To the Global Warming "skeptics" out there. . .

Even if you take away the devastating effects of accelerated climate change on an already battered Earth, the ecological footprint we leave from our industries, from our personal electrical usage, from our lifestyles that require cars and other pollution makers, is still wreaking havoc with the environment. Need proof? Go running in Beijing. Go find a nice quiet spot by a lake and drink deeply, then get a blood test to see how much lead, arsenic, or heavy metals you've just ingested.

Check out some places (Washington State, New Jersey, New York, see if there's one near you - check out the NPL's and see how many are contaminated with hexavalent chromium, lead, or arsenic) that are Superfund sites, then go drink lots of water nearby - see how you feel. Actually, I don't want you to do that, you might get cancer. I know, it's a silly notion that you could get cancer from hexavalent chromium or arsenic, right? Who in the hell would expose themselves to that willingly? Let me just drink some tap water and. . .

Sorry. There's more to it than just cancer. There's also emphysema and asthma, which during days of poor air quality (hmm, just yesterday in southern New Jersey) become acute. It's mostly about the ozone levels on hot, humid days in urban or suburban settings. Nothing like a little respiratory failure to indicate how we're progressing as a society.

The National Resource Defense Council (http://www.nrdc.org/health/effects/fasthma.asp) site several causes of asthma exacerbation, including: Ground Level Ozone, which is a toxic component of smog and created when tailpipe emissions react with sunlight and oxygen; Sulfer Dioxide, which is a by-product of coal buringin power plants (20% of Americans live within 10 miles of a coal burning power plant); particulate matter like ash, wood, sprays, smoke, soot, dust, diesel emissions, and this impacts the quality of life for 81 million people (approx); and Nitrogen Oxide, a gas emitted from tailpipes, factories, and is a contributing factor to smog and ground-level ozone. All of these factors can worsen asthma or trigger an attack, even if you don't suffer from the disease. Why not be one of the lucky 5000 that die each year from an asthma attack triggered by a bad air day?

Air quality has improved, according to the NRDC, over the past two decades in some
areas, but there is still a lot of work to do. While it is a contributing factor, like superfund sites and water contaminators, to bringing down the health quotient, it has also been linked to climate change (http://epa.gov/climatechange). Even our own government, which has been openly hostile to our environment (see here, here, and here), recognizes climate change as looming and has a policy in place to slow, if not stop it. But Christie Whitman (who was no environmental angel), Julie McDonald, and Dick Cheney are just the tip of the ever-melting iceberg. They were just following an agenda followed by so many, even those with no power, like individuals who have been led to believe that because they have found "proof" that Global Warming science might be bad, it gives them free reign to discount anything anyone might say about the environment that goes against established talking points.

While some scientists question results and hypotheses, claiming faulty data or faulty science or some other conspiracy. Of course, Orson Scott Card, a science fiction writer, playwright, and member of the Church of Latter Day Saints, wrote an opinion piece about the faulty data of global warming makes it a "religion of lies", which is used by those opposed to global warming as "slam dunk" evidence against it. The anti-global warming groups (AGWG's) like to pretend that one piece of evidence discounts the mountains of pro-evidence, as if a minor shred; "Several European and American scientists say that data from the European Space Agency's Soho satellite and other astronomical data show that the Sun, not Man's burning of fossil fuels, is the main cause of the global warming that occurred between 1850 and the mid-20th century." This claim, unsupported in the articel referenced, has been touted as evidence that man is not at fault for Global Warming, and therefore, it would not be a necessity to wean ourselves off of the teat of fossil fuels. While the AGWG's (and anti-global warming individuals) make big claims of these small hypotheses, they are greener (in experience) in their scientific methodology and their refutations of data cannot be taken as any serious conception.

But the true fact of the matter is, the refutations do not disprove the data that air quality, water quality, and environment have all taken major downturns since the onset of the Industrial Revolution and have barely crept back up to decent standards. Many facets of our personal lifestyles, as well as those of our neighbors, have impacts - great and small - on our fragile ecosystem, habitats, and overal environment. Even if the sun, and not man, were solely responsible for any shift in climate, it would not explain the health issues that arise from pollutants in the air, the water, the ground, and in our bodies, which slowly leach our lives from us and decay us from the inside out.

-Brett

(a repost, but the content is mine)