Global Warming: Truth or Hype?

Everyone knows that the globe is warming up. Everyone knows that global warming brings with it disaster and extinction. Everyone knows that if we don't do something right now, our planet is going to burn up. Everyone knows, too, that it is all our fault. If we didn't burn carbon fuel, eat meat, drive SUVs, use incandescent lightbulbs, or consume paper products, our planet would be safe.

So none of this is news, right? In fact, a mere mention that global warming might not be as widespread as the media is saying, or that it might not be carbon fuel causing the slight warming trend, will be treated as a mention of a flat earth. In fact, some people go so far as to say that refusing to believe in global warming is like refusing to believe in the Holocaust.

And this trend has not gone unnoticed by businesses. Hybrid cars, CLF lightbulbs, "green" this and "green" that: it's a whole new market to be tapped into.

But let's take a closer look at the numbers. (Yes, I know it's just like saying the earth is flat.) The temperature has risen about one degree in the last one hundred years. That is alarming, IF we extrapolated that the temperature would keep rising one degree every one hundred years, and IF we assumed in our arrogance that rising temperatures are not supposed to happen.

For the first point, when we take a look at temperatures over the last 10,000 years, we see that temperatures have risen and fallen over that period of time. In fact, there have been several prolonged periods of global warming with higher temperatures than we have currently. And that was before rich, human consumers spoiled the earth. The planet and its inhabitants have always rebounded. Witness our current level of occupancy and sophistication.

And to the second point, scientists believe that there have been numerous periods of extinction in the earth's history. Several of those mass extinctions have been linked to global warming. For more on previous extinctions, see the article "Global Warming Killed the Dinosaurs?" The earth has cycles; presumably the population does too. But we will have to assume that a planet that has not only survived but thrived for millions of years is not going to be suddenly destroyed by a century or two of fossil fuel use by humans.

Can we live cleaner? Absolutely. I think that as fellow populants of this earth, we owe it to ourselves and each other to pick up after ourselves and leave the planet cleaner than we found it. Can we live more simply? Sure, and it is good for us in many ways to learn to live with less.

1600 scientists signed a letter that warned of the devastating consequences of global warming. And Al Gore won an Oscar for his documentary about how we humans have caused this devastating global warming. We hear on the news that the North Pole is melting. So it can be hard to think to remember things like 17,000 other scientists signed a petition saying that there is no hard evidence that greenhouse gases will negatively or permanently disrupt the planet's climate.

Who to believe? Well, those of us who are over forty might remember that back in the mid-seventies we were quite sure that the earth was cooling. In fact, scientists at that time were quotably "unanimous" in predicting a second Ice Age. The use of much the same language used to chide and frighten nations' leadership is eerie to read. There was talk at that time of melting the North Pole ice cap by artificial means in order to prevent the impending glacierization of the globe.

Why do we so willingly carry the guilt? For, as everyone knows the globe is heating up, everyone also knows that it is the wealthy industrialized nations like the United States of America that is causing it. And Americans seem to accept and agree with this charge. Could it be that Americans feel a little guilty over their comparative wealth? Maybe some of us feel guilty that we aren't doing anything to prevent genocide in Darfur or world hunger. Maybe buying different lightbulbs and voting for alternative fuels seems like an easier penance to pay for ignorance and blindness.

But I challenge anyone to look closely at the facts, and then to run around like Chicken Little with his news of the falling sky, screaming "The globe is heating up!"