Russell Kirkpatrick's Journal
Conclusive proof of climate change?
20-Sep-2007
Stuff.co.nz, one of New Zealand's major news websites, today ran a poll in response to the government's announcements of new measures to cope with carbon emissions. They asked: 'Are you doing anything to address climate change?'
Over 49% of respondents said no, either because it was 'too difficult' (9%) or because they are not convinced there's a problem (40%).
I'm staggered by this result in a country that tries to sell itself as 'clean and green'.
There are two parts to this thorny issue. The first part is: is the climate changing? There exists compelling evidence in the affirmative, and I'm not going to bother recapping it for you. You can find it on hundreds of web sites.
The second, and much more difficult part, is: is human activity the causative agent? Now this is not, and never will be, scientifically provable. The global climate system is far too complex to be amenable to experiment. We can't hold the world in stasis and alter one variable to see if it has an effect.
The best we can do is examine correlation, not causation. We see this trend, and that trend, and judge it likely that the two trends are co-related. But we cannot with any degree of scentific certainty say that one caused the other: both, in fact, might be caused by a hidden third variable.
And it is on this confusion that the nay-sayers base their anti-global warming rhetoric. Trouble is, if they insist on this degree of proof for most global issues, no one will ever be able to act on anything.
Don't wait until there's conclusive proof that you are contributing to climate change, because you'll never get it. Instead, consider the game. If you clean up, even if your actions aren't linked to climate change, you've not done any harm. In fact, you've kept some resources for future use. And if there is a link, you've helped ... er... save the planet. Erk. With sentiments like those, perhaps I'd better join Greenpeace.
There are obviously more advanced things you can do, such as converting to solar power, growing your own food, other stuff like that which used to be considered 'hippie' stuff, but the simple stuff is easy!
(Noticing that I've used the word 'stuff' a lot, but too tired to really care :-) ).
Not so sure about us being the cause - the world's climate has changed over the millenia without us, as you well know - but what we're doing can't help, and doing what we can to live cleaner and greener has to help.
And business and governments need to accept this, if not for any other reason than that the coal and oil can't last forever, and the only resources we'll have left are, funnily enough, wind and the sun.
nuclear power is not an option, i listened to this chick talk at a convention (sorry russel, a uni student's convention - not a fantasy writer's convention) and she convinced me so.
http://www.helencaldicott.com/articles.htm
and i do enjoy the fact that this blog site has a black background, it saves power, like blackle.com!