After 200 years of industrial revolution we are finally seeing what effects our life styles and our need for constant "progress" have had on the environment. From 2001 to 2005 there was a study conducted by the Untied Nations called the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. It was the biggest study of its kind. It included 1300 scientists from 73 countries around the world. At the end of this study they had reached the overwhelming conclusion that

"Over the past 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively that in any comparable period of time in human history, largely to meet rapidly growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fiber and fuel. This has resulted in substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth."

The past 50 years, thats all. We have managed to cause more damage to our environment and all other living things in the past 50 years, than any civilization know to human history. Yet for some reason we still have people trying to debate that Global Warming isn't real. Lets meet one of them now. Phil Cooney was a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute before being hired by President Bush as none other than, the Chief of Staff for the Council on Environmental Quality for the White House.

After being caught altering government scientific reports on global warming he resigned and went to work for ExxonMobil Corporation.The American Petroleum Institute and ExxonMobil are both known opponents of any policy that may help prevent global warming and why wouldn't they be. With 33 Billion dollars made a year by Big Oil and ExxonMobil being the leader with 9.9 Billion dollars a year, why would they want to prevent anything that might slow down the rate at which they make money?

So really what it comes down to is this. Its not that Global Warming isn't real, because the evidence is all around us, all you have to do is open your eyes and look. Look at the fact that we now have the hottest recorded temperatures in history. Look at the fact that scientist worldwide agree that the earth is warming at an increasingly dangerous rate. Or maybe look at the fact that we are now reaching what scientist refer to as the tipping point, which is the point at which we completely lose control of our climate.

These things joined with the fact that everyday we are one day closer to destroying ourselves and half the species on the planet with what we call "progress" should be enough to cause a radical change in our way of thinking and way of living, but unfortunately, it is not. In this country everyone has a price and for our political leaders that price is paid by the oil companies and corporations. What they don't realize is that if they don't remove the dollar signs from their eyes and look around at what they are doing, then the price they will pay is higher than they ever could have expected and certainly higher than they can afford.

Learn more about this author, Kai Austin.
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