Why care about Global Warming?

Question

………...If we will be dead by the time it will affect us……..

The purpose of this question is because I want to care about it, I really do, but every time I think about it I stop caring because I don't think that one person can make a difference and that all we can possibly do is just delay the inevitable by a few thousand years which in the grand scheme of things is no time atall. So I can't motivate myself to care.

I am looking for motivation to care.

Answer 1

Please don't mind any of the people who are spouting insults at you. If I understand you correctly, you seem to be asking whether it matters. Yes, but not in the way that most of the people who have answered think.

Global warming is real, but not man made, and there is nothing that we can do to stop it. (Please refer to my previous Best Answers for a detailed analysis of the evidence for the evidence of solar-caused global warming.) At best, we might be able to slow it down a little, or delay it a few decades. It is right not to pollute, but even if we had never polluted, global warming would still be occurring, and would continue.

Given that we can't stop it (which answers the first part of your question), what should we do...? We must make ready to move out cities inland twenty or fifty miles. We already have the technology to do this, to build new cities and move our homes, so in that sense there is nothing to worry about.

However, to avoid crippling economic effects, we must NOT make the mistake of moving our cities a few miles, only to have to move them again in fifty years. The change in climate will be very slow, as will the encroachment of the oceans. The change will also be permanent, on the human scale of things.

Those who have made a political football of global warming in recent days are doing this to smear their political opponents by blaming them for a natural phenomenon which they KNOW their opponents will not be able to affect. At the same time, those same persons (having failed to gain the Presidency) gain LASTING FAME for themselves by playing Paul Revere while not having to actually DO anything about the supposed approaching disaster!

Possibly such politicians hope to panic their political opponents into wasting time and resources by trying to spit into the wind, and then be able to criticise their opponents for not having listened to them earlier. It is truly disgusting and contemptible.

Answer 2

you should care. Unless you are very old, you are going to feel the effects. Climate change is going to cause a lot of very bad things to happen that will have a direct effect on you in the next few years. Effects such are war, millions of environmental refugees, a bad economy and the like. This will come about because the balance of thing will change quite radically. If the geological record is right and the models revisions that keep being made point to this, climate change has a feed back loop that kicks in and serious change can happen in about 10 years. The geological record shows sudden sea level rises of 30 feet in 10 years. Or how about the methyl hydrate on the sea bed suddenly going through phase change and a 200 mile piece of sea bed moving a 100 miles and creating a massive tidal wave. this happened 10,00 years ago at the end of the last ice age. This happened suddenly in 1 day. I am a climate scientist and we really don't know when effects like this are going to happen. Care. As for whether one person can make a difference, it depends on what you do. If you can help get Kyoto modified, to allow air capture of green house gases, then you will open the door for two companies to start reversing climate change. It is possible to make a difference.

Answer 3

I personally don't believe in global warming I think it is just a big scam that allows petroleum companies to charge as much as they like. I recently watched a British news program that said within 60 years the O-Zone layer would close up potentially ending the theory of global warming, Two hours later CNN was saying the O-Zone layer was being destroyed at its fastest rate in the past 20 years. I think you are absolutely correct why worry about somthing that hasn't happened yet and at the moment is just a bunch of "ifs" and "maybes". However I still think we could do a hell of a lot to generate cleaner energy and products that don't need huge factories to be constructed and that don't create huge gas clouds. But overall your question is a very much needed one.

Answer 4

I assume you speak as someone without kids? lol

I'd like there to be a comfortable, healthy planet for my daughters and their children and so on.

EDIT: Ok, I understand why you're asking now.

Sure you are just one person but yes, you can make a huge impact - if you recycle, dont leave your TV on standby, turn off lights when not in use, only boil the amount of water you need etc. I too am just one person but if I started doing those things too then together we are already helping matters.

Now I get my husband involved who is just one person and you show your family how to help the environment. They tell friends who tell more friends and family... You see how it can have a snowball affect?

You can help matters. We can all do small things that combined amount to a heck of a lot.

Answer 5

Well, I have to say I'm quite a sceptic on the subject of global warming. I once attended a lecture at University of Cambridge on the subject and when it came down to it the conclusion was that due to inaccuracies in investigative methods it was unclear as to how much sea levels are rising/ sinking and how much they will change in the future.

I also think that in today's society people are dependent upon the use of fossil fuels to upkeep their standard of living and therefore I think the biggest part to be played is by the scientists. If they can come up with alternative ways to obtain energy and establish them then we've partially sorted the problem as that's the main issue. Although obviously there is further to go than just that.

As for the question of whether or not to care about it then I'd say that it's OK for you not to as you may be of the same opinion as myself. Although mainly people care about it as they believe it will affect their future children/ grandchildren etc and are concerend which is fair enough.

Anyway, I wouldn't worry about not caring as it is a very subjective issue and the facts, although there, are often not too accurate.

Answer 6

One third of the planet will be desert by the year 2100.
An expert said "We're talking about 30 per cent of the world's land surface becoming essentially uninhabitable in terms of agricultural production in the space of a few decades," Mark Lynas.
Many animals are going to become extinct in the coming decades.
If the earth warms up by 1.5 celsuis sea levels will rise, precipitation (rain, hail, sleet and snow) patterns will change, causing drought and an increase in the size of all of the current deserts, plus, more forming.

In the next 50 YEARS the sea level along the U.S. coast is projected to rise by a whole two feet. (60cm ish)

Answer 7

There are other reasons to care about it. Number one in my mind is that coal, oil and gas are limited resources, so even if they did not cause global warming we would still have to figure out how to live without them, eventually. Also, a good reason to stop using oil is so that we don't have to import it from politically unstable places in the world.

Answer 8

I do not know how you understand global warming but in all
revelations it will not occur thousand of years from now but as Al Gore and other scientist claims it is sooner than what we expect and not even longer than 20 years. True or untrue..a single person like you and me no matter how small our contribution will be can make a difference.Remember....a million dollar will not be a million dollar without one penny...so, be proud to count yourself in....saving our planet is saving ourselves ..

Answer 9

Becuase i am currently working on finding the fountain of youth. Besides, don't you want to be able to survive global pollution, that way you can live long enough to see the end of the world when the Andromeda Galaxy eats the Milky Way?

Answer 10

It dosent take much to a bit we have a box for recyclable materials since using this for empty food tins plastic containers newspaper and magazines we now only fill our wheelie bin 2 thirds of the way up instead of having to jump in it to make room for another black sack of rubbish.

Believe me a little goes a long way