15 COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE
MYTH 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate. FACT: Accurate satellite, balloon and mountain top observations made over the last three decades have not shown any significant change in the long term rate of increase in global temperatures. Average ground station readings do show a mild warming of 0.6 to 0.8C over the last 100 years, which is well within the natural variations recorded in the last millennium. However, the ground station network suffers from an uneven distribution across the globe; the stations are preferentially located in growing urban and industrial areas (“heat islands”), which show substantially higher readings than adjacent rural areas (“land use effects”) i.e. local heat retention due to urban sprawl, not global warming…and it is these, ‘false high’ ground readings which are then programmed into the disreputable climate models used by your favourite enviro groups such as Greenpeace, which live up to the GIGO acronym — Garbage In, Garbage Out.
Looking at it from the long term, the planet has been gradually recovering from the Little Ice Age which ended in 1850. Our temps are in fact right where they should be. From a short term perspective, satellite measurements (which are far more accurate than land-based stations) are now showing a gradual decrease in global temperatures, and it is currently well accepted that temperatures have been slowly falling for over a decade now and cold records are being set far more often than warm records.
In summary, there has been no catastrophic warming recorded from either method whatsoever.
MYTH 2: It’s never been warmer in the past.FACT: We are in a relatively cool period and it used to be much warmer over countless periods in the past. Even just a few hundred years ago, the Vikings used to live in parts of Greenland without snow, and vineyards flourished in the North of London! There is nothing apocalyptic about warmer temperatures, in fact it’s quite the opposite. In the UK, every mild winter saves 20,000 cold-related deaths, and scaled up over northern Europe mild winters save hundreds of thousands of lives each year. ALSO, data from ice core samples shows that in the past, temperatures have risen by ten times the current rise, and fallen again, in the space of a human lifetime. Nothing is happening “faster than normal” with today’s weather/climate change/temperature variations, etc. MYTH 3: The “hockey stick” graph proves that the earth has experienced a steady, very gradual temperature decrease for 1000 years, then recently began a sudden increase. FACT: The hockey stick graph seen in An Inconvenient Truth and elsewhere has been completely debunked and proven fraudulent. It has airbrushed out the significant changes in climate which have continually occurred throughout geologic time. For instance, the Medieval Warm Period, from around 1000 to1200 AD (when the Vikings farmed on Greenland) was followed by a period known as the Little Ice Age. Since the end of the 17th Century the “average global temperature” has been rising at the low steady rate mentioned above; although from 1940 – 1970 temperatures actually dropped, leading to a Global Cooling scare. And now the temperatures are dropping once again, in fact they’ve been dropping since 1998.
The “hockey stick”, a former poster boy of both the UN’s IPCC and Canada’s Environment Department, ignores historical recorded climatic swings, and is proven to be flawed and statistically unreliable as well. It has now been quietly removed from the IPCC reports and thoroughly discredited throughout the scientific world and is well regarded as one of the biggest scientific hoaxes of our time, yet you can still find it being used today by organizations such as the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, etc. The chart is a computer construct and a very faulty one at that. But what else would you expect, seeing as it was created only to help perpetrate the climate change lie.
Speaking of computer generated scams, let’s not forget the drowning polar bears in Gore’s movie and the fraudulent claim that the bears are disappearing. In fact they are actually thriving. Polar bear populations are 500% larger than they were 50 years ago. Shame on you, Al Gore, for playing on people’s emotions to drive support for your enormous $45 trillion carbon tax hoax.
MYTH 4: Human produced carbon dioxide has increased over the last 100 years, adding to the Greenhouse effect, thus warming the earth. FACT: Carbon dioxide levels have indeed changed for various reasons, human and otherwise, just as they have throughout geologic time. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the CO2 content of the atmosphere has increased. The RATE of growth during this period has also increased from about 0.2% per year to the present rate of about 0.4% per year,which growth rate has now been constant for the past 25 years. However, there is no proof that CO2 is a measurable driver of global warming, let alone the tiny amount released by humankind. As measured in ice cores dated over many thousands of years, CO2 levels move up and down AFTER the temperature has done so, and thus are the RESULT OF, NOT THE CAUSE of warming.
