Common Sense Observations

Global Warming For Laymen

The United Nations Climate Change Conference will begin in Copenhagen on December 7, 2009. The two week long conference is being held so that world leaders can discuss possible solutions to global warming. At the forefront of the meetings will be discussions on how to limit further emissions of the most notorious of greenhouse gasses, carbon dioxide (CO₂). Despite recent pledges from China and the United States, I don’t hold much hope for any real progress at the conference. My pessimism begins with the date selected for the conference – December 7. If that date sounds familiar, it is because it is one of the most infamous in American history: Pearl Harbor Day.

I completely understand why so many Americans are not convinced that man made global warming is real. Both sides of this controversial topic have scientists in their corner touting that faction’s point of view on global warming – and backing it with copious ‘scientific data.’ Heck, it’s all but impossible to even wade through all of it, much less understand it. I am the proverbial layman – as most of you are. And like you, I really want to know the truth of global warming. Take heart, I figured it out for us – in laymen’s terms – and now I’ll share my inescapable conclusions.

Man made Global warming is indeed really happening. Here’s how I know this to be so. Earth is contained within an envelope that we call our atmosphere. The atmosphere (air) is held to the earth by gravity. There are no vents in the atmosphere, no windows and no doors. It’s sealed. Down on earth we have a huge air filtration system in the form of vegetation. Are you with me so far? Nothing too complicated about these facts at all. So let’s make a global warming comparison that’s easier to see and work with than the entire planet and its atmosphere.

It’s the dead of winter and you’re hosting a wedding reception at your house. According to the guest list, there will be four cigarette smokers attending the event so you rent an air cleaner and centrally locate it in your home. The doors and windows will have to remain closed due to the cold weather. The guests all arrive and sure enough, four of them light up cigarettes right away. Despite the efficient and hard working air filter, the guests throughout the entire house soon smell cigarette smoke. But the air filter keeps the odors and visible smoke to a minimum.

An hour after the reception kicks off, three guests stroll into the smoking area and light up cigars. Ten minutes later, five people who were not listed as cigarette smokers light up. Ten minutes after that, two more cigars get fired up, and now three pipe smokers join the smoky festivities. The entire house now fills with the acrid smells of tobacco smoke. Fifteen minutes later, visible smoke hangs in the air halfway to the floor from the ceiling. Non-smokers start to have difficulty breathing, and even the smokers are starting to be bothered by the ever thickening smoke. Everyone’s eyes start to itch and water.

Like the sealed house with an air filter, our sealed earth atmosphere will indeed fill up with our waste gas products, and eventually our filters won’t be able to handle it. We’ve been at the point where earth’s filtration system can no longer handle the amount of greenhouse gas we pump into the atmosphere every day for some time now. And yet, more and more smokers keep entering the room: factories, refineries, cars, trucks, aircraft, etc.

To add to the now clearly demonstrated problem, we are constantly shutting down air cleaners on earth. Every time we clear vegetation, we reduce earth’s ability to filter our air and thus promote global warming. So, while we keep increasing the amount of greenhouse gas we produce, we also continuously reduce earth’s ability to properly filter it out of our precious air. It would be like turning down the air filter in the smoky house, even as more and more smokers lit up.

The only remaining question is: do greenhouse gasses (gasses which trap heat between the earth and space) affect the earth’s temperature? To answer that, you need only sit inside a sealed car on a sunny day – without the air conditioner running. Even if it’s only 80°F outside, the temperature inside of the car will rapidly rise to over 100°F. That’s because the sealed car, like greenhouse gasses, stops the hot air from escaping. It’s global warming on a tiny scale.

So, a) man made greenhouse gasses do in fact collect in our atmosphere and b) greenhouse gasses cause warming (check out the climate of planet Venus if you’d like to see how bad global warming can get). I really don’t believe there’s any way around this. But I still understand if you’re a skeptic, what with so much scientific global warming mumbo-jumbo being flung around by the media.

In closing, I’d like to add my predictions for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Some things will be done to slow greenhouse gas emissions, but those steps will not make the necessary difference – by a long shot. On the high end, I’ve heard that a 30% reduction of greenhouse gasses by 2025 is on the table. That may have been okay 25 or 30 years ago, but our air is already filthy and heavily laden with greenhouse gasses, and our filter is already way overloaded, filthy dirty and being made smaller and less efficient every day.

I believe that if we are to actually put an end to global warming, let our filters rejuvenate and get our air clean again, we need to do something like reduce greenhouse gasses by 80% by 2015. At the same time, we need to quit destroying our natural air filter and start supplementing it by a concerted effort to plant trees and other vegetation around the world.

It would be better if you now accept the problem of global warming as a reality. You could join the growing number of voices pleading for solutions. But as I said, I understand if you don’t believe in global warming. I’ll patiently wait for you to change your mind. I’m confident that by 2015 enough horrific things will have happened that global warming skeptics will be as rare as clean, fresh air.