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By Brian, September 30, 2005 4:29 pm

A question I’ve seen posed lately, not surprisingly I suppose, with two major hurricanes blowing through, the first literally decimating the city of New Orleans, and now a large fire in California that’s raging out of control as I write this.  Since these natural disasters are generally referred to as " Acts of God", I can see how some people might think this.

I think the answer is much simpler than an all powerful Deity attacking those living in a particular country over some supposed slight.  Global warming has been melting the ice caps in the Arctic, seismic shifts (earthquakes) under the ocean recently caused the planet to actually shift slightly on it’s axis.  These things are going to cause weather changes and those changes are going to be as big as the global climate changes that caused them.  Unfortunately for them (in these cases) the United States just happens to occupy a large section of the North American continent near the equator where things like heat waves and hurricanes occur.  Given the large population of the country it’s no surprise that those disasters are going to affect a large number of people.

So to answer the above question: No, I don’t think God hates America.  I think it’s sad that people are using these tragedies either through  short-sightedness or a religious/political agenda to push such a negative message.  New Orleans was built below sea level, they had levies and pumps just for this sort of thing, it’s just that nobody could foresee such a massive force coming.  The fire in California is the natural outcome of miles and miles of dry, flammable materials when they meet a spark.

As a final thought, as devastating as these events are we must also consider that we’ve only been measuring climate change for an incredibly brief period of time, relative to what we can only estimate is the age of the planet.  Evidence in the terrain suggests that climate change is nothing new to our home.  The universe is a very large and dynamic thing, change is inevitable.

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By Brian, September 30, 2005 2:43 pm

Well, it may be just me because I’ve been looking out for it, but I do believe I’ve seen a distinct rise in bicycle traffic around town this week.  My theory was that once the gas prices hit their high over the last few weeks and didn’t show much signs of dropping, people would start finding ways to cut their costs such as using the bus or cycling.  Sure enough the buses are all packed like sardine cans and I’ve seen quite a few more cyclists at all times of day than I usually do.

Sure the gas prices suck but it’s having a very green-friendly side effect of finally getting people to look more seriously at alternative forms of transportation.  Every person who takes their car off the road because of the prices is helping in their own small part – even if it is inadvertantly.  I’m a cynic by nature and do not forsee human goodwill on it’s own getting us out of this current situation, what the media calls an energy crisis.  I am however a believer in the ability of mankind to dig itself out of a hole of it’s own making, and I believe these to be good signs.

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By Brian, September 30, 2005 5:22 am

Just a quick note, my personal site has a new home: http://web.ncf.ca/ey770/. There’s not much of anything there at the moment, mostly just the old front page with a new template and colour scheme.

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