Effectively, the man-made global warming theorists have put effect before cause — this completely debunks the entire global warming theory and shows that reducing carbon dioxide emissions is a futile King Canute exercise! Geological field work in recent sediments confirms this causal relationship. There is solid evidence that, as temperatures move up and down naturally and cyclically through solar radiation, orbital and galactic influences, the warming surface layers of the earth’s oceans expel more CO2 as a result.
MYTH 5: CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas. FACT: Greenhouse gases form about 3% of the atmosphere by volume. They consist of varying amounts, about 96.5% is water vapour and clouds, with the remainder being trace gases like CO2, CH4, Ozone and N2O. CO2 constitutes about 0.037% of the atmosphere. And then the human portion of that 0.037% is incredibly small.
But isn’t CO2 the most important of the greenhouse gases? Nope. Not even close. Most of the greenhouse effect is due to water vapor, which is about 100 times as abundant in the atmosphere as CO2 and thus has a much larger effect.
In summary, water vapour is by far the most important and overwhelming greenhouse gas. Those attributing climate change to CO2 rarely mention these important facts.
What’s next? A steam tax when you boil a kettle for your cup of tea?
MYTH 6: Computer models verify that CO2 increases will cause significant global warming. FACT: The computer models assume that CO2 is the primary climate driver, when in fact CO2 does not drive climate, and they do not take into account the Sun, which has the most significant effect on climate. You cannot use the output of a model to verify or prove its initial assumption – that is circular reasoning and is illogical. Computer models can be made to roughly match the 20th century temperature rise by adjusting many input parameters and using strong positive feedbacks. They do not “prove” anything. Also, computer models predicting global warming are incapable of properly including the effects of the sun, cosmic rays and the clouds. The sun is a major cause of temperature variation on the earth surface as its received radiation changes all the time, This happens largely in cyclical fashion. The number and the lengths in time of sunspots can be correlated very closely with average temperatures on earth, e.g. the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period. Varying intensity of solar heat radiation affects the surface temperature of the oceans and the currents. Warmer ocean water expels gases, some of which are CO2. Solar radiation interferes with the cosmic ray flux, thus influencing the amount ionized nuclei which control cloud cover. Again, models are in essence: GARBAGE IN = GARBAGE OUT. (Maybe they should also take note that when the Earth warms, so do other planets in our solar system. Now please explain how CO2 can cause that?!)
MYTH 7: The UN proved that man–made CO2 causes global warming. FACT: In a 1996 report by the UN on global warming, two statements were deleted from the final draft. Here they are:
1) “None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases.”
2) “No study to date has positively attributed all or part of the climate change to man–made causes”
Scientists draft reports for the IPCC, but the IPCC are bureaucrats appointed by governments, in fact many scientists who contribute to the reports disagree with the ’spin’ that the IPCC and media put on their findings. The latest report suggests that the next 100 years might see a temperature change of 6 Celsius yet a Lead Author for the IPCC (Dr John Christy UAH/NASA) has pointed out that the scenarios with the fastest warming rates were added to the report at a late stage, at the request of a few governments (to create urgency) — in other words the scientists were told what to do by politicians and many of them strongly disagree. This is not science. It’s political propaganda.To the present day there is still no scientific proof that man-made CO2 has any effect on global warming or can cause “climate change”. However, there is plenty of scientific proof that the Earth has been cooling while CO2 has risen, and that increased CO2 is very beneficial to our planet.
MYTH 8: Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is a pollutant. FACT: This is absolutely not true. Nitrogen forms 80% of our atmosphere. We could not live in 100% nitrogen either. Carbon dioxide is no more a pollutant than nitrogen is. CO2 is essential to life on earth. It is necessary for plant growth since increased CO2 intake as a result of increased atmospheric concentration causes many trees and other plants to grow more vigorously. Unfortunately, the Canadian Government has included CO2 with a number of truly toxic and noxious substances listed by the Environmental Protection Act, only as their means to politically control it. In the US, president Obama is also trying to classify CO2 as a “pollutant” for the same political reasons. It’s really quite terrifying and is a slap in the face to science.
