Entry for July 08, 2006 -Global Warming
Today's newspaper contained an editorial by John Stossel, "Scientists Use Scare Tactics to Get Money." (July 8, 2006) He offers VERY little proof of his thesis and uses sentences like "...melting Arctic ice won't raise sea levels any more than the melting ice in your drink makes your glass overflow." He basiclly claims scientists are overstating facts, twisting data, to produce increased funding for their projects regarding global warming. Just two weeks ago articles appeared in all the major publications saying MOST scientists now agree that global warming IS taking place, the oceans are rising as glaciers melt, we can expect more violent storms and increasing wildfires as a result of the now obvious warming taking place. Did Stossel forget that glaciers are not icebergs? Icebergs sit IN the water (like an ice cube in a glass)- but (melting) glaciers do not. They reside on land, can be miles wide, miles deep, and miles long, and those suckers are melting at unpresentated rates, in many cases disappearing for the first time in thousands of years. Huge chunks of ice the size of Rhode Island in Antarctica are breaking off and not reforming. Greenland's ice sheet that covers most of the island continent is disappearing fast.
Guess where all that water is going! Yep, our oceans will rise. The question is: Just how far will water levels go up? Most areas can tolerate an inch or two, but much more than that will have deleterious effects as presented in Al Gore's movie- "An Inconvenient Truth", and we will lose major cities, etc. My house sits sixteen feet above the ocean's level. Am I worried? It may not happen in my lifetime, but who wants to lose a legacy they want to hand down to a child?
The awful truth is we do not yet have the scientific ability to accurately predict just HOW hot we will get, HOW much glacial melt to expect, and HOW much destruction we can realistically expect from the increase in the oceans' water levels. This is all new territory for science.
Looking for a career that might make a difference to mankind? Choose environmental science, or some related field. Help us understand our world better and to come up with solutions to our ever increasing problems with managing it.
Most industrialized countries are now reporting populations in decline as fewer and fewer babies are being born, (except the U.S. whose population is expected to stay fairly constant.) Who knows? This reduction in global population might offset some of the pollution we are experiencing that is causing the world to warm. The cure might be taking place right now and we're unaware of it. Less people equals less pollution, plain and simple. Granted it is possible for pictures to lie, but it is harder. Type in "Antarctic melting" into Google, but make sure you click the option for Google images. Look at what is going on right now. "The sky is falling" in the form of melting glaciers
Today's newspaper contained an editorial by John Stossel, "Scientists Use Scare Tactics to Get Money." (July 8, 2006) He offers VERY little proof of his thesis and uses sentences like "...melting Arctic ice won't raise sea levels any more than the melting ice in your drink makes your glass overflow." He basiclly claims scientists are overstating facts, twisting data, to produce increased funding for their projects regarding global warming. Just two weeks ago articles appeared in all the major publications saying MOST scientists now agree that global warming IS taking place, the oceans are rising as glaciers melt, we can expect more violent storms and increasing wildfires as a result of the now obvious warming taking place. Did Stossel forget that glaciers are not icebergs? Icebergs sit IN the water (like an ice cube in a glass)- but (melting) glaciers do not. They reside on land, can be miles wide, miles deep, and miles long, and those suckers are melting at unpresentated rates, in many cases disappearing for the first time in thousands of years. Huge chunks of ice the size of Rhode Island in Antarctica are breaking off and not reforming. Greenland's ice sheet that covers most of the island continent is disappearing fast.
Guess where all that water is going! Yep, our oceans will rise. The question is: Just how far will water levels go up? Most areas can tolerate an inch or two, but much more than that will have deleterious effects as presented in Al Gore's movie- "An Inconvenient Truth", and we will lose major cities, etc. My house sits sixteen feet above the ocean's level. Am I worried? It may not happen in my lifetime, but who wants to lose a legacy they want to hand down to a child?
The awful truth is we do not yet have the scientific ability to accurately predict just HOW hot we will get, HOW much glacial melt to expect, and HOW much destruction we can realistically expect from the increase in the oceans' water levels. This is all new territory for science.
Looking for a career that might make a difference to mankind? Choose environmental science, or some related field. Help us understand our world better and to come up with solutions to our ever increasing problems with managing it.
Most industrialized countries are now reporting populations in decline as fewer and fewer babies are being born, (except the U.S. whose population is expected to stay fairly constant.) Who knows? This reduction in global population might offset some of the pollution we are experiencing that is causing the world to warm. The cure might be taking place right now and we're unaware of it. Less people equals less pollution, plain and simple. Granted it is possible for pictures to lie, but it is harder. Type in "Antarctic melting" into Google, but make sure you click the option for Google images. Look at what is going on right now. "The sky is falling" in the form of melting glaciers
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