Editors Note: Like a true politician, I have flip-flopped on my views of this topic. I am no longer 100% sure that Global Warming is a true phenomenon. However, I still completely support taking every effort to move toward a less energy dependent nation. Even if we are wrong, all we have done, is given future generations a cleaner environment. 

During a recent business trip to Las Vegas, I was sitting in a lounge having drinks with a few new friends when the topic of ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ came up. Having never heard anything about what was being said, as soon as I could I checked it out online.

What I found was appalling. An Inconvenient Truth is a documentary put together by Al Gore. Back in Indiana this movie was not out yet, so I had to wait even longer to see it. However, I was there opening weekend with a whopping 4 other people in attendance. The move is brilliant, and a MUST SEE for anyone who gives a shit about the world we live in.

The US in a whirl-wind of problems these days, from terrorism abroad, to terrorism in the homeland, to troops raping foreign women, to taxes, to well… you get the point . It would have been easy for Al Gore to take a political stand, yet he didn’t. He gave a presentation on the facts. Notice I said THE FACTS. He didn’t sugar coat anything, and he didn’t exaggerate anything.

With 2005, the worst storm season ever experienced in America just behind us, it seems we may be reaching a tipping point - and Gore pulls no punches in explaining the dire situation. Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb. If the vast majority of the world’s scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced.

If you haven’t figured it out yet we are talking about Global Warming, but - What IS Global Warming?

Carbon dioxide and other gases warm the surface of the planet naturally by trapping solar heat in the atmosphere. This is a good thing because it keeps our planet habitable. However, by burning fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil and clearing forests we have dramatically increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere and temperatures are rising.

The vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is real, it’s already happening and that it is the result of our activities and not a natural occurrence. The evidence is overwhelming and undeniable.

We’re already seeing changes. Glaciers are melting, plants and animals are being forced from their habitat, and the number of severe storms and droughts is increasing.

* The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled in the last 30 years.
* Malaria has spread to higher altitudes in places like the Colombian Andes, 7,000 feet above sea level.
* The flow of ice from glaciers in Greenland has more than doubled over the past decade.
* At least 279 species of plants and animals are already responding to global warming, moving closer to the poles.

If the warming continues, we can expect catastrophic consequences.

* Deaths from global warming will double in just 25 years — to 300,000 people a year.
* Global sea levels could rise by more than 20 feet with the loss of shelf ice in Greenland and Antarctica, devastating coastal areas worldwide.
* Heat waves will be more frequent and more intense.
* Droughts and wildfires will occur more often.
* The Arctic Ocean could be ice free in summer by 2050.
* More than a million species worldwide could be driven to extinction by 2050.

This topic is no longer a question of IF, but WHEN!

I’ll admit, I was skeptical - very skeptical. I’d consider myself an average American. I like to do what I want, whenever I want, because its convenient. My thought process was always well, I’m just one person, what I do, is not going to affect anything, but its so untrue.