Global Warming, Is It True?

Over the past few years I began listening to the media reports about global warming, which led me to see Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth, which intern made me become more proactive in recycling, shutting off lights in rooms I am not occupying, turning on one light while in a washroom, replacing burnt-out bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs, and even conserving water wherever I could. However, last week I was washing my car and the nozzle on the hose broke and was stuck open. This would mean that I would not be able to shut the water off conveniently while I used the sponge to wash the car and I would have to run around the entire house to shut the water off from the spicket. On top of that I would also have to deal with the guilt of leaving the water running. So, I ran around the entire house every time I needed the water turned either off or on and when I was finished washing the car I wondered to myself, "Would it have been that big of a deal to leave the water on during the washing process? Am I really part of the global warming problem in this world?" At this point I made up my mind. I'm going to research whether or not global warming is true.

Over the next week and a half I researched as much as I could on the topic of global warming. I read articles, books, watched news specials, and even watched a few movies like Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. Much to my happiness I discovered plenty of arguments and facts that I may not be contributing to global warming and harming the world as much as I previously had thought. Here's a list of some of the arguments against global warming that I discovered:

• The New York Times reported in 1895 and 1961 that the world is frozen and getting colder.
• Just two years later in 1961 The New York Times reported that a warmer earth is evident at the poles.
• In the 1970's Time Magazine, Newsweek, and the LA Times all believed that we were in and facing a period of global cooling.
• Al Gore in his movie said, "If" to most everything. If this continues, if this ice cap melts, etc... The truth believed by many scientists is that the chances of these things actually happening in the future is next to none.
• Al Gore claims that over the next century water levels could rise by nearly 20 feet, while the IPCC predicts 23 inches.
• CO2 levels do not effect temperature change, in fact temperature change affects CO2 levels.
• 450 million years ago CO2 levels were 10 times higher than they are now and were in the middle of the coldest period in the last half billion years.
• CO2 is essential for life. Over the past 50 years there's been an increase in CO2 levels and plants and trees have grown faster, bigger, and more vigorously.

These facts have me wondering whether or not global warming is just something concocted by the media or even a ploy that the government could be using to warrant some unknown future actions. Whatever the case may be, I do feel as though I am a better person for executing the actions I chose to help control the so called global warming problem.