Global warming

"I am trying to make some sense of all the conflicting comments around at the moment on this issue. It seems to me that there are four questions -

1. Is global warming taking place?
2. If it is, how serious a problem is it?
3. If it is, to what extent is it being cause by human activity?
4. If it is down to human activity, what can (or should) we do about it?

The only question with anything like a definitive answer it seems to me is question 1. Although average temperatures have been pretty stable over the last decade or so, the general trend over the best part of the last couple of centuries is upwards and there is little doubt that this is causing things like an increase in the melting of the polar ice-caps.

As regards the other questions, it is difficult if not impossible to get a straight answer. And I think this is probably because if truth be told, we simply don't know. People are making best guesses, which may prove in the event to be wide of the mark. I've said before that I think that reducing the amount of "greenhouse gasses" that we put into the atmosphere is a good idea in any event, but I question the morality of pushing developing countries back into poverty over what at present are no more than a collection of mainly unsubstantiated theories. Mind you, I'm glad I'm not the one having to take those decisions."

Read : http://rndman.blogspot.com/. I am glad I found this text : it holds about all I have to say about the problem, except for two remarks :

- I am convinced that the hidden agendas on both sides (believers and deniers) are enormous and that both sides overstate their causes : so I wouldn't say that people are making "best guesses". I don't think so, not always anyway. And it is perfectly clear that the believers are trying very hard to give us a bad conscience with their half cooked statistics about footprints and so on. Some even say that scepticism is a crime against humanity : excuse me for living !! But, on the other side, have you seen which interest groups and shady characters are sitting in the camp of the "unbelievers" ? Just let me name some : most of the American based multinationals and Saudi Arabia.

- Even if the "unbelievers" were to be right, fighting global pollution is useful and a worthwhile objective. Economic crises are reversable (at least that is the experience up to now) ; climate change most probably is not.

Read also : http://www.standaard.be/artikel/detail.aspx?artikelid=3T2J93PV.

Don't expect much more comments on this subject in this blog. The evangelism and the ill will on both sides disgust me.