Global Warming Debate

Andrew at Bound By Gravity and Treehugger at Heart of the Matter are discussing global warming and the influence humans really have. As Andrew states:

Regardless of whether we were belching millions of tonnes of pollutants into the air each year or not, Earth was going to get warmer. This is just another part of the natural cycle. We could be dressed in furs and hunting animals with spears and this warming would still be occurring.

Treehugger responds:

The impact of climate change is very disturbing. If that makes me an "alarmist" for suggesting that we consider the scientific communities warnings and the traditional knowledge of Aboriginal peoples as being very credible - as having the gaul to suggest that pollution is having an impact on climate change right now, then so be it. I might even by a bell to ring regularly.

Andrew's response:

If you want to pass the "sniff test" and get people to react to the polluton problem, going after a naturally occuring phenonemon is not the right way to do so.
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Trying to justify a good action with questionable "facts" leads only to delays and resistance. You need to attack the problem using verifiable facts.

I think both sides have some points and miss some.

I agree with Andrew that natural cycles occur and some (if not all) of the current warming trend could be a result of natural cycles and would have occurred regardless of industrialization or not. However, I think that regardless of that we should be cutting our emissions simply because the earth is so susceptible to changes and we do not know if we are accelerating and/or worsening the warming. The safe thing to do is to react as if it is and take steps now before it is too late.

Treehugger's post, although it was well written, I found to miss Andrew's original point entirely and focused more on his preferred choice of action. While I agree that being concerned right now and taking action right now is the best approach, I have to agree with Andrew that facts and correlations are more useful than anecdotes and emotion. We don't know nor have any way of knowing if what the Inuit are experiencing is a natural cycle or not, and using it as a reason to cut back emissions is too easily attacked by those against cutting those emissions.

All the same, I'm glad people are talking about this subject which I feel is far more important to humanity than whether or not two gay people living together can be called married or not or some such nonsense.

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As a side note, the scariest thing I ever heard was from a Christian who was against conservation because "God put those things there for us to use and commanded us to use it. He doesn't want parts of the world to sit fallow." (Paraphrasing from memory). He was talking in particular about a forest that people were trying to prevent logging in through protests. I was so totally aghast that I could not speak, it was so mind-blowingly narrow and short sighted.

That wasn't some redneck rube either, that was from an intelligent, educated preacher. I'm more convinced then ever that religion is not good for humanity or the Earth.