(Article changed on November 19, 2013 at 08:25)
When I was a young boy growing up in California, all of us kids had trouble breathing on summer days that were exceptionally smoggy. We experienced chest pains, shortness of breath, and burning pain in our lungs, whether or not we had asthma or other problems not attributable to the haze that often obscured nearby mountains entirely.
It is a very well-documented and accepted medical fact that human-induced pollution is significantly harmful to people, especially young children. This fact alone is far more than enough reason to get rid of as much pollution as possible, as fast as humanly possible, even if pollution was somehow otherwise beneficial to the planet at large.
As usual, our ever-myopic mainstream media is focusing on the wrong thing. Whether or not human-induced pollution is causing global warming is irrelevant to the larger issue of increased cancer, heart, lung, liver, and other diseases caused and aggravated by pollution. What nations daily poor into the air is also very harmful to the plant and animal food sources we depend on to survive, contaminating the water we share and the soil our food grows in.
Global air and water pollution is increasing at an alarming rate due to accelerated economic growth in China, India, and elsewhere. Not surprisingly, significant health problems have dramatically increased well beyond mere population growth in such nations over the past ten years.
There is no legitimate argument against curbing and eliminating human-induced pollution as fast as humanly possible. And scientists are indisputably right that human-induced pollution is causing significant harm to our planet and every living thing on it, whether or not they are correct in every detail.
The actual science is highly complex, involving global-warming, global- dimming, and global-cooling processes. However, global warming is the more dominate factor and thus, the net result is our planet is indisputably warming up. Because the science is complex, politicians, radio demagogues, and others on the corporate payroll can easily deceive the poorly informed.
Vast quantities of ice have disappeared in the past few years in South America and Greenland, leaving large areas of bare surface where thick ice recently dominated the landscape. Towns in northern Alaska and entire islands are literally vanishing into the sea, while warming oceans are creating far-reaching devastation that is bound to increase.
Thousands of scientific articles have been written documenting global warming over the past few years and, unfortunately, more and more articles today are saying scientists have underestimated rather than exaggerated the problem. And many thousands more articles from scientists and physicians all over the world continue to document the significant harm pollution is doing to ourselves and our children.
Meanwhile, corrupt bought-and-paid-for scientists, politicians, and right-wing media hacks routinely rip documented science out of context, while completely ignoring overwhelming evidence they don't like. Time is running out for ourselves and may have already run past the point of no return for our children and their children.
Is there really life in the future? You decide.
