Global Warming

In the year 2006, Al Gore came out with a film called An Inconvenient Truth. I myself am a big fan of horror movies, but this one in particular left me more scared than ever before. An Inconvenient Truth was a documentary about global warming, which was, before the film, widely considered a nut-head idea. Al Gore, through his film, told us how quickly and irrevocably we are going downhill.

After I watched that film and a special hosted by Tom Brokaw, my family started calling me the Light Nazi. I followed people around and turned off all the lights when the left a room. I insisted we keep the house very cold and just put on an extra sweater. I unplug the TV and computer when I know we’re going out for the evening or a weekend or something. The changes I was making around the house were small and easy to become accustomed to, but they won’t be enough to change the world.

Massive heat waves, severe drought, devastating hurricanes. Everyone remembered Hurricane Katrina; it’s not an easy thing to forget. Now scientists are predicting that in the near future they’ll have to invent a new category of hurricane and we can expect more earthquakes the size of the San Fransisco Quake of 1906. Melting polar ice cap, rising sea level, wildfires, coastal erosion, dying coral reefs, polar bear extinction, rising ocean temperatures, melting permafrost. By 2026 the earth’s temperature will have risen two degrees Celcius, which will destroy much of the ocean’s coral and therefore its ecology.

For now, it is enough to use energy efficient light bulbs and turn the house down a few degrees, but not for long. CO2 emissions are rising at an alarming rate; America generates between 40 and 50 billion metric tons a year. Don’t treat global warming as if its some crackpot story. Act. Turn off the lights, lower the thermostat, walk or ride your bike instead of driving. Ask your parents to replace your light bulbs with something more environmentally friendly. Because unless we can find some awesome planet out there in the universe that we can all move to, this is all we’ve got.

I'd say the main problem with An Inconvenient Truth is that it only portrays a worst case scenario, without much consideration for the many, and more likely, other outcomes of climate change.

Having said that, I think it's great that you're trying to lower your energy consumption. It doesn't require a lot of effort, and if everyone did it, could really go towards helping combat climate change.

Mm. An Inconvenient Truth was decent as a promotional Al Gore flick... but it was less than good as a documentary. It really does obsess over the worst case scenario, and doesn't take into account many pieces of evidence that indicate climate change is not a one-way ticket to the end of the world.

The good thing about it, though, was that it encourages people to save energy and preserve the environment... Which are always good ideas. I just think people should do those things because they are good ideas, not because a politician is saying there will be astoundingly horrible consequences otherwise.

And --

An Inconvenient Truth was a documentary about global warming, which was, before the film, widely considered a nut-head idea.

No, people were serious about it before the movie. It's just that this movie presented it in a very marketable format.

Bah, global warming is still a "nut-head idea", as you called it. The Earth goes through phases of global warming and global cooling. We just happen to be in an upswing.

That being said, I do use energy efficient light bulbs and recycle and all that other junk that will supposedly "stop" global warming, but I only do this because I like the light emitted from EELBs, and I recycle because I was told to by teachers from kindergarten through sixth grade.

And now something that actually relates to your essay: it's great that you want your opinion to be known. This was well written, well thought out, and will ultimately convince like-minded people to be a little more cautious with their lifestyles.

I just have to say this:

I live in a portion of Texas that hasn't seen snow since New Year's Eve of 2001. On Saturday, the day before Easter, it snowed. In East Texas. So it's clear why I have trouble with this whole global warming concept. I think Al Gore's an alarmist, but that's another talk for another day. Enough with my ranting.

Concerning the essay: It was well-written. You were conversational without losing professionalism, which I think is always a good thing in this type of debate, where too much talk about geology is liable to put your audience to sleep. A nice piece; I especially enjoyed the brevity. Had this been a 1000 word essay, you would have lost me after the first paragraph. Thanks for the read!

I think just because it snowed doesn't prove anything wrong. Along with Global Warming comes drastic weather changes, not just heat waves. Al Gore's video does portray a 'worst case scenario'...but guess what, we aren't doing anything to stop this from happening so unless we do this worst case scenario is going to become a reality.

Al Gore's video did not just magically alarm everyone in the world about Global Warming, it simply brought it home. Government agencies have been very aware of the affects of global warming for decades--the problem is getting them to do anything about it. This problem mainly consists of three parts: the U.S., China, and third world countries.

The U.S. and China (I'm pretty sure it's China, I know the U.S. for sure) are the only two countries who refuse to sign a bill promising to lower their carbon emissions a certain amount by a certain year. In fact, I hear now that there is a new bill up for grabs that is something like 80% by 2050. China would have a hell of a time doing this with their over-population and hightec environment. But even after this, we have the problem of thirdworld countries, which is basically where the North says "I know we have so much more than you do but we've destroyed the planet by doing so and now you can never develop inorder to save it." Sheeze, that sucks.

It has become extremely obvious these last couple years that Global Warming is actually an issue and not a made-up scenario. First with Hurrican Katrina, as stated before, the Indian Tsunami, there have been record highs all over the place, where I live we never have tornadoes but we had tornado warnings out the butt last summer, we're seeing drastic weather changes all over the world going fon 83 to snowing overnight. The newest development is that Honey Bees are dying off and no one knows why--which is, of course, a threat to our honey source but even more it screws up the entire foodchain and pollunation.

And what kills me about this is I bet if all the icecaps melted, Bush would still keep the troops in Iraq. >.> Rant over.

Flemzo: Apparently it's only a nut-head idea within the American public. In England, it's been well established for a long time.

Within the scientific community - including Climate Scientists (who actually understand the science behind it all) - it's been well established for a couple of decades now.

And although the Earth does certainly go through natural changes, no known natural stimuli can cause the temperature changes we are currently seeing. CO2, which is known to be an extremely potent greenhouse gas, is increasing in the atmosphere, and has been since the Industrial Revolution.

When such CO2 sinks as the ocean are taken into consideration, the ammount of CO2 up there seems to correlate with the ammount we're pumping out. Because of this, scientists have concluded that it is humans that are causing the changes.


Areida: 'Global Warming' actually means a mean increase in global temperature, not local. In other words, many places on the Earth will actually get colder, and some won't change at all. Many scientists now call it 'Climate Change' or 'Global Climate Change' instead, to avoid confusion.


P.S. No offence to anyone who does, but I will personally shoot the next person who calls it 'Al Gore's Global Warming Theory'.

(Psst... this is a place to critique, not debate. )

This was a fairly interesting piece... not really an essay, but it definitely reminded me of a column of a newspaper, which is always good. One suggestion for you:

"After I watched that film and a special hosted by Tom Brokaw, my family started calling me the Light Nazi."

I think you should expand on the special hosted by Tom Brokaw. What did he say? How did he influence you? That way, it would give your story more back-up information.

Psst. I was thinking that. But, my global warming rants take over any form of critiques lol.

Personally, I don't think it should take a massive striking fear of "Armageddon will come sooner if you don't conserve energy!" to make people do that, everyone should so it because it makes the world that much better of a place to live in. The American public, however, is reluctant to accept this fact because they are too engrossed in making money out of Hummers and other fuel-consuming behemoths. Wouldn't it be nice to see a whole army of cars that run on air cruising down the highway instead of those? I think so.

Either review the piece or take it to the debate forum.