So I went into work this morning, checked my RSS feeds as I do everyday, and noticed the top story in today's Globe and Mail. They ran the 'unequivocal proof' story about global warning, showing conclusively that 10 key indicators are showing abnormal warming trends through the 1990s - everything from surface and ocean temperatures to rising sea levels and shrinking glaciers. Every indicator was showing evidence of global warming.
And as I usually do, I scanned the online comments in response to the article. And what I saw brought some shock. There are still a large number of climate change deniers out there (or at least, out in full force on the internet tubes). Out of nearly 500 comments at the time, approximately 1/3 of them criticized the results of this survey. The 'thumbs up/thumbs down' feature actually tipped the balance in favour of climate change denial! What is going on here?
Let's look at the 3 main arguments:
First, a number of the posts referred to some recent data showing that some cooling may have happened in the past decade. This data "doesn't fit" with the trend, so global warming must not be happening.
Second, the earth has gone through some natural heating and cooling cycles in the past. We've had ice ages and hot spells, the earth must do this naturally.
Third, the scientists propegate and fake this data, in order to keep their own funding coming and self-perpetuate their own profession.
My response: open your eyes to the world around you! I don't care if the earth naturally warms and cools itself over time, the human race doesn't survive ice ages nicely! The world's population will explode over the next 30 years, and we're already beyond sustainable, ripping out forests (one of earth's natural atmospheric cleansing and temperature stabilizing methods), expending fossil fuels (and pumping them back into the air), and maximizing our agricultural outputs while billons of people starve. Can we continue on this trend without decimating our own population? No we can't.
Maybe the last decade has cooled. We have had some cool winters. However, if ice sheets keep breaking off Antarctica and Greenland, that ice melts into water, raising sea levels and threatening coastal cities all across the planet. Glaciers all around the world are disappearing so rapidly that cities are not able to cope with the loss of the drinking water-spring runoff they have relied upon for centuries. I don't care if the temperatures are going up or not, if those are the current symptoms, we're in trouble well before the end of my natural lifetime.
But secondly, how can some people not want to do anything? If the world is already warming, they say, why do we need to act? Maybe this is Rob the Asthmatic speaking, but does anyone realize what pollutants we are pumping into the atmosphere daily? Have you seen the smog in our cities, the oil spills in our oceans and rivers, and the wastewater/sewage destroying downstream wildlife? We are causing suffering to our own population, because we haven't placed penalties on environmental pollution, and haven't expended our efforts into natural energy sources. I have trouble breathing some days due to air pollution, and now the world is running out of its previous nonrenwable resources with no backup plan.
Regardless of whether you actually believe the science behind global warming, or accurately, "climate change", how can someone look at this and not see a problem? How can half of the Globe and Mail's online commenters deny a problem exists, and deny the need for ANY solution or further look into it? Why can we allow the continous burning of coal and oil (which we know kills thousands of people each year), yet we must delay wind turbine construction for studies into dizziness and people having trouble sleeping? Wind power does not create byproducts that kill people, the status quo isn't working!
I wouldn't consider myself an environmental "activist", or a "nut". I don't always buy the greenest products, and I sometimes forget to turn off my lights. But I realize that we need our politicians and our experts to present the options which will provide a change to the status quo. And as of yet, I haven't seen that from the mainstream parties.
We have municipal elections coming up this year, a possible federal election at anytime, and a provincial election next year. I'm in a new city, I don't have "Toronto issues" from the past that have lead me towards any particular candidate. What I am looking for out of this year's October elections: a plan to deal with our energy needs and green Toronto. If you can deliver on this, you're getting my vote.
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