UPDATE: lol. PETA is STUPID (but makes a surprisingly good point)
GLOBAL WARMING! aaaaaarrrgh WE'RE ALL GOING TO MELT AND DIE!!
Ok, so now that I have that out of the way, you'd have to be blind and deaf to have not heard about Global Warming. It's largely a political point but has a large impact as an environmental issue as well (duh). The Right tends to blow it off, and the Left tends to use the Right's POV as fuel about how narrow minded the Right is. But frankly, this whole 'THE WORLD IS ENDING!' thing has gotten on my nerves.
I watched Gore's Inconvenient Truth a while ago. If you haven't watched it, remember what Gore himself has stated about the film:
"I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous [global warming] is."
- Al Gore
I think that Al's comment above is important to note and keep in context while watching the documentary.The movie does have some good points but, it also has some faults (Many, actually.) I'll only hit the biggest one:
If you paid attention at all in elementary school, you should realize that this is not a new issue. The more water surface on the earth we have, the more it will warm due to the Sun's energy (ice reflects, water absorbs). This argument is the biggest contributor to global warming hands down. You can say that greenhouse gasses, Industries, certain countries, COWS (which produce more pollution than cars) or whatever contributes to this, but you can't easily dispute that this concept is what affects the earth's climate more than anything else.
The melting of the icecaps creates more water which in turn, creates more surface area that will absorb the Sun's energy. It's no understatement that this could be a potentially serious problem yet, this same process has been going on for quite a long time. hrm.. maybe even since the Ice Age? It's a simple case of exponential law. I think you would be hard-pressed to find a scientist who would disagree that it wasn't all that long ago that the Earth was, in large part, covered in ice. This same process of warming the ocean is what has put us where we are today (livable conditions!). Some would argue that it's a cycle. A lot of the ' Global Warming' scare tactics out there do nothing but make the paranoid masses spend money to be more 'Green' (read: green = hip).
Many Celebs are hopping on the 'Green' train, spending unbelievable amounts of money modifying their homes to become more environmentally friendly'. But how much will it actually affect the Environment? I don't think I'm going out on a limb stating that these very minor adjustments in personal energy consumption will have any affect whatsoever, long or short term to the environment.
Personally, I think it's a matter of trends. Just like the Market auto-corrects itself, Mother Earth will also (to a certain extent anyway). Don't get me wrong, I'm all for being aware of your personal consumption of energy or anything else for that matter. Waste is well, ... wasteful. But I really don't think that even clamping down on all US companies and their CO2 output is enough to stop or even slow the melting of the icecaps. If you do that.. what will the 'Save the rain forests!' people say when the rain forests start dying from lack of CO2? Heck, China is polluting the atmosphere more than the US nowadays (as it should, since it is at their prime age of industrialism). Statistically, and scientifically speaking (Wootieously, of course), the growing surface area of all that blue stuff is a far more powerful contributor to Global Warming than all other factors combined. Yet many say that we find ourselves in this predicament due to industrialism over the decades. Everyone completely ignores the natural warming of the planet from the centuries of Ice covered land. Of course if it wasn't ignored it would pretty much make this whole post a mute point.
...Maybe all those wanna-be environmentalist Celebs could use their money to make a giant sunshade for the Polar Caps instead. That'd at least be addressing the real problem. But seriously, finding a way to weaken or dissolve the Greenhouse gases that are already in the troposphere is where we should be spending resources, if only to slow the process and make our lives a bit more cool. .. Although, that could cause drastic climate changes in the opposite direction also. ... If i have to choose, I'll take warming over cooling.
Hrm, maybe we should just let Mother Nature do what she does, while we silly humans try to somehow be more efficient with what's left of the World's resources. Realistically though, not by creating irrelevant fads, trends, or scare tactics like some of those 'green' ones among us. Buying a different lightbulb isn't going to do jack crap.