by Tamara Haddock

Created on: June 29, 2010   Last Updated: June 17, 2011

In 2004 Tony Blair declared “Global warming is too serious for the world any longer to ignore its danger or split into opposing factions on it.” This was taken for the gospel truth. In 2006 Al Gore's “Inconvenient truth” had everyday Americans panicking in fear that the world was going to end in a blistering heat. In desperation many sought ways to reduce their impact on the environment. Reorganizing their lives and their wallets in the process. While many of the things did end up saving them money in the long run the truth is that on an individual level, global warming really isn't that life threatening.

Many are reading this now thinking. This person is crazy. There is no way that something as huge as global warming is not a threat. Look at the facts. First of all the hole in the ozone layer was discovered in 1958. In the time after it was noticed, there was some concern about its growing size and what the consequences of that growth would be on a global scale. Scientists began tracking its growth in 1979. Since then it has grown 4% in size. While 4 percent sounds like a lot, every person on the planet should be jumping to fix it. That's 4% in 30 years. You're looking at an increase rate of about .13% each year. That's a much smaller number. Most of the populations waist line increases more than that a year.

As for individual responsibility. An analysis of the causes for greenhouse gas emissions determined that commercial and residential usage were responsible for 10.3% of all emissions. So every home and small business combined bares responsibility for 10.3% of .13% of the ozone hole's growth. Since those numbers are too small to reasonably list lets look at this as whole. Focusing on what each individual is responsible for from the past 30 years. If America alone is held accountable for seventy five percent of that, you have 307,006,550 people having to make up for 3.09% of the damage. That makes each man woman and child in the United States responsible for 0.0000000325%. Of course there are some more numbers following the 5 but 3 hundred millionths of a percent is small enough.

The actual cause of the recent rapid global warming is easily explained. Throughout the Earths history there have been a consistent pattern of freezing and warming. We are currently still in the last few millennia of an ice age that began during the Pleistocene time period. Yes the world is warming up a bit more quickly now that earth is entering the last

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