One of the more compelling articles I've read in sometime isn't about politics or economics or history, but instead about this big not-quite-as-round orb we call home. Here's a link to the New York Times article about the changing tilt of our planet: Pumping Groundwater Has Changed Earth's Spin, Study Finds. Well, that's fascinating. Apparently we don't go round and round an axis as neatly as that globe on your desk suggests. In fact, my favorite line in the article likened the planet's trip through the solar system to a wobbly frisbee. So, why is the earth's tilt changing? Long-term geological reaction to an ice age long ago (is that too political?), climate change (uh oh, that is getting political), and the pumping of massive amounts of underground water (okay, that can get uncomfortable real fast). Not to worry: our seasons aren't going to change anytime soon. But we could see our GPS technology fouled by this modification of what the planet is doing.
There's always a tradeoff. Always. We cannot seem to agree in this country as to whether or not our behaviors and economic activity is changing the climate, though it seems foolish to think there is not some tradeoff to all of the energy we create and consume. And the article's first two explanations for the change in Earth's tilt seems to take the two different sides of any climate debate. Interesting. But that third one is a kicker. And it's hard to dispute that extracting billions of gallons of water from beneath the surface of the earth won't somehow alter the mass of this rock as it hurdles through space. There's always a tradeoff. Even if that tradeoff is just the inconvenience of a little bit less precision from devices we take for granted.
No comments:
Post a Comment