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The global warming advocates have become a joke. For most Americans who've survived one of the coldest winters in history, it is a bad joke. For late-night comedians and ultra-right-wing radio commentatorrs, it is a good joke, because it allows them to obscure the real problem with ridicule.

The Hollywood crowd, which always finds it fashionable to go far left and anti-government in every political issue, just added more confusing fuel to the argument by awarding Al Gore an Academy Award. Seriously, Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" is a thoughtful and believable treatise on the problem. But it is only part of the impending disaster it predicts.

Of course, global warming is a problem, but the name by implication doesn't go far enough. No one will listen to my argument, but if the advocates had called the impending disaster by a more logical name, maybe the ridicule would stop. Actually, in my unscientific mind, global warming is real, but should be considered just a symptom. The more encompassing threat is global pollution.

The increased usage of oil- and coal-based fuel throughout the world is causing more and more pollution. In newly-awakened industrial giant, China, air in big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai is almost unbreathable. That nation is going through what American cities like Los Angeles experienced in the 60s and 70s. The difference is that American cities took steps to reduce the hazard. No such measures are happening in China. The smog is so thick and widespread that it is causing climate changes, including blanketing polluted cities in unnaturally heated smog. That's global warming, and the growing pollution causes it.

Another form of global pollution is caused by the side-effects of overpopulation, especially in the ever-burgeoning cities of the newly-industrialized nations. Increasing fossil fuel burning, inadequate waste removal and crowded housing facilities, all add to the soiling of the air and other airborne problems.

Additionally, overpopulation extends beyond the cities, because builders require more and more land for development. Some of the worst examples of forest land loss happens in South America, where enormous areas of mature forests have been cut down without any measures of replacing them. This turns rich soil into sand, pollutes nearby rivers and, of course, changes the climate over newly-created deserts.

There's another form of pollution which could make all the others moot. For nations led by radical leaders, such as Iran and North Korea, acquiring more sophisticated weapons and delivery systems, the Earth may face devastating nuclear war. If a global war erupts, the Earth's population won't need to try to control global warming or global pollution. There just won't be enough living beings left alive to worry about it.

Learn more about this author, Ted Sherman.
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