Given the movie we went to see tonight, we actually should have walked!
We went to see An Inconvenient Truth, which is a documentary by Al Gore on the global warming crisis. Parking was horrendous in the Santana Row shopping center. We wasted 25 minutes circling parking lots and the garage before finding a space. If we had walked the two miles from home, that would have taken 40 minutes and been better for us!
This movie contains some of the most important information about the risk posed to our planet and future. It’s based on solid scientific data, and while delivering it’s message is not sensational. I didn’t leave feeling despair. I left the theater motivated to take action to reduce my contributions to global warming. There’s also an excellent website with resources at this site. I’m going to learn more about CFL lightbulbs and purchase some. This is but one of the many small changes that can make a significant difference. Go see this movie!
Speaking as a geophysicist and with environmental concern as one of my major sensitivities, I recommend that a more balanced view of global warming can be realized by reading the recent book by William Ruddiman, also a geophysicist. Put briefly, he points out (1) that the astronomical driving forces which produce periodic ice ages call for us to be in an ice age right now; (2) the Greenland ice core atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane gas analysis shows that the rise in these gases has been proceeding more rapidly since 8000 years B.P. than was the case as the earth emerged from earlier ice ages; (3) the rise of these gases from 8000 B.P. to about 200 B.P. can be correlated to the emergence of cultivated agriculture by humans, and human populations, globally, and to the deforestation associated with wood for cooking, heating, and settlement construction; (4) indeed, there is a rise in these gases due to the burning of coal, a sharper rise due to the burning of oil, and a still sharper rise due to the burning of natural gas, and the escape of natural gas from petroleum reservoirs; (5) the depletion of fossil fuels over the next 100 years will be followed by a trend of greenhouse gas reduction; (6) the present protection from the astronomically-driven ice age will vanish in about 150 years; (7) luckily the astronomically-driven ice age forces will begin a natural warming/melting trend at just about that time. So it appears that the human race, unwittingly, has defeated the onset of an ice age. In my opinion, the reversal of the present global warming is impossible, from a practical standpoint, and the main task for the human race is to optimally adapt to it. This means moving human settlements farther away from low-lying land/ocean boundaries, for example. Have a read on Ruddiman’s book and form your own opinion!
Thanks, Kathryn, for recommending this film; I would not have it on my “see” list except for you mentioning it here. And thanks to William Sackinger, I will also look into the Wm. Ruddiman book.
Gee, I didn’t have anything nearly as deep to share as your other commenter…just that I’m looking forward to seeing the film. 🙂 (Jeffrey had some gigs at Santana Row last month…I’ve never been there.)
Your post title reminds me of this one:
vegetarian: Native American word for “lousy hunter”.