No, we won't all be enjoying surf and sun

I exchanged a few sentences with a young man on the bus about the greenhouse effect. He made it clear, in just a few words, that he thought the greenhouse effect would make the Puget Sound area less rainy, and we'd have more sun, more summer, and that that wouldn't be a bad thing at all.

I remember thinking that 25 years ago when I first heard about the greenhouse effect. But there is no excuse for anyone being so misinformed today. Scientists not only have shared copious information designed to raise our awareness about this globe-destroying climate change, but they have been measuring it from here to Antarctica to the polar ice caps: The warming of the oceans

In short, the earth is dying and the human race will die with it.

Everything we did--all our great history, architecture, technology, art, literature--will be wiped out, along with all the people who populate the planet. It will be as if we were never here, except for the fact that the earth will be uninhabitable for the life form we are.

Why is this happening? Because we must drive our cars. We are entitled to drive our cars. As long as we have a the proper licenses and insurance and reasonably follow the rules of the road, we will not allow anyone to control how much we drive or how far we go.

It doesn't matter how much we have to pay for gas, either. We will find a way to drive our cars because the automobile has become as necessary an accessory upon leaving the house as putting on one's pants.

Indoors we sit in front of television screens or computers or video game boxes or stereos, sedentary consumers of electricity that's created by technology that also contributes to the greenhouse effect.

We buy products in paper boxes made from trees, in factories that use power generated by technology that further contributes to the greenhouse effect. From cellophane wrappers to styrofoam cups to plastic grocery bags to plastic rings that hold six-packs together, everything that is used in packaging and then tossed into landfills... well, I think you see where I'm going.

We're destroying the earth at a pace that far outstrips any evolutionary trend to date. Is it too late to reverse the trend?

(Thanks to Ron for the BBC link)