Keeping to the status quo could be a fatal mistake

Will it be a linear effect with global temperature rising in line with atmospheric concentrations of CO2 or will there be an upper limit to which the global temperature will rise followed by an equilibrium (as Mr Perkins champions)?

The only facts about which we can be certain is that the current rate at which atmospheric CO2 is rising has not been seen for several thousand years and the rate at which the global temperature is rising hasn’t been seen for about 14,000 years (during which time atmospheric CO2 levels were also rising – possibly cause, possibly effect).

Since the mid-19th century, from a steady low level of about 280 parts/million, atmospheric CO2 has been rising at an ever-increasing rate to its current level of 414 parts/million, a level not seen since the mid-Pliocene epoch three million years ago.

More than a fifth of that rise has occurred in the last 40 years, representing well over 50% of the total increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide since the beginning of the industrial revolution in the 1750s when the industrial use of fossil fuels increased in increasingly large annual amounts.

On a graph, the rate of rise in global temperatures mirrors the increase in annual CO2 production almost exactly.

While correlation does not imply causation, many people can sense from these figures that there is a possibility of unchecked global warming posing a threat to the future of life on this planet.

However, some scientists such as Professors Happer and Lindzen have come to the conclusion that global warming is not a problem and that burning of fossil fuels is irrelevant. Despite virtually the whole of the scientific community now accepting that the current global warming is due to mankind’s burning of fossil fuels over the last 300 years and that continued burning of fossil fuels at the current rate poses an existential threat to mankind, the dissenters have chosen to accept the opinion of these very few dissenting scientists.

The implication of this ‘dissenting’ position is that we do not, therefore, need to take any action to limit carbon dioxide production because it would be a waste of time and money.

The scientific paper submitted by Happer & Lindzen to the Securities & Exchange Commission (which enforces the law against manipulation in the US stock market) opens with their submission and their stated position that ‘In our opinion, science demonstrates that there is no climate-related risk caused by fossil fuels and CO2 and no climate emergency.’

There it is, we have two scientists, both professors – one of optics and one of atmospheric sciences – who, on the same information that is freely available to the whole world, come to an opinion on global warming that is diametrically opposed to the opinion of virtually all the other scientists in the world.

The BIG (and only) question is, ‘Which opinion will serve mankind’s best interests?’ Is it the dissenters' speculative view that we don’t have to do anything because global climate change will plateau (where’s the actual evidence to support this?), despite ever-increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, or is it the majority scientific view that, if left unchecked, global warming will pass the point of no return resulting in calamitous damage to the earth’s biome, even to the extent of threatening the survival of life on this planet. (Greta Thunberg’s group is not exaggerating the possibilities when it calls itself Extinction Rebellion).

So, which one to choose? Should we ‘Keep calm and carry on’ or should we start down the path of reducing the one thing that we can do which we know will reduce our carbon dioxide production.

Even Happer and Lindzen accept that there is some global warming (but which doesn’t worry them) due in very small part to the rising atmospheric carbon dioxide level (which they believe is a good thing).

If you have a problem in your belly and seek the opinion of a number of doctors as to what it may be, do you accept the opinion of 20 of them that this is probably due to a cancer which can be cured by immediate surgery or do you accept the opinion of just two who diagnose a non-malignant condition which just needs tea and sympathy?

To me the answer is clear.

Whatever happens, the planet is facing an immediate future where it will sustain damage due to the juggernaut of increasing atmospheric CO2 causing increasing planetary warming with the rise in warming continuing until CO2 production is virtually zero.

This damage will come with costs both in life and treasure with whole swathes of low-lying coastal areas being lost and communities displaced.

Sitting doing nothing is, therefore, something that will be difficult to justify to the third world which will be inordinately affected, especially as this is due to the industrialised world’s earlier activity (by which it became developed).

So, which course of response to global warming should be chosen? Either restrict burning of fossil fuels as is currently the chosen way forward (if the recent COP meeting in Dubai is to be believed) or is it to wait for the global warming to reach its hypothesised plateau as the dissenters would have it?

On the one hand, if the majority view which is being currently applied turns out to be wrong it will result in a degree of impoverishment in the world as a whole but leave us with a world with restricted but repairable damage and with a cleaner healthier atmosphere.

On the other hand, if the minority view is implemented and turns out to be wrong it would, at best, be too late to repair the damage already done to the earth because a return to a stable environment in a warmer world will take many decades or even centuries.

At worst it could end with an extinction event. Keeping to the status quo (as the dissenters champion) could be a fatal mistake for the human race and for many other animal and plant species.

This is not a scare tactic it is a logical prognostication of what might happen based on what is already science fact.

Mr Perkins chooses to characterise the current concerns as ‘panic’ (def. ‘sudden uncontrollable fear or anxiety, often causing wildly unthinking behaviour’) and the response to it as ‘folly’.

I would characterise the current concerns as soundly-based and the response as measured.

On the other hand, I would characterise the dissenters lack of concern as dangerously speculative and their response to the current situation as endangering the planet’s future and a potentially ‘fatal folly’.

Tony Lee

Les Salines, Le Vallon, St Martin, GY4 6DN