Something is happening with the earth. The ice caps are melting at a faster and faster pace. There are no longer glaciers in glacier national park, the last one melted about two years ago. Mt. Kilimanjaro is no longer capped with snow. Are we to blame? Is the earth just going through a normal cycle we don't recognize? Is the sun heating up for some reason?
I haven't a clue but I think it is obvious something is going on. It is already 105 with the heat index where I live and if it gets even one degree hotter I am going to snap and kill someone.
I don't think environmentalism is all that bad per say. What is the use in being wasteful? Besides green is often cheaper. I added more insulation in my attic and changed to florescent bulbs in my house. Not because I think it will help global warming but because I am a cheap bastard and would like to lower my power bill.
If you really wanted to reduce CO2 emissions then ban paper recycling. They have already proved that paper takes over a 1000 years to decompose in landfills. So the CO2 is locked in the ground. Less recycled paper in the market means more trees must be cut and replanted. Young trees grow faster than older trees absorbing CO2 at a faster rate out of the atmosphere. To speed the cooling process we should burn more coal. More sulfides in the atmosphere will increase our albedo and cool the planet. Of course with more SOX comes acid rain but you can't have everything. Less activism can actually save the earth.
BTW, I also wanted to point out the fallacy of the volcano myth. Conservative talk guys love to point out the shear massive CO2 ejection from volcanoes and laugh and say we have no effect. It is more complex than that. Yes volcanoes put out lots of CO2. CO2 is an IR active gas and has an effect upon global warming. BUT, volcanoes also put out a lot of sulphides which I explained has a cooling effect. Also they put out a LOT of ash which increases the albedo many times more than sulphides. Remember the ice age that killed off the dinosaurs that was caused by the massive amount of dust created from the meteor? Same concept, bottom line volcanoes balance itself out with respect to global warming.
I applaud Gore for bringing the issue to the common man but lets face it, he knows nothing about atmospheric chemistry. The current green focus solely on CO2 is stupid because it is far more complex than that. There are thousands of IR active gases, but yes CO2 is the largest but only concentrating on that is not going to help.
--------------------
|