What is man made global warming?

The basic root theory is that in last 100 hundred or so years, the increased industrialization and consumption of goods and services by humans in the various countries and states and regions has had an adverse effect on the global atmospheric system. Namely we have pumped so much Carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at an increasing rate that the natural CO2 consuming processes have not been able to keep pace, this has increased the concentration of CO2 to such an extent that it is having a measurable effect on the long term temperature trend; i.e. we are directly responsible for increasing the temperature...

Now on the face of it, this is a rather scary situation to be in; we only have the one planet Earth to live on and it seems we are able to effect the natural balance of things to such an extent that ice caps are melting, the sea levels are rising and various animals around the globe are going extinct due to our lack of care.

Fear is a big motivator

Now of course this is somewhat worrying, it looks like from all the media reports and various graphs and science going on that we are going to cook alive unless something is done now.. Now anybody who is over 30 should be getting a slightly 'deja view' feeling from all of this, don't worry, thats quite a healthy response to all that is going on and indicates that you are picking up on the media overdrive thats all around this.

Money is a big motivator

Something that needs to be remembered is that the climate change movement moved a long time ago from being a 'grass roots' concern to big business center stage. Literally millions if not trillions of dollars of collective world monies are in play and looking to be assigned to 'fixing' the climate change problem. Of course lots of money is also being spent 'fueling' the climate change bandwagon, lots of work is being done keeping the message 'clean' and silencing anybody who doubts that climate change is for real.

To certain extent this is the real problem with the whole climate change movement at the moment. We may have man made climate change occurring, we may have just 'natural' climate change occurring - but you try and find evidence of a balanced debate over this very point at Copenhagen..

The Climate is always changing

It's true, we are experiencing climate change - it is also true that the global climate has been changing for millions of years without our 'help'. In fact in the last 1000 years we have had periods significantly warmer or cooler than now (corn was grown in Iceland at one end and people could walk across the frozen River Thames at the other). This, again, seems to have been 'erased' out of the coverage on Climate change.

Also it appears that changes in temperature drive changes in Co2 and not the other way around..  We encourage you to watch the video series of talks by Prof Bob Carter to understand this better. Basically the climatic record going back millions of years shows that changes in temperature proceed in the time series (by at least 100 years) correlated changes in Co2 - so its temperature driving Co2 and not the other way around.

So what is happening to the climate?

Simply put, we do not know. Basically the period of time for which we have accurate temperature and climate data is very small (max 100 years). Also the degree of accuracy of said data has varied markedly by location due to several effects:

• Core accuracy of underlying equipment. A simple mercury thermometer is very imprecise compared to a modern balanced thermocouple based system.
• Changes in the underlying system of measurement.
• Placement and movement of said equipment. Such events as urbanization and deforestation have caused 'hot spots' - i.e. the daily solar cycle plays a greater local effect in the measured temperature.
• Political issues. In some places (like Russia) it is possible that the temperature records have been 'tweaked' to political ends (i.e. a colder temperature gets you a greater heating oil allowance).

It must be remembered that although corrections can be applied to this data, those corrections in themselves cannot be 'perfect' as there is no available exact reference from which to determine the exact degree of correction required. These are educated guesses at the best of times, highly educated guesses but guesses none the less.

Also it appears the science behind the research 'proving' man made global warming is somewhat 'suspect' - see this article for more details (Climategate).

So why the push for man made global warming?

It's quite simple really, you can make money from man made global warming and you cannot make money from natural global warming. If global warming is presented up as solely a man made event; we are solely responsible and so should act to fix it.

Also, remember thats politicians and governments exist to be there to 'solve' problems. If man made global warming is actually a 'non-event' at the end of the day, then they have managed to convince us all to spend money on them and their associated businesses in full knowledge that global warming won't occur - i.e. they will appear to have 'fixed it' by doing absolutely nothing (remember temperature drives Co2). Nice trick if you can do it.

So, whats the problem?

Well the real problem is what termed by economists as 'opportunity cost' - i.e. given a certain amount of monies what else could you have done with it instead? Remember, there are several trillion of world wide dollars up for the spending. What could be done with this sort of money?

• Materials and technology research. Move to optical computing; nanotech; biotech (cure for cancer anyone? cure for aging?); fusion power; better batteries;more efficient power transmission;gigabit internet access;space missions, etc
• Education for all?
• Healthcare for all?

Note: It is quite possible to spend this money in a way which will help the environment (as point 1 above shows) it just not being specifically targeted at dealing with man made climate change head on. Optical computers would consume a fraction of the power now used. Fusion power would free us from a dependence on none renewal energy sources (coal & oil in particular). Better batteries would make electric cars a viable alternative to the petrol powered car. Space missions generate so much technical benefits in lots of areas. Gigabit internet access would make on demand video and large data set manipulation a day to day event (i.e. for the knowledge workers it would make working from home on par with being in the office, the end result is less transport and resource usage).

Conclusion

Above anything else, please strive to keep an open mind on this whole issue of man made climate change. The main stream media (MSM) is very much focused on 'selling' man made global warming to all who will listen; the amount of coverage looking into the science and the base facts is very small in comparison. Try to read between the lines and look for the facts and remember how what is being reported is usually a retelling of what has already being reported elsewhere already. The amount of coverage is many times that of core analysis under pining the theory of man made global warming.

Basically try to get to the facts and do your own analysis of what is going on.

Related Articles

• Climategate, what is going on?