Global Warming?

Effects of global warming on global climate

Bonovox says:

If ever there was such a load of dis- information, procrastination and uncertainty it must surely be mankind’s hypocritical, self absorbed analysis of his affect on the health of planet earth.  

Global warming. It sounds like such a benign, cosy term and yet its implications always seem to be universally negative, if not apocalyptic.  

One would have thought that most people living outside the tropics might welcome an extra degree or two of warmth in their lives. The growing season for food would be longer, energy consumption for heating would reduce, and people would be able to perhaps lead more outdoor, healthy lives. The list of benefits goes on. Instead, what is in store for us all? Ice caps melting (tough on polar bears but not much else), sea levels rising (goodbye Maldives), deforestation (as if the world doesn’t have enough trees), to name but a few. 

All joking aside, these are all terrible things to happen to some parts of the world but global warming is sold to us as a global effect that will affect us all in a bad way. Should we be worried?  

Let us examine some elementary facts such as they are: 

In the 20^th century the earth became warmer apparently by 0.74 degrees centigrade give or take a 20% margin of error. 

Within that century, temperatures actually dropped from the 1940’s to the 1970’s such that there were real fears (albeit exaggerated) of a mini ice age encroaching on the northern hemisphere. 

When that panic subsided and the ‘green house gas’ concept became widespread, the culprit had been found. Mankind was creating more green house gases (especially C02) and causing world temperature to rise. It seemed an entirely plausible assertion given that industrialisation only took off in a big way in the 20^th century. 

The really big spike in industrial activity was from the late 1930’s into the 1940’s when the world prepared and moved into a catastrophic war. The main pre-occupation was to build factories to make weapons to set things on fire and destroy them. It lasted a long 6 years and turned the United States and The Soviet Union into industrial giants, although the countries that had been smashed to pieces; Germany and Japan took less than 30 years to catch up. 

For some unexplained reason this frenzy of activity and the heat it generated was followed by 25 years of temperature drop. The cause and effect link could not be more confusing.  

Never the less, mankind was in the frame and it was deemed necessary to put a brake on things. The Kyoto conference took place in 1997. In 2010 it was ratified and supposedly began implementation by the 191 state signatories. (I.e. the whole world with the exception of the USA). 

So it took 13 years – no apparent rush then. It is beyond the remit of this article to calculate how much fossil fuel was wasted in generating this agreement but you can be certain it was an awful lot.  

Kyoto set out that industrialised countries would collectively agree to reduce green house emissions by 5.2%.This does not sound like a lot, given that the dirtiest polluters are the newly industrialising countries. As an example, the European Union would have to knock off 8% but in some places, Iceland for example, was allowed to actually go up by 10%. This maybe because Iceland played its trump card and said it had the odd volcano whose ash would help with ‘global dimming’ (yes there is now such a term).  

The last fact you need to be aware of is that the basis for all calculations was 1990. Why 1990 you may ask? Because apparently good data was not available before that year.  

So there you have it, you now know as much about global warming as you need to make an uninformed decision as to what to do next. 

You are as wise as the best scientist, the shrewdest politician. If you are American you don’t care and you think Kyoto is a new martial art or a type of restaurant. If you are Chinese, you are building a new coal-fired power station every day and desperate to get rid of your bicycle for a motor car. If you are German you will be engineering something that doesn’t run on petrol. If you are British, your government will be finding new and imaginative ways to tax you. If you live on a low lying Pacific island, you will be far more interested in bright t-shirts and mobile phones. 

If global warming is something to fear, we have so far only offered the mechanisms for disaster. A scientific community with such speculative predictive ability as to be totally worthless. A press and media that is overwhelmingly negative. Casual human selfishness and indifference at every level. 

The true drivers of global warming and climate change; solar radiation, ocean circulation, volcanic or tectonic activity are beyond our comprehension and reach. We can neither predict them or prevent them from happening. 

To date, we have failed to respect this planet. If it bites back the best thing is to stand back in awe. 

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