About Steven Aitchison
I
have long disbelieved the scientists who state that global warming is a major
problem and is a major concern for our civilisation. I can’t
quite get my head round why the politicians would jump on this and lie, knowingly
or unknowingly, about the global warming phenomenon but I can’t believe
it is complete ignorance.
Why do I mention this on a personal development site? personal
development is partly about listening to yourself and about trusting your instincts
and not believing everything we’re told. My instincts tell me that this
global warming debate smells a bit suspicious, so I have done my own research
over the last few months.
I know this might be a hot topic just now and my own research
is limited but I have learned a lot more in the last few months than I did
in the last 5 years listening to scientists and politicians preaching about
global warming.
The whole crux of the argument lies with three phrases:
Climate Change
CO2 Emissions
Greenhouse effect
Let’s take a quick look at them:
Climate Change
We’ve all heard that the earth is heating up, the ice is melting, the
seas are rising and our kids will all be getting a boat to school instead of
a bus. Who on earth says that this is true?
It is true that the temperature of the earth is rising; however it has only
risen by about 0.6 °C in the last 130 years. The only reason we know
this is because that is when records of the earth’s temperature began
being recorded. What about before 1880 when there were no records? I
am sure it had risen by at least 0.6 °C 130 years previous to 1880. Also
what about the accuracy of recording equipment back in the 1800 and 1900s?
It is not known by how much our earth has been heated by CO2 effect. The
hypothesis banded about are just that; hypothesis. Many people take a
hypothesis by a scientist as fact when in truth it is a current belief that
a scientist has and has not yet proved. So remember when you next hear
a scientist speak he/she will say something like ‘it is our hypothesis,
it is our belief, we believe’ they are really saying ‘we are taking
an educated guess’.
CO2 Emissions
CO2 is a good thing for the planet and without it we just wouldn’t be
here. Nature exploits CO2 to the max and feeds our global crops, feeds
the forest, feeds our life.
CO2 does heat up the earth. The estimates vary depending on which hypothesis
you listen to. I don’t think the figures are worth quoting as they
are estimates based on a hypothesis which equates to a guess. The simple
fact is nobody knows how much the earth is heated due to CO2 emissions.
But we humans are increasing our CO2 emissions and that’s really bad!
We humans only emit about 3.5% of all CO2 emissions (another guess) but it’s
not as much as the politicians and scientists would have us believe. CO2
is created naturally by the sea, dead animals, coal, rotting vegetation etc. So
if the figure of 3.5% is to be believed there is very little that we can do
to change the CO2 emissions in the world.
Greenhouse effect
The actual term’ greenhouse effect’ is misleading, it suggests
that there is a barrier for heat escaping, which gives rise to the belief that
if greenhouse gases are trapped the earths temperature rises. My understanding
of what happens is that the gases do indeed keep the heat but also allow for
the transfer of heat by currents in the atmosphere (convection), a greenhouse
does not allow this. I have not fully grasped the greenhouse effect
Lessons to be learned
If any lessons are to be learned from the ‘global warming’ debate
it is that the debate is based upon hypothesis and figures that only goes back
to 1880. If we had figures going back to 0001 then we might have something
to debate. However there is nothing to debate, there is only studying
to be done and that is essentially what is being done just now, it’s
just that some hypothesis have leaked out whilst the studying is still underway.
What I have written is a much shortened version of what I have learned thus
far and I am by no means a scientist, nor do I claim to be. However it
is clear to me the obviousness of what I am stating above and that is ‘We
don’t fully understand about the greenhouse effect, global warming or
what an increase in CO2 means’. It is also clear that politicians
have jumped on a bandwagon to increase their vote count. We are being
preached to because we are ignorant of all the facts and we don’t want
to learn the real facts as it is too complicated. If there is debate
within the scientific community it means what is being preached is not fact.
Subscribe to CYT and
receive a FREE copy of
Volumes 1 & 2 of
The Best of CYT
Hi, Steve;
Kudos to you for putting yourself out there on what you rightly deem a very ‘hot’ topic.
