You’re from the USA aren’t you.
Well the american media, which has the bad habit of following the press releases of public authority has decieved you. Global warming was once a theory, a very good theory. And it was publicized as a theory. An argument grew from the idea, and this argument was widely publicized. But it has in the past few years been agreed that global warming is a fact. The policy-makers, who feed most of the media, however, realized the negative and extensive effects that the FACT of global warming could have on the american car/consumption economy and continued to argue that global warming was/is widely debated. What they meant to say, actually didn’t mean to say, was that the debate from that point forward was and is about what the effects and extent of the warming will be, not over the existence of it.
GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL.
The effects that humans have on the earth are extensive, and grow far beyond a higher temperature. I personally find global warming very difficult to get my head around, which is why I prefer to focus on other simpler to understand effects we have on the earth, such as using up non-renewable, or slowly renewable resources. The facts that slight temperature changes will, and can kill off other more quickly renewable resources, such as plant and animal life which we use as food. Rises in temperatures have already caused extensive desertification of land close to the equator, for example, mexico. You may have noticed that there are masses of mexicans illegally crossing the border to the US, why? A big reason is that their land (which is in itself their life and livelyhood) has become desert, they have no future there, and are coming to the US as a completely new type of refugees (ones that aren’t yet recognized by any government and are therefore necessarily illegal), environmental refugees.
The US is a huge culprit in the decline of the resources of the rest of the world, and they will probably be the last to notice it. Why? Because they can afford to buy and import as many resources as are available in the world. At some point, they will realize it, but probably only when there are so few resources in the world that they can’t import them anymore.
So now that I have stood on my soapbox I close with the fact that I am an american and I was once in the same opinion, but I have since informed myself on the theme, that’s really all you have to do to find out the truth, read some factful books and articles (don’t believe it unless it has references). I hope that other americans will do this as well!
Books to read, radio to hear, and movies to see (or book to read).
http://www.amazon.com/Communicating-Nature-Understand-Environmental-Messages/dp/1597260681/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-4158796-5677534?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193083114&sr=8-1
Communicating Nature
a bit on how media communicate environmental issues.
http://www.amazon.com/Inconvenient-Truth-Planetary-Emergency-Warming/dp/1594865671/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-4158796-5677534?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193083195&sr=1-1"
An Inconvenient Truth
The facts of global warming (see the movie if you don’t want to read the book, but the book will give you scientific references which you can indeed believe as fact)
feed://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kuer/.jukebox?action=viewPodcast&podcastId=228"
Radiowest podcast
About environmental refugees from Mexico. This page is not old enough for the exact podcast, but you can subscribe to the podcast and download the episode "Bordercrossers and the New America, from 8/17/07.
http://www.ehs.unu.edu/file.php?id=259
United Nations University-Environmental and Human Security publication “Control, Adapt, or Flee”
About the concept of environmental refugees in general.