Ripley's Believe It or Not: Global Warming

It is supposed to snow today here in Boston. It is October 27. The only time I remember snow earlier was on October 18, 2009.* Now seems like a good time to talk about global warming and why some people refuse to believe it.

This post has nothing to do with politics – it has to do with ignorance. How do I know that? First, we have the greatest scientific minds telling us this is happening. They are showing us pictures of the ozone layer and it is clearly shrinking. Second, every time there is an unusually warm day in winter there are thousands of people who start sarcastically spouting off about how that definitively proves there is global warming. They just don’t get it.

An Inconvenient Truth was a huge step forward for the global community to understand what was happening. I’m sure many people didn’t like that Al Gore was attached to it (making it a political issue) but it was impossible to deny the facts. Gore didn’t do the research; he was just the face of the project. He had professional climatologists putting together legitimate figures and he simply presented them to the public. To call that political is to ignore the whole point.

There is no need to classify the type of people who fall into this category. It can be anyone, anywhere. I am just not sure why these people don’t believe it. I suppose it can be frightening to not have control over something but that doesn’t mean you pretend it’s not there. (Whether people believe in Heaven or not they still believe in death.) Maybe they just don’t like people telling them what to think or do. A Big Brother-type government giving them false information to control and change how they live (restrict gas/oil emissions to lessen carbon footprint).

The thing is there are multiple signs found in nature pointing to an ongoing, Earth-altering change:
• False-color images of the ozone shrinking over time
• The global temperature rising over the past few decades
• Huge ice sheets falling off icebergs and the Antarctica shelf into the ocean
• Numerous species of animals migrating further and further north each year

I guess what this really comes down to is whether you believe this is happening or not everyone needs to make an effort to slow down the process and hopefully turn it around. We are all in the same boat and even if you don’t believe it is sinking, you probably don’t want to toss any water inside.


*Why would I remember that date? Because the Patriots were massacring the Titans 59-0.