http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gna5hncoBmc
Have any of you seen this Greenpeace Global Warming ad with the Californian fireman in it? For some reason this commercial really agitates me.
"As a firefighter I'm a student of the weather, and I've noticed that there's a change that's occurred in the last several years, these patterns are not what I've grown up with, they're also not what I've seen in the historical records."
This is a useless point, everyone's favorite trusted public servant's anedotal account of the weather in his area over a few years. This isn't climate it's weather. It would be like jumping to the conclusion that we are going to see a global ice age because there's been a few cold winters in Calgary. And what does it mean to be a student of the weather, because he's a fireman it is somehow less ridiculous of a statement? He's examining the dirt and looking up at the sky like he's some kind of native american rain man, how contrived and hilarious.
"Sometimes 1,000's of fires in a 24 hour period."
So what, this doesn't tell me anything. Are there more fires now than there were 100 years ago? How do I know there weren't twice as many fires 50 years ago. I'm sure 500 years ago there were 1,000's or even 10,000 or 100,000 fires burning at the same time. There's no comparison to tell the viewer whether this is an issue or not, I assume because the data isn't favourable, but it sounds scary! Even if we were in the onset of a global ice age you could have one particularly dry year of weather that could result in forest fires.
"If the climate changes and we don't have the water we need.... we could see all of society start to move out of certain areas."
It's called human ingenuity, we adjust to changing situations and adapt. If water becomes an issue humans will find a way to deal with it, whether it's by piping it in or finding better ways to store it. If sea levels rise we will build dykes or move inland, if water dries up humans can move to other areas with more precipitation.
"California could dry up and blow away."
Operative word, "could'. California could turn into a rainforest, California could be covered in tundra. Would this be such a bad thing anyway? This is such a blatant attempt to induce fear on the sheeple based on no facts.
So what is the moral of this story? Climate change will force humans to change some of our living locations? Is this really catastrophic? It will not happen overnight, people have many years to respond. Why are people frightened by these suggestions of change? Give me a better reason to be concerned. Ads like this only make me more cynical about the global warming movement, don't try to tug on my heart strings, give me some facts!