2008 Woodie Awards
Weekly Discourse: Are man's emission of greenhouse gases a cause of global warming?
Eric Feld
Issue date: 2/8/07 Section: Op/Ed
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The global warming debate is over. There is no "other side" of the coin amongst the scientific community. On Fri., Feb. 2, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that consists of several hundred of the world's best and brightest scientific authorities, issued its latest report stating a 90% probability that human activity and our related carbon emissions are causing global warming and the ensuing climate crisis. For scientists, this translates to a smoking gun. The IPCC also concluded that there is less than a 5% probability that the forces causing the earth to warm are completely natural.
It is essential to be mindful that global warming and climate change are not political issues as many lawmakers and energy companies would care for us to believe. Those who accept the reality that humans are causing global warming are not necessarily "liberal" or even "Democrats." At the same time, it is not "conservative" or "Republican" to believe otherwise. Rather, it is simply foolish and na've to deny or downplay humanity's role in causing the drastic climatic changes on our planet through global warming. The only debate, in fact, is that which is perpetuated by the media and the energy companies that pay top dollar for news coverage and advertisements to promote the idea that there is even another side to the issue.
There is no time to waste debating what is already known. In an age where talk of battling terrorism is commonplace, we have the opportunity to battle global warming as the greatest terror threat of all. When the Department of Homeland Security receives word of a threat of terror, they do not sit around debating whether it is a valid, serious threat or what it might actually be instead. Immediate action is taken to preserve human life, because it is the morally responsible course of action. By the same logic, the world's top experts all agree upon the impending terror that will be caused through global warming. If we have all of the scientific knowledge about how to predict when, where and how these terror warnings will likely come true, shouldn't we be acting upon them instead of debating their value as a threat? Or is the value of humanity worth less than the quarterly profits of ExxonMobil?
It is essential to be mindful that global warming and climate change are not political issues as many lawmakers and energy companies would care for us to believe. Those who accept the reality that humans are causing global warming are not necessarily "liberal" or even "Democrats." At the same time, it is not "conservative" or "Republican" to believe otherwise. Rather, it is simply foolish and na've to deny or downplay humanity's role in causing the drastic climatic changes on our planet through global warming. The only debate, in fact, is that which is perpetuated by the media and the energy companies that pay top dollar for news coverage and advertisements to promote the idea that there is even another side to the issue.
There is no time to waste debating what is already known. In an age where talk of battling terrorism is commonplace, we have the opportunity to battle global warming as the greatest terror threat of all. When the Department of Homeland Security receives word of a threat of terror, they do not sit around debating whether it is a valid, serious threat or what it might actually be instead. Immediate action is taken to preserve human life, because it is the morally responsible course of action. By the same logic, the world's top experts all agree upon the impending terror that will be caused through global warming. If we have all of the scientific knowledge about how to predict when, where and how these terror warnings will likely come true, shouldn't we be acting upon them instead of debating their value as a threat? Or is the value of humanity worth less than the quarterly profits of ExxonMobil?