I don’t know if you will choose to post my comment, but I feel compelled to add my thoughts here.
Having watched this issue for many years with growing unease, and witnessing the unwillingness of both politicians and the general public to take the issue seriously, I take exception to the viewpoint that says no threat exists.
If only that were true; this is EXACTLY what both politicians, and hence the mass media, want people to believe. In my view, politicans are terrified of this issue because it is REAL and they not only don’t know what to do about it, they also know that the ‘appropriate’ actions would involve legislation that would FORCE poeple and corporations to act more responsibly and would, in turn, lose them the next election.
So what’s the solution?…You have someone like Al Gore, going around and speaking about his passion for saving our planet, and only when he is NO LONGER a politician can he even get an audience for this speech. Even if everything he says in his insightful – and yes, politically-charged – movie (An Inconvenient Truth) is exaggerated by half, there is still need for concern, and more importantly ACTION, as far as I can see.
What about the statistics citing that of the current 900+ scientists polled, 0% of them had any doubt that climate change is a threat, whereas the studied media coverage over the past years – including your own – putting a slant on the issue of ‘Wellll, we’re really not sure if this is REAL or not’ came in at – what, 58%?…
How can we rely on the media coverage of climate change when it is biased in favor of covering up an issue? And what of the FACT that the human race has increased in numbers from 3 billion ot over 9 billion in jsut the last 100 years?…that alone HAS to have an impact.
I would suggest people owe it to themselves – and their kids! – to at least watch the above-mentioned movie and then decide for themselves.
Please understand, Steve, that I respect and admire your work, and I also firmly believe in doing my own research on a given topic, and not blindly listening to the media and politicians – this problem is rampant in mainstream society; everyone wants to be told what to think – and your message of awareness is a very good one.
Thanks again, and I hope you will post this, in the spirit of sharing and openness which we both obviously value.
I wrote a post on my own blog recently about this, which can be read at: http://blog.breathingprosperity.com/2007/02/25/contemplations-our-beautiful-planet/
The way I look at it isn’t just as the end result but are we being good Earth stewards. We add billions of additional particulates to the world a year. We dump a horrendous amount of toxic chemicals into our waters. Understanding thermodynamic systems, a system must accommodate and will change to handle the new burdens until… What is the end result of our actions? I don’t think we’ll know for another millennium, but it’s good we’re paying attention. Just hopefully not for a special interest reason.
If you want to dig your heels into another sector of what the general public doesn’t know, our food chain. Why doesn’t the public know that we have giant feed lots of cows that stand in filth and are pumped full of antibiotics to feed a convenient nation? What are the ramifications of letting the three big food companies control the USDA and promote a farmer welfare state? Is it really sane for us to let capitalism drive the health of the nation?
There are lots of secrets in the shadows that need to be in the public light through vehicles that trump truth. We also have to have a public receptive enough to want to take responsibility for those truths and I think that’s going to be another crux all together.
So many things to work on, so little time, so many deaf ears. Was it Plato or Aristotle that talked about those who sat in an open cave but stared at nothing but their shadows and became angry at the man who tried to tell them they could be free just by turning around?
All I know is the stronger I get, the more I am capable of, the more I can effect change in the world around me.
-a
Hi Shauna
I wouldn’t dream of taking your comment off the blog. They are valid points you are making and i respect you voicing them on this blog.
Hi andy
Thanks for you comments I appreciate you tkaing your time on this.
Here is an url that you can send to friends and family that will direct them to the video “The Great Global Warming Swindle”.
http://gorelied.notlong.com
For more information on the documentary you can go here.
http://www.channel4.com/science/microsites/G/great_global_warming_swindle/index.html
I surfed into your blog by accident, but I’m afraid I can’t let this science go unchallenged. I’m neither a climatologist nor any other kind of scientist, but I can do basic maths, and here’s what that tells me:
(Disclaimer: all of this is based on back-of-the-envelope approximations and, as you would put it, guesswork. But that doesn’t make it any less valid.)
