Climate change
Photo: www.climaticoanalysis.org.
Is "climate change" a rather belated recognition of what has been happening on earth since billions of years ago? This has been postulated by Nobel Prize (1998) winning Physicist Robert Laughlin. He states that over the vast span of geologic time, our planet Earth has adjusted itself, even after many glacial episodes, which tend to occur at fairly regular intervals, of every hundred thousand solar year of 365 days! This is a cycle of slow cooling followed by rapid (in geologic time scale) warming, like the gradual rise of temperature that we see today! However the animal kingdom, including the human race, was never a party to it. Our current efforts to reduce the use of geological fuel, and go for sustainable energy options in order to reduce our 'carbon foot print' and containing carbon dioxide gases being released to atmosphere will not affect it. Laughlin believes that all the carbon dioxide that we may produce, will dissolve in the ocean water and subsequently it will be deposited in rocks, forming carbonates. In the human time frame this may span an eternity, but in the geological scale of time it is equivalent to just a few seconds! Laughlin rather believes that the changes that we may cause to happen will be through the biological "extinction of animal species", which is irreversible, unlike 'climate change effects'. Many species of today which have lesser adaptability to nature's changing environment will gradually become extinct, like the dinosaurs. Meanwhile, new species, adaptable to thrive in the changing environment will continue to thrive! To sum up, Laughlin believes that the effects of 'climate change', and the 'carbon footprint', about which we are so worried today, is not a significant event considering the geological episodic cycle. The earth's temperature naturally will continue. However the evolution of life form will, continue over the span of time through natural adaptation.
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