Post #244074 by Swanky on Thu, Jul 20, 2006 8:19 AM

I am not 100% convinced for a couple of reasons.

Though we imagine the air is all filthy, the real truth is that it is cleaner than ever. Water too. We are more and more concerned about these things and less tolerant of things that were not on the radar 50 years ago. One simply needs to look back to the turn of the century when every house was heated with coal and major cities would be so dark in mid-day that you thought it was night to know that a lot has changed. Granted, the US is not the whole world. But, even those developing nations are using technology that is far cleaner than anything available decades ago. So, we may have more industry and people, but we likely pollute less than our forefathers.

Secondly, what we humans do may well be a tiny drop in the bucket to what nature itself does. I have read studies that show there are climate changing effects caused by the rock formations in the Himilayas. That the exposed rock faces there change over time and its effects on the air are gigantic. The ocean, the life in the ocean, the deserts and mountains. All these things effect our world in ways far mightier than factories and power plants. Ways we may not be looking into and may certainly not be able to alter.

I worked in an EPA enviroment, monitoring polution from power plants. The truth is, emmisions are dropping. We pollute less than we did 10 years ago and twenty years ago.

I remain unconvinced that we know the true causes or answers, only symptoms. And, it may well be that if we did everything wanted by the advocates of global warming, we might see no change whatsoever. Man may simply be a rather insignificant piece of a larger world issue.