Climatic change is a tremendously complicated matter, but the basic
tenets are given:
CO2 is a greenhouse gas, i.e. it traps solar heat in the atmosphere.
The modern world is spewing huge amounts of CO2 in the air.
The atmospheric content of CO2 has risen some 30% in the last 50
years. This is a huge amount for such a short time.
Climate models predict a rise in average temperature if the
atmospheric content of CO2 is significantly raised. Also it predicts
that ice caps will start melting.
Average worldwide temperature has risen in the last 50 years. Also,
ice caps are thinning by 3% a decade since the 70s.
These are facts. They are not conclusive. Some scientists believe
that there may be other reasons for this temperature rise, or even
that we are only observing a natural temperature variation. They may
be right. Still, it is also a fact that the great majority of
scientists believe that there is already a clear increase in global
temperature and that human activity is responsible for it.
If worldwide temperature keeps rising the repercussions will be
catastrophic - a true catastrophe of biblical proportions, an
unmitigated disaster for the quality of living of all humanity. This
too is a fact.
People keep asking environmentalists to "prove" that the emission of
CO2 has caused in the temperature rise, but this is not the
environmentalists' task. They only have to point to the potential
dangers. It is the industries that are responsible for the CO2
emissions that must prove that their products will not affect the
environment in a disastrous way. The onus of proof should be born by
the ones who may be destroying the environment not by the ones who try
to protect it. Most industries have to prove the safety of their
product, so why should some industries be exempt?
Oil and automobile industries will not be able to prove the safety of
their product in the short term, which does not mean that we should
all go back to horse carriages. It means that while there is
reasonable suspicion that the emission of greenhouse gases can
destabilize the global climate, the prudent response of society would
be to limit such emissions until the repercussions are clearer.
Corrective actions will be expensive which only proves that we are now
not paying the full cost our life style - we are shifting this cost to
future generations and this is not right. There is a bill to be paid
and it is cheap to try to avoid paying it.
Visit the US government site about global warming (its message is loud
and clear):
http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/climate.html
For a short and serious exposition about CO2 emissions and their
effect also see
http://www.meteor.iastate.edu/gccourse/chem/carbon/dmreg.html
Here is a site with an opposing view (this site does not look very
serious but it includes many of the arguments given against global
warming):
http://www.vision.net.au/~daly/
"Gerald G. McGeorge" <
[email protected]> wrote in message news:<
[email protected]>...
> > More like saying if you get cancer you will die from it, ignoring all the
> > cancer survivors out there. But you ignore all facts that don't agree with
> > what you already believe. You are not a scientist, you are a parrot. <
>
> "Lloyd want a CRACKER? Rawk!"
