Global Warming -- The Truth and The Myth - 1

1 2

Why 100? If I were wrong, then one would have been enough!!

Einstein quoted this when he was mentioned about publish of the pamphlet or booklet of the form ‘One Hundred Scientists against Einstein’ which primarily opposed his theories. I felt this famous quote is just pertinent to the discussion to start with. Why – let’s check that later.

Global warming is one of the most debated topics of current time. It has been placed among top debated topics list from last many years - till date. With 2012 doomsday it was easy. It was easy because the facts were clear. Only the mind willing to understand, analyze and convey the facts was required. But with global warming it is a different story. It is not just the result of some superstitions, ideas of some religious fanatic, fear mongers greed, or so called pseudo-science mixed up with science creating confusion among the people. But here we need to deal with politicized science, the differences among scientific community itself, and the lack of transparency which makes this topic complex, and difficult to conclude.

I started studying about global warming in 2007 for a couple of months – and later came to a decision but could never actually share it with most. Now again from last couple of months this is making headlines. So this time, I thought, let’s get into little more details and sort them in an ordered manner. And I started writing this. But it takes time, I agree. Considering I already have some background on this, it still looks a new challenge. And to write it – you really can write some hundreds of pages. But the aim is to make it simple, understandable, concise, and effective enough to have a clear conclusion.

Before I get into dealing with assumptions, better to check the facts. The facts as in what global warming is, what are the factors that are found [or thought] to be causing it, what is current opinion of scientists or governments or people on global warming, and what are some incidents that added to boost the distrust between each other in all these different sections.

Global Warming and the Current Opinion

Now to start with, what is global warming? It is increase in the average temperature of Earth. And in 20^th century it increased by about 0.56-0.92 ⁰C.

The concerns for global warming grew as scientists started claiming that it might actually lead to catastrophe if not controlled.

Until late 1960s there were no data sets of temperature. Murray Mitchell of the U.S. Weather Bureau's Office of Climatology had the most complete set of data at the time, but it mainly was for northern hemisphere. Later after collecting existing data it was found that earth was getting warmer from late 19^th century to 1940 but then it started cooling. Then again after 1975 it started getting warmer. James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies attributed this cooling to aerosols and mentioned while cooling effect due to aerosols is for a short term, the increasing CO₂ level will continue to contribute to warming of the climate through greenhouse effect. And that, he stressed, is more concerning as it might lead to natural disasters.

Melting of glaciers, dramatic variation in climate impacting agriculture and everyday life, droughts, rising sea levels encroaching land are all symptoms of global warming impacts. The predictions and beliefs a great deal according to many studies conducted time to time. It also varies in great deal based on region. Considering US, in 2006 Americans were much less concerned, about 20-40% about global warming. But by 2007-2008, 97% of the population was aware of global warming and 63% considered it as a serious threat. And 36% was aware of global warming and not considered it to be a threat. By 2009 end, Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that only 25% of adults thought there is consensus about global warming among most scientists. And about 59% of Americans think scientists have falsified the research data to support their own theories and beliefs about global warming. The confidence on global warming kept on dropping and reached to 46% from 51% last year in US.

This pattern of increased belief and then a drop over time is almost the same in most of the countries. The recent incidents of Copenhagen Accord failure, Climategate incident, IPCC statement about Himalayan melting might have contributed to growing disbelief in global warming. Apart from that the extremists among scientists at the both ends, the not-so-concrete opinions of governments, large number of economic influences from various sources have confused common people. Also to form a opinion on global warming people must rely on experts in the corresponding field for the data. And the distrust of whether the data they are providing is accurate or twisted is another reason to turn-off the enthusiasts.

On the other side the advocates of global warming say there is no skepticism left and a clear consensus on the matter of global warming exists; though the surveys tell a different story. Still, a large number of increasing opinion is to curb the GHG [green house gases] keeping safety and clean environment in mind.

Even in political area the opinions vary. Comparing Republicans and Democrats, the belief that global warming has already begun has fallen from 47% to 41% among republicans whereas it increased from 46% to 76% among democrats in the period 1998-2008. Also the percentage of republicans saying media exaggerates the seriousness of global warming has increased from 34 to 59% among republicans, and is decreased from 23 to 18% among democrats in same 1998-2008 period.

That was to understand the current opinion of the people belonging to different sections in the society. The curiosity that people have on this very topic is much because global warming affects their lives directly. It is them or their next generation that is at risk. And people are confused on what to believe because of so much conflicting news which keeps appearing every few days. There are so many haunting questions but we do not know what to believe?!

Is global warming really happening?

Is global warming man made or natural?

Is global warming a boon or bane for mankind?

What steps should be taken to control global warming?

And finally a more important question is, can we or science answer to these questions at this stage?

1 2