What are the ultimate causes of global warming? Obviously it has to do with burning fossil fuels. Why is the earth not able to cope with the burning of so many fossil fuels when it has been able to cope with the proliferation of many types of species of flora and fauna long before humans entered the scene? This may seem like a clever stumper but is in fact easy to counter if one looks up in the daytime sky on a clear day. The energy being burned in fossil fuels was collected millions of years ago from that same sun in the process of photosynthesis.

Petroleum (crude oil) is decayed masses of phytoplankton, and coal is decayed masses of plant matter as well. All species of life tend to use immediately accessible sources of energy for food (eating readily available plants or eating other animals) and humans were no exception to this until recently. It really was a strange set of circumstances and the details of the history of the Industrial Revolution is well documented in other places. Apart from massive social changes that are more obvious for historians and others to take note of, the bigger change is having access to millions of years worth of sun’s collected energy.

What is driving us to use these fossil fuels? It is our standard of living and the massive population increase that continues to occur exponentially.

Humans require food; lots of it and not just one time but on a continuous basis. Beginning in the 1930s there was a radical change in how food was procured; the bulk of it began to be produced using fossil-fuel-intensive methods in most developed nations. The question of food growing has been since that time a question of how to best convert oil into something edible.

Humans require clothing and shelter; today the methods developed nations use to obtain both these essentials are fossil-fuel intensive.

What should we do? Feel really guilty? Mope and point fingers at large corporations? Blame India and China for all the new population pressure? Forget it! A human in those countries uses a tiny fraction of fossil-fuel derived energy that 100 humans in “developed” nations do.

The ultimate solution: population control. This is not achieved through draconian police-state like efforts. This can be achieved by many proven means of education, welfare, and health care. The other component of population control is immigration: where do these people live. Immigration is a reality and population movements will ultimately occur based on pressures out of a particular nations control. To legalize and enroll these immigrants in education, welfare, and health care will certainly help reduce population growth. Education and wealth is a sure-fire way to smaller family sizes, which will place much less strain in the earth.

external links:
Population Connection: Detailed evidence and effects of overpopulation worldwide.
Storm Change: What is happening is so obvious an simpleton with a free camera can see it.
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