Climate Change and Polar ShiftI got a question in response to last month's article about global climate change that was very thoughtful. I hope you will find as interesting as I did. I invite your comments and thoughts!
Hello Beth Owl's Daughter, I am a new subscriber to your newsletter and just received my first one. I really enjoy it. I'm so glad I found it (through a friend).
Reading your piece [in December] about the global warming reminded me that you see all this stuff about how we can "stop" global warming, when you never see anything about the Natural Occurring Polar Shift. We are in one now, it was even on a documentary on PBS. But you never hear or see anything about this… R.E. In S.C.
Hi, R.E.
Thanks for asking about this. I have to quibble about one thing in your letter: there actually is a LOT being written and presented about this. Unfortunately, much of it is hype, speculation, and distortion that is coincidentally (or not!) selling a lot of books, end of the world preparedness gurus and scary movies.
Some quick facts:
According to National Geographic Magazine (in 2005): “'Over the past century the pole has moved 685 miles (1,100 kilometers) from Arctic Canada toward Siberia,' says Joe Stoner, a paleomagnetist at Oregon State University.
“'At its current rate the pole could move to Siberia within the next half-century,' Stoner said. 'It's moving really fast. 'We're seeing something that hasn't happened for at least 500 years.' "
The “pole” in question is the Earth’s magnetic pole (not the geographic ones).
In a later article, National Geographic says that data indicates an ancient pole shift may have taken place over a period of a million years or more. “This is not the kind of thing where you’d have sudden catastrophic events that a human might observe,” Princeton assistant professor of
Geosciences and “Polar Wander” expert Dr. Adam Maloof writes.
Another perspective comes from the work of Brad Singer, a geology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and paleomagnetist Kenneth Hoffman.
They write, “Current evidence suggests we are now approaching one of these transitional states [when the main north-south magnetic field weakens, as it does prior to reversing] because the main magnetic field is relatively weak and rapidly decreasing. While the last polarity reversal occurred several hundred thousand years ago, the next might come within only a few thousand years."
I guess the bottom line is that something is happening. But exactly what? When did it happen before? How long does it take? Why does it happen? What will the consequences be? We really don’t know. Even the heavy-hitter experts don’t agree. But whatever it is, it is very much out of our hands, it would seem.
That is certainly not the case when it comes to global climate change. There is a lot that humans are responsible for, and a lot that we can do to reverse this tragedy in the making. And I am glad that you, and others, are finding this column helpful in that regard.
Remember --
Every little bit you can do can make a world of difference.
