Global Warming

Global Warming Threatens Life: Neat Conclusion, Great Drama, But no Hard Facts

One of the true adage is like “The reality is that our understanding of climate change is based on a vast and remarkably sound body of science – and is something we distort and trivialise at our peril”. Climate change remains the most discordant issue of our age. As countries prepare to meet for the [...]

One of the true adage is like “The reality is that our understanding of climate change is based on a vast and remarkably sound body of science – and is something we distort and trivialise at our peril”.

Climate change remains the most discordant issue of our age. As countries prepare to meet for the latest round of international talks to stop global warming, essential minimum of understanding is required to form an opinion on any subject to get a feel for it in gross terms. So here’s some background on global warming.

There are a lot of misconceptions about global warming that have cropped up in recent months.

The first thing to know about the subject is that it has been embroiled in a growing controversy for almost 20 years. Before explaining how this came about, we need to realize that the whole issue hinges on one basic question: Does carbon dioxide (CO2) affect the climate or doesn’t it?

Consequently, the “warmers” concluded that carbon dioxide must be causing the accelerating global warming and eventually the EPA also decided that CO2 was a pollutant. Neat conclusion, great drama, but no hard facts, together with some bad science and political thinking.

The average citizen, too busy with everyday demands, problems and needs, may not have much time to delve into larger, national issues. Humans are to blame for global warming and its effects could be unstoppable for centuries to come, according to the U.N. climate change panel.

Scientists have not had an easy time trying to convince Americans that global warming’s threat is genuine and worrisome. In a March Gallup poll, nearly half of those questioned said that they believe the threat of global warming to be “generally exaggerated,” whatever that means. This was a rise from 35 percent two years earlier. According to the same poll, a bare majority of 52 percent of Americans believe that “most scientists believe that global warming is occurring,” down from 65 percent in 2008.

Clearly, there is no debate on climate change. Only the illusion of debate created by corporate misinformation campaigns and a strangely complicit media.

To be fair, climate change is a terribly complicated matter whose dangers remain, for the moment, largely invisible, if not hypothetical. But it doesn’t help that we are visited by a daily barrage of misinformation about the issue from oil companies to Glenn Beck to your local news meteorologist insisting that the science behind global warming is just a big hoax designed to, well, it’s never quite clear what it’s designed to do, but there it is.