A Really Inconvenient Truth

Before you start reading this, go put a bowl of water in the microwave. Nuke it for five minutes. That should give us plenty of time to rethink global warming. 

So we are constantly talking about global warming and it’s impact on the world. Al Gore really got the conversation started in 2006 with his documentary An Inconvenient Truth. At this point, there are about as many people that think the earth as flat as those that think that global warming is not a real issue. But what if we don’t have the whole picture? 

Why do I think this is possible?

Think about that water in your microwave. Waves of some frequency heat up your water. There’s no flame, no smoke, no burner. And it heats it up very quickly. Essentially, we use waves to raise the entropy of a system. 

So what? 

Well, if you view the microwave as the earth and it’s atmosphere, and the bowl as it’s oceans, we just heated the oceans without any greenhouse emissions. We used radio waves, something that is more and more prevalent every day in modern society. 

There is a new spike in the ocean temperatures, one that’s unprecedented in the last 140 years. And it’s started in the last decade. Draw your own conclusions. 

Let’s take a step back in looking at global warming. We know it’s happening, but we don’t have the whole picture about why. If we continue to raise the energy of our system, the world will continue to get hotter. It’s probably going to continue to get hotter anyways, because of the second law of Thermodynamics. But if we want to truly start to make a difference, we may have to sacrifice more than we ever imagined. 

So next time you drive your electric Prius to work, open up your laptop, connect to Wifi, and pick up your phone, stop and ask yourself if there may be more to the story of global warming. 

And don’t forget you have water in your microwave. Let it sit [without radiation] for a while and it will return to room temperature. 

Sources:

1. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/the-100-year-march-of-technology-in-1-graph/255573/
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming#Public_opinion_and_disputes
3. https://www.windows2universe.org/earth/polar/polar_atmosphere.html
4. https://qz.com/99625/the-meteoric-rise-of-cellphones-in-one-chart/
5. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/02/13/north-and-south-poles-important-climate-differences/
6. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/geophysical/chapter/earths-motions/
7. https://www.quora.com/Are-electromagnetic-waves-affected-by-magnetic-fields
8. https://www.explainthatstuff.com/microwaveovens.html
9. https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature