How About this Heat?

Climate change is a common buzz word heard around the halls of parliaments these days. We aren't doing enough to stop global warming, so says Ontario Environmental Comissioner Miller. There seems to be a lot of attention put into pollution controls and environmentalism these days, almost too much, but it's still apparently not enough.
Controlling pollution is important. We know that breathing dirty air is bad for our health. Much of it is caused by people driving cars too big for their needs, and inefficient methods of transporting goods (ie transport trucks). However, is this really destroying out planet?

First of all, I am going to make a very controversial statement. Global warming is a fear tactic. It is simply fear mongering by environmental groups to force people to cut pollution. Is it a hoax? possibly. We have had hot summers over the past few years, but we've had some pretty fridged winters too. Looking at records from weather offices, this is not out of the ordinary. In fact, the kind of weather we get hasn't changed much at all. Heat waves were normal in the 60s and 70s. Some of the most violent storms, including hurricanes, date back to 50 or more years ago.
Another, more likely answer is that yes, our climate is changing but not because of us. Earth's atmosphere is very volitile and climate change happens very frequently. Since the time of the dinosaurs, Canada went from being tropical paradise, to grasslands, to frozen wastland, to it's present form several times over. On a global scale, humans are a pretty insignificant. If the planet wanted to, it could just bat us as if we were mosquitos. Recent bouts of harsh weather have become a convinient way to "prove" the end of the world is coming. However, hurricanes and storms tend to be cyclical in nature. 2005 was a terrible year for hurricanes. After Katrina, "scientists" started saying that we'd most likely see the same amount of storms in the coming years, but they'd be far more powerful. The 2006 hurrican season has now passed it's peak and has been quiet. No storms have caused significant damage. Weather is an inexact science and I think it's wrong that environmentalists keep telling people it is.

Global warming in recent years has become something like US president Johnson's infamous Daisy commercial from the 1960s. Getting people to side with groups and politicians by putting out visions of an impending apocolypse, unless we do what they say. While I believe we should do what ever we can to reduce pollution. It's our home, keep it clean. Pollution levels are slowly dropping and the hole in the ozone layer has even begun to close. The world is not going to end anytime soon so lets cool it on global warming.