The Straw That Broke The Planet's Back
Mother Jones: Humans Can And Must Adapt To Stop Global Warming
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Play CBS Video Video PM Blair On Global Warming CBS News RAW: British Prime Minister Tony Blair explained a report regarding climate change and global warming. He called for "bold and decisive action" to keep things in check.
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Video Global Warming's Upside After a dozen of the hottest summers on record, the English wine country is flourishing. Mark Phillips reports that for some, global warming is a good thing.
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Video Boost In Global Warming Battle British businessman Richard Branson announced that he will donate $3 billion to find alternative energy sources in the fight against global warming. He spoke with Katie Couric.
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A section of the ice sheet covering much of Greenland is seen in this Aug. 17, 2005, file photo. Scientists say the ice is thinning and blame global warming, predicting a 3-foot rise in ocean levels by the end of the century through a combination of thermal expansion of the water and melting of polar ice. (AP)
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Interactive Eye On The Environment Find out how global warming, air pollution and alternative forms of energy impact our world.
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Interactive Global Warming The greenhouse effect, a look at the Kyoto Protocol and a history of the Earth's climate.
What if 12 asteroids were on collision courses with earth? What if we could alter their trajectories and save our planet by the cumulative effect of our individual efforts? What if science and history proved that we were fully capable of such heroism? What would it take to get us started?
John Schellnhuber, distinguished science advisor at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the United Kingdom, has identified 12 global warming tipping points, such as the deforestation of the Amazon rain forest or the melting of the west Antarctic ice sheet. Any of these, if triggered, will likely initiate sudden changes across the planet, as cataclysmic as any asteroid strike.
So what will it take to trigger what we might call the 13th tipping point, the shift from personal denial to personal responsibility? What will tip us toward addressing global warming with the urgency it deserves, as the mother of all threats to homeland security?
A 2005 study on Americans’ perceptions of global warming found that most are moderately concerned, but 68% believe the greatest threats are to people far away or to nonhuman nature — a dangerous and delusional misperception. Only 13% perceive risk to themselves, their families or their communities.
Many secretly perceive global warming to be an insoluble problem and respond by circling the family wagons and turning inward. Yet science shows that human beings are born with powerful tools for solving this quandary. We have the genetic smarts and the cultural smarts. We have the technological know-how. We even have the inclination.
The truth is we can change ourselves with breathtaking speed, sculpting even "immutable" human nature. Forty years ago many believed human nature mandated that blacks and whites live in segregation; 30 years ago human nature divided men and women into separate economies; 20 years ago human nature prevented us from defusing a global nuclear standoff, but in 1987 the U.S. and Soviet Union singed the INF agreement. Nowadays we blame human nature for the insolvable hazards of global warming.
Research out of the Max Planck Institute in Germany suggests how we might help ourselves evolve. We behave as better environmental citizens when educated about the science of global warming, and when our individual actions are visible to those around us — a phenomenon known as "social facilitation." Perhaps if we're vigorously informed of how global warming endangers our neighborhoods, we'll individually forego the McMansions and the Hummers and make other sustainable choices. Anything less compromises our children's future.
By Julia Whitty
© 2006 The Foundation for National Progress
Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."





Congratulations on joining the Gaia spirit of the Earth cult, but lets try to keep religeon out of this shall we. I was not spoon fed anything, and my I.Q. registers just below the genius level and higher that John Kerry's 120 if you insist on bringing things like this up. Clorides are supposed to destroy Ozone, and this principle led to the banning of CFCs(peak CFC production was 1.1 million tons of CFCs per year). Mount Tambora erupted in 1813 and it ejected 211 million tons of cloride into the atmosphere(taken from a book). This means that in one eruption of a volcano that more clorides that all the nations of the Earth would manufacture in about 200 years was belched into the atmosphere. There does not seem to be any lasting damage from this event. Nature contributes more than 95% of the CO2 going into the atmosphere, it does not sound like nature is hitting back, it is more like a first strike.
Are they right? Who knows. About as right as the studies above I guess. I have no intention of selling my car or leaving my comfe home to move to a cave with a few candles to save mankind, thats for sure!. The earth is better off without us.
When you have a science degree, come back & post. You are so full of c-r-a-p your eyes are brown.
exponential population growth,
accelerating demand on resources
past peak production of oil.
Put this together with no political will, right wing and fundamentalist kooks saying these issues are liberal lies and distortions it doesn't bode well for our grandchildren. In fact, cataclysmic economic collapse which leads to world wide political upheaval is far more likely than any solutions which maintain the status quo.
There is a wide range of excellent literature by knowledgeable scientists and academics which paints a gloomy picture. Virtually every time I suggest a book like this to people I know, I get dismissed. People just don%u2019t believe it. It%u2019s not in their face and they don%u2019t choose to look either. This message can%u2019t get pushed hard enough.
Of course the earth will survive. The insects and bacteria will be around long after we're gone. The question is though, is can WE survive with it?
If true, we have little "true religion" these days, judging by the Intelligent Design crowd.
In fact, it was the Christians under the auspices of the RCC that funded much of early science. It was because of professional jealousy by Galileo's fellow scientists that the RCC was used to attack him. Did you know that Newton wrote more on the Bible than he did on science? Care to guess why you weren't told that in science classes?
True religion has nothing to fear from the findings of true science.
As long as the politicos are under the thumb of Big Oil American will stay with its head in the sand.
- by Syndicate December 8, 2006 5:36 PM EST
- Global warming is natural phenomanon. It may be caused by humans it may not. Either way it is natural. It is what earthlings have done since their conception. Every creature that has ever lived has taken things from its environment and polluted. When people walk on a beach they do not see the pollution from other species. They think the sea shells are neat but they are trash. Discarded by some carless earthling who no longer needed it. Without the pullutant oxygen we would have never been able to evolve. Without the co2 pollution caused by microbes the earth would have long frozen over. Who are we to enterfere with nature. Fighting global warming is a sefish act by humans. It is a matter of human survival that drives us not the good of the planet. It is the possible loss of our valuable realestate that makes us take notice. Not the loss of coral reefs. Earth will do what earth does it will survive and it will flourish long after we are gone. We should stop fooling ourselfs the planet does not need to be saved we do.
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