Global Warming

First, the funny part.

From xkcd.com. Please don't sue me! (whimper!) The comics are fantastic! Much geekiness and love.

Now for the unfunny part. From CNN we have the weasel-worded headline of "Scientists: Humans 'very likely' cause of global warming".

Yes, Virginia, there really is global warming. Took until now to get the commission to say it in so many words, but there it is. Of course, here in the land of mega-corporations, we're still in denial:

Despite a strongly worded global warming report from the world's top climate scientists, the Bush administration expressed continued opposition Friday to mandatory reductions in heat-trapping "greenhouse" gases.

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman warned against "unintended consequences" -- including job losses -- that he said might result if the government requires economy-wide caps on carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.

--Lawmakers square off on climate report

Let's discuss this, eh? It's more important to protect the economy than it is to protect life as we know it on this planet. Do these guys have an extra planet tucked away somewhere that they're all going to go inhabit after this one is unable to sustain life any longer? Perhaps they have space stations they're all building where they can go and live with their umpteen kabillion dollars in profits? I'd like to know. Really.

There are many different ways of looking at this, here are two of my favorites.

1. If we're wrong, and global warming (Or global climate change, whichever you prefer because it ain't warmer in my part of Colorado this winter!) doesn't exist, then we spend a lot of money to get pollutants out of the atmosphere, resulting in better health for humans, plants and animals around the globe. That doesn't suck as an outcome.
2. If they're wrong, and global climate change is happening and we don't fix it, we all die. Some will die faster than others (see Hurricane Katrina, the Christmas Tsunami, etc.). Crops will fail in regions previously used to temperate weather. Colder areas will warm up faster than expected. Sea levels will rise and islanders will become refugees by the millions. Colder and colder winters kill more people. Warmer winters in other locations may mean less snow/rainfall which in turn means less drinking water for the following spring.

Are you getting what I'm saying here?

For those of you thinking that this is a cyclic weather change, have you thought about that? Did we have automobiles, airplanes, giant factories and massive numbers of cattle a millennia ago? Are you going to try to convince me that all of those things combined have nothing to do with what we are seeing today? Have you ever thought of why you are clinging to that belief?

I know why I am but why are you clinging to your belief? you angrily ask.

Well, because I believe that we are responsible for our own actions, on a global scale. We got all of us into this and all of us working together is what it's going to take to get all of us out of it. The only other option is death, as far as I can see. And really, I like living. Much more preferable to the death thing. Especially death by starvation, heat exhaustion, hypothermia, or mass rioting.

The thing that I am most worried about is that we're actually too late. That we've come so far, spent so much time screwing around with the Bush Administration's protestations about how the science wasn't "reliable", etc. Massive ice shelves the size of Rhode Island are falling off of glaciers, people! We've been pumping out massive amounts of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide since the Industrial Revolution.

Can we fix this? Is it possible to get the American government and our corporations to get together and do something about it?

I don't know.

And I am scared.