“Global warming my a$$…it’s like 20 degrees in October and snowing before Halloween.”

I mentally rolled my eyes and sipped my burning hot Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte (I’ll agree, it was abnormally FREEZING this particular morning with my friend.)  It’s statements like this that rile me up about issues.  Yet I don’t like to be reactive and in your face, I don’t think that is the way to teach people about your passions and beliefs.  I want to engage in careful and useful conversations with people, not screaming matches that end in “You’re right, I’m wrong, You Suck, I Win, Go Home.”  That’s just not productive.

And the truth is that I don’t know enough about global warming and climate change to sometimes feel like I can engage in those conversations.  While I am a total science geek at heart who watches Discovery Channel documentaries like they are Academy Award cinema masterpieces, I don’t understand the full mechanics as a whole.

I know enough to be dangerous on the cold/warm topic, especially as a concerned citizen who lives in a coastal town on the Northern Atlantic (PS – apparently if the glaciers really let go yours truly is going to be one of the first submerged.)  And the TRUTH (no, not the Inconvenient Truth, just the pure meteorological and scientific truth) is that as the Earth’s air and atmosphere warms then shifts occur that also cause cooling.

How you may ask?  Well, if you are smarter than a 5th grader than you remember that approximately three-quarters of the worlds surface is made up of water.  The same way that those tides and currents keep the man in the moon hanging around (not sure if he still will if we keep bombing him, but that is for another post!) they also contribute to the average temperatures and transference of heat and cold throughout the globe.

You question me?  Great! But I ask, if the ocean has nothing to do with temperature then why do hurricanes happen mostly in tropical coastal areas?  No Category 5 hurricane dares to set foot in the icy Northern Atlantic Ocean!  Most can barely die a tropical depression death off of Nova Scotia.

I’m still not sure where I stand on the whole conspiracy theory that humans are the SOLE cause of global warming.  I think this is where some of its proponents lose followers as well.  It is historically proven that the Earth goes through climate changes time and again.  Thus the various “ages” in the sediments and archeology of the crust.  Those cavemen we not wrestling with decisions between Escalades and Priuses.  If we do not ACKNOWLEDGE a relevant point in the global warming opponents arguments, then we are essentially voiding our own.

However I don’t think we are doing ourselves any favors with fossil fuel and carbon dioxide emissions, deforestation, and the many other environmentally foolish luxuries we afford ourselves on a daily basis.  I don’t know enough to know everything, but I know that if I see a train wreck about to happen I’m going to do everything I can to try to stop it.

I’ll probably not live to see the most horrid effects that global warming could have on the planet.  I do know that I am living in a world where the winter coats and sweaters come out earlier each year in Maine and summer clothes accumulate more moth holes in the spring.  And I drink a LOT more coffee and hot chocolate and tea at outdoor events.

And I know enough to know that if you aren’t part of a solution you are part of a problem.  We probably won’t resolutely end this argument in our lifetime, but I prefer to think of it this way.  I see more arguments for the truths behind global warming than against.  If it does end up being some weird and agenda-ed hoax, fine.  If it ends up being true, how much damage can future generations undo?

Do you formulate your entire belief in global warming based on a movie or flyer?  Have you researched further?  Started to learn enough to be dangerous and continue sponging up information?

Do you believe things just because or do you dare to find out more and form an opinion for yourself?

*This post was written as a contribution to a great cause, Blog Action Day. It is a call to action for many bloggers to investigate, write and share with their followers one day a year on a specific topic. 2009′s topic is…wait for it…Global Warming. You should definitely check it out to learn more*

Photo Credit: Getty Images:Amanda Cooper Images

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