Faked - behind the media scares

In the past 152 years, the average temperature worldwide has risen
by a little over 1?C. This may not seem like a large amount, but it has
caused other problems. The ice caps are melting, causing sea level to
rise. It is predicted that if the world continues to warm at this rate
for another 300 years, most of Southern England will be entirely
underwater. While flooding London may not seem a bad idea, it means
that hundreds of thousands - even millions - of people will be left
homeless. At least - this is what we are told.

The media constantly presents an image of our world groaning under too
much pollution, too many cars and too many people. We are always being
told to recycle and to walk everywhere we can. While I am not saying
that we should go and cut down the rainforests and give up using our
legs as a form of transport, I do not believe that we have been given
all of the resources needed to make an informed decision on whether or
not we have any effect on global warming.

There have been many ice ages throughout history; the oldest one that
modern technology can trace occurred 2300 million years ago. The
technical term for these is 'glacials', and the periods between ice
ages are know as 'interglacials'. Many meteorologists believe that we
are currently experiencing an interglacial. They are not sure why, but
believe it to be the result of the earth tilting on its axis as it
orbits the sun. This tilting is very slow, but can bring the earth
closer to the sun, resulting in an interglacial, or further away from
the sun, resulting in a glacial. This would mean that global warming is
a perfectly natural phenomenon, and the earth has been changing
temperature ever since it was first formed. Global warming is therefore
entirely beyond our control, and the minute amounts of carbon dioxide
that we emit have little, if any, effect on the world's
temperature.

The data that supports the theory of man causing global warming is also
very unreliable. We do not yet know if sunspots have any effect on our
world's temperature, but until we discount every single variable, we
cannot possibly assume that man is causing global warming by using his
car to get to work. It may be many years until we have sufficient
scientific evidence to discover the effects that all of the different
variables have on our world's climate.

Some scientists also suggest that we are worrying unnecessarily.
Although the temperature has risen over the past century, research in
Iceland and Greenland shows that in past interglacials the temperature
has risen as rapidly as 7?C in 7 years. This research also provides
evidence of huge amounts of global warming over 1000 years ago - 900
years before cars, the Industrial Revolution and planes, which are all
supposed to be today's main contributors to carbon dioxide
levels.

As I said previously, we are constantly being urged to cut back on
carbon dioxide emissions. Treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol aim to
help countries reduce their carbon dioxide levels and thus reduce
global warming. However, nature pollutes itself more than humans
pollute the world. In 1980 Mount St Helen's erupted, releasing 910 000
tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This is as much as all of
the United Kingdom produces in one year! Fossil fuels are also cited as
being the major culprits of global warming. However, termites produce 2
times the amount of carbon dioxide that is released by burning fossil
fuels each year. Volcanoes are constantly erupting, and animals
contribute huge amount of carbon dioxide every single year. Against
such staggering statistics, it does not seem likely that mankind is
solely responsible for the warming of our climate.

Scientific models are often used to predict what the world's
temperature will be in another 100 years or so. However, these are
often hopelessly inaccurate - global temperature has increased by less
than half the amount that was predicted a few years ago. So many
variables must be taken into consideration when predicting the climate
that it is almost impossible to be correct. After all, if we cannot
even predict next week's weather correctly, what is the possibility of
us predicting next millennium's weather correctly? Temperature readings
taken on the earth's surface are also very inaccurate, due to the
'urban heat island' effect. Large cities, for example London, generate
huge amounts of heat that influence the land many miles away. This
makes almost any temperature reading inaccurate, leading to incorrect
predictions for our planet's future. This has also led to some people
questioning the very existence of global warming, as some parts of the
world have actually cooled in recent decades. North America is getting
colder every year, and so some scientists have hypothesised that global
warming is merely a political scapegoat for natural phenomenon, as it
means that the politician can appear to have some degree of control
over a natural disaster.

We must also consider the fact that without global warming we would
probably not exist. When the earth was first formed, it was merely
boiling hot lava. However, as this cooled carbon dioxide was given off,
along with water vapour. The water vapour condensed on the now solid
rock, and carbon dioxide dissolved into it, giving off oxygen. Over a
huge period, an atmosphere was created, which allowed evolution to
occur, eventually leading to the birth of the modern man. Without the
warming and cooling of earth's atmosphere we would not exist, and so
global warming may just be a natural method of sustaining life on this
planet.

As you can see, the evidence against man's contribution to global
warming is overwhelming. Therefore, I ask you - next time you see a
news report on how cars are causing the icecap to melt, think twice
about what they are saying. Most people have been given a very
one-sided view of global warming and refuse to accept the possibility
that it is merely the result of earth tilting on its axis or of
volcanic eruptions and sunspots. I hope that you have the scope of
imagination to reject the narrow-minded view, and make your own
decision as to whether man has any effect on global warming.
Thank you.

Bibliography
? www.wrongscience.com
? Geography A Level by Kris Spencer and Garret Nagle
? Environmental Geography by Keith Grimwade
? A Level Geography notes (own) and degree level notes (courtesy of
Nottingham University)
? Deutschland Hier und Jetzt by Gisele Schladebach