My friend, mentor and sage, Roland Micklem, writes these wise words: THE SCRAP PAPER #314 Fri., 26 Sept. 14 Founder and Columnist: Roland MORE DENIAL...AND REBUTTAL Climate change deniers frequently make statements which I feel obliged to check for accuracy. My sole source: the internet, the electronic encyclopedia available to all, and like any other research tool, can be used to prove or disprove any point of view. Todays claims challenging the science behind climate change are (1) polar bear populations are on the rise, and (2) the area covered by sea ice is increasing. Heres the latest report (2013) I was able to find on the status of polar bear populations. It was from the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), and it covers the entire range of the polar bear in the Northern Hemisphere. (Theres are no wild polar bears in the Southern Hemisphere). Polar Bears are increasing in only one of the regions surveyed, the area surrounding the MClintlock Channel, located to the east of the northern boundary of Hudson Bay. Populations are stable in six of the surveyed regions, and on the decline in six others. There is insufficient data from nine of the other regions, and inasmuch as this appears to be the current limits of our knowledge of polar bear populations, its hardly enough to justify statements that the overall populations are increasing. The argument used by CC deniers is the increase of sea ice in the seas surrounding Antarctica. This is due to a number of complicated factors, perhaps indirectly related to climate change. According to a web site going by the catchy name of Skeptical Science, land ice on the Antarctic continent is melting at an accelerated pace, and the Southern Ocean has warmed 0.5 degrees Celsius over the past three decades since the area has been under surveillance by satellite. And there is little dispute that the seasonal ice pack in the Arctic Ocean is steadily shrinking, with much more impact on the global climate. There are some initiatives taken by elements of the civilized world that trigger in many of us some gut reactions that motivate us to become environmentalists and oppose ambitious development projects that put at risk the pristine beauty and order of the natural world. Any form of industrialization becomes suspect, and of late, on the streets of New York City we have risen up with 400,000 voices to speak out against the greenhouse gas glut that threatens the stability of our climate. Years of bicycle riding and experiencing the heat from a macadam surface on a torrid day, or walking past air conditioners expelling heat from buildings has raised my awareness of the quantum leaps in heat levels made possible by human technology, and I dont have to be a climate scientist to convince myself that we humans are having an impact on the climate. With a few million motor vehicles on the road each day and 61,000 square miles of paved surface in the U.S. alone, with jetliners criss-crossing the skies--each burning enough aviation fuel per flight to fill a swimming pool—with the destruction of CO2 absorbing rain forest (about 51 square miles/yr.), with all of the aforementioned happening without pause 365 days/year, even the most skeptical among us would concede that theres no such a thing as a free lunch, and that payback time is long overdue. We cant afford to clutch at straws such as incomplete polar bear statistics and misleading interpretations of sea ice increases. Climate change is a reality that we need to deal with... Now...
Posted on: Sun, 28 Sep 2014 18:49:59 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015