by psvish
22. December 2010 09:19
As we come to the close of 2010, one area that that still seems to attract a lot of passionate arguments is climate change. Overwhelming majority of scientists and engineers - people who inhabit the fact-based universe - have seen the data and accept as fact the CO2 levels in the atmosphere have been steadily rising. There is also overwhelming consensus that increased levels of CO2 lead to raising average temperatures. [For a quick primer, check out Keeling Curve - named after Dr. Charles Keeling, who painstakingly developed instrumentation to measure CO2 levels and then documented them for several years to put this issue to rest.]
Below is the plot of the data Keeling collected:
Reasonable people can argue about the impact: Bulk of the world believes that this increase in CO2 levels will result in about 6F rise in earth which would have profound effects on the polar ice caps, weather patterns and food production. A small minority believes it will result in 2F increase and the impacts will be minimal. It would be fine if these two groups could argue using facts and research data to arrive at a conclusion that could be used for global action. The problem is that the discussions have been hijacked by various special interest groups using arguments that have very little to do with facts and more to do with political ideology. One can only hope that in the coming year, all sides involved move towards facing facts and work towards developing a cogent plan of action to take care of the issue before it's too late. In the final analysis, our planet responds only to facts and not to any opinion polls.
Additional reading: there is an article in New York Times on the life and work of Dr. Keeling that makes wonderful reading. Enjoy.
Track. Report. Analyze. Manage.
