The reality of global warming is doubted now only by a small minority of scientists. The main argument of these detractors seems to be whether human produced greenhouse gases or natural long-term climatic cycles are responsible for it. Cause and effect is something that we deal with everyday in our lives and most of us fairly successfully. With something on as large scale as global warning we sometimes have difficulty getting our minds rapped the concept. As for me I go back to a lesson my father taught me. I once tried to fix the family lawn mower for the first time. After hours of frustration my father said, ˜it doesn't matter what is wrong with it, what matters is how are you going to mow the lawn". He was a very first principle kind-of-guy.Global warming has resulted in an increase in the planet's average temperature and the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Shifts in the global distributions of fish, animals, insects and plants have occurred and will continue to increase. One of the greenhouse gases is carbon dioxide and it has increased 9.3% since 1980. Scientists who study our planet's plant biomass have found that during this same time period plant biomass increased by 6%. Since carbon dioxide is a natural plant food it was not a great surprise to many people that this was happening. But, what was surprising was the magnitude of the increase. The areas with the greatest increases were Canada, Brazil and India. Ecologists working with climatologists and found that the percentage of cloud cover had decreased in these areas. The increased amount of sunlight, through photosynthesis, is the causative agent for the increase in plant productivity. Areas of the planet that showed losses in plant productivity were parts of Mexico and northern Siberia from drying and cooling, respectively. The Pollyanna's among us will say that this increase in plant productivity will result in offsetting any crops losses through the negative effects of global warming. Sorry, while global plant productivity may have increased 6% in 24 years the human population has increased 35%. If deforestation in the Amazon basin continues at its present rate there will only be the potential for increased productivity left in the form of low yield carbohydrate crops like yams. The root cause of many of our future planetary problems will not be miss management or poor allocation of resources but too many people and not enough food to go around. What is it about us that we cannot grasp this simple concept? If we, the top carnivore species on this planet and the only sentient one, do not take steps on multiple levels to address this problem nature will do it for us. The results of crowding and mismanagement of resources fill our history - black plague, smallpox and influenza. We have been lucky so far in this new century with SARS and the bird flu.

Think Global - Act Local!