Six Degrees Could Change the World, Journal Entry #6

  Prior to watching this video I never gave much thought about the climate of the world. Probably because I'm so busy and consumed with other things that take up my day to day life. Besides, when I think about a change in temperature of about 1-6 degrees, I conjure up ideas about how the weather does and can change that much. In just about any environment, the "weather" is not the same on a daily basis. So at first it doesn't appear to be something that we should be concerned about because we are used to the varying temperatures. I suppose we just get so accustomed and used to the way things are that we can't imagine them any differently.
  For the most part, life on Earth seems pretty consistent with occasional disasters- nothing that we can't deal with anyways. Well, this may be so when you examine things in the short term. However, a different picture is painted when you examine things in the long term. Although a temperature change doesn't seem like much now, over a span of time it can add up to serious consequences for life on Earth with an end result we might not be able to survive. The truth is that we simply were not alive during the times when the planet was undergoing harsh ecological changes of the past. We only came about once the "climate" was right for us, and the inverse is true as well.
  Since the making of the film it seems as if there have been more natural disasters, such as the tsunami in Japan. It makes me wonder if the reason why we are hearing about more tornado's is because of global warming? If so, does that mean that the weather will increasingly become worse and worse? Is this the kind of world we want to live in?
  It's surprising to me that there is controversy over the role we play in global warming. Do people really think that scientists are lying to us or that their research is incorrect? I think it's as obvious as witnessing a cause & effect. I can't imagine why people would want to skew information that deals with our own survival. This is what doesn't make sense to me. It also reminds me about how a stop light at a busy intersection will not be put up only until someone dies there. Or about how the police often will not bother placing a restraining order on someone you believe has the capacity to cause harm to you, unless and until, they have taken a substantial step towards committing an action. The problem is that people don't tend to do anything until it's too late, or they don't believe or think there is a problem because they don't see the effects. For example, people still smoke although we all know that it is directly related to causing cancer. One might not get cancer or suffer any effects until 15-25 years down the line, but it's no reason to smoke because it's only making your outlook of survival worse. I compare it to global warming because it's similar in the sense that it will add up to a horrible end result over time. It's a sad world when people fail to believe the science we have nowadays and fail to make the connections back to ourselves. I don't want to imagine a world that ignored the signs in thinking that the world will somehow recuperate on it's own accord.