An Inconvenient Truth

The headline says it all, but we can no longer pretend it isn't happening. Pulling the covers over our heads doesn't make the problem go away. What problem? It's not MY problem. What can I do about this Global Warming thing anyway? Well, it is time we wake up and face the facts.

I was watching the movie "An Inconvenient Truth" yesterday afternoon and quite frankly it shook me up a bit. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend you watch it. It is very powerful and most likely will change your mind. I had heard about "Global Warming" and the "Greenhouse Effect" and the "Hole in the Ozone Layer" but up until now it really hadn't sunk in. I didn't realize how bad it really was. It was distant. It didn't really concern me (that much) or so I thought. What could I as an individual do about it anyway?

Yes, I can recycle, I've done that in Germany 30 years ago. Most of the soda pop, beer, etc. came in glass bottles then and when they were empty we brought them back to the store for a refund. Plastic was a concern back then as well although it had more to do with the "Oil Crisis" than Global Warming. Most grocery stores charged 10 pennies for a plastic bag and people just got accustomed to bring their own bags or baskets from home. I will ask for "paper" from now on when I go shopping at the supermarket, and yes, I will recycle that paper. I have to stop being so wasteful. It is not to late. If we all help together as a global community and we all do our part, we will have a beautiful planet to live on for many generations to come.

Have you ever stopped and thought why we are having more and more natural disasters of enormous dimensions. If nothing at all, Katrina should have given us something to think about. How many more Katrinas do we need to finally wake up and do something. If we just keep ignoring what's going on around us then we may need to redraw the global map in less than 50 years...Because...Parts of China and Florida will be under water. So will be the Netherlands, parts of California and Manhattan. If you think a couple of million refugees in Africa and other places are a problem right now, then just wait until hundreds of millions of people are going to be displaced by natural disasters and flooding 20, 30, 50 years from now.

There's no need for that if we all get together and everyone does their part to help. Someone once said:

"We don't own the earth. We just borrow it from our children and our children's children."