by Christine Schwartz

Created on: July 31, 2007

The thing about global warming is that nobody know if it is FOR SURE a function of human activity. And even if it is our fault for running our earth ragged with our industrialized society, it could be thousands of years before the polar ice caps melt, nobody knows for sure. Not to mention, no matter how much we focus on becoming more "green" here in the US or Europe, anybody who has ever been to China in the past couple of years knows that they could not care less about the issue and they are now the largest polluting country in the world.

I live in Santa Barbara and here the city council has decided that they are going to paint a light blue line throughout the city, 27 feet above sea level. This is where, they claim, the water will rise, if the polar ice caps melt. At first this may soound like a bright idea. It will deffinetely get people who don't normally consider the affect of pollution on our environment to get thinking. However, understandably, many businesses and homeowners within the blue line area are very unhappy about this because the blue line will undoubtedly cause their property values to decrease based on a hypothesis that one day, probably in a very long time, or maybe not at all, their business or home will be underwater. This is an excellent example of the negative affect of politicizing the issue of global warming.
I think it is smart to encourage people to live a "green" life, not because I am afraid that global warming will melt the ice caps and wipe out much of our coast line, but because preserving the environment is important. However, I think that there are times that people go too far, and the blue line example is one of them.

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