So far as we know, the plan back in 1972 to pile 700,000 tires in waters just off Florida’s coast had the best of intentions. The idea was to create an artificial reef and enhance marine life in the area, which is about a mile from Fort Lauderdale. The tires were bound together with steel and nylon and dropped in 70-foot waters.
That’s when the trouble started.
A large patch of the ocean floor in the area was scraped by the tires when they started coming loose. Worse still, the tires did not promote the desired sea life, and thousands of tires came to rest against a real reef. That prevented the development of coral growth on the natural reef and harmed marine life.
In other words, the project accomplished the exact opposite of what had been hoped.
So, in 2007, Army and Navy divers started removing the tires at great expense and shipping them to land for recycling. But now those divers are needed in Iraq and Afghanistan, so the cleanup has been put on hold for at least two years, according to news accounts. That guarantees more damage to the reef and the sea floor in the meantime.
Now think about this: The “tire reef” was a fairly controlled experiment in a specific, limited area. Presumably, scientists gave it a lot of thought before the tires were dumped into the ocean by the hundreds of thousands. And yet, despite their best efforts and intentions, the result was serious harm to the environment.
Do you think, therefore, that on the vastly more complex issue of the Earth’s climate, scientists – much less environmental activists – can account for every factor that might influence temperature change, and dictate exactly what steps need to be taken to control worldwide temperatures?
Should we not at least consider the possibility that in efforts to fight “global warming,” we will spend huge amounts of money and cripple our economy – only to find in the end that we have had little or no effect on temperatures?