Читать книгу Global Warming and Other Bollocks - Stanley Feldman - Страница 23

It was the burst of warming following the cold spell that ended in 1975 that gave rise to the global-warming panic. Statistically, a hundred years of ups and downs of less than 1ºC represents too little change over too short a period to know whether or not this is just another blip on the temperature chart or whether it represents the beginning of a new, potentially dangerous change in the world’s weather. Much of the present anxiety is less to do with the actual increase in world temperature – after all, 0.5ºC is less than the variation between town and countryside – but it is the rate of this increase in the 1980s and 1990s that alarmed the weather watchers and started the global-warming panic.

The question that faces us is this: does the recent increase in global temperature represent a departure from the recurring ups and downs of our weather and presage a permanent and increasingly rapid shift towards a warmer world? If so, can we or should we try to counter the effect?

It is like the problem of asking, ‘How long is a piece of string?’ that is at the core of our present confusion. There are those who paint a frightening picture of totally improbable ‘tipping points’ based on a speculative extrapolation of the most extreme predictions. They see the piece of string as being very short. They tell wild stories of cities under water, an ice-covered Britain and imminent global catastrophe. Every storm, drought or flood is proclaimed to be evidence of global warming.

Few of these claims stand up to scientific scrutiny. Climate changes have occurred from the beginning of time. There have been floods, drought and storms ever since the world began, they are recorded in the Bible and are present in the folklore of the first farmers who settled in Mesopotamia at the very beginning of civilisation.

Others take the view that the string is very long and point out that the world has seen the present changes over and over again during its history. They argue that a modest rise in temperature provides us with an extra source of energy at relatively little cost and, like Arrhenius and Callendar, they see the potential benefit to mankind. To them the string is very long. Unfortunately, good news does not sell newspapers or generate research grants, so one seldom hears their side of the story.

The majority take the view that the changes we are seeing are real and they may possibly be made more severe by industrialisation. They advocate caution, suggesting that we should do what we can to moderate the effects of any anthropogenic changes by anticipating any adverse effects that may ensue.

To claim that anyone, or any organisation knows whether the rise in global temperature in the past century is the result of human activity or just another blip in the history of our planet is tantamount to claiming that they have the answer to the conundrum: how long is a piece of string?