It's the Environment Stupid

How much intelligence does it take to recognize and accept that mankind is destroying the planet? What will it take to seriously get our attention? Will it be too late? If you are a global warming non-believer, try this... Stand on any asphalt parking lot on a hot day. After a couple of minutes, walk onto a nearby grassy area. Quite a difference huh? Now walk from the grassy area to a tree-shaded area. Viola! Even more difference. Apart from carbon dioxide emissions and chlorofluorocarbons and the like, mankind is warming up the planet simply by paving it over and clear-cutting it. Multiply that parking lot by hundreds of millions of parking lots, rooftops, roads and cleared fields world-wide and you get the picture, at least part of it. The earth shivered and caused a tsunami on the other side of the world that killed 200,000 people. Two-thirds of the soldiers the U.S. lost in WWII. It merited about a weeks worth of headlines. But that's OK. It's way the hell over there and who cares about the pygmies in New Guinea anyway. An earthquake in China kills 50,000 people and it's good for two days headlines and a sidebar. So what? We kill that many in traffic accidents every year. Here's the deal, you ain't seen nothing yet. Far and away, the greatest threat to us... you, me, our children, our grandchildren... is environmental degradation. A recent computer model predicting the effects of global warming on the U.S. show the most severe effect will be in the heart of the nation, the Great Plains... Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri. The bread basket of the world. Scientist predict the ensuing droughts will make the dust bowl of the 30's look like a tropical paradise. That ought to drive the price of bread up a little. But wait, there's more. Nostracharleston Predicts: Contrary to popular belief, the world is not round, at least not perfectly round. It's sort of squat. It bulges in the middle along the Equator, the effects of centrifugal force and billions of tons of ice collected at the north and south poles. The ice is melting. Those billions of tons are being redistributed across the face of the planet. As the weight is removed from the poles, the earth will flex and shed a little of its midriff bulge. That means all of the tectonic plates will have to readjust. Kind of like going to the chiropractor and getting everything moved around a bit. While that's going on, there will be earthquakes and volcanoes the likes of which mankind has never seen. Rising oceans, abetted by tsunamis, will wreak devastation and death on a biblical scale. Apart for blowing the tops off of mountains and reining hellfire on the surrounding inhabitants, volcanic eruptions will spew trillions of tons of sulfuric ash into the atmosphere virtually blocking the sun, causing massive crop failures and turning rain into a sulfuric acid bath. The earth as we know it will be no more. Sounds like fun? Could be it's past time to pay attention.