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june 2008 Climate change sceptic?Ten answers to doubting questions
1. Is climate change really happening?
Leading scientists strongly agree the answer is yes. In 1988 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was founded, comprising hundreds of peer-recognised scientists from around the world. It has produced a series of assessment reports, the fourth was published in 2007. This concluded that warming of the climate system is unequivocal, that the average global temperature has risen by 0.8 ºC in the last 150 years, most of this since 1970. It noted that we are already committed to a temperature rise of 1.8ºC and depending on the action we take it could be as high as 4 to 6ºC by the end of the 21st century.
2. OK, the climate is changing, but doesn’t it change through natural cycles?
In 2007 the IPCC reported there is a very high level of confidence that human activities since 1750 have led to global warming. They note that the 2005 atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane, another greenhouse gas, exceeded their natural range over the last 650,000 years.
Britain’s Hadley Centre Meteorological Office reported that increased greenhouse gas concentrations have had a much greater effect on global warming than changes in solar activity over the last 50 years.
3. Scientists don’t agree and some deny the problem, so who should I believe?
Believe the strong consensus of the authoritative scientific community that climate change is happening, and that the prime cause is human use of fossil fuel. Those few who are sceptical no longer deny that climate change is happening but question the link with human activity. Such a view flies in the face of the consensus science of bodies like the IPCC, Royal Society and Met Office. The Royal Society explains that, taken together, all the natural factors which influence climate change cannot account for the temperature increase to date unless greenhouse gas emissions from human activity are also included. However, there will always be people ready to clutch at straws to allow them to continue business as usual.
This article is continued in the June 08 edition of Reform.
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