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Add to FavoritesUS Senator, Vice President and presidential aspirant Al Gore authored a 400-page tome on everything environmental titled Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit, which became a "national bestseller." Gore, in writing the book, said he was willing to risk his entire political career on the issue of the environment. His original 1990 title for the book was "World War III" ironic for a 2007 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Gore's emphasis was that to attain his version of global environmental rectitude would require the commitment and sacrifice of world war. Gore, in late 2008, called for global civil disobensience to protest inadequate government climate change policies. Earth in the Balance rambles maniacally among premises of over population, nature's spirit, technophobia, consumptionism, species extinction, and introduced us to the term global warming in an attempt to circumscribe an "environmental holocaust without precedent," and to position Gore as the political leader whose insight will save the planet.
Gore exposes himself as either profoundly confused, or cynically manipulative, about the meaning of "technology." He writes "[G]overnment, as a tool used to achieve social and political organization, may be considered a technology, and in that sense self-government is one of the most sophisticated technologies ever created." His further abstractions equate technology with "spoken language," and even "the human body." Gore also elaborates on how technology is not necessarily science. One should always be suspicious when politicians begin to bend the meaning of words. For clarity, please observe that Webster's Dictionary defines technology as "applied science." Gore also calls for science and religion to be "reunited in the service of the environment."
Gore, in keeping with the world war analogy of his environmental crusade, promotes vast government programs such as a "Strategic Environmental Initiative" and "Global Marshall Plan." His Global Marshall Plan would act to stabilize world population, develop environmentally appropriate technology, measure environmental impacts in economic terms, develop international environmental regulatory programs and develop a global environmental education program. His Strategic Environmental Initiative was named to imply an environmental equivalent of the "Strategic Defense Initiative" (SDI), the crash program to develop a series of technological breakthroughs focusing on a common military objective, which Gore opposed as senator. Gore's Strategic Environmental Initiative would be a global "program that would discourage and phase out older, inappropriate technologies and at the same time develop and disseminate a new generation of sophisticated and environmentally benign substitutes." This, from a politician who clearly does not understand the definition of the word "technology."
Gore further writes to introduce the divisive environmental concepts of "environmental justice" and "sustainable development" in pandering to the ecologista. These latent environmentalist concepts are attempts to leverage social issues of immigration, class warfare, racism and big business bashing for pure political patronage. Gore climaxes his pretentious and partisan policy masturbations with a renewed self-assurance in big government dominance over personal ambition, liberty and free enterprise.
In 2007, Al Gore received an Oscar for the movie documentary An Inconvenient Truth that was a cinematic version of his slideshow tour, wherein he conceitedly claims that "... the debate about global warming is over." Gore's "truths" have been widely discredited by climate scientists, from whom Gore has never accepted invitations to actual debates. Gore, far from ending the debate, actually started the debate about global warming. Vanity Fair, magazine of social record, validation and wisdom for our plutocrats, had a "Green Issue" that attempted to rally eco-consciousness with the fanciful cover headline - "A Threat Greater Than Terrorism: Global Warming." Ironically, this headline is both a denial of the horrors of 9/11, and an admission that the US is winning the war on terror. The magazine presents Al Gore, among other green elites, as the moral arbiter and oracle on all things environmental - including global warming.
The science of global climate change is suggestive, but not conclusive, about the impacts of human activity on global warming - simple cause-and-effect findings are not available. Science is not about belief, hyped hypotheses, corporate conspiracies or political opportunism. The applied sciences that enable and protect your everyday activities are about repeatable, measurable proof of a theory for cause and effect concerning physical phenomenon using the scientific method.
Learn more about this author, Paul Taylor.
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Yes
A Case for CO2 as the main cause of Global Warming
I have a confession to make. I have never seen Al Gore's movie, but I just couldn't pass up writing this article. The subject of climate change and global warming are too important. Is Al gore an alarmist? This is not a good question. A better question is: Should we be alarmed by the evidence of greenhouse gases causing global warming. Instead of whether Al Gore's movie is relevant or not, a better question is: Is global Warming caused by Human Activity or Natural Phenomena?"
