An Inconvenient Truth

Last week, I went to a free screening of "An Inconvenient Truth," here in Amman and it scared the shit out of me (as it was supposed to.)

I have been an environmentally responsible person for the last 12yrs, and I never bought arguments from such books as " The state of fear." regarding Global warming not being a threat. Heck, I can experience global warming first hand;. Summers have become unbearably hot and annual snow has become a thing of the past. Hell, we would be lucky if it snowed once every 3-5 yrs.

I think a lot of people in America will wake up and start doing something about it. But as far as China and the rest of the third world, I still think that they need something to wake them up from their slumber.

In my own view Kyoto was not stringent enough on countries like India and China, who sort of have a cart blanch until around 2015.

Jordan, is not better either. And despite the fact that it is a rather small country with per capita pollution slightly less than the world average, I still think that Jordan should take global warming very seriously and set an example in the region.

To the best of my knowledge there is no fuel economy or car emissions standards. I remember, 11 years ago, when I renewed my car registration in the US, they used to stick a device inside the car's muffler/exhaust to test for emissions. Alas, no such thing happens here. I am even willing to speculate that the people in the ministry of environment never hear of such a thing.

Another thing, many people will watch the movie and maybe not pay attention to the part regarding the world population growth. According to the movie, it took 10000 generations to get the world population from 0(2) to 2 billion, but it will take less than 50 yrs to reach 9 billion.

This is a very scary state of affairs. And in it lies one part of the solution. Personally I think that producing children in an overpopulated world is a crime. I know that in all likelihood that I will commit such a crime either once or twice. I know that it is selfish on my part, but I think I will not be able to help it.

I really think population control is a major key for this; I really think that the industrial world should threaten countries with high population growth rates with sanctions.

When I posted my Jordan overpopulation blog, one of the comments was about Jordan not having an over population problem. Considering what I have seen in the movie and other sources that I have found on the internet. Overpopulation is a big problem, not only for Jordan but for the planet in general.

While experts estimate that the earth can only support around 1.2-4 billion people. My own estimates are around 1-2 billions. At this level all of them would have a very decent living standard and none would have to suffer from poverty. They would have lots of riches to share and they would not need to fight over resources.

If we want a good world for our kids, we can not afford to be nice when the world is less than 50 yrs away from total destruction; it is time to educate the vast majority of our population about pollution control, and population control(contraception, etc.)

I still meet people who say that they ended up producing 9 children because they could not help it or because it was God's will. If it was up to me, these people would be in jail by now.

If you want a to help prevent global warming, have less kids. Also visit any or all of the following website:

http://www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/

http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/

http://www.algore.com/cards.html

http://www.overpopulation.org/

Some of the energy saving tips will also save you money.