I'm getting slightly annoyed with these kinds of discussion. People, even professional scientists many times sit in either of two camps, i.e. its either sun that does the damage or it is us humans. When you look at one set of data yes you conclude that indeed sun is shining brighter, but when you look at other set of data you see indeed greenhouse gasses are having global impact. So which one do we believe???
Just stop for a moment and think, when did presence of one exclude the other?? What is emerging now is more complex problem than most people could have predicted. We are having two furnaces as it were that when combined have devastating effect on our planet. Sometimes sun dominates sometimes or own undoing.
Unfortunately, like with everything else this became political issues, camp that cares mostly about business proliferation is quick to point out that sun is doing the damage and "hence, they want to wait till more data is available (read to buy some time)"
On the other hand many environmentalists lack the sense what it would mean for global economy if everything would stop all of a sudden and almost with religious zeal want to force upon everyone their agenda. Which has completely opposite effect in that business oriented camp points at them as ‘obvious fanatics’ and hence uses that as an excuse to preserve 'status quo'.
Both sides really need to sit together; this is not a courtroom battle between two law firms in who will outtalk the other. Stakes are too high this time around. One who doesn't understand that should be really returned back to primary school regardless of his PhD hanging on some wall.
We really want to think about saving our planet the best way we can in areas we can or start thinking about escape plans in next couple of hundred years if not sooner. Not to mention that it took us 30 years and we haven't even been back to the moon, at this rate it will take us 1000 year just to be able to venture outside our own solar system. Admittedly in small numbers of ones with 'the right stuff'. Not to mention that as money dries out one of the first casualties will be space exploration.
So what are we talking about here? We, as hopefully responsible citizens of this planet, must stop acting as infantile retards and being swayed by every new wind of 'ultimate proof' (as it is often titled in news magazines) about what is to blame for global warming and in our small way demand leaders of our countries to make concrete steps with conjunction of the rest of the world or penalties for them will be loss of that chair under their ass.
Politicians, have one basic flaw in that they love power, and they are always swayed by the popular opinion, if possible they will try to conceal facts to promote their agenda. But if facts are public knowledge they can’t do it any more as this latest example shows. Of course there is small danger here, politicians often can do things that create smoke screen and evokes strong emotions among the uninformed voting public that they are actually doing something which buys them time to continue business as usual. Unfortunately, uniformed public is always greater in numbers than informed one, and that is the price of democracy.
But something truly must be done. I would hate to think that one day my grand, grand children curse me for not doing something about it and leaving them in a world of unbearable hell. Because that is exactly what we are doing if we chose to just ignore everything and enjoy it while we can.
Funnily enough when reading history book and come across characters like that we all have sense of justice and are ready to judge such ones. What about our own role at this point in time? How will history judge us??