Climate Change – Both Sides of the Carbon Coin
Ben Edwards Looks at the Carbon Debate
 A few years ago, you would be forgiven for thinking that a 'Carbon Footprint' was more the concern of a chimney sweep than an entire nation. However, now that phrase is used to describe the amount of carbon dioxide each individual is responsible for producing. Why is our carbon footprint now deemed important? Climate change.
Rising levels of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere are being blamed for world climate change and the effects it has on sea levels, temperature change and extreme weather conditions. It is believed that the human-led increase in carbon dioxide is the main culprit, and that our increased use of cars and aeroplanes are the cause. Drivers of cars with large engines are vilified in the media as uncaring and 'un-green', single-handedly to blame for global warming in their 'gas-guzzling' machines. This makes drivers of American cars a prime target for the misguided 'green-minded' accusations of the media, and indeed the public. This problem is further compounded by the US government refusing to ratify the Kyoto protocol.
However, it isn't as clear cut as our government and the environmental activists would have us believe. There are many scientific schools of thought on climate change, with just as much evidence and credence as the 'Carbon Footprint' theory. Some scientists maintain that global warming is a natural process, part of Earth's 4.5m billion year history.
There have certainly been other recorded instances of extreme weather: - in the seventeenth century, the Thames was frozen and 'Frost Fairs' were held.
A Medieval Warm Period was found to be much hotter than our recent heatwaves, and a detailed look at recent climate change reveals that temperatures rose prior to 1940 but then dropped during the post-war economic boom, when carbon dioxide levels rose dramatically.
In a nutshell, the greenhouse effect is that heat from the sun's rays becomes trapped by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, thus warming the Earth. Without them, the Earth would be too cold to support life. . Traditional models predict that increased concentrations of greenhouse gases will lead to overheating.
However, if greenhouse warming were occurring, scientists predict that the troposphere (the layer of the earth's atmosphere about 10-15km above us) should heat up faster than the planet's surface. But data collected from satellites and weather balloons does not support this.
Those that believe global warming is a natural process state that the troposphere isn't heating up because human-produced greenhouse gases are not causing the planet to heat up. On top of this, human-produced greenhouse gas amounts are minute compared to volcanic emissions and carbon dioxide from animals, bacteria, decaying vegetation and the oceans.
 So what is this natural process of climate change? New evidence shows that as radiation from the sun varies (sun spot activity being one way of monitoring this), the earth seems to heat up and cool down.
Solar activity very precisely matches the plot of temperature change over the last 100 years, correlating even with the post-war dip when carbon dioxide levels rose.
The process scientists suggest is that as earth moves through space, the atmosphere is constantly bombarded by ever-present cosmic rays. As these particles hit water vapour evaporating from the oceans, clouds form in the atmosphere.
Clouds shield Earth from some of the sun's radiation and have a cooling effect. When solar activity is high, there is an increase in solar wind and this has the effect of reducing the amount of cosmic radiation which reaches Earth. When less cosmic radiation reaches Earth, fewer clouds form and the full effects of the sun's radiation heats the planet.
And it would seem that the sun is getting hotter. Dr Sami Solanki, the director of the renowned Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany, who led the research, said: "The Sun has been at its strongest over the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures. The Sun is in a changed state. It is brighter than it was a few hundred years ago and this brightening started relatively recently - in the last 100 to 150 years."
So if there is credible evidence for another reason for climate change, why is it being so roundly shouted down and decried by governments and the media?
Professor David Bellamy, eminent conservationist and television presenter lost many of his roles as president for wildlife groups due to his stance on the climate change issue and to his leading seminars and writing articles in science magazines declaring that man-made warming is a myth. He said, "Global warming is a largely natural phenomenon. The world is wasting stupendous amounts of money on trying to fix something that can't be fixed. I am sure of it and so are a growing number of scientists. But what is really worrying is that the world's politicians and policy-makers are not. Instead, they have an unshakeable faith in what has, unfortunately, become one of the central credos of the environmental movement: humans burn fossil fuels, which release increased levels of carbon dioxide - the principal so-called greenhouse gas - into the atmosphere, causing the atmosphere to heat up. They say this is global warming: I say this is poppycock."
Professor David Bellamy | 
Dr Patrick Moore |
In this argument, Bellamy poses further questions: - why are governments so quick to embrace the 'Greenhouse' theory of global warming as fact, and not the 'Natural Process' theory? The simplest (and most cynical) reason is that it is far more lucrative. Climate change and reducing 'carbon footprints' are used as reasons for the increasing of duty on fuel, congestion charging (with local councils across the country following London's lead), increased tax rates for vehicles with larger engines, and increased charges for airlines. With the media proclaiming green-minded people as upstanding citizens, the nation's mindset has been slowly altered to concur with all these 'initiatives', so as to safeguard our planet's future. Of course, this may be the case – then again it may be so much snake oil.
It would seem that the environmental groups that first awoke the public's conscience to issues such as global warming have changed dramatically.
Dr Patrick Moore, one of the founder members of Greenpeace, left the organisation due to the growing emphasis on politics and extremist acts. He says, "Environmentalism has become anti-globalization and anti-industry. Activists have abandoned science in favour of sensationalism. Their zero-tolerance, fear-mongering campaigns would ultimately block a solution to global warming". This increasing politicisation of environmentalism has meant the attraction of groups such as the Socialist Worker party and other related groups, who strive to 'get back to the land' and revert to peasant life. Moore says, "I think one of the most pernicious aspects of the modern environmental movement is the romanticization of peasant life and the idea that industrial societies are the destroyers of the world. The environmental movement has evolved into the strongest force there is for preventing development in developing countries. I think it is legitimate for me to call them anti-human."
It would certainly seem that the government wish to placate these organisations, possibly taking lessons from the past to inform their decisions. Many of the political groups now involved with the environmental movement today are the same groups who protested against the closure of coal mines in the 1980s. Ironically, they feature amongst the groups protesting about carbon dioxide emissions from the Drax Power Station in Selby, North Yorkshire, last year.
Of course raising these issues in the public eye is also beneficial to government itself, as it is useful for the populace to be afraid of global warming, afraid of what we are doing to the earth and its inhabitants, afraid there will be no natural resources left for our children and grandchildren and afraid enough to be willing to be taxed and regulated even more to provide for environmental protection. Of course, it is exceptionally difficult to know which the correct course of action to take is – we only have the one planet Earth to base any of these scientific theories on. One thing is for sure though; the next time someone berates you for your American pride and joy, you can show them the other side of the coin.
I would like to thank Ben for a revealing article, the relevance of which I am sure will become more apparent as time unwinds - ED
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