An Inconvenient Truth

: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It

by Al Gore, copyright 2006

"Almost all of the mountain glaciers in the world are now melting, many of them quite rapidly. There is a message in this" (pp. 48-49).

I could fill this post with nothing but quotes from the book.

"The science textbooks had to be rewritten in 2004. They used to say, 'It's impossible to have hurricanes in the South Atlantic.' But that year, for the first time ever, a hurricane hit Brazil" (pp. 84-85).

Here's more about the polar bears that I mentioned in an earlier post:

"The melting of the [Arctic] ice represents bad news for creatures like polar bears. A new scientific study shows that, for the first time, polar bears have been drowning in significant numbers. Such deaths have been rare in the past. But now, these bears find they have to swim much longer distances from floe to floe. In some places, the edge of the ice is 30 to 40 miles from the shore" (pp. 146-147).

Global warming is disrupting delicately balanced ecological relationships among species, like this example:

"A study from the Netherlands ... shows that 25 years ago, the peak arrival date for the migratory birds was April 25. Their chicks hatched almost six weeks later, peaking on June 3, just in time for the height of the caterpillar season. Now, two decades of warming later, the birds still arrive in late April, but the caterpillars are peaking two weeks earlier, leaving the mother birds without their traditional source of food for the chicks. The peak hatching date has moved slightly forward, but cannot move by much. As a result, the chicks are in trouble" (pp. 152-153).

Trees are also affected by climate change:

"This picture shows a portion of 14 million acres of spruce trees in Alaska and British Columbia that have been killed by bark beetles, whose rapid spread was once slowed by colder and longer winters" (pp. 156-157).

Greenland's ice is also melting. In 2004 Sir David King, U.K. Science Advisor said, "The maps of the world will have to be redrawn."

"If Greenland melted or broke up and slipped into the sea -- or if half of Greenland and half of Antarctica melted or broke up and slipped into the sea, sea levels worldwide would increase by between 18 and 20 feet" (pp. 196-197).

The next page shows us what would happen to Florida. The coastal areas would be covered by the rising ocean and Okefenokee Swamp would be connected to open ocean. Much of the Netherlands would also be covered by the rising water, and they have already launched a competition among architects to design floating homes, some pictured on page 203. The double-page photos are National Geographic quality showing these disasters and more.

"This image shows the largest ice shelf in the Arctic -- the Ward Hunt shelf. Three years ago [in 2002] it cracked in half, to the astonishment of scientists. This had never happened before" (pp.128-129).

If more people would read this book or watch Gore's Oscar Award-winning film "An Inconvenient Truth," maybe there would be a chance to save the world from the dire effects of global warming. Yes, I know that sounds extreme, but we are already in an "emergency" (as the subtitle says) and, at least in this country, refuse to make needed changes if doing so would in any way disrupt profits for major corporations. I don't understand why those who believe in God are unwilling to use their God-given minds to see the disaster rushing toward us.