It's not nice to fool with Mother Nature

The inside headline said, "Antarctic ice shelf 'will be gone' by 2020." In the text of the article it tells us that an ice shelf roughly 15 times the size of Manhattan Island that has existed for 10,000 years is quickly disappearing. The study came from the journal, "Earth and Planetary Science Letters," and was written by NASA and University of California researchers.

Do you remember the television commercial of a few years back that finished with storm clouds rolling, lightning flashing and the words, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature"? Whether we talk about Mother Nature or Mother Earth, we should acknowledge that the earth has its cycles and it is going to do what it is going to do. Our task, which we have so far decided to ignore, is not to make Mother Nature's cycles worse than they would otherwise be.

For some reason there is still a controversy about whether global warming is real. Physical science is not my area of expertise. When I am faced with controversy in areas where I have limited training and experience, I look for a simple approach to understanding.

In this case I choose to listen to Mother Nature. She always seems to have an answer I can understand. I can tell it is raining if I put my hand out the window and it comes back wet. I know it's cold when I seem to be blowing smoke with every breath. You get the idea.

Today, the number of icebergs floating in the north and south seas is at an all-time high, telling us that more ice is breaking off the ice packs than in previous decades. Countries such as The Maldives in the Indian Ocean are slowly sinking into the rising oceans. Glaciers in the Himalayas have receded significantly. The runoff from those glaciers has supplied the Ganges River for centuries and is the source of water for 500 million Indians. India's leadership is afraid the Ganges may be only a dry river bed two decades away. Closer to home, the storms in the U.S. Midwest are becoming more severe. The drought in California and the Southwest is looking more and more like a permanent happening.

"You can't fool Mother Nature" and "You can't fool with Mother Nature."

In matters related to the Earth's cycles, Mother Nature is supreme. For several years she has been leaving clues all over the globe like a game of charades. We don't need scientists or news pundits to tell us what the clues mean. We can reason it out. Let's hope the leadership in Washington, D.C., and around the globe gets the message before it is too late.