“Dad, can we turn the thermostat down?”
Global warming has been a subject of debate for many years. However only recently has it returned to the forefront of public debate. The fact is, things have been getting a bit odd the last few years, scientifically speaking. Storms have been getting worse and summer heat waves have been more intense. Glaciers are melting at surprising rates and wildlife species that require warm habitats have, increasingly, been discovered far north of their normal ranges.
As all these indicators suggest, global temperatures are on the rise. However this in itself should be no cause for alarm. After all, fluctuations in the earth’s climate are natural and have occurred throughout history; a fact which opponents of climate-change anxiety often point out.
In some decades temperatures have risen whereas in others they have dropped off, as, notably, in the 1950’s-70’s. In fact in 1975 people were worried about the effects of global cooling with Newsweek even running an apocalyptic cover story entitled “The Cooling World” that predicted all manner of crises that would arise from a global temperature drop.
So perhaps we shouldn’t worry. After all, we’re still here. Climate changes have happened before and they’ll happen again. Just the swing of things right?
Well, no. Because what makes this spurt of climate twitchiness a matter of concern is that it seems to be occurring for very different reasons than ever before.
As noted in The Economist: “Previous changes in the world’s climate have been set off by variations either in the angle of the Earth’s rotation or in its distance from the sun.” However, today’s rapid climate change (see Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth for a demonstration of just how rapid it has been) is influenced by a factor that in the scope of earth history is relatively new: namely man-made greenhouse gases, chiefly carbon dioxide, which trap solar heat in the atmosphere and prevent it from being reflected back into space. These gases have been building up since the industrial revolution and now stand at a whopping 380 ppm (parts per million), a figure that, at the current rate, is projected to become 800 ppm by the end of the century.
Many conservatives brush aside the staggering amount of evidence for global warming or else bemoan the trumped-up economic backlash that they claim would ensue from any measures to curb it, however this attitude is far from useful. Since it seems clear that it’s not just Mr. Gore’s sweat that’s causing the phenomenon, a solution is highly necessary.
If the problem is ignored things will only get stickier.
