We see the evidence all around us. The oldest generation among us has seen the changes within their lifetime. Still, the debate rages on as scientists discuss the interpretation of the data and the cause of global warming. Skeptics abound, and I was one of them – until recently.

Between the loss of the snows atop Mt. Kilimanjaro, the loss of several of Antarctica’s ice shelves, and the depletion of the fourth-largest lake in the world (the Aral Sea), I’ve become convinced that global warming is indeed taking place. Now I’m no scientist, but it seems pretty evident that humans are at least partly responsible for this potentially catastrophic rise in the earth’s temperature. From our ongoing deforestation of the Amazon rain forest to the exponential population growth of ours species, humans have emerged from the pre-industrial age as the biggest environmental threat this planet has ever seen – and it’s seen quite a bit.

You can add to this the ongoing fossil fuels crisis. No, not the fact that the oilfields worldwide are reaching a state of peak oil soon, a fact that is also hotly debated. I’m talking about the continual contamination that the planet faces from one gigantic oil spill after another. From the Exxon Valdez incident off the coast of Alaska to the current BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico and beyond…we’ve figured out how to use up all of the oil, but not how to prevent it from contaminating our environment, and our food chain.

So what’s the solution? I don’t think there is any “one size fits all” solution…but I do think there is a universal appeal to save the planet, or at least there should be. I posed the question  on Facebook the other day about what would lead to the type of utopia on earth that we see in some futuristic science fiction shows, like Star Trek. You know what I’m talking about – where money isn’t everything and the people of earth have united for a cause like space exploration, etc. Someone suggested it would take a global tragedy, like hordes of invading aliens. I would like to propose that the global tragedy is already upon us, and it’s called global warming. The sad fact is that unless something drastically changes, and soon, this will be a very different planet climate-wise in only 100 years or so. Our grandchildren will not know the planet as we do today. Today, we have to power to change the future. Tomorrow, we could be the cause of the next mass extinction event on planet earth. Hopefully we will make the right choice.