Gabe Menezes wrote: If so, then this is bad news, according to Dr Peter Cox, one of the world's leading climate modellers. As things stand, CO2 levels are projected to rise strongly over coming decades, whereas there are encouraging signs that particle pollution is at last being brought under control. "We're going to be in a situation, unless we act, where the cooling pollutant is dropping off while the warming pollutant is going up. That means we'll get reduced cooling and increased heating at the same time and that's a problem for us," says Cox.
Even the most pessimistic forecasts of global warming may now have to be drastically revised upwards. That means a temperature rise of 10°C by 2100 could be on the cards, giving the UK a climate like that of North Africa, and rendering many parts of the world uninhabitable. That is unless we act urgently to curb our emissions of greenhouse gases. Mario responds: Gabe, regardless of what the BBC or Dr. Peter Cox say, all I can do is appeal to your common sense on such warnings of dire consequences, "...unless we act urgently to curb our emissions of greenhouse gases". When you hear such warnings, hang on to your wallet because some researcher is getting ready to apply for some grant money to "study" this "problem". As we have pointed out in other posts, 79% of the earth's atmosphere is made up of Nitrogen and 20% is Oxygen, leaving only 1% for all the remaining gases. Carbon dioxide is only 0.036% of the earth's total atmosphere. Additional carbon dioxide is caused by nature and by human endeavor around the whole world. Much of this is recycled by photosynthesis through the leaves of plants. There is no way to curb any of the new carbon dioxide created by nature and no mathematical way on God's green earth that any additional curbing of the emissions caused by human endeavor can have any noticeable effect on carbon dioxide as a percentage of the atmosphere, because of the minute percentage of the atmosphere that is made up of carbon dioxide to begin with. Most western countries that would be covered by the Kyoto Treaty already have emission controls for various health reasons, whereas the two large economies that are exempted by the treaty, India and China, have virtually no environmental controls. Thus the whole issue of additional curbs on only western industry makes even less sense. It would lead to massive disruptions in the economies of the western countries, with little effect on the percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Global warmings and coolings have taken place on earth way before the industrial age began. Global warming may be taking place again and the amount is subject to much speculation. It seems to be a natural cyclical process that takes place over thousands of years. The point is that "acting urgently to curb emissions" is unlikely to have any noticeable effect on anything. As with volcanoes and earthquakes and tsunamis, we puny humans just have to deal with whatever Mother Earth throws our way.