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Emporia Gazette

OP/ED page – February 14, 2007

By Tracy Million Simmons

I was a Global Warming Skeptic

The first time I recall pondering the idea of human contribution to global warming as a threat to the environment, I was in college. It was the early 1990s. I was taking a course in the geology department and my instructor was a particularly entertaining and seemingly-informed man. He was also a skeptic. The earth has been going through periods of warming and cooling since the beginning of time, he assured us. It’s the cycle of things. These same folks who are now talking about the earth growing warmer were hollering about it getting colder a few years back. That hole in the ozone? Sure we may be contributing—but so are volcanoes, sunspots, natural weather variances, and cows!

The Montreal Protocol, an international treaty created to protect the ozone layer, was the news of the day, having been introduced in 1987 and put into effect by 1989. As a result, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) have generally been replaced by more ozone-friendly compounds. What this has meant in practical terms is that we are no longer allowed to charge our own vehicle air conditioning units, allowing those compounds to leak out of our brittle old hoses as we enjoyed staying cool in our cars through the summer months. Last I checked, a complete AC overhaul for my aging mini-van ran about $600-700. That’s why I now use the antiquated, windows-down approach to creating a comfortable breeze while in my car in the summertime. As well, we are less likely to beautify ourselves using aerosol hairsprays. In both cases, I’ve learned to cope.

What we can see now is that the ozone, indeed, seems to be repairing itself. The hole that was so often talked about above Antarctica? It’s still there. In fact, in 2005 it was as big as it’s ever been. But the ozone layer, worldwide, is showing signs of improvement and it would be hard to argue that the near world-wide effort, via the Montreal Protocol, to reduce human contribution to the problem has not had a significant impact. If the trend continues, scientists predict that the ozone should eventually be restored to pre-1980s levels, perhaps even within my lifetime.

Which brings me to my next point—an examination of my personal skepticism.

I’ve never been a big fan of hype. Any news brought to my attention with a considerable amount of fanfare is always cautiously approached. Perhaps it is my mother’s voice that so effectively sounds in my head. She was a big fan of the lemming lesson (itself a myth brought to us by Disney filmmakers). “If everybody jumped off the cliff, would you jump too?”

So I guess you might say I’ve always been cautious about jumping. I’m pro-knowledge. Look at the facts. Examine the issues. Ask questions of the so-called experts, but also be aware of any agendas they might have. I can think of at least one industry that has made a profit from that hole in the ozone. How many of us actually used sunscreen in the 1970s?

At the urging of a friend, I recently watched Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth and I discovered something about myself that surprised me a little. I’m not a skeptic when it comes to global warming.

Now before you accuse me, a person who doesn’t jump, of falling for any hype, let me expand a bit more on these thoughts. On first pass, I’d say I watched the video with a hope of adding to my arsenal of knowledge. Frankly, I walked away a little disappointed. I’d seen the pictures of the glacier retreats. I was aware of the devastation we are seeing in the populations of so many animal species. I had a fairly solid understanding of the climate changes that are taking place and even the fact that we what we are seeing, as a trend, is above and beyond any “natural” fluctuations the world has experienced in the past. I wasn’t surprised by An Inconvenient Truth. My life wasn’t changed. My outlook wasn’t any different.

I watched the video a second time.

Near the end of his presentation, Gore talks about what can be done about global warming. He talks about people going straight from denial of the issue to despair. We have a global crisis on our hands. What can be done? How can I, a single person, have any impact on a course that mankind is following?

Somewhere, between sitting in that college class fifteen years ago and watching An Inconvenient Truth last week, my mind had changed. I had come to believe that global warming was a growing crisis, and I had just as easily passed it off as something I had no power to do anything about. People who know me well have probably heard me say, more than once, that there is no point in trying to save the world if I you can’t take care of things in your own back yard.

What Gore was saying, was that this is about my back yard. The short and the simple is that I can make a difference. If I take responsibility and do my part, and then tell my neighbor about it and they do their part… pretty soon the entire city of Emporia will be making a difference. And if citizens in every city in Kansas decide that they have the power to make a difference, then pretty soon the entire state will be making a difference. Imagine that the same thing could be happening in every household in every state in every country. Kansas may be a long way from Antarctica, but global warming is not just an Antarctica problem. Kansans have the power to be a part of making things right again.

Maybe I can save the world, and maybe I can do so—we can all do so—by focusing on our own backyards.

For more information on Global Warming and Kansas:

National Wildlife Federation: www.nwf.org/globalwarming/pdfs/Kansas.pdf

National Resources Defense Council: http://www.nrdc.org/globalwarming/qthinice.asp

An Inconvenient Truth: http://www.climatecrisis.net/