Thursday, July 07, 2005

Is Global Warming Always Bad?

According to the Official G8 website there are two topics that are going to be in the forefront of this years G8 summit: Africa and climate change. I think we can all agree that Africa needs some help. Thousands of people are dying from AIDS in the countries of Africa and most of the countries are way behind development wise. Not only is what's happening over there terrible but its an open wound for the rest of the world too, when the world community tries to move ahead technologically and agriculturally, but Africa is holding us back. We might not agree on how to help Africa but I think everybody agrees that they need help.
But what about this Climate Change business? Is the globe really warming? They say that its risen 0.6° over the last 100 years. "Wow, that's not very much. Why should I care", you might say. Well,supposabley one or two degrees is enough to melt a lot of the ice caps and cause water levels to rise flooding port cities and causing a whole host of global weathercatastrophe'ss. But are all the affects of global warming bad? Is there perhaps some advantages to global warming? Some seem to think so. This article, Is Global Warming Always Bad?, provides some interesting insight into global warming. Here are some quotes:
Alarming news often leads to government funding... Good news threatens that arrangement.
How could there be such a disconnection between a computer simulation and reality? Why don't scientists check for this before they publish their papers?
In the first warming, 45 percent of Kilimanjaro's ice cap disappeared. When the planet subsequently cooled, it lost another 21 percent. In the recent warming, another 12 percent has gone, the slowest rate of loss in the last 100 years.
The fact is that Kilimanjaro's glaciers vary greatly, with or without global warming.
While I don'tnecessarilyy thing that we shouldn't consider that global warming could be a treat, its always good to look at things in a balance perspective.

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