Climate Change - why we must curb carbon release
David Cameron is right to regard cutting the release of carbon into the atmosphere as an important aim for all countries including Britain.
And this is one of two reasons why the overwhelming majority of Conservatives support the need for new nuclear build as part of the mix in a balanced energy policy, since nuclear energy does not depend on burning carbon compounds. (The other, equally valid reason why most Conservatives support new nuclear build as part of the mix is to diversify our sources of energy and thereby increase the security of supply.)
It is very easy - far too easy - to point to the severe winter we are having, and recent well publicised and irresponsible behaviour by some of the academic high priests of climate change, fall about laughing at the idea of man-made global warming, and forget about the issue.
Easy, but wrong.
Ignoring the evidence for harm caused by man-made carbon release would be most unwise.
The earth's biosphere is a fantastically complex system, far too much so for any wise person to be as certain that we understand it as the hardliners on either extreme of the climate change debate would have you believe. And since any wise person would admit that we don't fully understand it, and the consequences of major changes in the world's climate could be very serious indeed, the precautionary principle should warn us that we should seek to minimise our impact on the earth's climate until and unless we have a much better idea of what the effects of our actions should be.
The large majority of scientists who have studied the evidence say that it suggests a 90% probability that human activity has contributed to climate change. That is short of the lowest threshold - 95% - which statisticians usually require before concluding that a particular test has given a clear result. So we cannot regard the debate as settled and it is not just undemocratic but irresponsible to label the minority who disagree as "climate change denialists" and treat them like people who deny the historical truth of Hitler's holocaust.
But 90% evidence in favour of the hypothesis that carbon release is causing effects which could cause enormous harm is far too strong for us to take the risk of not doing anything about it.
Global Warming is far from being the only harmful form of climate change, nor necessarily the worst, and is certainly not the form which there is strongest evidence that human-driven release of carbon is causing. That is the acidification of the oceans.
Scientists noticed some years ago that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was not going up as fast as known release of carbon would, other things being equal, have caused. Something was acting as a "carbon sink" and removing some of the carbon we are releasing.
One of these "carbon sinks" turns out to be the world's oceans. There is conclusive evidence that they are indeed absorbing some of that carbon. But this is not good news, because the absorbtion of carbon dioxide by sea water produces acid. And over the past half century the earth's seas and oceans have become measurably more acid as a result.
This has not yet had disastrous effects. But if it continues, it will. If the seas become significantly more acid, there will come a point when all vertebrate sea creatures and molluscs will be unable to extract the calcium they need to build their skeletons and shells, so they will die out. Should this process continue, everything in the seas will die, including the algae which photosynthesize a large proportion of the world's oxygen.
The consequence for many areas of the world if we kill all life in the sea would be devastating. It must not be allowed to happen.
So even if global warming turned out to be a complete myth - and the majority evidence does not support this view - it would still be important to curb the release of carbon.
And this is one of two reasons why the overwhelming majority of Conservatives support the need for new nuclear build as part of the mix in a balanced energy policy, since nuclear energy does not depend on burning carbon compounds. (The other, equally valid reason why most Conservatives support new nuclear build as part of the mix is to diversify our sources of energy and thereby increase the security of supply.)
It is very easy - far too easy - to point to the severe winter we are having, and recent well publicised and irresponsible behaviour by some of the academic high priests of climate change, fall about laughing at the idea of man-made global warming, and forget about the issue.
Easy, but wrong.
Ignoring the evidence for harm caused by man-made carbon release would be most unwise.
The earth's biosphere is a fantastically complex system, far too much so for any wise person to be as certain that we understand it as the hardliners on either extreme of the climate change debate would have you believe. And since any wise person would admit that we don't fully understand it, and the consequences of major changes in the world's climate could be very serious indeed, the precautionary principle should warn us that we should seek to minimise our impact on the earth's climate until and unless we have a much better idea of what the effects of our actions should be.
The large majority of scientists who have studied the evidence say that it suggests a 90% probability that human activity has contributed to climate change. That is short of the lowest threshold - 95% - which statisticians usually require before concluding that a particular test has given a clear result. So we cannot regard the debate as settled and it is not just undemocratic but irresponsible to label the minority who disagree as "climate change denialists" and treat them like people who deny the historical truth of Hitler's holocaust.
But 90% evidence in favour of the hypothesis that carbon release is causing effects which could cause enormous harm is far too strong for us to take the risk of not doing anything about it.
Global Warming is far from being the only harmful form of climate change, nor necessarily the worst, and is certainly not the form which there is strongest evidence that human-driven release of carbon is causing. That is the acidification of the oceans.
Scientists noticed some years ago that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was not going up as fast as known release of carbon would, other things being equal, have caused. Something was acting as a "carbon sink" and removing some of the carbon we are releasing.
One of these "carbon sinks" turns out to be the world's oceans. There is conclusive evidence that they are indeed absorbing some of that carbon. But this is not good news, because the absorbtion of carbon dioxide by sea water produces acid. And over the past half century the earth's seas and oceans have become measurably more acid as a result.
This has not yet had disastrous effects. But if it continues, it will. If the seas become significantly more acid, there will come a point when all vertebrate sea creatures and molluscs will be unable to extract the calcium they need to build their skeletons and shells, so they will die out. Should this process continue, everything in the seas will die, including the algae which photosynthesize a large proportion of the world's oxygen.
The consequence for many areas of the world if we kill all life in the sea would be devastating. It must not be allowed to happen.
So even if global warming turned out to be a complete myth - and the majority evidence does not support this view - it would still be important to curb the release of carbon.
Comments
You can find it on the IPCC website (http://www.ipcc.ch/)
Neither the proponents nor critics of man-made climate change have a monopoly of wisdom. A wise person will listen to the evidence and arguments put forward by each.