The Myth that Created a Monster.
BY XAVI CHUPITOXAVI.CHUPITO@CHRONICCAT.COM
I have always been slightly sceptical whenever I read that man-made global warming is going to change most of our lives in the next twenty or thirty years. With alarming regularity we have been bombarded with killer disease alerts, warnings of impending doom, end of the world scenarios, and what we can do to prevent them.
Most of these solutions usually involve us spending money, and none more so than the Man-Made Global Warming ‘industry’ that appears to have national governments in it’s thrall.
The foundations for this current situation were laid in the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, where signatories to the protocol agreed to reduce emissions of various greenhouse gases, in the case of the European Union a required target of an 8% reduction in the three main gases of Carbon Dioxide, Methane and Nitrous Oxide by 2012.
The five most important concepts of the protocol are:
1. Commitments to reduce greenhouse gases – legally binding for all countries that have ratified the Treaty. (The United States of America has yet to do so)
2. Facilities to implement the Treaty Objectives – carbon trading being one such mechanism.
3. Minimize the impact on developing countries by establishing funds.
4. Accounting, reporting and review procedures.
5. A committee to enforce the Treaty.Continued on page 6…
Tell me if I am being a big lemon here, but the above just reads as another way for unelected bodies to interfere in our lives, and take money from us, whilst at the same time, being self-justifying.
Conveniently, the emissions from international aviation are exempted from being included in these limits. Not a bad trade to be in.
Does that mean when all the ‘ Green Decision Makers’ jet off to their next global conference/summit/junket on Global Warming, that it will not count towards their own personal carbon footprints?
Carbon Trading
A mechanism was devised whereby countries could offset their emissions by buying credits from countries that were below their targets and had ‘emission credits’ to sell. These credits can be obtained by financing schemes within other countries to reduce their greenhouse gases.
THERE IS A burgeoning market in trading these credits to companies that are interested in offsetting their emissions, and it is not difficult to envisage how the system could be exploited.
The closure of the metalworks on Tyneside, recently reported in the UK National Press, allows the Indian owners to close the UK plant, receiving large sums of money by lowering their carbon footprint, a potential £600 million. By re-locating in India, it will also receive a similar sum in credits, with no real reduction in the amount of the gases pushed into the atmosphere. A nice bit of business.
What is interesting to note is that Carbon Dioxide is vital for life on this planet, in that it is one of the most important airborne fertilisers in the world, and without it there would be no green plants at all.
Most schoolchildren would be able to tell you that a green plant takes in CO2 and water, and with a bit of help from some sunshine, converts it into oxygen. If you increase the amount of carbon Dioxide, you will increase plant growth.
Not really a nightmare scenario, unless the plants grew into man-eating triffids, I suppose.
To add heft to this crucial part of the whole discussion, man is responsible for releasing about 26 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year, at current levels. The oceans contain about 1.3 billion gigatonnes, and were all this extra carbon dioxide to be absorbed by the Earth’s seas, it would make not a scrap of difference.
Temperature rises over the past 1000 years point to an acceleration in the past 50 years, the so-called ‘hockey-stick graph’ pictured below.
Compare and contrast the second graph, which shows that whilst it has been increasing over the most recent time period, it has also varied tremendously. Given that there is a wealth of recent data, the options for measuring global temperature many years ago are simply not as forth-coming, nor can their accuracy be relied upon. “Stone Age Man – cold, Mediaeval serf – hot “ doesn’t quite cut it.
A far more likely an explanation is that the Earth, spinning as it does, can from time to time tilt it’s central axis from one side to another and back again over thousands of years. This would give rise to temperature fluctuations, polar ice melts, rising sea levels, and then back again.
IN OTHER WORDS, climate change is an entirely natural phenomenon, and has nothing to do with the burning of fossil fuels. There is some debate that rising temperatures increase the amount of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere, rather than the other way around. Once temperatures drop again, in the next cycle, then the CO2 will drop as well.
I was always brought up to believe that common sense will allow to travel far, and I despair at the sums of money that are being spent, and will be spent in years to come, on this Green Circus, with the man in the street eventually footing the bill.
Fantastic plans of giant mega wind turbines marching out to sea in droves, just to meet some alarmist agenda, and which cannot possibly be built in time nor will provide a fraction of the power required.
It just does not make sense.
Far better to stop the destruction of the rainforests – the world’s great gas exchange centre – and plant more trees.
In fact, to reduce carbon dioxide we could all talk less – six and three-quarter billion people could have quite an effect.
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