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The Future Effects of a Variable Climate at Grand Canyon National Park:
What Will Tomorrow Bring? B y Wayne R anney
Climate change.
The term crops up everywhere these days—in newscasts, political debates, around the proverbial water cooler at work—it is even brought up in houses of worship as a moral imperative. In our country, the concept of climate change remains controversial. This is not because the scientific community that studies it questions the evidence (they do not). Rather, the controversy lies beyond the realm of science, embodying a legitimate concern that many of the remedies proposed to offset its negative effects will require substantial changes to our energy infrastructure and national economy (or that the predicted consequences are too dire, or that humanity is too small an entity to affect a global-scale system, or is tied up in tribal politics). But the science is clear that our climate is changing and regardless of the cause, we cannot escape its effects by merely bemoaning the inconveniences it may bring to established norms.
NPS Photo by Erin Whittaker
For as long as our planet has circled the sun (nearly 4.6 billion years!) Earth’s climate has changed. The geologic record held in rocks and ice holds the evidence for these sometimes slow, sometimes rapid, perturbations in incoming solar radiation, precipitation, and temperature. The problem with humans vis-a-vis climate change is that for most of our existence the science of geology did not exist. Inadvertently perhaps, we developed the mistaken belief that everything we see on Earth today is the way it has always been. Our awareness of the scale of geologic change is a relatively recent development in humanity, and the rapid blossoming of this earthly pulse pushes our species into a deeper awareness of the mutability in all of earth’s natural systems. Our rapidly developing geologic awareness is, in a way, outpacing our sustainability.
