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10:20:00 AM EDT
Environmentalism Must Change
Bill McKibben Makes His Case: The August issue of National Geographic contains an essay by Bill McKibben entitled "A Deeper Shade of Green." McKibben is a leading environmental writer and author of eight books, including 'The End of Nature.'
His new essay explains the current crisis of climate change, provides a brief history of environmentalism in America and suggests how environmentalism must change in order to confront global warming.
His tone is moderate and pragmatic. Yes, fossil fuels are wondrous things, efficient sources of energy that drove the Industrial Revolution, created a robust world economy and boosted the standard of living way up in the developed world.
But fossil fuels have created the global warming crisis. Some scientists say we have 10 years to try to reduce our carbon emissions significantly and slow down the warming. If we don't, the results could be catastrophic.
McKibben argues that we need to think differently when making decisions about building houses, producing and buying food, and more. He writes, "We need to stop asking, Will this make the economy larger? Instead, we need to start asking, Will this pour more carbon into the atmosphere? "
Environmentalism is not dead, he says, but it must change to become a more cultural movement, one that builds community with evangelicals who want to preserve God's creation, one that acknowledges people's desires to lead good and secure lives. There's a green way to keep a high standard of living and yet reduce our impact on the climate and environment.
Read his essay and post your thoughts here. Do you agree with him?
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To bad our "experts" on global warming don't investigate the known facts of why we have had countless ice ages in the past and what caused these 20,000 year cycles.
If they did they would have to find another cause to worry and fabricate facts about. We know by reading the existing geological evidence that the oceans have risen and fallen over 400 ft many times in the past and we know about the evidence of glaciation. We also know why this happens. It because the earth's axis is not stable but wobbles towards the sun for half a 20,000 year cycle causing the earth to absorb more direct sunlight which warms the earth This is the half cycle we have just ended. We will now spend the nesx 10,000 years slowly tilting away from the sun(in the Northern Hemisphere) and will have less direct rays reaching the earth causing it to cool. At the end of that cyle we will be covered once again by glaciers.
There are other synerios that might change this cycle. A large ice block of the Gulf Stream could cause drastic cooling in the northen hemisphere. Excess ice accumulation on one of the poles could cause the existing pole to shift of as the weight of the ice cause the earth to wobble so severly that it "Flip Flops ' another interesting Theory with some powerful facts to support it. That fact that we even consider man's minute contribution to golbal warming relevent is a hoot.
Co2 levels have stayed the same since early Egyption time as proven by air samples taken from sealed tombs and other vessels. So now we ne to worry about Methane. Tomorrow it will be some other PHD"S worthless study -
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9/10/06 7:51 PM
Better yet she is probably going to just going drowned all of us so you better get yourself boat :-)
And if got mad about this statement oh well life is hard and not everything is rainbows and cup cakes... If your pissed stop buying gas and everything else that uses oil... Believe me oil is everywhere and in eveythingm, life would suck without it.... Better stop using the keyboard... Its made of oil... :-) and all kinds of other stuff thats bad for the planet...