Global warming has taken the spotlight as the argument of the decade all over the globe. There is agreement that the world is warming, but are we causing it?

Arguing this is a waste of time. According to meteorologists and climatologists it takes hundreds of years for CO2 emissions and other atmospheric events to be fully integrated into the oceans and atmosphere. What that means is that we will not have the answer in our lifetimes. So stop wasting your passion on the unknowable and look at a real, solvable problem.

The real problem is pollution, caused by fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are killing you and fossil fuels are costing you billions of dollars each year.

The California economy loses about $28 billion annually due to premature deaths and illnesses linked to ozone and particulates spewed from hundreds of locations in the South Coast and San Joaquin air basins, according to findings released by a Cal State Fullerton research team.

Most of those costs, about $25 billion, are connected to roughly 3,000 smog-related deaths each year, but additional factors include work and school absences, emergency room visits, and asthma attacks and other respiratory illnesses, said team leader Jane Hall, a professor of economics and co-director of the university's Institute for Economics and Environment Studies.

The argument over global warming keeps us busy and distracted from the real, current, deadly and costly problem of fossil fuel pollutions in the air, ground and water. And it keeps the heat off the energy companies who just love to hear us debate something other than their murdering products.

Do not be distracted. Pollution is here, now, and can only be curtailed by renewables and conservation.

Renewables, right now and forever.
Douglas Ploehn
Yosemite