I confess; I jazzed the title up a bit — but only a little, because while the end of the world isn’t imminent, it appears that the effects of global warming are going to bring some massive changes:
CANBERRA (Reuters) – Rising temperatures will leave millions more people hungry by 2080 and cause critical water shortages in China and Australia, as well as parts of Europe and the United States, according to a new global climate report.
By the end of the century, climate change will bring water scarcity to between 1.1 and 3.2 billion people as temperatures rise by 2 to 3 Celsius (3.6 to 4.8 Fahrenheit), a leaked draft of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report said.
Not only that, but the report apparently has a very grim outlook for Australia… but hey! That’s okay! At least it’s not Texas, where it’s all about us:
Listen all you tree-hugging, Science class loving, eco-friendly people out there.
I don’t want to hear about how the earth’s temperature is heating up year after year, or how someday there won’t be any more icebergs or glaciers in the oceans.
I don’t care if the effect is more tornadoes and hurricanes, or if the cute little penguins lose their habitat. What about my habitat, huh? It’s been in the thirties and forties for two solid weeks in Texas. In Texas.
The above is lifted from the Houston Chronicle’s SciGuy blog, where Eric Berger has helpfully scanned and shared a column from Hearne, Texas’ local rag. Eric’s right to hope this is satire… but I doubt it, and evidently Eric doubts it too:
Ok, so you want to be a little skeptical about global warming. That’s fine if you’re willing to consider the scientific evidence. But I fear that a combination of willful ignorance (i.e., “It’s cold out now, so global warming is a farce”) and blind devotion to politics (i.e., “Al Gore’s an idiot, and so’s anyone who believes in global warming.”) will lead a lot of Americans to simply bypass global warming entirely.
To wit, in the survey, about 18 percent of conservatives view global warming as a serious problem, and 73 percent of liberals do.
Combine this with the depressing survey telling us that 13% of Americans have never even heard of global warming (unbelievable), and we’ve got the makings of yet another political brouhaha.
Sadly, this one (like the current Iraq crisis), seems to boil down to, “Who’s fault is it?”, and Eric’s observations about the impact of blind devotion to politics is bang on [original emphasis]:
Hmmm. Now, for those familiar with simple arithmetic principles, if 50 percent believe there is a link between global warming and human activities, but Americans are least convinced, this means that more than 50 percent of Americans aren’t buying into Al Gore and the media’s nonsense.
As is most often the case, there’s some truth to both sides of the equation, but whether human activities are the sole cause or not is moot.
The problem is real, there are things we can do to mitigate the impact… and moaning about the cold in Texas, or Al Gore, surely aren’t among them.
Get a coat, downsize your car, and quit whining.