Global Warming...
Somehow a few different videos and articles are sent to me within the same 48 hours. Strange that it's all about global warming.
1. Al Gore touts that humanity is responsible for global warming in his talks at TED. Later, he tells the world that the "debate is over" and everyone agrees that the planet's global warming crisis is caused by people and much be fixed by people.
2. John Stossel interviews a number of scientists who believe that the planet is warming, but don't agree that it's our fault. They also claim that climate change is generally good and makes the planet healthier.
3. A number of articles and books (1, 2, 3) point out that since there are snow capped mountains, glaciers, and ice caps- we're technically still in the midst of an ice age. This means that eventually the planet will warm as it has been doing. Probably it'll get a LOT hotter no matter what we do.
While I think it's great that the scientific community is debating this issue, I think there's other things that are really not up for debate: Humanity as a whole could stand to be a lot less wasteful. We could be a lot more organic. We should stop consuming so much and throwing away so much. Recycling and reducing out waste output, looking for ways to be more organic and environmentally friendly, and consuming less could never hurt.
One thing it does save is money:
1. Al Gore touts that humanity is responsible for global warming in his talks at TED. Later, he tells the world that the "debate is over" and everyone agrees that the planet's global warming crisis is caused by people and much be fixed by people.
2. John Stossel interviews a number of scientists who believe that the planet is warming, but don't agree that it's our fault. They also claim that climate change is generally good and makes the planet healthier.
3. A number of articles and books (1, 2, 3) point out that since there are snow capped mountains, glaciers, and ice caps- we're technically still in the midst of an ice age. This means that eventually the planet will warm as it has been doing. Probably it'll get a LOT hotter no matter what we do.
While I think it's great that the scientific community is debating this issue, I think there's other things that are really not up for debate: Humanity as a whole could stand to be a lot less wasteful. We could be a lot more organic. We should stop consuming so much and throwing away so much. Recycling and reducing out waste output, looking for ways to be more organic and environmentally friendly, and consuming less could never hurt.
One thing it does save is money:
- Instead of paying so much in gas and car repair, we save money by using public transportation (I'm going to take the bus for the first time on Monday).
- We save the money we're taxed to clean up landfills and wildlife preserves.
- There's a lot of research that shows that people who live in toxic areas have higher cancer rates (in fact, Westernized areas have higher cancer rates overall than other places... of course that could be because we live longer, too)- it's much more expensive to pay for cancer treatment than proper clean-up of chemicals.