Global Warming: Maybe Al Gore isn't so crazy after all

One of the biggest impacts this class has made on me is in what we have learned about global warming. When I came into the class in September, I actually wasn't sure whether or not it was real. I mean, there are dissenting voices. They say that people who believe in global warming are a cult, an environmentalist, pantheistic religion, all out to take your rights to use your property as you see fit. I wasn't decided or not, though. I felt I didn't have the scientific understanding to weigh though all the evidence.

It turns out the evidence is very basic. It isn't confusing at all, when presented on a simple level. Ozone is being depleted, especially in areas near the poles, and ozone depletion leads to global warming. Some people say that the earth is warming for other reasons, and there may also be other contributing factors, but that doesn't discredit the fact that the chemicals we are releasing into the atmosphere by our human action is removing oxygen from the cycle which cannot be returned.

I didn't understand any of this. Yet, as a result of the oxygen leaving the cycle up there in the ozone (which is so thin already! just a cm), people will get more skin cancer, and special micro-organisms like plankton will die. Plants, too, are being damaged.

Here's some more that I learned. We actually know what the greenhouse gasses are. It isn't helter-skelter in vague theories. They're CO2, methane, and CH4. All of these trap the infrared light from the sun. It's called the greenhouse effect because infrared light comes in, and these gasses keep the heat from that light trapped in our atmosphere. We're like a parked car in the sun.

Now look at this, what we learned in class--
In the US, if we have 360 million people,
and 100 million cars
at maybe 400 gallons of gas a year,
and we know that each gallon of gas puts 20 lb CO2 in the air,
that's 800 BILLION POUNDS OF CO2 EACH YEAR!!!

And fossil fuel plants add another 1,200 BILLION POUNDS!

So, looking over all this, I used to think that Al Gore was crazy. His movie, An Inconvenient Truth, was something to laugh at. Silly politician with his Powerpoint slides... Well, he isn't so crazy. We have to do something about this. We are not being good stewards of the earth.