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Climate change

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As a geologist, a geoscientist, I am a firm believer in climate change. The Earth’s climate has been changing for about 4.5 billion years now. Just because man has appeared in this last, tiniest, almost invisible speck of an incomprehensibly massive amount of time doesn’t mean that process is going to change.

Man tends to think of everything in terms of his own lifetime. Many politicians have ranted about (man-caused) “climate change” based on an increase in severity/frequency of large storms, drought, higher temperatures and even wildfires (the latter a very shortsighted outlook). Wildfires have increased with population and historical, poor forestry practices.

To state the changes we have seen in the other listed Earth processes are from man-caused climate change would be jumping to a conclusion. Nature is not black and white or a steady-state condition. I believe observed climate changes are normal, statistical, up-and-down swings in these Earth processes.

Our National Park Service, Petrified Forest NP pamphlet states, “Ancient Arizona: Hot. Humid. Lush. Green. The desert grassland before you...a prehistoric rainforest. During the Triassic Period...this was a tropical landscape with abundant vegetation...and a river system larger than anything on earth today.”

Referring to a much later time, the NPS pamphlet and website describe the prehistoric people of the area, and “...the Petrified Forest area (was) largely depopulated in the early 1400s due to a long-standing drought that affected the agriculture-based settlements.” Regarding Tonto Basin, “...between 1350 and 1450, the region became more arid...a falling water table...alternating floods and droughts...changing climate negatively affected agriculture. By 1450, (the) struggling...(Salado People) began to move out of the once fruitful Tonto Basin.”

Climate change has been with us for our existence. I hate to inform AOC, but the Earth will not end in 12 (or is it 10 now?) years.