The scientist and the switch

Those who termed the doomsday Chicken Little, scientist were correct. For a long time now, they have been predicting the sky is falling. Once it was acid rain, oh my gosh, all the plant life will die; we're doomed. Then it was the Amazon rain forests are being destroyed, the oxygen levels will be gone, mankind is doomed. Then, big holes in our ozone layer, we will all die from solar radiation. Then the glaciers are melting, all the polar bears will die, and all our coastal cities will be flooded. Now it's global warming and climate change.

Yes, this has been happening for quite some time. I heard that some 15,000 years ago there was a 2,000-foot-high ice dam through Sandpoint and on down through Athol. It was holding Lake Missoula back against the Continental Divide. Then global warming started, the dam softened and broke, sending an 800-foot wall of water racing to the Pacific, and the warming has continued.

Some 80 years ago, I remember my folks saying that we just didn't have hard winters like we once had. Now I find myself saying that we just don't have hard winters like we once had. Back in the day, North Idaho had twenty below zero for 10 to 14 days almost every winter. Now it seems we seldom get to zero.

Yes, global warming and climate change are real, and they will continue until God flips the switch and we start heading back to the next Ice Age.

LARRY STONE

Sandpoint