Climate Change: A Doctor Frankenstein Moment

I was again inspired by a old black and white movie classic Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein " (Karloff version). I could not help but think what a perfect metaphor it is for the type of world we have brought into being with, in this case not the god like powers of lightning from the heavens but perhaps more ironically power from under the Earth rather from above and rather than the clean, glean of electricity, fossil fuels look black and dirty as sin.

So, mankind with little curiosity to any possible repercussions, much like "Shelly's" Dr. Frankenstein moved forward with as little thought, to turning our world into our own laboratory, and truly as Dr. Frankenstein found out much to his chagrin there is always hell to pay (unforeseeable results) with messing with stuff you really do not comprehend so well.

Now I ask you to please indulge me while I create a metaphor within a metaphor, and ask you to to do a small experiment of your own with me, if you would please get out a 12-ounce glass, some salt, like, three-quarters of a cup, heat up enough water to fill the glass, the water should be warm enough to dissolve the salt, and we should be ready to start.

First, put into your glass of water just a few grains of salt, stir and taste, most likely you cannot even tell you added any salt to it, that my friends was early mans influence on the planet when He and She were just hunter/gatherers, much like the state we found the American Indians at when we first found them, it is interesting to note that even hunter gatherer society's living today (though very few) are so very cognizant of their need to be respectful of their environment and the life forms with in it.

Now this time put a good pinch of salt in we are advancing to the first agricultural city states, maybe think ancient Sumeria which was a few 1,000 years earlier than were we find Noah in the 'Old testament' The Sumerian's had such a developed society that they cut all their Forrest's down to build it, and thus created their own climate change allowing the dessert to take over, so trees do good things we need them. So now perhaps you can taste just a bit of salt in your glass of water, but most likely it still drinkable .

At this point in time humans did not make any real dramatic shifts for the next eight or 10,000 years till we discovered how to harness energy from coal and stared burning it prodigiously and it was full steam ahead if you will pardon the pun cause we made steam engines that allowed us the distinct advantage of manipulating our planet in almost god like ways , so enter in the Industrial Revolution and add a large spoonful of salt to your glass of water, not so good to taste now hey?

With steam powered engines we were now capable of extracting even more coal but we will also be better able to utilize that Black gooey stuff that perks up out of the ground in various places and seeing that it was fairly flammable we found all kinds of ways to harness its energy in particular creating machines to extract lots more from the ground making mankind at this stage a true planet shaper (which is in no small way the reason those in charge of the stuff see themselves as the ruling god like class) Anyway Dump the rest of your cup of salt in your glass it is now not fit for a human to drink.

So, in conclusion, "For every action there will be a Reaction" and like our contaminated glass of water, the levels of fossil fuels we have been burning up into our Atmosphere for the last Hundred years or so will most assuredly have a bad reaction and though it is invisible to the human naked eye CO2 is there, and is driving our current Climate change, and yes some CO2 is good to much is not . We can not treat our planets atmosphere like a giant test tube mixing chemicals and charging it with electricity's to just see what Will happen because it's the UNKNOWABLES that will get you !, just as Victor Von Frankenstein found out when his assistant Fritz (not Igor in the first movie) Brought him the wrong brain to put in his perfect creation ,the brain of a condemned criminal made a Monster he did not foresee and was not able to contain. we in turn might have taken note that living green stuff near oil coming up out of the ground is brown and dead.

That my friends should have been our Dr. Frankenstein moment, instead we find ourselves like the Doctor having to try to reign in a Monster and ours is much bigger.