Wednesday, May 12, 2004
Good News
The earth is more resilient to climate change than people thought. As this article shows, a warmer world is a wetter world, leading to more plant growth which can serve to soak up excess greenhouse gasses. Of course, that assumes that there is enough plant life around to actually grow, but in western nations, forests have been GROWING in size (contrary to popular belief). It's in poorer nations, such as Brazil, which have seen the most reduction in forests, belieing the notion that progress equals environmental destruction. Poor nations have greater incentives to do environmentally destructive things than rich nations.
This DOES NOT MEAN, however, that the greenhouse effect is not a problem. It's just that the reality is somewhere between the environuts who think environmental holocaust will happen next week and those who think we shouldn't have to worry about the environment at all. America's reliance on gasoline, driven higher by our insane obsession with HUGE cars, needs to stop.
The earth is more resilient to climate change than people thought. As this article shows, a warmer world is a wetter world, leading to more plant growth which can serve to soak up excess greenhouse gasses. Of course, that assumes that there is enough plant life around to actually grow, but in western nations, forests have been GROWING in size (contrary to popular belief). It's in poorer nations, such as Brazil, which have seen the most reduction in forests, belieing the notion that progress equals environmental destruction. Poor nations have greater incentives to do environmentally destructive things than rich nations.
This DOES NOT MEAN, however, that the greenhouse effect is not a problem. It's just that the reality is somewhere between the environuts who think environmental holocaust will happen next week and those who think we shouldn't have to worry about the environment at all. America's reliance on gasoline, driven higher by our insane obsession with HUGE cars, needs to stop.
