Oh yeah, and it added that the sea levels would rise 'only' by 10 cm or so, as opposed to 100+ as was believed a while ago.
Which all might be true. But that still doesn't mean that I'll approve...!!!
The article concentrates wholly on 'people'.
On the number of people who'd prefer a warmer world to a colder one.
On the number of people who die each year of heat or cold.
Of the crop yield of crops that people grow in warmer or colder situations.
Etc.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
It entirely fails to mention the effects of climatic change that the melting of polar ice caps and land-based glaciers will cause due to the change of ocean currents.
It fails to address the problem of whether natural species, whether animal or vegetable, will be able to adapt to a new climate so quickly without human interference.
It fails to mention, also, that the extent of global warming that is approaching will be quite extreme.
The dinosaurs became extinct. What species will go this time?
The tone of the whole article suggests that there is entirely no need for all our efforts to check global warming, and hence, a very large part of the environmental protection effort nowadays.
I fear to think how such articles are received by the general public. I thought that the Reader's Digest was to be trusted...
With the extent of influence humans have over the state of the planet, we should be aware of and constantly try to preserve the existences of all living creatures that live on the Earth. Not talk only about ourselves in a subject which affects so many more. This isn't a cultural discussion. It isn't even, entirely, a political discussion. It is a discussion that involves the whole, wide world. A world of whose population humans don't take up even half. Yet a world which is on the verge of an extreme change because of said humans.
Dear fellow individuals of the Homo Sapiens species, isn't it about time we start picking up after ourselves? We praise children who take care of their parents after they grow up. Are we not grown up enough now to start taking care of Mother Nature?
We call ourselves the 'guardians', the 'sentient beings' of this planet. We claim that we have immortal souls, that we are of a 'higher intelligence' (which, by the way, is proven to be false). So why are we wrecking the very place we live? The only place where we can live, too, at present. The only planet that is naturally habitable and life-supporting. Our beautiful earth.
Desertification. Deforestation. Reclammation. Extinction. Introduction of alien species into a habitat lacking defenses against it.
Let us be aware of all the ills we're doing this world and strive to correct them, not concentrate on the little differences between us and use it as an excuse to wrap each other up in wars. Let us be aware once more of all the world around us, all the world that exists outside what we have created. Let us be aware that economical expansion isn't the only thing that matters.
Let us be aware that while global warming may seem to be beneficial to certain human societies, it is certainly not so to large numbers of animal and plant species that rely on the cold to survive.
Snow is not such a bad thing. I, for one, would be distraught if the only way left to see it were to journey to the Poles.
by Data