51°F
weather icon Clear

Climate constantly changes

Human “climate experiences” are short. Geologic rock formations have recorded what we humans have not experienced. All this information is available to compare on our computers, tedious record comparisons, statistics and tracking of weather by the hour.

These rock formations have no bias toward how or why they exist. Rock formations are not restricted to a specific number of orbits around our sun, a location on the planet’s surface, orientation of our North and South poles, or preference of one climate over another. These rock formations exist due to environmental conditions directly influenced by the climate that existed throughout Earth’s past at that location. Without human input.

During the sweltering heat of summer, rock quarries of western Wyoming still have clear, solid ice within crevices, several feet below the current surface. (Fossil fish quarries near Kemmerer, Wyoming, based on personal experience.)

Our atmosphere has changed since the first day Earth was an aggregate of interstellar debris, 4,500,000,000 plus or minus years ago. The “first” climate change was followed by another and another. Many stages of Earth’s development occurred during these 4.5 billion years.

Microscopic organisms appeared in the dihydrous oxide (water) deposited sediments as fossils for modern paleontologists to study. This continues today and will tomorrow. The Earth and life will continue to adapt to changing environments.

Homo sapiens is a species recent to the planet. We all share DNA with current and previously existing life. The Earth rotates slower today than in its distant past. Our moon is moving farther away from the Earth each and every year, affecting coastal tides. A changing atmosphere has been a constant, since the planet’s birth as an accidental, hot glowing mass of leftover debris within a small solar system, with a sun that is insignificant on a stellar scale.

Climate changes. The Earth itself changes. We are currently enjoying an interglacial warm period for the fifth, sixth or seventh time? The Holocene Period. Climate will change. Ice Age mastodon skeletons are found in the Amargosa Valley, Nye County, Nevada and the deserts of the Southwest. Dinosaurs in Canada. Palm fossils in Antarctica. Continental drift has occurred more than twice in Earth’s history. Oceans come and go. Ice cores of Antarctica read like a global climate chart of ups and downs in atmospheric gases and precipitation over extended periods of time.

Humans were incapable of writing and recording daily thermal patterns detailing the latest retreat of the continental ice sheets that covered much of the northern latitudes 100,000 to 19,000 years ago. Thus we are unable to compare them with today’s alarmist’s calculations of hand-picked facts.

We take too much credit for things we cannot change. We make no effort to change what we may be able to take credit for.

It was an opportunity of good timing when modern humans were able to leave the comfort of the equatorial zone and migrate north into the Northern Hemisphere. The latest glacial period was receding; a warming inter-glacial period we now debate may be coming to an end. This warming period has improved our human life experience. When annual temperatures begin to drop, the climate will change again and it will. Like it or not.

Climate change occurs primarily due to cosmic and solar changes which are outside of our control.

I advise furnaces remain a standard feature in all homes. Citizens of Boulder City need not be concerned that global warming may come soon to our doorstep. Answers to all of these questions can be found in Earth’s 550,000,000 years of climate-sensitive sedimentary rock exposures and earlier fossilized living organisms. Climate changes. For better or worse.

Do your share to make the best of our current environment and climate. Each of us can only take charge of our own personal environment. Boulder City is an oasis in southern Clark County. Appreciate what our current climate has to offer. Climate will proceed as it always has on its own terms.

Today, another blue sky and delightful weather. Tomorrow, it could change.

MOST READ
THE LATEST
My bighorn buddies

Having grown up in Boulder City, I was always aware of its unofficial mascots …the bighorn sheep.

Can’t we all just disagree?

Once you asked me, “What do you think?”

What if they gave a war and nobody was home?

The subjects in most of the articles and columns I write tend to include positive stories about American veterans and veterans’ organizations. And in fact the pieces are about veterans, not active-duty military.

Gratitude for government

I moved to Boulder City in 1981. Boulder City is blessed to have been a government town. Can we recall the blessings we have received from government?

Trash talk isn’t always a bad thing

Allow me to warn you that this month’s Home Matters is filled with all kinds of trash talk. In fact, I’ve been trash talking with the city and BC Wastefree for a few days now. Why all this garbage gab? It’s time to take out the trash, properly.

Legislative season almost here

Ahhh… it is a wonderful time of year. Spring is just around the corner. The sun shines longer, the birds are singing, and plants are blooming. It is a magical time of year!

MY D_Y WITH P_T _ND V_NN_

Last night I caught a few minutes of “Wheel of Fortune” and whenever I do, I can’t help but think back to my time in Hawaii when the show came over to film a few weeks’ worth of episodes at the Hilton Waikoloa Village about 15 years ago.

A little late and clueless but still…

I know, I know, I know. I’m a week late for Valentine’s Day content. But my timing has always sucked. Just ask my wife.

Veteran caregivers hope for financial boost

Much has been spoken and written about in recent months about military and veteran caregivers, and the responsibilities they are charged with.

A penny for your thoughts, compounded daily

When my oldest son, Joseph, turned 18 in 2011, a good family friend gifted him a self-help book by Darren Hardy called “The Compound Effect.” It’s all about achieving success one baby step at a time. My six other children loathed that gift, because my wife, Leslie, then proceeded to preach its principles seemingly ad nauseam over the next five years every opportunity she could find.