Letter To The Editor: Edward "Ted" Leach
[The following letter, shown here in its entirety, appeared in the July 3, 2008 Monadnock Ledger-Transcript]
If you put a kettle of water on the stovetop, and turn on the heat and put in your finger, you will feel no heat. If you leave your finger in for a long time, by the time you find the heat unbearable and take your finger out, the damage will be done -- your finger is cooked and the water is boiling. However, if you put the kettle on and bring it to a rolling boil before you put in your finger, you will instantly know that something significant has changed but there is nothing you can do, the water is already boiling.
That is what is happening in the global warming debate. We have our finger in the kettle but the change is gradual and we feel only a mild sensation. But the kettle (earth) is heating up and eventually major damage will occur. Alert people, and the best scientific minds in the world, are responding to the telltale signs that something is happening while others are waiting for some cataclysmic moment. That moment won't occur on a global basis because the effects of global warming are generally subtle, ongoing and cumulative.
In 1977, we had 48 ski areas in New Hampshire. Today we have 22. Is that important to you -- maybe not? But Peterborough loved Temple Mountain.
Our forests were never invaded by hemlock killing woolly adelgid beetles because the beetles could not survive our cold winters. Today, they are feasting on hemlocks across southern New Hampshire.
Ice out on Lake Winnipesaukee is almost eight days earlier than in the early 1800s. Why is that important -- because ice cover affects the oxygen concentration, pH, fish habitat and seasonal succession of lakes.
These are but three of the thousands of subtleties of global warming that are all around us. The response is needed -- today.
Ted Leach, co-chair
The Carbon Coalition
Hancock
If you put a kettle of water on the stovetop, and turn on the heat and put in your finger, you will feel no heat. If you leave your finger in for a long time, by the time you find the heat unbearable and take your finger out, the damage will be done -- your finger is cooked and the water is boiling. However, if you put the kettle on and bring it to a rolling boil before you put in your finger, you will instantly know that something significant has changed but there is nothing you can do, the water is already boiling.
That is what is happening in the global warming debate. We have our finger in the kettle but the change is gradual and we feel only a mild sensation. But the kettle (earth) is heating up and eventually major damage will occur. Alert people, and the best scientific minds in the world, are responding to the telltale signs that something is happening while others are waiting for some cataclysmic moment. That moment won't occur on a global basis because the effects of global warming are generally subtle, ongoing and cumulative.
In 1977, we had 48 ski areas in New Hampshire. Today we have 22. Is that important to you -- maybe not? But Peterborough loved Temple Mountain.
Our forests were never invaded by hemlock killing woolly adelgid beetles because the beetles could not survive our cold winters. Today, they are feasting on hemlocks across southern New Hampshire.
Ice out on Lake Winnipesaukee is almost eight days earlier than in the early 1800s. Why is that important -- because ice cover affects the oxygen concentration, pH, fish habitat and seasonal succession of lakes.
These are but three of the thousands of subtleties of global warming that are all around us. The response is needed -- today.
Ted Leach, co-chair
The Carbon Coalition
Hancock
posted by The Annex | 9:52 AM
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