MYTH 9: Reducing car use will cut carbon dioxide levels and save the planet!
FACT: The planet does not need saving from this mythical problem of CO2 emissions from cars, but taking this on anyway, removing every car from every road in every country overnight would NOT produce any change in the carbon dioxide level of the atmosphere, and in any case it is pointless trying to alter climate by changing carbon dioxide levels as the cause and effect is the other way round! — It is changes in the activity of the Sun that cause temperature changes on earth, with any temperature rise causing carbon dioxide to de-gas from the oceans.
MYTH 10: Global warming will cause more storms and other weather extremes. FACT: There is no scientific or statistical evidence whatsoever that supports such claims on a global scale. Regional variations may occur, and always do. Growing insurance and infrastructure repair costs, particularly in coastal areas, are sometimes claimed to be the result of increasing frequency and severity of storms, whereas in reality they are a function of increasing population density, escalating development value, and ever more media reporting. Weather records clearly show there has been a decrease in violent and extreme weather over the past century. Extreme weather correlates with the cycle of solar activity, not carbon dioxide emissions or political elections. The recent heavy rainfall in winter and spring is a perfect example of this — it occurred at solar maximum at a time when solar maxima are very intense — this pattern may well repeat every 11 years until about 2045. Furthermore, the hottest and coldest days on record occurred more than 60 years ago (before industry) and the wackiest most extreme weather recorded over the last 100 years, including the strongest hurricanes, and devastating droughts/floods, all occurred in the 1940’s. And guess what? They will always happen, every year, with new records set daily. Normal.
Contrary to media hysteria claiming increasing storm severities, scientists have studied this issue and come to the opposite conclusion: extreme events are becoming LESS common. Atlantic hurricanes were much more numerous from 1950 to 1975 than from 1975 to present. Hailstorms in the US are 35% less common than they were fifty years ago. Extreme rainfall in the US at the end of the 20th century is comparable to what it was at the beginning of the 20th century. Also, there is much empirical evidence to suggest that when global warming does happen from time to time, more warmth generally leads to a more stable climate with less weather extremes. Once again, the greenies got it backwards.
MYTH 11: Carbon taxes, petrol duty, and workplace parking charges are justifiable environmental taxes.
FACT: As carbon dioxide emissions from cars and factories does not have any impact on climate, these taxes are ‘just another tax’ on enterprise and mobility, and have no real green credentials. None.
MYTH 12: Global warming must be real since governments are trying to cover it up and I see protests all the time!
FACT: It’s exactly the opposite. Governments everywhere are not only active supporters of the climate change lie, they are promoters of it and massively fund it. And they’ve done an absolutely brilliant job of it by easily convincing the world’s alarmists and Earth-conscientious citizens of an impending catastrophe, thereby utilizing the protesters and subsequent immense political pressure to push through the very policies they aspire to implement on all of us. Governments have learned the power of activism ever since the days of the revolution, and they’ve managed to use it to their advantage. Extremist environmentalists have been duped into becoming a tool for the very governments they believe they’re “fighting” against. A recent example of this was the declaration by Al Gore and James Hansen which encouraged activists to consider civil disobedience to stop the construction of new coal power plants.
In defense of many environmentalists and “cause-jumpers”, quite often they simply do not know any better but are actually well intentioned.
MYTH 13: Receding glaciers, the calving of ice shelves, and the shrinking of snow on Mt. Kilimanjaro are proof of global warming. FACT: Glaciers have been receding and growing cyclically for hundreds of years. Recent glacier melting is a consequence of coming out of the very cool period of the Little Ice Age. Ice shelves have been breaking off for centuries. Scientists know of at least 33 periods of glaciers growing and then retreating. It’s normal. Besides, glacier’s health is dependent as much on precipitation as on temperature. What you see on your television newscasts are images of the annual summer melt off, which happens every single year and is nothing to worry about.
