The Internet : A Terrestrial Climate Controller ?

Global warming is a result of a set of complex feedback systems on a planetary scale. The earth has an extraordinary number in of feedback mechanisms and energy transfer systems that tend to balance energy storage worldwide, both in terms of oceanic heat, atmospheric heat and the heat in the more solid components of the earth.  It is a relatively closed system with not much coming in and out except perhaps energy from the sun, black body radiation to space.

Models have been developed to simulate and forecast the rise of the heat capacity and temperature of the earth and it’s systems, and the local effects on sea level, and great work of many scientists is starting to reveal the uncomfortable truth that the globe is warming, and we, humans might just be associated with it’s cause. What science now tells us is that global warming is big in scale and has time factors relating to centuries, or many generations, rather than one or even a fraction of a generation.

Let’s say we readers and all few billions of us on the planet know, that we have a causal relationship to the rate of warming, and that as the planet warms further, our children are likely to suffer on mass as a result.

This knowledge is enough for us to be concerned, but not enough to change our behaviour.  Our evolution is not that way inclined.  We tend to change behaviour based on experience, and generally only if we believe a change in behaviour results in a fairly immediate observable impact on our lives and the lives of those around us.

Global warming is big, its’ long term, and for human endeavour to try to change the outcome for the better, we would all need to act.  All people, towns, cities, states, countries, regions.

We have seen that classic governmental lines of control do not cause massive coordinated change in human behaviour worldwide.  However we have also seen that social networking is universal, carried by the internet, and does provide some means of at least coordinating thought in the right direction.

We have seen evidence of global coordination with the rise of ‘earth hour’ which now travels around the planet, country by country, one day a year to promote reduction of power.  The internet allows for this kind of coordination and action, whereby people can get some kind of feedback related to their behaviour.

Is it possible then, that with global internet availability, that this provides people with an opportunity to coordinate globally in terms of global requirements and resolutions.  That the internet would provide at least a mechanism to allow like minded people to gather global support for a particular urgent behaviour.

There is a new campaign to make an immediate behavioural change in Australia, for a carbon tax.  This is sponsored by a #sayyes campaign also as a tag on twitter.  It remains to be seen whether it can get enough steam to cause a revolution, but it is on the Internet, and anyone, Australian or otherwise could have a say.

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what do you reckon then ?

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