The Lantern

Issue date: 3/28/07 Section: Opinion

Recently at the Oscars, former vice president Al Gore received an award for his work in his so-called documentary on global warming entitled "An Inconvenient Truth." In his documentary, he asks people to cut down on their carbon dioxide emissions, which he classifies to be the number one cause of global warming. In his movie, Gore spends a lot of the time sitting in front of a PowerPoint projector showing "lots of beautiful imagery, and some very slick graphics and digital animation," as Eric Steig states in his very un-partisan review of this movie.

Most people who have common sense are not distracted by this presentation, however. While Gore asks the common man to stop contributing to the process of global warming, he himself lives in a 20-room house with annual utility bills around $30,000 a year. He flies in a private jet (even during the movie), rides around in a private car (also in the movie), and still expects us, the common people, to do our part to help stop global warming.

Has this senator from Tennessee not heard of the saying, "practice what you preach?" Gore's house, according to the nonprofit Tennessee Center for Policy Research, uses twenty times more energy than the average American household. How about that? Gore uses more energy in a month than any normal person uses in a year, and yet he expects us to cut back. Gore should be the first one to reduce fuel emissions and energy consumption, because only then will other people start to take him seriously. Gore is simply being the biggest hypocrite in the universe. The sad thing is, he does not even try to hide it. Countless times in his documentary, you see him riding around in his private Lincoln, which sucks down ten miles per gallon, and ironically, he expects the American people to take the brunt of all the sacrifices. He does not fly on commercial airliners, and he certainly does not drive a car that cuts down on emissions. At least Leonardo DiCaprio supports the cause by driving a Toyota Prius, and therefore does not play the role of hypocrite (like Gore) in the battle to oust global warming.

Beyond all of Gore's hypocrisy lies the real problem: He is flat out wrong. The global warming that most people think about does not actually exist, as Dr. Timothy Ball elaborates in his article, Global Warming: The Cold Hard Facts: "Believe it or not, Global Warming is not due to human contribution of carbon dioxide. This in fact is the greatest deception in the history of science. We are wasting time, energy and trillions of dollars while creating unnecessary fear and consternation over an issue with no scientific justification."

Dr. Timothy Ball has a background in global warming. He is also is one of the first Canadians to have broad background in climatology. His specialty is the "reconstruction of past climates and impact of climate change on human history and the human condition," as stated in his article. He goes on to describe accounts of colleagues trying to stop him from voicing his opinion due to the information that he compiled over the past decades. This is a must-read for anyone who needs information on the topic. The article is available at Canadafreepress.com.

There are people at Ohio State University who think the same way as Dr. Ball. In an article on sciencedaily.com, Robert Essenhigh, professor of energy conservation for Ohio State University's department of mechanical engineering, suggested that "...atmospheric carbon dioxide - often thought of as a key "greenhouse gas" - is not the cause of global warming." Later in this article the most essential fact comes out, "Essenhigh believes these people fail to account for the much greater amount of carbon dioxide that enters - and leaves - the atmosphere as part of the natural cycle of water exchange from, and back into, the sea and vegetation."

Important researchers from Canada and our own professors at Ohio State have stated their opinions from the overwhelming evidence that has been collected. My opinion stems from a geology class I took my first year in college. One day in this class, we were to the point in the Earth's timeline when there was a huge extinction. No, not the dinosaurs. This was before the dinosaurs ever existed. This is the worst extinction that has ever occurred in the Earth's history that we know of. When this extermination happened, over 95 percent of all marine animals, and 70 percent of all the land families were gone forever. Many theories have been stated as to why this happened, but I side with the climate change. It got so hot on the earth due to massive amounts of carbon dioxide being released by volcanoes. This was also when the continents formed Pangea. This huge land mass had most of its land away from the ocean and it received little rainfall.

My point is, if the earth was once hot enough to kill almost everything in the world with out humans even existing - and large amounts of cows' methane flatulence everywhere - then how can humans possibly expect to be responsible for the environment that does these things through its natural process?

Ben Schwarzwalder is a junior in journalism and English. He can be reached at schwarzwalder.3@osu.edu.

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