Global Warming
What Else Can You Do About It?
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When we get temperatures as low as 20 degrees below zero, and have to walk through a foot of snow, we tend to say, “So much for global warming”. Maybe we could use some global warming around here. But the process does continue. Green house gases, such as carbon dioxide, [CO2], from burning fossil fuels, continue to accumulate in a layer up in the atmosphere, and continue to warm the earth and melt the ice caps. Scientists have taken ice cores in Greenland and the Antarctic, which contain air bubbles, and have checked the CO2 levels of the air in the bubbles and found it to range from 200 parts per million, [ppm] to 300 ppm when the temperature was at its peak. They can estimate the time the ice was formed by counting, as you would count the rings on a tree stump, and by the depth on the ice core. They can also determine the temperature and they have found that in the last 400,000 years, there have been 4 peaks of temperature, and the CO2 levels rise when the temperature rises and falls when the temperature falls. The CO2 levels range from 200 ppm to 300 ppm. Then in about l950, there was an increase in the rate of warming and now the CO2 level is at 380 ppm. This increase in the rate of warming is attributed to the increase in green house gases from burning fossil fuels.
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About the Book
This book is loaded with facts and opinions of scientists working on the problem of global warming. It is written by a retired physician who is concerned about the problem and the dire consequences that may result if we fail to do the things that will help to prevent it. Recent polls show that only 37 % of people believe that human activity is at all responsible for causing global warming. It is the author's hope that by reading this book more people will come to believe that by burning fossil fuels we have caused the problem and it is urgent that we take action.
About the Author
The author is an 85 year old retired physician who specialized in internal medicine. Because of his habit of reading medical literature, when he retired from medical practice, he became interested in the problem of global warming, and read everything he could find on the subject. It appeared to him that it was a serious problem, and he was concerned that in the past two years, polls showed that the percentage of people in the US who believed that it was due to human activity, had gone from 46% to 37%. He wanted to write a book that everyone could understand, so that they might come to believe, and see that we do what we can to prevent it. He was born and grew up on a Wisconsin dairy farm, with 7 brothers and sisters. After Pearl Harbor 2 of his 3 older brothers became naval officers, and the other one, a marine officer. When the marine captain came hone to the farm, Elton went into the army, and served a year in the Japanese occupation. After service, he started pre medical classes in Platteville State Teachers College and transferred to the University of Wisconsin in Madison to finish. He attended medical school and graduated with an MD in 1954. He practiced medicine, mainly in Costa Mesa, California for 30 years. He has a sister, Mary Eastwood who, with Betty Friedan, founded NOW and started the movement for women’s rights. An Attorney working for the Dept. of Justice, In Washington, DC, in her off duty hours, she wrote the briefs for some of the earliest cases for equal pay for women. His younger brother also went to Washington, DC and was the head of the Dairy Extension division of the USDA for many years. A younger sister married a Lutheran minister and they have unleashed 8 more highly educated Meyers on the world. Elton married and they had 3 children. After 15 years, they were divorced. He was married again to a girl who grew up in Duluth, Minnesota, and always wanted to go back there. In l989, He and his new family of 2 adopted daughters, moved to Duluth. After he had a knee replacement, he worked at temporary jobs as a physician in several cities in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Iowa. His wife developed breast cancer and had surgery and radiation therapy. She went 5 years without trouble, but then it recurred and she died two years later in 2003. In 2000, they had moved to Stone Lake, Wisconsin where Elton still lives and takes care of their boxer dog and two cats. He loves to play golf and hopes to break a hundred this year. He plays 9 holes about 3 times a week, and usually walks, He also works out every morning before going to work as a Realtor in Hayward. He loves to watch the Packers and Badgers football games and the Pro Golf tour on the TV.