[The following I wrote in response to an email I received telling me about a scientist (an astronomer) who doesn't believe human activity has anything to do with global warming].
There is a very small minority of actual scientists who believe human activity has had no effect on global warming, though of course there are some, and they are often pimping for corporations, or ideologues who have not done true empirical research in the field of climatology and atmosphereic science (in fact, here's a link to a chart that shows many of the 'think tanks' that dispute global warming, and their connections to the energy corporations: http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2005/05/exxon_chart.html ). There's a lot of intentional disinformation out there, so you have to decide for yourself who's telling the truth, if their truth is based on facts, and what, if anything, you want to do about it.
Before sending out my encouragement to see the movie, I started checking out whether the 'facts' presented in the movie seemed to be true or false, and I believe my research is pointing to them being true.
But see the movie, look at the charts, start doing your own research. The chart I was most amazed by is a prettier version of the 4th chart on this page (sorry I haven't yet found a better, clearer version of this chart): http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/warming/etc/graphs.html (Graph showing a 450,000 year record of carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the earth's atmosphere). I'd love to hear your friend's explanation of that enormous spike at present-time that shows the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to be enormously higher than all previous *highs* over the past 450,000 years.
There was a time when 99% (or more) of people thought the earth was flat. Their being wrong about that didn't have as much of a consequence as those in charge being wrong about this does, if they are in fact wrong.
Wanna take that chance? It's the only planet we've got....
Personally, I have no dog in this hunt, other than my sense of personal responsibility to not leave things worse than they were when I got here. And I apologize to everyone younger than me that I couldn't be more effective in leaving you a better place to live. All I can do is educate myself on the important issues, not let myself be fooled by the emperors with no clothes, take the small environmentally sound actions I'm capable of taking, talk to people, and vote my conscience. I do what I can...and I hope you younger folks can figure out how to make things better for yourselves and your children.
At any rate, I just wanted to encourage people to go see the movie, because I believe it effectively shows a lot of facts, well-presented, for a very tiny investment of your time and money, that will help educate you about what might be the most important trend on our planet today.
0 comments:
Post a Comment