Global warming is not melting Mt. Kilimanjaro’s alpine glacier. Temperatures at Mt. Kilimanjaro have been slightly cooling since at least the middle of the twentieth century, and those temperatures virtually never rise above freezing. Scientists have long known that deforestation at the base of the mountain is causing the mountaintop glacier to shrink, by reducing the moisture and resultant precipitation in mountain updrafts.
MYTH 14: The earth’s poles are warming; polar ice caps are breaking up and melting and the sea level rising.
FACT: The earth is variable. The western Arctic may be gotten somewhat warmer last century, due to unrelated cyclic events in the Pacific Ocean, but the Eastern Arctic and Greenland are getting colder. And now the western Arctic is cooling again. The small Palmer Peninsula of Antarctica is getting warmer, while the main Antarctic continent is actually cooling. Ice thicknesses are increasing both on Greenland and in Antarctica. Sea level monitoring in the Pacific (Tuvalu) and Indian Oceans (Maldives) has shown no sign of any sea level rise.
MYTH 15: There are only a tiny handful of maverick scientists who dispute that man-made global warming theory is true.
FACT: There are literally tens of thousands of signatures from scientists worldwide on many petitions, ranging from the Oregon Petition Project, the Manhattan Declaration, all the way to the Leipzig Declaration which all state that there is no evidence for the man-made global warming theory nor is there any impact from mankind’s activities on climate. Many scientists are now dissenting against Al Gore and the IPCC and strongly believe that the Kyoto agreement is a total waste of time, expensive, dangerous and one of the biggest political scams ever perpetrated on the public … as H L Mencken said “The fundamental aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and hence clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary” … the desire to save the world usually fronts a desire to rule it. Of the scientists who support the climate change theory, many are on payrolls of government agencies and others are simply securing their funding. The consensus is clear: Man-made climate change is a hoax.
THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT Over 95 percent of the Greenhouse Effect is the result of atmospheric water vapor in Earth’s atmosphere. But because water droplets held in suspension (clouds) make almost as good a reflector as they do a thermal insulator, there is little rise in daytime temperatures due to the Greenhouse Effect. Any greenhouse warming, if it does occur, is limited to primarily increasing nighttime temperatures, which provides beneficial moderation of nighttime low temperatures, but no increase in daytime high temperatures.
Did you know… Although the biggest source of greenhouse gas is our oceans, the world’s natural wetlands also produce more greenhouse gas contributions annually than all human sources combined. Furthermore, Animals and volcanoes produce so much CO2 that it completely dwarfs mankinds insignificantly tiny emissions.
To summarize what we have learned so far:
- Climate changes are not driven by CO2.
- Air pollution has nothing to do with CO2.
- Human-produced CO2 is a miniscule fraction of a percentage of greenhouse gases.
- 96.5% of all greenhouse gases emit from the oceans, naturally.
- The small amount of CO2 produced by humans is wholly beneficial to the planet.
- Without CO2, vegetation dies, herbivores die, you die.
- CO2 levels used to be much higher many times in the past.
- Higher temperatures from the sun result in CO2 levels rising long afterwards.
- Rising CO2 is an effect of global warming, not a cause.
- Global warming and cooling is a purely natural phenomenon.
- The higher the CO2 levels in the atmosphere, the greener our planet becomes.
- Forests and plant life growth has increased by approx 40% over the last 50 years, thanks to CO2.
- Increasing CO2 yields larger food crops. This is beneficial to a growing population.
- The Earth is not currently warming, it is in fact cooling.
- Temperatures in the past have often been much warmer than today.
- Even if it were to happen, a warmer Earth is far better than a colder one, for all life.
- Many scientists believe we are on the cuss of the next little ice age.
- When the planet warms and cools it is due to the sun. Not your car.
- Polar ice is now at record levels and still growing.
- Climate changes happen all the time, and have occurred much faster than anything in modern times.
- There has been no increase in extreme weather. In fact, records show the exact opposite.
So don’t panic. You’re NOT at fault!
“It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don’t buy into anthropogenic global warming.” – U.S. Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA.
