The atmosphere is primarily composed of nitrogen (78 percent), oxygen (21 percent), argon (0.93 percent), and CO2 (0.04 percent). Many other gases are present in trace amounts. The lower atmosphere also contains varying amounts of water vapor, up to four percent by volume.
It's statements like these that totally give him away as a person intent on demonizing any efforts to acknowledge a problem:
Gore’s “inconvenient truth” is that — there’s no tactful way to say this — we gas-guzzling, SUV-flaunting, comfort-addicted humans, wallowing in our own self-indulgences, have screwed up the planet. We’ve hauled prodigious quantities of fossil fuels out of the ground where they belong, combusted them to release carbon dioxide (CO2) into the sky where it shouldn’t be, and now we’re going to burn for our sins.
He is clearly mocking this issue. Here is another example of his writings that just give ya that warm and fuzzy :P You can tell he understands the implications of this.
Needless to say, there have been no glaciers reported in Iowa as long as anyone can remember. It’s warmer now. And if it would just warm up a bit more, fewer Iowans would need to trot off to Florida, Texas, and Arizona during deepest winter.
He doesn't seem to think anything will happen, and as long as he can live his personal life like nothing will happen he doesn't seem to care.
Here are a few agencies and entities that at least agree that there is indeed a problem, and that it is a serious problem (intentionally leaving out that they also agree WE have something to do with it's severity):
National Academy of Sciences
World Meteorological Associations's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
US Environmental Protection Agency
US Dept. of Energy
NASA's Goddard Institute
Union of Concerned Scientists
World Resources Institute
There seems to be a reluctance to try anything except things that allow money to behave as it has been, like Zyzz said. FOr example, Wal-Mart just said publicly it would do anything it could for the environment, as long as it didn't decrease earnings for shareholders or make them less competitive on retail prices. Don't get me started on Wal-Mart anyway haha that was another thread.. but it's related because this "mindset" we are in of turbo-capitalism is part of the problem.
Humans and animals exhaling CO2, volcanos, decomposition CO2 and methane, etc... these are are normal and are probably what eventually tips the balance of natural cycles after massing for centuries. Mass quantities of trees and vegetation are designed to offset that... but we've depleted many of those resources as well to use as building materials for elaborate structures, as well as clearing land to build said structures. That isn't the main point tho... what the industrial age has done has compounded that issue by introducing an artifical insertion of CO2 and other gasses that dwarfs that of natural emissions, not the other way around as this race car driver is saying. I supposed the population booms have increased CO2 exhaled by humans as a whole, but not to the extent that it is at.
Anyway .. ONCE AGAIN .. all I'm saying is to be aware of your consumtion and not be wasteful. Most of the ideas I had were for companies and governments to step in on, that would ultimately lead to a better place to live anyway.