Relief: The majority of Americans believe that global warming is real.
This is a relief, that number has gone up significantly in the past two years. Partially due to the political climate as well as the loads of information out there debunking the denier's claims.
How does global warming work?
The Earth's atmosphere acts as a blanket, it traps in heat from the sun which is necessary in order to sustain life. We couldn't live on a planet without a greenhouse effect producing atmosphere. However when heightened levels of CO2 are emitted in the atmosphere this causes the "blanket" to thicken, allowing for more heat to get trapped.
Is global warming man-made?
This is where the deniers are staunchly in disagreement with 75% of the scientific community. Most people accept climate change as a truth, but that is a loaded sentence. Because I don't think there could be a single reason to deny changing climate, it happens yearly on a regular basis, however if you ask the same people how many of them believe in global warming, the number will change. Especially if you ask if they think it was caused by man.
During the ice age, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was at 180-210 ppm, during hot periods it was at 280-300ppm. That is natural climate change. However, after the industrial revolution it is at 390ppm. That means by just the burning of fossil fuels since the industrial revolution, we've raised the CO2 levels almost as much as the transition between a global ice age and regular hotter climates. That is a stunningly drastic change. CO2 emissions are important naturally because they regular the Earth's ice age cycles. The entire scientific community agrees that burning fossil fuels and gas causes the atmosphere to heat up.
Why the denial?
There is geopolitical gain, for starters the average Joe that denies man-made climate change is basically indoctrinated by their favorite conservative talk radio personality to doubt the evidence behind it without further examination, partially due to the paranoia and conspirator mindset that the government will add more regulations and controls due to this "false flag" scenario. It is easier to just deny the whole thing as a fraud than to risk any personal freedoms being taken away. Now, there is some rationality to this push back, radicals on the left think taking drastic precautions is necessary for the environment while others wish to use these drastic changes for their own geopolitical gain. The deniers will fall on their own merit and lack of evidence. Those claiming that global warming is a hoax use, useless facts about Al Gore (which have nothing to do with the scientific evidence.) or keep repeating the war cry "There is no evidence for it!" When in fact, there is.
See, the issue here (as noted in an earlier post) is that we are not only capable of believing things without reason or evidence, but for the same reasons we are also capable of rejecting reality and evidence for no reason than our own desire not to. Denying evidence when there is evidence is the same as making false claims based on no evidence.
How can global warming be solved without taking away my freedoms?
Well luckily we have new technologies, for instance, electric cars will be at the forefront of solving a lot of are carbon emission levels. We also have many climatologists and research scientists looking into ways to alter Earth's atmosphere, we have safe and clean nuclear power technology and many other alternatives to conveniently reduce CO2 in our atmosphere while also adding cost effective energy into the global economy. The problem is political shenannigans. Companies that make billions on the sale of fossil fuels and other dirty energy sources will do whatever they can to stay in business. To them, their goals are not about the future of the planet, but the future of their paychecks. (Every company is the same in this regard, they just seem evil because it's currently an issue.) Acting to conserve old business practices and manipulating the information to keep things unchanged in the economy is self defeating for any business professional. You must be versatile and be willing to invite new technology and trends into your business model. If you know that the burning of fossil fuels will one day be obsolete, it is smart to take pains to prepare now for additional ways to profit on the sale of cleaner fuels and energy. While a good portion of oil companies are taking pains to do so, there is a lot that aren't, they are merely spending the extra dollars to advertise their changed image on offering cleaner solutions, this doesn't solve the initial problem, it is only a band-aid. There is a way to safely solve the global climate crisis without unfair business regulations and taking away individual freedoms.
Why does it matter?
We are half way through our Sun's lifespan. Earth should be around half way through it's life span, averaging at a little over. We are on the brink of destroying the only planet we have and need for every person and species we know to exist. I would say that grave dangers are more imperative than whether or not a few companies fail or succeed. We live in a free market and we have to play by the rules and be the best in order to succeed, if a company doesn't want to play by the rules or innovate to get ahead of the marketplace then those companies will surely fail on their own merits. It is not up to us to adjust the conditions in which something fails or succeeds but to simply allow the chips to fall on their own merit, in doing so, we will give birth to renewable energy offered at highly competitive pricing which will drastically better the environment. There are no other options at this point in time, something must be done to protect our only home. The alternatives are far out of sight, the nearest star system to us is 4.2 light years away and has no known Earth-like planet in its vicinity. So far the nearest Earth-like life sustainable planets that we have discovered are more than 1,200 light years away. Even if we had a perfect Earth planet 4.2 light years away it would still take us 20,000 years to get their due to our current highest speed of space travel we've achieved, of course a giant ship containing humans in space that long would move a lot slower. The radiation levels in space is also a major setback in long term space travel. There are thousands of issues to solve and new discoveries to be made before we could say that our capabilities are that advanced. So as far as we know, we don't have any other available options than to make Earth the most habitable we can make it. It is everyone's responsibility so long as each of those individuals selfishly want themselves and their offspring to survive.
Denying man-made climate change will only damage our situation more and bring up new generations under a scientific denying umbrella at the most crucial time in humanity's history in which scientists have never been more needed to solve the every day and future issues that humanity faces.
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