Former President Clinton, Al Gore, Obama and others have often cited a letter signed by 2600 scientists that global warming will have catastrophic effects on humanity. Thanks to Citizens for a Sound Economy, we know now that fewer than 10 percent of these “scientists” know anything about climate. Among the signers: a plastic surgeon, two landscape architects, a hotel administrator, a gynecologist, seven sociologists, a linguist, and a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine. We also now know that many of the few actual scientists on that panel are not asked whether they agree with the UN’s asessments, and many of them vehemently disagree and have thus asked to have their names removed from that fraudulent list. Global Warming Treaty is All Pain, No Gain — Malcom Wallop
“When a bureaucracy’s reason for existence is threatened, it typically generates new missions.” Desperately Seeking Mission: Why the State Department’s Gone Green — Peter VanDoren
With the release of Al Gore’s propaganda movie An Inconvenient Truth and with the help of the media the public has been driven into a mass hysteria based not on science but lies. The movie has been completely debunked and the junk science used by extremists is exactly that: junk. You will learn that there is no empirical evidence that man-made CO2 is a cause of temperature increases. It is, in fact, an after effect of temperature increases. Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant, pollution has nothing to do with global warming, politicians who support such absurd notions are a fraud, there is no “consensus” on global warming, the Earth has been far warmer in the past than it is today, polar bears are not endangered or dying, they are thriving, droughts and hurricanes are not caused or made worse by global warming, extreme weather events are decreasing, and there is extensive evidence of the factual natural causes of global warming when it really happens from time to time, pointing squarely at increased solar activity and orbital variations.Those who claim that skeptics are in bed with the oil companies or receive funding from questionable sources need to give their heads a shake and look at the facts. Funding and grants to PROMOTE the climate change myth are astronomical, while money for the skeptics is pocket change:
Debunkers of the global warming theory have received approx = $21M (Million).
Supporters of the global warming theory have received approx = $79B (BILLION!)
Many people want a piece of that $79 billion pie, and the figure will only get higher so long as these groups can continue to convince the populous that the end is near unless we all start paying to emit that evil CO2! Don’t you find it odd that nearly nobody ever accuses the giant Enviro groups of being in bed with the large Green Industry? Or that Al Gore has boatloads of his own cash on the line in these companies? Every environmental, political, and research group knows full well that in order to receive funding and grants they need to create urgency and panic. Money then flows in like a river, regardless of actual science. It’s a sad fact.
It is better to trust scientists than politicans. Do not let fear ruin your day. Learn the Facts.
There are several motives for the media and politicians to lie to you about global warming, aside from money and control.
~The media sells more papers, magazines, and television ratings soar when their audience is scared of some imminent catastrophe that your respective service is reporting on. Although, they can’t decide whether we’re going to burn to death, freeze to death, or drown. http://epw.senate.gov/speechitem.cfm?party=rep&id=263759
~Environmental organizations and some scientists will lie to you because their funding depends on it. If theres no crisis to work through, then they start losing funding. This is well documented.
http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/von_Storch/staged_angst/a_climate_of_staged_angst.html
~Foreign countries are lying to us (by means of the IPCC) because they wish to throw a monkey wrench into the inner workings of western economies, which are the strongest in the world. If our economy slows down, the economic standing of other countries improves because we will no longer dominate the markets.
~Development and industrialization of third world countries will be stamped out, along with hundreds of millions of lives, all under the guise of “saving the planet from climate change”. It’s absolutely sickening. So, who’s really on the “immoral” side? Us or the alarmists?
~Wanna talk about new taxes and restricted freedoms? Try carbon taxes on everything and strict regulations for everyone….all coming soon by convincing you that CO2 & greenhouse gases are somehow evil and you must pay to emit them. Too bad they can’t tax the oceans since they are the cause of 96.5% of all greenhouse emissions, naturally, eh! Also too bad they can’t go back in time and tax the dinosaurs since CO2 levels were MUCH higher back then and it must have been their fault.
The motives for deception are there. Do your part to fight alarmism!
– CO2 is NOT a pollutant!
– Educate yourself!
CLICK HERE and HERE.
