In Defense of Mr. Gore

I go on a little rant about the idiots that seem to be attempting to use the current weather situation to disprove global warming.

 

My parents watch a lot of FOX news.  Living in the same house, I unwilling hear a lot of FOX news if not actually have to watch it.  Recently I've been hearing a lot of talk about the snow.  FOX news of course even went so far as to make note of the fact that the weather has been getting increasingly bad since Obama took office and called it Snowbama.  But in the same breath, they seem every day to use this so-called blizzard of 2010 as proof that the "theory" of global warming is false.  Because after all, Al Gore did, himself say "The average amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is increasing exponentially" "The world is warming so rapidly, it will never snow again!"
The fact that it is snowing a lot this winter (who could've imagined...certainly not Mr. Gore) does absolutely nothing to disprove or debunk global warming to make my last month in the States a comfortable and accommodating time.  To think such is so narrow-minded that I cannot even fathom how, intelligent, educated, (more-or-less) rational people could think such a thing.  This "blizzard" is affecting the North East of the United States.  But there is a reason it is called global warming.  Greenland, the north pole, and much of northern Canada are experiencing relatively high temperatures at the moment.  I hope I also don't need to remind anyone that it is summer currently in the southern hemisphere.  We are essentially the only area of the planet suffering from abnormally cold weather and that does not prove that the world is not getting warmer.  The people saying these things seem to have forgotten that in the spring, the weather gets warm again.  They are speaking as if this summer they will not once complain it is hot.  It is completely conditional near-sightedness and not based on any kind of fact.  If anyone doubts global warming, I'll give you a few simple facts.  

• The average temperature of Earth is 59°F.
• The Earth is 92,750,000 miles from the sun
• The average temperature of Mercury is 775°F by day and -330°F by night
• Mercury is 36,000,000 miles from the sun
• The average temperature of Venus is 860°F by day or night
• Venus is 67,000,000 miles from the sun

Now there are a few things we can say for sure about these figures...

• Mercury is much closer to the sun than Venus
• Venus has a higher average temperature than Mercury
• The temperature of Venus does not drop significantly at night

And there are a few more things you may have forgotten since astronomy class...

• Yes Venus has the highest average temperature in the solar system
• Venus is often called the Earth's sister planet because it is roughly the same size, mass and density and it also has an atmosphere as Mercury and Mars do not
• The atmosphere of Venus is composed of primarily CO₂ whereas the Earth's is primarily nitrogen

I think you don't have to be a genius to figure out that Venus' atmosphere has something to do with its high average temperature.  It is obviously not based entirely on proximity to the sun because Venus is almost twice the distance to the sun as the first planet, Mercury, which does not have an atmosphere.  Venus suffers from global warming.  Granted, it has a few million years of a head start but the difference between Venus and the Earth as that we have a chance to stop this from happening.  The carbon dioxide in Venus' atmosphere was naturally occurring and though there is a lot of naturally occurring carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, the vast majority of it is man-made and can be prevented.  Pretending to not notice this is ignorance and I have trouble trusting anyone who does such a thing.  Is it really worth it to just take a gamble on this?  Yeah it will cost money and you can bitch about how we could better spend that money, but wouldn't you rather be safe than sorry.  Wouldn't the majority of Americans agree that we don't need an entire industry that spends money on the research, manufacture and advertisement for clothing for our dogs???  I wish the US would just stop being ignorant and realize we need to redirect our finances to more pressing matters.  No more pet snuggies hunting people in caves on the other side of the world.  Why not try to at least give some kind of safety net to our children, you know, just in case there's some credibility to this "theory" of global warming?