AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH --- THE PLANETARY EMERGENCY
OF GLOBAL WARMING AND WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT
by Al Gore. Rodale, 2006
    INTRODUCTION (p8-11)

      1) The first picture taken on Christmas Eve, December 1968, that most humans ever saw of the Earth from Space --- from the 1st Apollo Mission that circled the moon scouting for landing sites before Apollo 11 landed on the moon in the summer of 1968 (p12-13)

      2) The last picture of our planet Earth taken by a human being from space on December 1972 during the Apollo 17 Mission from the point halfway between the Earth and the Moon when the sun was directly behind the spacecraft accomanied by the famous aphorism by Mark Twain: (p14-15)

      "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble,
      it's what you know for sure that just ain't so!"

      3) The biggest single obstacle to a clear understanding of the danger of Global Warming may be that:

        [1] False Idea = that too many people believe that the Earth is such a big planet that human beings cannot possibly have any major negative impact on the environment and the various ecological systems

        [2] Fact = that since the most vulnerable part of Earth's ecological systems is our very thin atmosphere, 6 1/2 billion people on our little planet are capable of changing it's composition and thus damaging it. (p24-27)

      4) The Big Question is: What exactly are greenhouse gases? Answer = CO2 gases! (p28-37)

      5) A Scientific Hero by Roger Revelle (p38-41)

      6) It is evident in the worl around us that very dramatic changes are taking place (p42-57)

      7) In the next 50 years, 40% of the world's people may well face a very serious drinking water shortage --- unless the world officials act boldly and quickly to mitigatew Global Warming (p58-63)

      8) The correlation between temperature and CO2 concentrations over the last 1,000 years is strikingly obvious. Ignorant Global Warming Critics say: Global Warming is really an illusion reflecting nature's cyclical fluctuations, and often use the so called "Medieval Warm Period" to base their skepticism. Fact = There has been an enormous increase in temperatures during the past half-century. (p64-65)

      WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP SOLVE THE CLIMATE CRISIS (p305-321)

        [1] SAVE ENERGY AT HOME (p306-307)

        [2] THE 10 MOST COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING (p308-310)

        [3] CONSUME LESS, CONSERVE MORE (p314-316)

        [4] BE A CATALYST FOR CHANGE (p319-321)

    Return to essay #1: The Brainpower Theory of True Happiness
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