Poison Ivy and Global Warming

This has got to be one of the most ridiculous stories I have heard about global warming recently. Yesterday on the NBC's Nightly News with Brian Williams, there was a news segment about a bumper poison ivy crop this year. The culprit for the bumper crop? Global Warming! The increased amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is making the poison ivy grow more aggressively. Well! What do you know! Are there any complaints about other green plants that are growing better because of the increased amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? Nooooo!

And then there is this radio and TV commercial by California's ISO Flex Your Power energy efficiency marketing and outreach campaign. The idea of our leaving our kids and grandkids a world that is experiencing the effects of global warming because we didn't do enough about it is ridiculous. Yes, yes, the earth's temperature has gone up a degree celcius or so. But it is not a given fact that the earth is going to stay that way forever.

One of the questions I have been asking is if we are dead certain that there is going to be a serious crisis because of global warming, why are we wasting our time trying to do things that will not have any significant impact on the earth's temperatures, instead of doing something like try to come up with solutions that will help us live through global warming without having to alter our lifestyles drastically? For example, if global warming is going to cause serious droughts in a lot of places, why are we not trying to do something about using sea water to irrigate our farms and provide the water we need if rivers do dry up? How about those ice bound places in the world? What about planning on using those places to grow our crops so we won't be faced with food shortages due to devasted farmlands?

It is hard to get people excited about doing something to reduce global warming when people have no idea what exactly it is going to be liked. Man is adaptable, and if we do indeed have to live through global warming, I am sure that we would not just sit around and moan about our situation. We will do whatever we have to do to survive.

This article called Read the Sunspots by R. TIMOTHY PATTERSON is something to ponder about. The relationship of the fluctuating sun's brightness and the temperatures of the earth were clearly evident by the analysis of the coring samples taken from the bottom of deep Western Canadian fjords. According to Patterson "Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest, Schwabe solar cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth."

The science of climate change is not settled yet eventhough many would like to think so. In the words of Patterson, "Climate-change research is now literally exploding with new findings".