Like a fool, I just posted on another blog that I totally bought the arguments brought forth by many others on this site - that Global Warming was a hoax perpetrated by Hollywood personalities and "dems".

But then I read the following, coming across the wire this afternoon:

CHICAGO, Illinois (Reuters) -- Earth's dusty neighbor Mars is grappling with its own form of climate change . Researchers have been watching the changing face of Mars for years, studying slight differences in the brightness and darkness of its surface.

NASA scientist Lori Fenton and colleagues, reporting this week in the journal Nature, now believe ... by studying changes in light reflected from the surface of Mars -- a measure known as an object's albedo -- they predict the red planet has warmed by around 1 degree Fahrenheit from the 1970s to the 1990s, which may in part have caused the recent retreat of the southern polar ice cap. (some portions of the Reuters story edited for literary convenience)

I AM REPULSED BY MY OWN IGNORANCE ! Not only is our own global warming not a hoax, but a very real phenomenon, generally acknowledged to be a product of our use of incandescent bulbs, Ford trucks, weed whackers, chloroflourocarbons, homosexual marriage, the burning of coal, declining educational standards, and mammal farts. AND OUR SELFISHLY SELF-INFLICTED ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS IS NOW SPREADING TO MARS. People, when will you bow down to data, to science, or at least to the conclusions of radio talk show hosts, politicians, or sports site bloggers? We've not only begun the destruction of our own planet, but are causing the polar ice caps on MARS to recede as well. It's even affecting Mars' ALBEDO. Tragic, ... so tragic and preventable.

Let's stop this senseless bickering. IT'S REAL. We need to come together and change our behavior before we destroy Uranus.