Global Warming: It's not cool to be warm
Posted: Monday, July 09, 2007
by Steve Radford
I don’t know what to believe about global warming. Let me say that I don’t work for an oil company or drive an SUV, so I don’t feel the need to discount evidence of climate change. And I don’t hate capitalists or wish to punish corporations with drastic regulations, so I have no reason to exaggerate evidence of warming.
I’ve tried to find unbiased opinions by scientific types. There are plenty of scientists weighing in but they don’t all agree. What’s worse is that they all seem to be connected to others who have an agenda other than fact finding. All of the rhetoric seems to be coming from politicians and that makes me suspicious. Politicians on both sides seem to recognize this as an issue that can get votes with little more than lip service.
Since this topic will be an issue in upcoming campaigns, I felt I should establish a position and stick to it. Here are a few thoughts that I considered in making my decision. Hopefully you will find them helpful:
The surface temperature of the Earth has risen 1 degree in the last 100 years.
At the current rate of consumption, we will effectively be out of oil in 60 years. With increased consumption from developing countries, we could run out in 30 years or less.
I assume that the substitute sources of energy (like solar, wind and nuclear) will have less negative impacts than burning fossil fuel.
Red Hot Chili Peppers, John Mayer and The Police are playing the Live Earth concert for a “Climate in Crisis".
I had a dilemma. On one hand, I suspected global warming to be a fabricated crisis based on junk science. On the other hand, I was a music lover who really wanted to be on the same side as Sting and Flea. So for now, I decided to go with the flow and advocate action against warming. It’s just not cool to be warming.
Besides, if it galvanizes the whole world in an effort to develop clean, renewable energy sources, maybe the end justifies the means. Exaggerating the potential calamity of global warming and building a sense of urgency around correcting it will force us to be more aggressive in developing alternative energy sources and we must do that regardless. I can’t wait for the Live Earth CD release.
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Top-level comments on this article: (8 total)Yeah Steve, we are still engaged in senseless wars, our planet is decaying and we are trying to venture into outer space. If we don’t get our priorities straight we won’t have a platform to blast off from. “Just an opinion”
Great story, Steve. Count me as a gw doubter. If you enter "global cooling" into your browser, you'll discover that in the 1970's these same liberals were spreading the fear of a new ice age. The next crisis will be "global moderation". Best to you, Marty RicKard"Global Moderation"! I can see the news article... The world has been thrown into chaos with the elimination of winter and summer. Six months of Spring followed by six months of Autumn. Birds are circling because they don't know whether to fly North or South. Government subsidies may be needed to prop up the manufacturers of bikinis and winter coats. Okay I'm back. Thanks for the comment!
Steve, cool article! (Couldn't resist.) And very entertaining response to Marty. Thanks for the laughs! Be well. :)
Al Gore invented the Internet and now he has invented Global Warming. This guy needs something constructive to occupy his time.
Steve, There are a few scientist who don't agree with global warming, but a vast majority do. There is no issue here. It's not a political issue, it's an issue of survival. Thanks for your article.James, Actually there is a large and growing number of scientists that are skeptical regarding a climate change crisis. There is also a large and growing group of politicians and journalists that are jumping on the bandwagon to solve warming. But my point was that it doesn't matter who is right. We need to develop clean, renewable energy sources. If flying the global warming flag will get that done, I'm in. The concerts were a nice bonus. Thanks for taking time to read and comment. I have a lot of respect for your opinions and ability to communicate them.
Nice balance, Steve. Compromise, or the middle way can be the answer to a lot of things. Polarization only complicates things. Good article.
Steve, My point of view for the lay person on global warming is: better to take care of the environment anyway. That way, we have nothing to lose. I'm also glad to see that corporations and companies are beginning to clean up their act or at least seek out carbon trading measures. A good set of arguments here. To state my own point of view, I think we are harming the environment and warming the globe - to our own detriment. HannahWell said. Thanks Hannah.
Hi Steve, I enjoyed your continuation of the analogy, well put. True you don't need to have a complete understanding of how a car works to drive it home from the car yard, I appreciate your position and that you can still make a real, positive change without necessarily jumping on the global warming bandwagon. Still I'd much rather see some strength from our media networks to "educate" people about this very real threat, rather than try and continue the debate so that they can "cash in" by stringing it along and pretending that there is real division within the scientific community. My problem is that until the general public is educated about this problem and gets timely, factual information rather than ambiguity, there will be no unified effort to resolve it, to hold politicians or companies accountable and no real hope of a solution. The issue is that we have a limited amount of time to undo the damage before it becomes essentially irreversable (at least with current day technologies). Again, great article for stimulating reasoned discussion!
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