Antarctica is getting colder and thicker: http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2006/12/05/sea-level-rise-not-from-antarctic-melting/ ), and we know that any fluctuating warming/cooling is due to natural occurrences, and not human activity.
MUST READ LINKS:
http://epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=264777
http://globalwarminghoax.wordpress.com/2008/03/
http://ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/20061121_gore.pdf
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/
http://www.junkscience.com/challenge.htm
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YmFiZDAyMWFhMGIxNTgwNGIyMjVkZjQ4OGFiZjFlNjc
http://www.cei.org/pdf/5331.pdf
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/04/06/nclim06.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/04/06/ixhome.html
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/harris061206.htm
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060810-020342-6063r
http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/climatechange2/07_1.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_theory_%28science%29
http://www.businessandmedia.org/specialreports/2006/fireandice/fireandice_execsum.asp
http://epw.senate.gov/searchresults.cfm?search=Global+Warming
http://epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=264777
The reason for warming:
http://www.research.noaa.gov/spotlite/archive/spot_sunclimate.html
http://www.research.noaa.gov/spotlite/archive/images/sunclimate_3b.gif
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/03/030321075236.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/56456.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/358953.stm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/07/18/wsun18.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/07/18/ixnewstop.html
http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2005/09/sunwarm.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/04/09/do0907.xml&s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation
If you’re still not convinced that scientists are capable of being slanted in their research, check out this article:
http://epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=263847
For those who believe environmentalists are innocent:
http://www.activistcash.com/organization_overview.cfm/oid/131
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/12/29/91422.shtml
http://epw.senate.gov/repwhitepapers/Political.pdf
For those who believe there is a consensus:
http://www.petitionproject.org/
http://www.sepp.org/policy%20declarations/LDrevised.html
To see what happened in a debate between alarmists and skeptics:
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=5ac1c0d6-802a-23ad-4a8c-ee5a888dfe7e
More FACTS and MYTHS? See what Professor deFreitas has to say. Click here.
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!
The first and last time I attended the Meeting of IPCC was back in 1989, in Sundsvall, Sweden. Now, I am more convinced that there are indeed natural, not man-made, factors that explain any change in climate, including "the acvitity of the Sun", "thermal releases from the deep and spreading seaflors", and other geological phenomena.
Abu Bakar Jaafar, PEng, FIEM, FASc
bakar.jaafar@gmail.com
My due apologies. The word "seaflors" should read "seafloors". Regret for any inconvenience caused by this typo.
Abu Bakar Jaafar
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is naturally present in the atmosphere at levels of approximately 0.035%. Short-term exposure to CO2 at levels below 2% (20,000 parts per million or ppm) has not been reported to cause harmful effects. Higher concentrations can affect respiratory function and cause excitation followed by depression of the central nervous system. High concentrations of CO2 can displace oxygen in the air, resulting in lower oxygen concentrations for breathing. Therefore, effects of oxygen deficiency may be combined with effects of CO2 toxicity.
My comment was to large to post. Please go here to read.
http://www.waynedesign.net/comments.htm
Wayne, I glanced over you comment and I have to say you are just as misled as the "average joe". Our planet is not over populated. In fact, if some countries don't start having babies soon, their economies are shot. The Chinese are having major issues now because they have an ageing population and their young population is mostly male. We here in the US are starting to feel the effects of the same thing. And if you doubt that, wait a little longer. With fewer young workers entering into the workforce due to low birth rates there are fewer workers supporting the older retired workers. The only solution to that problem would be to kill all those people who can no longer work, for any reason. That is unethical. Healthier living has nothing to do with how big a house or how much land you live on. We are seeing more health issues because of an increase in chemicals we use in our food, plant and animal alike, as well as our cleaning supplies. Also, our seditary lifestyles lead to a slew of health issues. Pollution isn't a problem where I live since I live in the country. Is it more of an issue in the cities, yes. The bigger the city the more of a problem it is, granted. But that is not the main contributing issue to a rise in health problems. And something you have forgotten, we are living longer now, even with all these health problms you are so concerned about, than any other generation before (excluding early Bible times that is). So please try harder and check your facts before useing propaganda to promost propaganda.