This week’s Mornings with Carmen, we talked about why the Atlantic Ocean is suddenly cooling, whether NASA accidentally caused a meteor shower, and the problems with medicalizing mental illness.
The Atlantic Ocean Is Cooling, Sort Of
NOAA (National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration) reports that since June the Atlantic Ocean has been cooling more quickly than expected and scientists are not sure why. In June the Atlantic was about 0.9 to 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than average for this time of year.
The Atlantic has been on a warming trend, reporting high temperatures for the last 15 months (observable record high temps), which people attribute to El Nino and human caused climate change. El Nino is a climate pattern event that causes the Pacific waters to be warmer than normal. It is usually followed by La Nina, where the Pacific is cooler than normal. What happens in the Pacific affects the rest of the world, so scientists were expecting the Atlantic to eventually start cooling once La Nina happened, but the Atlantic started cooling in June, which is before the Pacific La Nina. Other natural occurrences that might cause Atlantic cooling don’t seem to be the cause (e.g., equatorial upswelling). Scientists are still looking for why this is going on.
Interesting quote from atmospheric scientist George Philander: “To ask why El Niño occurs is like asking why a bell rings or a pendulum swings,” atmospheric scientist George Philander wrote in a 1999 paper. “It is a natural mode of oscillation. A bell, of course, needs to be struck in order to ring.” After nearly 100 years of investigation, scientists are still not sure what rings the bell; they just know that it rings.
Speaking of El Nino…
The Pacific Ocean Sea Levels Are Rising
The Secretary General of the UN at a Pacific Islands Forum in Tonga made a call to action for governments to provide funding and better warnings systems as well as decreasing fossil fuel output because climate change is causing the sea level to rise. Scientists at NASA have said that 30 years of satellite data show an upward trend of rising sea levels, even taking into account El Nino and La Nina years. Pacific Island nations, like Tonga, are disproportionately affected by rising sea levels.
Whether you hold that man-made climate change is the main cause or you quibble over the solutions, I think as Christians, we need to show compassion toward those who are affected by rising sea levels because these Pacific Island nations are vulnerable to changes in the climate. Also, when it comes to fossil fuels, or responsibility, I think taking an attitude of stewardship using our creative gifts (including science) to create infrastructures that are both good for humans and are responsible use of resources.
Did NASA Cause a Meteor Shower?
Back in 2022, NASA’s DART Mission was to see if we could knock an asteroid’s moon out of orbit with a missile. The idea was a proof-of-concept test to see if an asteroid was heading toward earth, would we be able to change its trajectory. The DART Mission worked, and the asteroid’s moon was knocked out of its orbit. But an Italian Space Agency satellite that accompanied this mission showed that the impact might have sent some debris heading toward Mars. What’s interesting is that future Mars rover missions might be able to find the asteroids pieces and then conduct some studies to learn more about the asteroid.
The debris could also come towards Earth, but the fastest ones will be so small that they won’t be very noticeable. The fast debris will take about 7 years to get here. The slower debris could end up orbiting earth and landing as a part of a meteor shower. So technically, this would be the first man-made meteor shower.
Euthanasia: Canada’s Expansion of MAiD and the Medicalization of Mental Illness
We discussed an article in Undark Magazine by Elyse Weingarten on medical aid-in-dying (now called “medical assistance in dying”) for people with severe mental illness. Weingarten’s article is worth a read as she unpacks how the biological model of mental illness is too reductionistic and how that informs the euthanasia debate. Even those who may be sympathetic with euthanasia for people with incurable, terminal disease, find euthanasia for mental health inappropriate. The mental health provision in the law was due to go into effect last March, but has been delayed until 2027.
As Weingarten recounts, the history of a biology-based view of mental illness goes hand-in-hand with the pharmaceutical industry marketing drugs. Here is the money quote:
After a 1997 change in Food and Drug Administration regulations which allowed for direct-to-consumer drug advertising, psychiatric medications were among the most heavily marketed, with a more than sixfold increase in spending on the drugs between 1987 and 2001. Commercials for SSRIs, a class of antidepressants, claiming that the drugs specifically targeted a chemical, or serotonin, imbalance in the brain, became so ubiquitous that some remain a topic of pop-culture fascination today. Despite a backlash calling the ads misleading and scientifically groundless, they ran for years, helping to establish “chemical imbalance” as a shorthand for the cause of depression and, more generally, mental illness.
While modernism has led to great inroads in physical health, it seems to be terrible at addressing mental health. For a different take, see Kent Dunnington’s book Addiction and Virtue (2001, IVP).