8
Opinion
Yukon News
EDITORIAL
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
INSIGHT
LETTERS
COMMENTARY There’s little doubt the Earth is warming Phil Elder
change. The Environmental Protection Agency in the U.S. is on board too. And surely the precautionary he Intergovernmental Panel principle dictates action even withon Climate Change recently out 100 per cent certainty. issued its fifth assessment report, a Let us acknowledge, however, follow-up to its 2007 version. It is that although the “greenhouse efboth sobering and persuasive, and fect” accords with common sense, even stronger in stating that Earth’s global climate is extremely complex. climate is warming and that human For example, even with the warmactivity is now the main driver. ing, some parts of the globe will According to the report’s turn colder and trends need many summary, “most aspects of cliyears to allow conclusive certainty. mate change will persist for many Vigorous and informed scientific centuries even if emissions of CO2 debate is healthy for those who are stopped. … Depending on the want to better understand global scenario, about 15 to 40 per cent warming’s drivers and then to deof emitted CO2 will remain in velop effective remedial measures. the atmosphere longer than 1,000 It is also true that some people years.” on both sides on the debate have In other words, things will get exaggerated, which has increased worse before they get better, so depublic cynicism. niers can be expected to complain Naysayers tend to “cherry-pick” every decade that we should give their data – for example, they seize up because nothing we did worked. on the fact that the warming trend But our descendants will simply has been cut in half in the past few have to soldier on if they are to solve the problem we have created. years, even while greenhouse gas emissions continue. Therefore, they The usual sources are lining up to deny these claims. Some work in say, mainstream science is wrong. There isn’t enough room to or are financed by the hydrocarbon debunk all the challenges to climate energy industry, so their objections change data have also been made. to the science are not surprising. But let’s stay with this one for a Some deniers resist the analysis for minute. First, choosing an unideological reasons – they believe usually warm year as the baseline to in less government and more assess global warming distorts the personal freedom and sometimes evidence. even that the market is the only Given that climate change hapcredible decision-mechanism. Still others don’t want to accept human- pens over generations, and that weather varies from year to year in induced (anthropogenic) global a zigzag pattern, it’s no surprise that warming because responding to it may involve uncomfortable changes 15 years of relatively little rises in temperature should occur from an to the status quo. When the denial industry claims unusually high base line. Looking the scientific community is split on at greenhouse gas levels since 1900, this question, it’s not surprising that the upward trend could not be clearer. laypersons get confused. Yet there We must agree with the deniers is a 97 per cent consensus in the that warming and cooling cycles peer-reviewed scientific literature that anthropogenic climate change occurred well before human activity could have had any discernible is real. (This figure is also chaleffect. Things like el Nino, la Nina, lenged by climate skeptics.) And it’s not only the IPCC which warns wobbles in the Earth’s rotation and us about anthropogenic climate orbit, fluctuations in its magnetic Troy Media
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field, or solar storms and cosmic rays have in the past influenced climate change. Let us note three things, however. First, the most powerful climate change cycles occurred slowly, perhaps over millennia, so many species were able to migrate fast enough to remain viable as temperature zones shifted. Today’s changes, however, are orders of magnitude faster, even considering the present slowdown of the warming. Second, given these natural cycles, we are a couple of thousand years overdue for re-glaciation, yet temperatures have been moving in the opposite direction. Third, radical physical changes on Earth like the ice age and then de-glaciation resulted from comparatively small changes in temperature. Climate experts acknowledge these natural cycles, but most believe that they have caused much less than half and more probably about 15 per cent of the present warming trend. Are any explanations for this pause in warming since about the turn of the century consistent with global warming? Yes. For one, oceans have absorbed more heat than expected, due to changes in wind and current patterns, and have thus reduced the impact on air temperatures. (This rise, by the way, threatens many ocean species and is ominous for Reporters
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coral reef ecosystems. Also, since much greenhouse gas is eventually sequestered in the oceans, their increased acidification will also be a major threat to marine life.) Another factor reducing the warming impact of greenhouse gases is, counter-intuitively, the burning of huge amounts of coal, because it produces vast amounts of particulates which in the short term help shield the earth from solar radiation. Unfortunately, this apparently benign effect lasts only months or years, while the increased greenhouse gases from that combustion will remain in the atmosphere for centuries. So coal has to be phased out fast. Also worthy of note is the cooling effect observed from 2008-11 because of volcanic eruptions and aerosols in the air and perhaps lower solar radiation at the present stage of the solar cycle. I do not doubt the sincerity of many people who reject the scientific consensus, but urge undecided
readers to check out the affiliations and academic qualifications of the few ostensible “experts” who debunk anthropogenic climate change. True, climate change is extraordinarily complex and not all its mechanisms are entirely understood. But as a legally-trained layman, I have weighed the evidence (as I was taught to do) and conclude both that anthropogenic climate change is occurring and that it poses an existential threat to modern civilization. I say this, not to induce panic or hopelessness, but to urge all interested citizens (is anyone dull enough to believe that such a threat should just be ignored?) to inform themselves and then insist that our political leaders respond with ingenuity and vigour. Phil Elder is emeritus professor of environmental and planning law with the faculty of environmental design at the University of Calgary. Courtesy www.troymedia.com.
Quote of the Day “We really depend on that bridge. It’s been a part of the community for 70 years. A lot of our members go across the river. They have cabins just down the road here.” Chief Brian Ladue of the Ross River Dena Council responding to the closure of the unsafe bridge in his community. Page 2
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