Climate Change - What do we know? What should we do?
September 19, 2010So the earth is getting hotter, glaciers are retreating, yet the heating is not uniform globally.
The average temperature isn’t even the whole story. Climate = weather patterns, meaning averages, extremes, timing, spatial distribution of hot&cold, humid&clear, humid&dry …
John P. Holdren, Assistant to President Obama for Science and Technology, presented a magnificent overview paper on the topic. Yet, he trained in aeronautics, astronautics and plasma physics, so he is a natural scientist. His paper gives all the natural science answers and is certainly worth reading. But, should we stop there?
Sometimes, I wonder if perhaps it would be worth digging a little deeper than that. Having studied John Holdren’s 32 page PDF, at length, I did notice one very simple fact. Even to a layperson, it is quite obvious that the “tipping point” of most curves occurred at the beginning of the 1980s. Before that, there were variations in climate, but since then, most curves display only one direction.
I find this very interesting. My adult life started in the 1980s. So this isn’t very long ago at all; most of us are very much able to observe changes happening in their lifetime. We don’t perhaps need scientists actually digging down hundreds of metres of Antarctic ice; all we have to do is remember our own life time.
Which change in paradigms took place within the past 30 years, leading to this development? Was it general well-being of large parts of the European population? Cars, telephones, air travel, all become prevalent in recent decades only. Was it the oil discovered in Russia, with exploration starting at around that time? Was it the upheavals in China, leading to massive polution in China and hence throughout the world, starting in the 1980s? Was it a combination of all these single factors? Or perhaps it was something else?
Therefore, I think there is a good chance that each and every one of us is able to find his or her personal explanation to this relatively new phenomenon. And therefore, each and every one of us might be able to contribute to us going back to where we were back in the 1980s, climate-wise.
Eberhard Blocher
