The Great Global Warming Swindle

[A Black Falcon]

Kinda like you read the article Ryan linked before saying negative things about it .

It's a television show, not an article, and I watched the first few minuites (which is MORE than enough to get the point, they are not exactly subtle) and read a good part of the Wikipedia article about it, as I said in my post.

I think it's pretty obvious that global warming exists, especially considering that several thousand years ago the world was almost entirely encased in ice. Which, to me, suggests that there could be something aside from "it's all the fault of humans, they're the one's to blame" and perhaps more like heating and cooling phases of either the Earth's core or the sun.

The ten most recent years are the ten warmest on record (or is it just nine of the top ten? Either way, it doesn't matter). This is not a cooincidence, and it is not an accident, and the evidence all says that it is not purely natural. Of course there is a natural warming and cooling cycle, but the fact is, there's no evidence to suggest that we are merely in a natural warming cycle, and a lot that shows how humans are responsible for the problem. Looking at the historical record, the earth should be moving towards another ice age by now, not warming up even more... but it is warming up, and faster than we hoped.

My point isn't to place total faith in everything that video had to say. After all, I do believe that humans are a factor in climate change. I simply don't believe we are the primary cause, that's all, nor do I foresee our world turning into a direct-to-video disaster movie in the near future. The earth is warming. Eventually, it will cool again, as has happened countless times in the last six billion years. We'll survive this. We will adapt. We are already taking measures to rein in our emissions, and I'm happy. I'm all for detaching from fossil fuels... when a better alternative becomes available, and the sooner the better, but not before then.

Denial... denial is very dangerous here. The signs all show that the world is warming, and scientists don't know exactly how that process goes -- will it be slow and even? Not necessarially... if a tipping point is hit, things could get much, much worse, very quickly. Could we adapt? Maybe eventually, but not before a lot of people suffer and maybe die...

Oh, also, don't let things like that movie fool you... the number of people who disagree wtih the consensus about global warming in science is small. There's a reason for that, and it's not because of intimidation or jobs like that stupid 'documentary' suggests.

Besides, what can we do about China and India?

We can do a lot, actually. While we can't directly force them to change, America's influcence in the world is massive, and when it tries to do something, things happen (not always what we want, but things do happen). If we put a big effort behind fighting global warming, publically shamed nations like India and (especially) China for their actions, and backed it up with strong policies here to deal with our problem (since despite the fact that China's global warming emissions are increasing much faster than ours are (and they are in second overall in emissions), our total is still the world's highest), it WOULD matter. A lot.

I think the fact that Al Gore isn't running for President in 2008 shows how committed he is to the global warming issue. If he didn't care that much about it he could of used the success of his movie to promote a run, but he has said that he wouldn't be able to focus on global warming as much if he were to run for President again. Now I'll be the first to criticize him if he changes this stance, but I think it's great to see a politician so involved in a particular issue. Yes, An Inconvenient Truth did paint a worst-case scenario, but even if global warming isn't totally our fault it does appear that we are a major cause so we should be held accountable.

People need to see the worst-case scenario because otherwise they might not take the issue seriously enough... we might be able to do something now, but even if we do things will get a lot worse before they get better, that much is very clear.

What will it take to convince people that global warming is real, and we're causing it? The total melting of the ice caps and a rise in global sea levels of several dozen feet at least? Winter disssapearing from most of the planet that gets it? What? It has already become noticable that winters are arriving later and leaving earlier these last few years...