Debate Global Warming

There is a great global warming debate brewing. Global warming is increasingly a top concern during elections. Global warming is becoming a daily topic of newspapers as well. Some call global warming a hoax, with good reason. Others call global warming a catastrophe in waiting, with good reason.

A close look at the articles in the many newspapers, magazines, television reports, and Internet postings will show you quickly that the global warming debate is a very hotly contested debate. There is a lot at stake in this debate. For those who believe sincerely in everything written about the truth of global warming as a coming catastrophe, changes must be made immediately in the way everyone lives and interacts with the environment. For those who believe this is all a global warming hoax, the attacks on their lifestyles and industries threaten everything they care about in life over something that may not even be true or ever come about.

It can be a great deal of fun to read the many articles on this debate from the open-minded perspective of someone with an unformed opinion. You will see that both sides exaggerate and twist things to an almost hilarious degree in a sincere effort to convert the rest of the world to the view they hold. Many use science. Many abuse science. It is hard most of the time to pick out which of the arguments are based on the most truth. It is clear that the global warming debate is a cloudy issue for even the brightest people. More time is spent in global warming debate than in problem solving.

Even the scientific community with all of its measuring devices to provide rational, exact figures, can't seem to agree on which figures to measure or how they correlate and what they mean in the global warming debate. It is perhaps this confusion that most hamstrings any efforts to bring reconciliation and a mutual goal to maintain life as we know it.

They all seem to agree on central issues such as the importance of protecting the environment, yet focus on issues such as whether global warming is a hoax or a real catastrophe in waiting. Perhaps that is all that we as outsiders in the scientific community can take from the debate. Perhaps we should take it upon ourselves to take care of the environment around us and the resources entrusted in us to the best of our individual abilities, and let nature and politics take care of the rest. But, we can look forward to more and more of the global warming debate in the mean time.