Week Eight – Global Warming and Natural Cycles

I had the weirdest dream last night that felt so real it almost like it was predicting the future, so I decided to write it here in the journal.  Imagine the world in 7010, there was no nuclear holocaust and artificial intelligence didn’t take over the world.  The united states have shifted to the west about 1666 feet over the last 5000 years.  That is about 3/10ths of a mile and averages out to be around 4 inches of movement per year (Lutgens & Tarbuck, 2015) (p. 43). 

The united states and the European union attempted to restrict the amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) into the air to help eliminate the greenhouse effect.  This did little to affect the overall amount of CO₂ since third world countries continued to catch up to the industrialized nations and in turn continuing putting CO₂ into the atmosphere.  After a couple hundred years all nations began to regulate as much CO₂ as possible, however with need to support life some CO₂ had to be placed into the atmosphere.  This combined with the increasing size of the world’s population and the removal of plant life resulted in an increase of CO₂ into the atmosphere. 

This mad-made influence was assisted by large volcanic blasts that contributed to the effect of global warming by placing CO₂ into the air as well.  At first the temperature did not rise as fast due to the amount of protection that the small particles from the volcanic eruptions helped prevent the amount of energy from the sun to reach the earth’s surface.  However, once the debris settled the CO₂ was still there contributing to the greenhouse effect.  As a result, we saw a large decrease in the size of the earth’s glaciers and an increase in the sea level (Lutgens & Tarbuck, 2015) (pp. 541 - 543). 

The impacts could be seen from my current home town of Santa Maria, CA which no longer exist above sea level.  The new town that would be equivalent from the coast now is Bakersfield, CA.  Santa Maria is at an elevation of around 222 feet above sea level, but during my dream the sea level increased around 400 feet (U.S. climate data, n.d.b).  So, Bakersfield which sat at 495 feet above sea level looks like the new Santa Maria, where you can see the ocean in the distance (U.S. climate data, n.d.a).  When you look to the west from Bakersfield, you can see the islands that used to be the hills to the east of Santa Maria, CA. 

During the dream we decided to go scuba diving for lobsters and we couldn’t find any.  We also noticed that many of the marine life was absent and was not the same as I remembered.  When we returned to land we ran into a local boat operator and he said that the increase in the CO₂ increased the acidity by dissolving in the sea water and creating carbonic acid which reduced the ocean’s pH level (Lutgens & Tarbuck, 2015) (p. 553).  He said this impacted the sea life and he must travel much farther to find fish to support himself.

Right before I woke up from my dream I heard the news say that they had good news and that the temperature could be getting lower around Bakersfield, CA due to the change in the earth’s orbit and the change in tilt of the earth’s axis (Lutgens & Tarbuck, 2015) (p. 541).  So even in my dreams the climate of the earth appears to be ever changing.

References

Lutgens, F. & Tarbuck, E. (2015). Essentials of Geology (12^th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.
U.S. climate data. (n.d.a). Map of Bakersfield - California. Retrieved from https://www.usclimatedata.com/climate/bakersfield/california/united-states/usca0062
U.S. climate data. (n.d.b). Geo Santa Maria - California. Retrieved from https://www.usclimatedata.com/climate/santa-maria/california/united-states/usca1023