There’s been a lot of talk these days about all this snow and cold. The climate change deniers are saying, “How can there be global warming with all this unusual snow and cold in strange places, like the South?”

It’s too bad that Al Gore coined the phrase “global warming.” He should have used the phrase “climate change.” It is true that the overall temperature has risen in the past 50 years, taking into account the air and water temperatures. These changes to air and water currents have created pockets of temperatures being lowered in some places.

When I worked aboard merchant vessels in the late 1980s, I worked with an engineer who had been recording water temperatures on the same North Atlantic run for more than 30 years. He said the temperature of the water had risen 2.8 degrees Fahrenheit during that time. I must note that sea temperature is critical to the operation of steam vessels, as it facilitates the desalination of sea water.

I saw a chart in the Feb. 5 newspaper that showed a species conservation list. That list named the six basic animal groups — mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes, clams and insects — that are threatened or endangered. The most endangered are the fishes. By a wide margin. It got me to wondering: “Could the increased water temperature be what’s causing the fish to die off?” Unfortunately, we may have to wait for conclusive proof.

Many believe that all life on earth derives from the sea. If this is so, then the fishes have become the canary in the coal mine. All other species shall perish next.

And we shouldn’t expect the same technology that got us into this mess we are in to get us out of it.

Peter P. SiroisMadison

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