Global flatulence
Sir, The Global Warming bandwagon gathers pace and it is hardly possible to open a newspaper or turn on the TV news without another story warning us that man’s actions are causing the ice-caps to melt or hurricanes to increase in intensity. The justification usually given that the warming is anthropogenic and not natural is that there is a consensus among climate scientists who agree that it is so. And now Colin Summerhayes tells us the same thing in the July issue of Geoscientist – “Global Warming: A Basic Primer”.
What has happened to normal and proper scientific scepticism? Geologists don’t wish to know what the consensus view is; we want to hear the evidence so that we can form our own opinions. Why, for example, was there a period of global cooling lasting several decades in the middle of the 20th Century when atmospheric CO2 emissions continued to rise? And what was the source of the high CO2 concentrations that correlate with warm periods in the geological past? Is Colin able to prove me wrong if I opine that it may be the warming which causes the increase in CO2 rather than the reverse?
Of course, we should seek to conserve our finite resources of fossil fuels and protect the planet from pollution. But when the broadcast media warn us (as they have this week) that the flatulence of farm animals is contributing to global warming we can be forgiven for thinking that maybe hysteria is taking over.
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