Dear Forum Friends,
A couple of the friends recommended for us to see this new movie. We did this tonight having rented a video casette.
The special effects were terrific. The movie was fun. The story was fairly predictable, but still gripping, due mostly to the special effects. This story wasn't science fiction like Independence Day was. It's mainly science fact. I hope it will wake up the general population and all those higher ups who have power to start serious work on the causes of climate change.
I did some investigating to see what informed opinion is about the possiblity of such sudden chilling happening. Most scientists agree that almost instantaneous chilling, as shown in the movie, can't possibly happen. There is some evidence that shutting down the Gulf Stream happened in the distant past, and that led to dramatic cooling of temperature over a few decades, in some parts of the world. They still don't know how that Siberian Wooly Mamoth was flash-frozen with fresh butter-cups still in its tummy.
Droughts are already happening in food growing areas of the world, such as there are at present in the Canadian and US Midwest breadbaskets. The beetles that are killing all our great pine trees would be killed if we had a good cold winter as we used to have. They have been scarce lately. This is an example of the way that temperature shift changes lives that are linked together. Now those pines all have to be cut. If not they'll be fire fodder.
It's known that floods will occur in all low coastal areas, including inhabited islands that will disappear. There will be stronger storms. Sea levels have already risen 10 to 20 centimeters because of the expansion of warmer waters. Many scientista warn of a link between global warming and extreme weather events, like El Nino. When we swam two years ago in southern Mexico the water tasted extremely salty in comparison to past experiences there.
There's little doubt that global warming is happening now. We're doing serious damage to the climate. We're conducting a giant experiment with this huge, complicated, and still poorly understood system. Scientists say that weird and unexpected stuff is going to happen. Most agree that the abrupt climate change depicted in the movie couldn't happen. Some say that the probability isn't zero, though.
I still see a lot of new S.U.V.'s. Also a lot of dark smoke is still being emitted by poorly tuned diesel trucks. More goods must be shipped by rail and this isn't happening enough, yet. I don't think people have begun to take things seriously. As for companies and countries, they aren't getting down to business to adjust as rapidly as possible, either. Mostly it seems to be "business as usual."
Climate change is happening. It's affecting all of us alive on this planet. It will certainly affect our children, and their children. All the world's glaciers are melting. Species are beginning to die off and by 2050 the latest reports say that a million species will be doomed. Most of us still seem to be going on just as usual. It boggles the mind.
A huge ice shelf broke off in Antarctica so now the glaciers that it held back are sliding into the sea. Our Canadian Arctic is warming and showing many danger signs. Among them are that skilled native hunters whose forefathers never got lost in their own terrain, can't read the ice any more at sea, get lost and need to signal to be rescued by air. Permafrost is melting and buildings on them sink. Roads are sinking, or only open half the time they used to be.
As the weight of ice leaves land masses, the land masses begin to rise. This has been in Alaska, and will be more often, the cause of earthquakes. Heaviness of the tides also can trigger earthquakes, so what will the effect of more intense storms be, then? They drive more water inland just as tides do.
The sooner we get focussed on how to unite to save ourselves and our planet the better. I hope the continued pressure from nature will force an end to wars and exploitation, and a focussing together in unity, on self preservation.
That's what I thought of The Day After Tomorrow. It isn't fiction like Independence Day, which also had amazing special effects. This movie was deliberately made in order to wake us up. Of course it exaggerated. Movies do exaggerate, as dreams do, too, in order to catch our attention. We're slowly, but surely, destroying our planet. Mars doesn't look very inhabitable, does it?
Much of Europe is predicted to become cold and barren like Labrador. Western Canada and the USA will become still hotter and dryer. Droughts are inevitable. Fires like there are now in California, and as we had here last year will be much more common.
So, that's my opinion. What was yours?
Best wishes to us all, Mary
