News & Views

Several years ago, the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change, assembled 928 peer-reviewed and published research findings from long-term studies on global climate done by scientific research teams all over the world. This comprises research done, cross-checked, and verified by probably tens of thousands of climate research scientists in total. The UN IPCC compiled this report in order to see if there was consistent scientific evidence that we are experiencing a human-induced, long-term global climate change. They came up with the following results, as reported in Science magazine:

"The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position."

(Excerpt from "The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change,"  Science Magazine, December 2004.)

In other words, close to a THOUSAND peer-reviewed scientific research studies were compiled into one combined report and not a single one of those research studies disagreed with the fact that global warming is real.

Think about that. If global warming weren't real, you would think at least ONE of these reports would disagree. Wouldn't you?

Our freakishly-stupid government officials still deny the reality of global warming, despite the entire legitimate scientific community supporting it time after time in hundreds upon hundreds of studies. Why would our government do this? It seems to me these government puppets cannot bite the hand that feeds them (special interests) so they constantly vote down any form of government response saying, "it needs more study." As if the 928 long-term studies cited by the UN IPCC report aren't quite enough and one more report might just do it. The Bush administration, in particular, has tried to sweep all of the world scientific research under the rug with disinformation because the "good old boy" himself sleeps with "Big Oil" more than he sleeps with his own wife.

These same large corporations who seemingly own most of our government officials (big oil, coal, gas, pharmaceutical, chemical, and other manufacturing industries who do not want to clean up their emissions due to the expense) are forming and financing small no-name organizations which are tasked to find believable ways to discredit the masses of global warming research and convince us we're all ok with things the way they are now.

These little organizations supposedly do research, but they won't subject it to scientific peer review because they know it would be proven to be fabricated or biased. Yet, they still publish the research without ever having it reviewed and call it truth. Sometimes they use it to try to promote conspiracy theories about the "global warming movement," as if these many thousands of independent climate scientists all over the world have something to gain by saying we're doomed.

In reality, the only people who stand to gain anything are the people trying to convince us it isn't real since they get paid more if they find some evidence, however small, that it might not be true. That should make their motives suspect. Then they use the Internet to spread disinformation because the Internet is free, and people will believe anything they receive in email or read in a user forum.

It's pretty easy to find published results of real scientific studies on global warming. Just do a quick search on Google or Wikipedia.

 
More information on this chart.

Most scientists don't want to cause complete panic so they temper their public statements, but the situation really is dire. I can look at the numbers myself and understand a lot of the calculations on what is coming. It only takes 2 degrees Celsius of increase in world average temperature to completely change our world in a disastrous way. It only takes 2-3 degrees to melt almost all of the ice on Earth, raising sea levels dramatically.

More information on global warming.

So what could happen if all of these predictions are true? You may want to sit down while I tell you.

Within 30-60 years, if this rate of warming and glacier/polar ice melting continues, we could be 3-5 degrees Celsius hotter. This means the Midwest could mostly become a desert. The polar icecaps and glaciers of the world could be almost completely gone. Some areas will have horrible storms and flooding. Others will suffer extremely long periods of drought.

Canada and Russia may become the major agricultural suppliers to the world due to warmer temperatures and much longer growing seasons in the far north. The Colorado River may dry to a comparable trickle causing people to abandon entire cities due to water shortages in the desert southwest.

Most of the coastlines of the world may be under water. A lot of Florida could be under water. The island of Manhattan could be under water. London could be under water. Some island nations may disappear completely. A lot of fish species in the oceans will die off due to lack of oxygenation, upsetting a huge portion of the world food chain and causing widespread famine.

Two hundred million people in THIS country alone may need to be relocated to other areas and literally billions will be affected worldwide. Many trillions of dollars of property could be lost, bankrupting a huge number of big corporations and banks. The effects might plunge the world into the worst depression in history. Economies of a lot of nations might completely collapse.

Governments could fall. Violence could erupt from food shortages. Our own nation's economy may come close to collapse as well. There might be worldwide famine. I wish I was making all of this up, but we might live to see it happen if we don't do anything to stop it.

For my generation, it's easy to say, "So what? I probably won't be here by that time anyway." But do we really want to be remembered as the generation that sent the entire world back into third-world status when we could do something about it now and prevent it? I don't want our generation to be remembered that way, but it doesn't matter what I want.

In reality, I'm completely certain this nation won't do a damned thing. Our country has never even signed the Kyoto agreement. Some individuals may care, but our leadership obviously doesn't. We won't do anything about the future because we are a nation governed by short-sighted, power-crazed, money-grubbing, ill-informed, puppets sitting in marble halls plotting what legislation they can pass next in order to get the rich lobbyists to pay for their next family vacation on a private corporate jet.

That's the American way. Stupid people breed like rabbits and intelligent people don't. Self-serving jerks move up in power and nice people get walked on. The rich own the politicians and the politicians run the nation into the ground while ignoring the rights of the people. All of this while the apathetic majority in this country sits at home and watches Jerry Springer reruns with every light and appliance in the house turned on.

What can we do? We should all install compact florescent light bulbs. We should all recycle. We should embrace more efficient technologies in our transportation and homes. But in the end, this may only delay the inevitable until our generation is dead and gone. At some point, humanity will have to pay the piper for the mistakes of our leadership.

The bottom line is, we are likely all doomed because of the short-sightedness of our leaders. We might as well sit back and enjoy the ride while it lasts and hope we are dead before the worst of it hits. Because, our long-term future looks truly grim.

Labels: Congress, Environment