Opening thought...

For anyone who is interested in listening,

I'm starting this blog today (April 23rd, 2010) to express my own personal views. Each day, I will attempt to get on here and put some thoughts down on 'paper'. Topics will range from politics to sports to hectic things that are going on in my life to basically anything that I feel like blathering about at that particular moment in time. No item will ever be taboo, and I will try to keep this as clean as possible (however, when I get angry or overly excited, some unsavory words tend be unleashed, so, there's my little disclaimer). Now I'm new to the blogging experience, so if something about this seems absolutely retarded to anyone, feel free to shoot me some advice...please do not get offended though if I choose to blatently ignore anything you say. Lastly, if any of my future posts offend anyone's delicate sennsibilites...well, no one is forcing you to read this.

So, without any further ado, I will get to my very first blogging topic (exciting!). Human-induced global warming has been at the forefront of discussion for years, and got a huge boost in esteem with the release of Al Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth". You can't listen to a radio talk show or watch a news broadcast throughout the week without hearing some sort of dicussion about it. Liberals wholeheartedly agree with it, while conservatives stauchly refute it. Obviously it is very popular to believe in man-made global warming, with everyone 'Going Green' and the boom of Hybrid automobiles, but that could all be clever market gimics. So the question remains: Is there such a thing as human-induced global warming?

According to CNN.com, a survey of more than 3,000 scientists was conducted, showing that 82 percent of them agree that humans have been a contributing factor to rising global temperatures over the past 200 years. However, scientists that disagree would state the majority of those who agree with man-made global warming study data while looking for proof that it is happening, instead analyzing the facts objectively.

Now, the only true way to see climate change is to review temperature records throughout history, and if you look at the records from about 150 years ago, temperatures have indeed risen with the increase of human industry...an entire degree! Now, this may not some like much to most, but think, if this trend continues, in about 3000 years, we could be in some big trouble. That is, of course, unless that one degree is a natural climate shift that the earth is going through since the earth temperature does wax and wane over time on its own. So, I am inclined to believe that it's a tad bit self absorbed to think something as small as we are could have such a significant effect on something as large as a planet.

It's difficult to look at the earth the way it is now and get a definitive answer. Earth's climate is very complex and unpredictable. You look at the one degree increase over the past century and a half, and compare that with the fact that air temperatures in the lower atmosphere having really been rising at all. While a recent discovery shows Greenland's ice sheet to be slightly thinning, the sea ice around Antarctica has actually been growing over the past 20 years. Now to me, that sounds more like Greenlandian Warming, as opposed to Global warming, but what do I know, I'm just a lowely army soldier.

I suppose the debate will continue over the years and one of two things will happen: (1) We will eventually burn up and all blow away as space dust, or (2) Nothing. Only time will tell.