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Global Warming
Some
scientists claim that because of the CO2 which is being pumped out
by billions of humans going about their normal
business, billions more cattle, sheep,
etc taking in oxygen and breathing out carbon dioxide and our
lemming-like rush to burn fossil fuels which have been accumulating
for millions of years the Earth's temperature is rising, which has
worried many environmentalists who fear that we may be facing
catastrophes that range from rising sea levels right up to the total
annihilation of the human race. Many well informed people are
convinced that the process of global warming has now gone so far
that it cannot be reversed, even if mankind had the means to do it.
But is this the only scenario? There are dissenters who take a
different view, and believe that there may be a silver lining to the
cloud of doom and perhaps, over all, the warming of the globe may
actually do more good than harm.
Since humans first evolved,
they say, cold has been a far greater threat than warmth and it is
still not so long ago that most of what we now consider to be the
advanced world was covered to a huge depth in snow and ice. The
possibility of growing sufficient food to feed the world's
population under such conditions is pretty well unthinkable. Even in
the present day tens of thousands of people die as a direct or
indirect effect of low temperatures. Predictably this theory doesn't
hold water according to the pessimists who feel that not only do
heatwaves kill large numbers of people but they also encourage the
growth in numbers of disease carrying insects and provide a
favourable environment for bacteria.
Dissent doesn't just apply to
health matters though ...... |