Global Warming: Fact? Fiction? Somewhere in between?

I heard a radio talk show host this morning talking about the "fallacy of global warming." How does he know it is a fallacy? At this point, do any of us have any concrete evidence either way on this topic? It seems as each new piece of "evidence" comes out proving there is global warming and it is man made, a piece of "evidence" also comes out to negate that finding. Where does that leave us? Will we ever be able to discern the truth here? Can we at least do something to help improve our environment?

We know these things about our environment to be true:

• We pollute the air each and every day and at an increasing rate due to third world countries coming online with newer transportation, energy, and production technologies. The increase in the number of patients suffering with asthma is astounding. When I was 3 years old I was diagnosed with asthma. Nobody else in my class had it and I didn't know of anyone else in my school of about 450 that had it. I was an odd ball. There were no inhalers for personal use back then. I used to take an oral liquid medication for my symptoms. The number of cases of asthma now in schools is increasing exponentially. Every year, I knew of several children in each of my children's classes that had asthma. It is almost commonplace now. I have to think that air pollution is playing at least some role in this increase.
• Our waters are getting more and more polluted. Think of the fish that you go to buy in the market. How often do we hear reports telling us that we should only eat fish from clean waters and that the larger fish like tuna and swordfish have high concentrations of mercury in them so we should not eat them more than once a week. Where did that mercury come from? As far as I know, it mercury does not naturally occur in the sea. What other pollutant that we may not be aware of yet are we ingesting by eating fish?
• Whether we have caused this or not, the ice caps and glaciers seem to be melting more and faster than any time in our modern history. This will change weather globally and may result in sea level rises around the globe.
• Fossil fuel will run out at some point. We pay through the nose for it now....and by doing so, we send our hard earned dollars to foreign countries that at best we have a tenuous relationship with. Because of the necessity of buying fuel from them, we are politically tied to nations that don't recognize equal rights for women (i.e.Saudi Arabia) and nations that consistently violate basic human rights laws. Wouldn't it be nice to be free of those obligations and to keep our energy dollars here at home?
• Unchecked population growth in 3rd world countries will continue to put a larger and larger strain on natural resources and food supplies.

What does all of this have to do with what we have called "global warming?" It may have little to do with it but these are real issues that nobody can dispute that are affecting our environment and that we can do something about (except for glacier melting).

We can all sit back and argue about whether or not we are causing global warming and whether we are willing to do something about it or not. This will probably continue to get us nowhere. We should instead focus on the changes we can make to improve our environment, help future generations live healthier lives, and let the scientists duke it out on global warming.