If we're going to fight....

I am against the war in Iraq. I don't know much about war or politics, but I grew up surrounded by pacifist viewpoints, so I still tend to lean that way. It seems like a bad idea to spend so much money on an operation whose goals are dubious at best, and a worse idea to kill so many people.

This article from TIME magazine raises the issue that American troops in Iraq are under-trained and ill-equipped to fight the kind of war they are having to fight. Bringing the troops home would solve the problem, but what I gathered from this article was that we would at least waste less money and fewer lives if we gave our troops proper training and equipment.

If we're going to fight, we should do it right.

An Inconvenient Film?

When I saw the film An Inconvenient Truth, I had a double reaction. On one hand I thought it was a good film and was glad that people in positions of (some) power were speaking up about how humans are ruining the planet. On the other hand, I wished they hadn't made the film, because if you have to argue that global warming is real, that means that maybe it's not, because otherwise why do you need to argue it?

I thought of this again when I was looking on Facebook the other day for a group to join to show my support for solving the global climate change crisis. What I found, instead, was a plethora of groups arguing that global warming is a hoax. The biggest argument is "how can there be global warming if it's -10 F in the midwest, or snowing in the middle of April?!" I did a bit of research and discovered two things. 1) In spite of occasional cold snaps at odd times, average temperatures are still warmer. 2) This heat increases evaporation of water, which means more water in the atmosphere, which means more violent precipitation. (The article below explains it more). To counter the misconception that cold weather disproves global warming, I prefer to use the phrase "global climate change."

I doubt this film is the main reason people are moved to argue against global climate change. A more plausible reason is denial. People don't want global climate change to be real because it's frightening to think of deadly tropical storms, and cities swamped by rising sea levels. It's also possible that many people are using sarcasm as a way to broach the topic. One of the biggest Facebook groups I saw is called "Accelerate Global Warming!" and has a list of things we can do to increase global warming, but many of the responses written are actually about stopping global climate change.

Personally, I've never doubted global warming. It's been scientific fact my entire life, and I've seen it for myself as winters have gotten shorter and warmer, and summers more unbearably hot.