Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
i. There is an increase in emissions of carbon dioxide by human activities
Point (i) is correct. These emissions derive mainly from the developing world and the
understandable desire of its people to reach the same standard of living as the Western
middle class. It was coal in the Industrial Revolution that originally led to the rise of the
middle class in the West. Now the new industrial revolution in China, India and East Asia
is causing the largest migration of humans that has ever occurred, the rise of the middle
class in these nations, and the use of steel and electricity, both of which derive from coal.
The very slight increase in atmospheric CO
2
has led to a slight greening of the planet. As
all farmers know, CO
2
is plant food and the emission of increasingly large amounts of CO
2
by humans is good for life on Earth.
ii. The increased carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, will lead to ever
increasing global warming
Point (ii) has shown to be invalid on all time scales. There is no doubt that CO
2
is a
greenhouse gas. However, the main greenhouse gas is water vapour. The first 100 parts
per million (ppm) of CO
2
have a significant effect on atmospheric temperature, whereas
any increase from the current 400 ppm will have an insignificant effect. Furthermore,
because CO
2
has a short residence time in the atmosphere, it is naturally sequestered into
the oceans, life, or rocks in less than a decade. In fact, only one molecule of every 85,000
in the atmosphere is CO
2
of human origin, and yet we are asked to believe that this one
molecule drives hugely complex climate change systems. We are also asked to believe that
the32moleculesofCO
2
ofnaturalorigininevery85,000moleculesplaynopartindriving
climate change.
DespiteasignificantincreaseinindustrialemissionsofCO
2
,therehasbeennoincrease
inglobalatmospherictemperatureoverthepastseventeenyears.Thisshowsthatthetheory
that CO
2
emissions of human origin drive global warming (and climate change) must be
rejected. But this rejection has not yet taken place.
In ice core measurements, the evidence shows that temperature increase occurs
hundreds to thousands of years before there is an increase in atmospheric CO
2
. This again
shows that atmospheric CO
2
does not drive atmospheric temperature change.
On yet another scale, geology shows that all six of the great ice ages were initiated
when atmospheric CO
2
was far higher than at present and, with the first two great ice
ages,uptoathousandtimeshigherthanthecurrentatmosphericCO
2
content.Furthermore,
geology shows that there has been sequestration of atmospheric CO
2
into limey sediments,
other rocks and life for 2,500 million years. This process continues. The Earth currently
has a very low CO
2
content compared with the past. We actually live in a cold epoch. Ice