There is, at a very rough estimate, about 3 x 10^12 tonnes of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere at the moment. Human fossil-fuel emissions amount to (another very rough estimate) about 1.2 x 10^10 t per year.
Now: it’s true that much more CO2 than this is generated from natural sources – decaying plant and animal life, respiration etc. But the problem is one of carbon *balance*. When a tree decays in the forest, it’s replaced by new growth, absorbing the carbon formerly contained in the tree. (This is why wood burning is a form of renewable energy.) And thus a form of equilibrium is maintained. The total atmospheric concentration changes only very slowly.
Let’s put some figures on this. If the figure you cite above (3.5% of CO2 emission is human-generated) is correct, then “natural” CO2 emissions must be of the order of 350 gigatonnes per year. But the forests and ocean life absorb nearly all of that. (This next part is total guesswork, but the point is still valid.) Some years the carbon sinks absorb slightly more carbon, some years slightly less. There may be an average long-term trend one way or the other, or there may not – it doesn’t really matter for purposes of this argument.
Now consider the human contribution *added* to that. If the natural long-term trend is, say, 1 Gt/year, then the significance of humanity’s contribution of an *extra* 12 Gt/year becomes somewhat clearer. And this is carbon that is *not* absorbed by natural sinks, unless we can somehow create more such sinks.
When we burn coal, nothing grows up in its place. We are digging impure carbon out of the ground and releasing it into the air, where it stays. It has nowhere else to go.
I tend to wonder about this phenomenon but have not yet come to any conclusions either way.
I feel like there’s not a lot to be done any way. You see, my own personal hypothesis is that the planet is over populated. No matter what country you’re in, surely you’ve noticed high population growth, skyrocketing housing costs and costs of living – demonstrating that greater demand equals greater cost. There’s a huge demand for housing and prices support this theory. Who would have thought that some places in the state of Montana would be out of reach to the middle-income earner?
Why is it that this topic never comes up in any of the Global Warming debates? The more mouths there are, the more energy consumption that will occur, burning even more fossil fuels, flushing more toilettes, and taking more showers, washing dishes, cutting trees, etc. This is the true root of the problem.
I am going to say the unthinkable, the subject that I know everyone hates to discuss but I have to so – let’s look at getting parents licensed because I know a hell of a lot of them who had no business having children. This is not about material accomplishments or successes. This is about a healthy psychological evaluation. We are just beginning to witness the tip of the iceberg when it comes to adults who were raised without morals, standards, consciousness, whatever you want to call it. Combine a rotten upbrining with a little poverty and those people have absolutely nothing to loose. So they molest, kill, steal, terrorize, cut you off, etc. I am really sick of reading about children who were killed and molested by MEN (or women). Who raised those people? Psychologists would argue that it is much deeper than how they were raised, but it seems that authorities worldwide are breaking up rings of perverts all across the west. Let’s take terrorists. They have the excuse of being brought up in poverty, but what is the other element besides poverty that would make a human kill another innocent human or baby on a bus in Israel for that matter?
I am all for population control as a beginning point to the global warming debate.
Hi Sandra
You have raised about 3 huge points in your comment.
You’re getting into another big debate with the parent thing. Who are we to say what makes a good parent and where do you draw the line with morals and good upbringing? it’s very difficult, my standards differ from your standards and your standards will be too low a standard for someone else and so on.
I am of the same opinion about poverty and low moral upbringing producing evil people. However I also feel the media perpetuates this to an extent. Imagine 50 years ago if we read in the paper about a child being abused, there would have been an outcry and a stampede to the perpetrators house. Nowadays we are hearing about this every day, we are reading about it in novels and true life stories, we are seeing violence in movies every day, violence on games for kids. we have been conditioned to ignore these types of stories now, it’s unbelievable.
I don’t think population control would help the planet at all as it’s been shown that humans are contributing to about 3% of the problem (that’s if we take the level of CO2 in the air as a way to put a figure on this).
Hi Mike
I am doing more research on the points you have raised. Thanks for your contribution to this debate.