The climate effects human activity and much of the other life on this planet. I believe that greenhouse gases resulting from human activity are effecting climate change. I would say that there is a strong probability that this is the case, because the evidence indicates it. Because most of us are not actively involved in climate change research, we really need to listen to the people that study the climate change phenomena and try our best to understand what they have found and not be prejudiced by our own feeling on the subject.
It has been proposed that solar variations are responsible for the warming of the earth. Solar cycles and volcanism are the major causes of climate change throughout much of the earths history, but there just isn't any evidence for solar heating over later half of the 20th century. Evidence has shown that there has been a cooling of the stratosphere since 1960. In fact, there is evidence that the amount of sun light reaching the surface of the earth in the last half of the 20th century has been decreased due to global dimming or particulate matter in the atmosphere from human activity. The most comprehensive study done to date by the Hadly Center in the united Kingdom showed that solar variations were responsible for warming in the first half of the 20th century, but that greenhouse gases were responsible for most of the climate change since 1980. The study model was revised in 2003 and this new model showed that natural forcing or a combination of solar radiation, volcanic activity accounted for between 16% and 36% of the global warming trend. The rest of the trend was accounted for by greenhouse gasses, and that continued greenhouse gasses emissions would cause further rise in global temperatures.
In past ages, the earth had moved closer to the sun in its orbit or the earth had tilted on its axis. Also in the past, increases in volcanism is thought to have caused climate change. Scientists have also looked these factors as a cause of global warming and found no evidence that any of these physical alterations in the earth have occurred.
The EPA estimates that there is a 90% to a 99% chance that human generated greenhouse gases are effecting climate today. Of course, there are natural occurring green-house gases in the atmosphere such as water vapor that add to the green-house effect, but water vapor in the atmosphere is short term and only increases with a rise in temperature. Skeptics say that there isn't enough Co2 in the atmosphere to effect the earth's temperature one way or another. The Level of co2 in the atmosphere today is at an average of 365 ppm, and that doesn't sound like much. I mean, that 365ppm is only 0.000365 of 1%, but global warming is only measured by a average rise of a few degrees in a century. Co2 absorbs the ultraviolet wave length of sun light and these wavelengths are where most of he energy in sunlight is. If there is an increase in the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, it is caused by an increase in green-house gas, with co2 being the most abundant. Tests have been done and this tiny percentage of co2 accounts for from 9% to 26% percent of the heat trapped in the atmosphere.
Five hundred million years ago, carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere was 20 times what it is today and the earth was much hotter than it is today. As plant life became more abundant, the level of Co2 dropped and so did the temperature. During the Juristic period, the level of co2 in the atmosphere was 4 to 5 times greater than today. During this period, there were no glaciations or ice caps on the earth. The safe amount of co2 that humans can tolerate in an 8 hour day according to OSHA is from 1000 to 2000 ppm . (humans would not have been able to survive during the Juristic period or before.) As time went on, the co2 level slowly declined still further.
In 1750, at the start of the industrial revolution the concentration of co2 trapped in Antarctic ice is recorded at 280ppm . Today the concentration of co2 in the atmosphere is averaged at 360 ppm at the Antarctic. This is a 34% increase since the beginning of the industrial revolution. since 1958 until 2003, the atmospheric level of co2 in the Antarctic has risen by 20%.
It has been proposed that Mid ocean ridge volcanism is the cause of global warming. Roughly 40% of the gas emitted by volcanoes is co2. According to the best estimates, all the volcanism on earth releases from 130 to 230 million tons of co2 into the atmosphere each year. However, human activities produce an average of 130 times that amount or from 27 to 30 billion tons per year. This is far too much co2 for the carbon cycle to absorb over the short term.
The earth has great co2 sinks such as the ocean, terrestrial forests and soil. The ocean being the largest sink. It is estimated that there is 50 times as much co2 dissolved in the oceans as exists in the atmosphere. As water heats free gas is released. As the earth heats up, more of this co2 is released into the atmosphere. This is why scientist are studying the effect of c02. Also, as third world countries like China and India become industrialized, their activity will create more green-house gas. Only a few years ago it was said that China would not catch the United states in green-house gas emissions for many years. I understand that now china is in fact creating as much green-house gases as the United States. It is estimated that the release of green-house gases will increase by roughly 2.9% until the year 2050.
Learn more about this author, Lee Norris.
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