someone who actually works in studying weather or environmental changes. People who listen to those who have no idea what they are talking about can become misinformed (cough Al Gore cough).
The media does a good job in making things seem worse than they really are. The media portrays climate change as the end of the world, and that we should all bunker up and get ready to burn to death. However, in the coming years I doubt that the media will be apologizing for the fact that it over-exaggerated on something yet again. I know I sound harsh on the media, and I don't mean to at all. They have done something for the "climate change" situation and keep making the "go green" initiative bigger and better every year. It never hurts that the media makes going green a cool thing, it's just that making it cool through a scare tactic (like "do it or the climate will change") is a little ridiculous. I'm not saying that that is exactly what they're doing, and again I know I'm being a little harsh, but you have to admit in some ways thats exactly how it seems.
In the future I hope that my kids and even my grandkids can enjoy the beautiful beaches and other areas of Florida I've grown to love over my 22 years of life. But, I know that with continual development of unused areas that that is becoming more and more of an impossibility. My future fears have nothing to do with climate change, just with humanity in itself and what we'll do to the Earth over the coming years. I know that it might be a few degrees hotter during the summer and a few degrees colder in the winter when these imaginary loved ones of mine come around, but hopefully thats the only issue they have to deal with.
Today was the day that we did our last "field trip" of the semester. We drove 30 minutes out to the beach and found the dead end road that leads to Mantanzas Pass and the historic Estero Cottage. The cottage wasn't what I was expecting, it was a little house built of pine that now houses historical images and facts. It was kind of a downer, I was expecting something else I think. I do have to admit it was cool that something 90 years old has been kept up and maintained for so long.
After we left the cottage, we walked under the huge wooden arch toward the trail and started our adventure. Once we got passed the two tour groups ahead of us, we got to experience the trail silently and feel the calmness surrounding the area. There were no birds and no major insect problems... yet. When we got to the overlook, my friends and I sat on the benches and felt the beautiful breeze and watched the boats pass quietly through the channel. It was so peaceful that we could have stayed there forever but we pressed on anyway. The three of us were trying to make our way quickly through the trail because the morning sun was rising and the temperature at 10:30 had risen to 88 degrees. Then we started to notice that we took the wrong turn and we were taking the long way around, the beauty of the trail would have been enough to make this okay, if it hadn't been for the damn mosquitoes. To make this story short, we ran the last mile out of the trail trying to avoid crab holes while we went. As of now all of us are now covered in bites and are sitting around my living room miserable. That overlook we sat and relaxed at for almost 20 minutes, kind of makes these itchy welts okay with me though.
Areas like this are being preserved by the government and by people who are willing to work at it everyday. I truly don't know how they do it, but they're doing a great job with the little land that there is left. There is a sign in the beginning of the trail that shows the amount of land there was in this particular area with the development of that time, over a certain amount of years the land has shrunk immensely because of constant new development for the growing population.
If a developer were to come into my childhood home and offer me a great amount of money, I might take it. My childhood home is worth much a great amount more than my parents originally paid for it, especially since the area has turned from a ghetto and racist neighborhood, to a peaceful and loving senior citizen and gay community. I have no more connection to that home, but I know that the neighborhood is now full of loving families. My decision would not be my own, I would have to include my neighbors in this hard decision. If I had to chose without the help of those around me I wouldn't take the money, high rises come a dime a dozen and that's just plain boring.
