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There is an interesting book by Dan Gardner called “Future Babble” in which he sets out to show that those who predict the future are almost sure to be proved wrong by time. In fact, he claims, the more certain an individual or group is in their prediction, the more off the mark they are likely to be. Those who temper their predictions with qualification are more likely to be fairly accurate. Beware the extremists at either end of a debate.
There are three basic questions involved in the global warming debate:
1. Is the climate changing?
2. If it is changing, is it warming?
3. If it is warming, has human activity contributed to the change?
The answer to the first ought to be a simple yes. In fact, the climate undergoes constant change and has done so since the planet was formed and climate developed.
To the second question, even most of the scientists who disagree with the proposition of anthropogenic warming agree that the planet is warming. There is a significant argument about the degree of warming and the cause.
In 2008, Lord Christopher Monckton wrote in a report “CO2 enrichment will add little more than 1 °F (0.6 °C) to global mean surface temperature by 2100.”
Dr Roy Spencer, who holds a PhD in meteorology from the University of Wisconsin, says on his Web site that his research suggests that “global warming is mostly natural, and that the climate system is quite insensitive to humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions”.
Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change noted that climate model projections indicate that average global surface temperature is likely to rise a further 1.1 to 6.4 °C during the twenty-first century. If you want to gain a more detailed understanding of how scientists qualify their projections, follow this link!
Professor Bob Carter, an Australian geologist, environmental scientist and Emeritus Fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs, wrote in Quadrant magazine in March 2011: “Earth’s temperature is currently cooling slightly.”
He went further in an opinion piece for the Sydney Morning Herald in July 2011 when he wrote: “For example, the sun recently entered a quietude unknown since the Little Ice Age. Accompanying this, planetary warming has ceased despite still increasing carbon dioxide emissions. Some solar physicists have issued warnings that strong cooling may be imminent.”
In January 2011, the US National Aeronautical and Space Administration released a statement that “Global surface temperatures in 2010 tied 2005 as the warmest on record, according to an analysis by researchers at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York.”
Confused?
Professor Carter and a few others aside, it seems that the third question is, in fact, the great debate.
perfect design on www.dbhitech.com.au thanks
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