This past Monday I took a train from Innsbruck to Verona. The trip through the Alps was spectacular. We had had an inch or two of wet snow in the day preceding the trip. Roads were wet and drivable but grass and trees and other topographical features had a light coating of snow. The fresh snow made the trip all the more beautiful.
This small bit of snow was enough to completely cover every solar panel we passed. Admittedly Austria and Italy are not as gaga for Solar as Germany, so it was a small sample size, but still ….a not very cold day in fall had rendered them all useless.
When I got to Verona, the BBC and France24 (the channels in English at my hotel) were full of Hurricane Sandy news. A record setting storm and talk of global warming. Does anyone think a Solar Panel in the Alps has any impact on global climate?
Maybe it’s time to spend less time trying to stop climate change and more time trying to adjust to the change that will come. Perhaps we should reallocate our scarce resources.
The Earth has been lots warmer and lots colder than it is today. We live in an extraordinarily stable climactic period. This stable period is unusual climatically. It may continue for centuries or even thousands of years…but at some time it will change. When it does the Earth will likely become a less hospitable place.
I don’t know how much man has impacted the climate, but I am confident of this, Mother Nature has many more surprises up her sleeve….and man is way way back in a distant second place.
Climate S.W.A.G. 