Septje.com

There is a lot of hype at press and around the tubes lately about the negative impacts of global warming; the effect on our economies, our lifestyle, indeed our way of life. My power bill is set to increase by more than 60% in the coming  three years[1] as a direct result of Carbon trading schemes. With all this hysteria and hype, where’s the science? It seems that there is as much debate on not only the effects of Global Warming, not only how much of it humans are directly responsible for, but whether or not it’s actually happening in the first place. If it is happening at all, we can’t even rule out that the cause is directly due to the output of solar activity. [3]

Temperature vs Solar Activity

Never has science been so divided on an issue in my recollection than it has been with this highly politicised and partisan issue. It seems to be the case that no matter which scientist you ask, you get a different answer, or no clear answer at all. With so much debate as to this potentially life-changing issue, how can we be putting policies in place to reduce Carbon emission, especially when we aren’t even sure if the effects are going to be negative? Are we afraid of change? Is change going to occur at all?

“Global warming — at least the modern nightmare vision — is a myth. I am sure of it and so are a growing number of scientists. But what is really worrying is that the world’s politicians and policy makers are not.”

DAVID BELLAMY, Daily Mail, July 9, 2004

I read a statistic recently that showed that something in the order of 0.28% of the “Greenhouse effect” is caused by a direct result of Man [2] . This seems like an incredibly important figure when you realise just how much is being changed economically to try and reduce this number. It seems to me that if the governments of the world are changing policy to counteract the footprint of man in terms of Global Warming, we aren’t achieving anything by doing so.

Bill Gates in his capacity as the head of the ‘Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’ recently spoke at a TED conference on the impacts of Global Warming and the required effort needed to bring the human output of CO2 to Zero. While I found the technical aspects of his talk quite inspiring regarding his investment in ‘renewable’ energy sources such as solar and wind, and the potential game-changing technology around nuclear reactors that burn U238 instead of U235, the background information regarding the actual impact of Global Warming seems quite ill-informed and rather dubious when my own research cannot confirm the numbers he used anywhere. In fact, nowhere on the Internet can I find even one correlated, verified and detailed, independant study showing even similar results. They are all different. Not only this, if the plan to reduce carbon emission to zero should go ahead, it will be the richest half of the world directly affecting the poorest half. So much of the developing world will depend on industry in the future in order to move above the poverty line. How can we deny them the right to prosper simply because we were too flippant with the environmental risks (if indeed there are any). [4]

Greenhouse Gas Emissions by Region

Before we start to waste Trillions of dollars on reducing our Carbon footprint, why don’t we invest the same money in alternative fuel sources, not for the saving in Carbon emissions, which can’t be a bad thing in my view, but to reduce and eventually eliminate our dependence on Fossil Fuels. You want an investment to benefit humanity, that’s it right there.

“With all of the hysteria, all of the fear, all of the phony science, could it be that man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people? It sure sounds like it.”
JAMES M. INHOFE, speech in U.S. Senate, July 28, 2003

[1] – http://www.news.com.au/features/federal-election/more-pain-ahead-as-power-bills-set-to-soar/story-fn5tar6a-1225890488248

[2] – http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

[3] - http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm

[4] - http://earth.rice.edu/mtpe/atmo/atmosphere/hot/anom_99/greenhouse_map.html