Global warming explained . . .
Global warming is a phenomenon produced by a bad data set, folks.
First, the data set for reliable, world-wide temperatures begins in the 1870s, 1880s. This is a good period to start if you want to make it look like temps are rising rapidly, because it follows a dramatic cooling following several major volcanic events, mosted noted of which was Krakatoa (sp?).
Obviously, there was a marked warming after this period, because the planet was as cool as it has been during the modern era.
Second . . . cycles, baby.
We still are far cooler today than we were before the Ice Ages started (but, we'll never be as cool as Fonzi in his prime). In some sense, we're still getting over the Ice Ages.
Plus, Don't forget that the entire interior of North America was once a shallow sea. We're still a long way from the Gateway Arch being a bouy.
Yes, it is markedly warmer today than 100 yrs ago. That's hardly a scientific data set, given the scope of our global timeline is 4-5 billion years.
Third . . . Where are most temperatures readings taken? Downtown of a metro, and out at the airport. There has never been a decades-long, world-wide project to check temperatures out in the middle of nowhere.
Fourth . . . There has always been a squealy bitch mentality among liberals (I consider myself a conservative socialist; in other words, a commie with a gun) . They latch on to any goddamned issue they can and hug it and cry about it the way 12 year old girls use a fixation with horses to develop the skill of grooming a mate.
It's a classic propensity of bored rich kids to treat "issues" as play things, and as a McGuffin for acting out a macro-scale Freudian fantasy of usurping their fathers (essentially, the Freudian ritual of killing one's father becomes killing the achievements of the older generation).
It makes them feel good. It makes them feel like a simple dietary choice empowers them to save the planet. This sense of power against the long odds of life is basically the basis of modern film fantasy. It just dumb kids, and the three our four dumb hippie adults who could never put it away.
Eventually, they will get over it. Look at the '60s generation. Today's youth violence is nothing compared to LA or Paris during the '60s. Even unorganized violenece today does not compare (check your Uniform Crime Stats).
And what has the '60s generation been up to? Enron, Iraq, and other oily substances. If the hippies can get over it and get 401k plans, vegetarians can eventually give up and start cooking soul food.
The odd fact is, the planet did not ask to be saved. In fact, if we really wanted to save the planet, we'd do our thing. There weren't any hippies asking the dinosaurs to please not usurp slower moving proto-mammals and reptiles and amphibians. They just did their thing.
We should do our thing, too.
And our thing is building and organizing, farming, war, breeding, killing, pooping, building piping to handle the pooping, and building poop treatment centers so we can send the poop water out to be pooped again and again and again.
If you can't accept that, would you at least start wrecking beaver dams -- they destroy ecosystems, too.