With the Copenhagen summit all over the news “man made” climate change is all over the news once again. The issue has reached religious proportions, with any sceptic accused of heresy and the believer’s dogmatic approach to the science even when the results don’t fit.
The truth is that in an age where we can’t predict tomorrow’s weather because we don’t fully understand the causes, how can we accurately predict what will happen next year or in the next decade.
Personal observations show that the weather is getting warmer, but if you look at data over a longer term than the fanatics use, the planet has been both much hotter and much colder than it is now, with dramatic swings between the two extremes.
If these changes in temperature happen anyway, then how much influence has mankind over these changes, nobody is accusing the dinosaurs of using 4x4s on the school run (apart from maybe Jim Henson). There are a million and one factors in the changing weather, some of which we’ve worked out, others we haven’t even thought of. The danger is that by blinkering ourselves to carbon dioxide as the root of all evil, we ignore other factors.
Climate change is always happening and possibly it will be a critical factor in the survival of the human race. There may not be much we can do about it, but in my opinion, the only way forward is to reduce our footprint in as many ways possible, this world has finite resources, so we need to look at making everything renewable or recyclable, we need to look at a wider spread of renewable energies, not just wind turbines (probably the most fickle source available)
Carbon is part of the issue, but there are a whole host of other pollutants that we need to eliminate if we’re to avoid poisoning ourselves.
