For awhile now I've followed the debates, and science of climate change. Frankly it is nearly bloody impossible to form an informed opinion on the subject because of all of the disinformation, rhetoric, and withheld information. So here goes with my own form of uninformed opinion.
I do not doubt that climate change exists, to do so would be to deny the sheer overwhelming evidence that has been put forward. The climate has been in a state of change since day dot, and will continue to do so until the day the sun expands and basically destroys this planet. There is no protocol, carbon tax, eco derived solution that will prevent the ultimate in climate change. No matter what we do, the world will end, and all life on the planet will cease. This will take several billion years, so it's nothing for us to worry about now, nor should we since there isn't a darn thing we can do about it anyway.
Back to my uninformed opinion on the climate change occurring now. There are so many factors that affect climate change, that it's tough to keep them all straight, but they all play a part. For instance we have the CO2 emissions that everyone is wringing their hands over. Yes humans are producing CO2 in record levels, we love internal combustion engines which produce this 'evil' gas. We love electricity, and to produce that most wonderful thing, we need power plants. The cheap and easy way is to burn something and one of the cheapest, easiest and most plentiful things to burn is coal. This produces lots of CO2. Animals, and people produce CO2 when they breathe, as well as producing methane gas which is another of the "greenhouse gases".
As the population expands, so does the amount of CO2 that people produce. The population has more than tripled in the century just passed. It started at just under 2 billion people, and ended with over 6 billion. What effect has just the rise in population had on climate change ?? What about volcanoes, how do they affect climate change ??
I've long thought that a volcano must have some kind of impact on climate change, since it can spews forth massive amounts of ash, and I'm sure that they must produce some of the greenhouse gases. The answer is; volcanic eruptions in one year can produce over 110 million tonnes of CO2. Now this sounds like a massive amount, but it does pale a bit when you consider that human activities produce something like 10,000 times that amount. (from Scientific American article "How do volcanoes affect world climate?" dated October 4, 2005) The thing about volcanoes though is that they also produce it's own 'carbon offset'. You see volcanoes not only send massive volumes of pulverized rock and ash into the air, but also Sulphuric aerosols. It was long thought that the ash clouds were what caused the drops in Global temperatures, but according to the above article, it's the Sulphuric aerosols that seem to have a greater effect on temperature. They absorb and scatter more of the incoming solar radiation than does the fine ash particles thrown up into the atmosphere. So we really can't put the blame on volcanoes, since they more than offset the CO2 emissions with the Sulphuric aerosols. In fact 1 large eruption can cause global temperatures to drop by as much as 0.6C. So in the grand scheme of things volcanic eruptions don't contribute to any warming of the atmosphere, but actually have more of a cooling effect. Unfortunately, the Sulphuric aerosols create Sulphuric acid when combined with water vapour, and cause acid rain. This rain kills plants, animals, and can have a devastating effect on aquatic life. Likewise the reduced sunlight isn't good for the growth of plantlife either.
Although the above findings were quite logical, I was still surprised that such large events can have such a minor effect on the whole. So what about things like wild fires, bush fires, forest fires, etc ?? These are large and can produce large amounts of CO2, and according to some sources (Scientific American again, what can I say I'm lazy *LOL*) fires have accounted for nearly 20% of the atmospheric CO2 levels. Now before we get all excited about this, and say that it's nature's fault, this also included deforestation burning, which is said to cause the largest amount of atmospheric CO2. Deforestation burning hurts the climate in more than 1 way. It reduces the amount of CO2 that can be absorbed from the atmosphere for use in photosynthesis. It releases large quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere. Fires physically heat the atmosphere in the general vicinity of the fire. Although I would imagine that this effect is a rather minor one, the effects are still cumulative and add to the whole.
What I've found from the little bit of research that I've done for this blog has shown me; is that the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere is rising (that is not in doubt, as there is too much empirical data to say otherwise). I was curious as to what part nature had in all of this, and I have found that it does play a role. It's just that from what I have found, mankind is mostly to blame for this. I am in no way a "Greenie", but we do need to do something to reduce the vast quantities of pollution that we are issuing. Human nature being the way it is, we need incentives to get us to do things we may not want to do. The Governments of the world need to look at making it profitable for companies, and individuals to reduce emissions. Taxing will work to a point, but if you tell a company "we'll reduce your tax if you ...", or "you'll make more money if you ..." then there is that incentive to move forward. All of the 'progress' of the last few hundred years is due to either making more money, or to win a war (which means that the winners profit by continuing to live), and not by taxing them into submission. Here in Australia, there has been decent success in getting solar power into use. Want to guess how it was done ?? Incentives for those who bought it. By showing how money can be made by being conscious of emissions, only then will change occur.
