Thursday, February 08, 2007

The Real Culprit in Global Warming

A lot of scientists, economists, politicians, and just about everybody else has a lot to say about global warming, its causes, and what needs to be done to slow it down or reverse it.

But very few address the real culprit to global warming and fewer, if any, who do address it aren't given a second of mainstream airtime to intelligently debate the issue.

What is the culprit to global warming?

Population growth. In simple terms, there are way too many people in this world.

No, I'm not talking about the doom and gloom predictions of the seventies where people lived stacked on top of each other all starving to death because there won't be enough greenspace left to grow enough crops to feed them all.

I am talking about the effects of over six and a half billion people has on the increased energy needs to clothe, house, and feed all those hungry mouths.

While the US can boast that it has more trees today than in 1900, on a global scale, the world has lost over half of its forests. Trees absorb CO2, a major greenhouse gas. As we clear the forests for more farmland, houses, roads, firewood and...well, you get the picture. It's the same as poking pinholes in your water filter. The filter can only take so many pinholes before it starts letting dirty water get through the faucet.

Six and a half billion people running around need to heat their homes in the winter, cool them in the summer, get to work (translation - drive) and factories need to burn more energy to manufacture more clothes and food, which means more greenhouse gasses are pumped into the atmosphere.

It's time to reign in uncontrolled population growth. We could start by mandating those who are slowly unraveling the moral fabric of our society be sterilized to prevent them from reproducing. In this country alone, think of the millions of births that would be prevented to the likes of rapists, murders, theives, religious fundamentalists, serial killers, and child molestors. Expand that policy to a global scale and population growth may actually be reversed.

With less people in the world, we could reforest many areas that would no longer be needed for housing or farmland. Energy companies and factories wouldn't have to produce as much, reducing pollution and greenhouse gasses.

And there will be less people on the road, which is not only good for the environment, but it would mean I might get to work on time tomorrow instead of sitting for an hour in a traffic jam.

Good night all. Time for me to duck on out of here.

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