Tom Believes in Man-made Global Warming

I watched Al Gore’s ‘Inconvenient Truth’ last night, and I was impressed by it. BTW, Google has it available to watch online for free, while Comcast charges$4 for it. A movie of this importance, Comcast should not be charging any money for. But this aside, in today’s post I want to summarize the top three reasons why man-made Global Warming is true, and why we must immediately do something about it. The problem is a simple one. There is a clear correlation between the amount of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere and Earth’s rising temperatures. The first question on this topic is whether or not the Earth is really getting warmer. The fact that the 10 hottest years ever measured have all been in the last 14 years makes this point obvious. NASA confirms that nine of the 10 warmest years in the modern meteorological record have occurred since the year 2000, including 2010 which tied for the warmest year ever measured. So yes, Earth is getting warmer. So this brings me to the next question, is this increase in Earth’s temperature caused by man? A couple of reasons suggest to me that it is: First, the huge strain caused on Earth by the world’s population increase. And second, the correlation between measured Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere and the Earth’s increased temperatures. First, to show the huge population growth on Earth, take a look at this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World-Population-1800-2100.png Graph from Wikipedia. In 1930, the Earth had 2 billion people. Today, there are over 7 Billion people. In just one lifetime, there has been a 350% increase in Earth’s population. I like how Al Gore put it – there is a collision of our civilization and the Earth. An important issue is the pressure that this massive increase in people upon the Earth upon the world’s food and water supply. But this population growth also increases electricity and fossil fuel consumption, which is one of the major components of the increase in Carbon Dioxide atmospheric levels. When there is more CO2 in the air, the atmosphere traps more of the sun’s heat instead of allowing it to escape. In other words, more pollution means higher temperatures on Earth. And all of this flows through the large population increase that has taken place over the past 80 years. On the second point that shows Global Warming is man-made, the correlation of Carbon Dioxide atmospheric levels and the Earth’s temperatures is firmly established. Scientists have been studying the CO2 levels for some time, and the when combined with the Earth temperatures measurements, there is an eerie connection between the two. Deforestation, use of fossil fuels, power plants, vehicle emissions, all plays a significant part in this rise of CO2 levels. Al Gore on a riser showed how scary the increasing Carbon Dioxide levels will become over the next 50 years. My final point is that the Earth is showing the effects of Global Warming. We see the retreat of the glaciers. We see oceans becoming warmer. We see the ice disappearing off of Kilimanjaro, the Alps, the Himalayas, and in the Glacier National Park. We can see with our own eyes the impact of Global Warming, and if it continues there will be a massive human displacement. Imagine if New York, San Francisco, Florida, Shanghai, and Calcutta all become flooded from melting ice caps. The world could not handle 100 million refugees, and the chaos that this would cause would be terrible. It is time for us to act before it is too late.