It's getting hot in here. Blame it on the beautiful spring season or global warming, but I know I wore flip-flops every day last week, and I also know the polar ice caps are melting.

If thinking about melting ice caps depresses you, let your mind wander to the campaigns for the 2008 presidential elections, which, like our planet, are really starting to heat up.

Not surprisingly, one of the big topics on both sides of the political spectrum is global climate change. Unfortunately, instead of holding constructive nonpartisan conversations about what we're doing to the Earth, it seems that many politicians fall into two rigid camps — those who think that global warming exists, and those who insist that global warming is a lie. In light of Earth Week, this issue has taken on a more urgent tone.

At a campaign event, a Democratic presidential candidate typically cites facts and figures proving that global warming is a serious issue and something that must be fixed. Predictably, a conservative radio talk show host the next morning will bring in their own facts and figures proving that global warming is a hoax, and the cycle repeats itself.

A recent report in the Seattle Times outlined the United Nation's Global Warming Report, explaining that the UN believes that human activity has a large impact on global climate change. Surprisingly, even with huge support coming from the world's scientific and political community, this report was hard for international politicians and scientists to swallow.

Arguing against the findings in the UN report, the United Kingdom's Green Business News discussed new information published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society. This new information includes studies showing the very small impact that humans have on global climate change, and that changes in climate are natural and normal.

For those who see global warming conspiracy theorists, this was welcome news. For those who believe that global warming is caused by human impact, this is enraging. What is all the commotion about? Why has this argument become so political? Whether global warming is a frightening scientific reality or some wacky liberal scheme, it just doesn't matter.

What should matter is how we treat our planet, regardless of scientific reports and political battles.

If, tomorrow, a group of the most respected scientists and politicians in the world came together and proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that human activity has absolutely nothing to do with the global climate change, would we support increased greenhouse-gas emissions and toxic sludge being spewed in every direction?

Hopefully not. Even if there was no link between human activity and global warming, there would still be no excuse to keep trashing our planet. The belief that global warming is normal is a convenient excuse to do just that.

If anything, the news of global warming being unrelated to human impact should be a wake-up call, and a reminder that our planet is a fragile place where even the slightest change in temperature — caused by human or natural factors — could be a disaster.

The news of global warming that is directly affected by human actions should be an even larger wake-up call, but instead, the political battles keep raging on, as each side is determined to prove that they are right about global warming.

When it comes to taking care of our planet, does being right really matter? Call me crazy, but I think that it is more important to keep our planet the healthiest it can be, regardless of any impact that humans do or do not have on it.

And why does global warming have to be so political? Why so much finger pointing? When it comes to our well-being, and the well-being of our planet, shouldn't it be a simple and clear cut issue?

While many people would argue that humans do not have a direct impact on global warming right now, it is not a huge stretch to imagine that decades more of pollution and greenhouse gases would slowly but surely begin to have an effect.

If we continue to trash our planet, it will turn into trash. And that's something no scientist or politician can argue with.

Reach Sara Wilson at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.