One of the major debates, if not the biggest, concerning global warming has been on whether it is actually going to happen or not. Many scientists claim that what we are experiencing is simply due to changes in solar activity and furthermore that volcanic eruptions slowly having their tow on global temperature. Others claim that these kinds of changes are part of an environmental cycle. However, there are those who believe us humans are the cause of these changes, and as such should do what we can do inhibit their growth.
Dr.
Thomas Schafer, a geologist and teacher at IEG, Sweden, and also a believer that the global warming is caused by humans, claims “there have been significantly greater changes before but over longer periods of time, over thousands or even millions of years. The changes we are facing today will occur in a matter of decade.” When asked what the results of these fluctuations may be he replies “take this into consideration: 15 000 years ago the average temperature was approximately 5ºC lower than it is now. At that time,
Sweden, had 2000 meters of glacier covering the land.” The current average temperature is approximately 15ºC.In search for proof concerning global warming and whether we are causing it or not, Dr. Tim Barnett and his team at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California, have managed to put forth evidence to support that we really are the cause. “Over the past 40 years there has been considerable warming of the planetary system and approximately 90 per cent of that warming has gone directly into the oceans,” Says Dr. Barnett, it is through this knowledge that they were able to conclude what is causing global warming. By investigating above 7 million recordings of oceanic temperatures around the world, approximately 2 million recordings of salinity (saltiness) and also by using the expected results of two computer simulations to compare with temperatures at different depths worldwide, they came to a conclusion; the catalyst must been human. The results indicated that not solar changes, volcanic eruptions or any of the “natural” causes could’ve, solely, resulted in this incredible heat increase; it must be the greenhouse effect (C02 trapping heat). In the movie An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore, he puts forth evidence that proves that C02 is what causes global warming. By showing a graph, depicting the levels of C02 as well as the fluctuations of earths average temperature over 650,000 years, Al Gore clearly shows that there is a direct link between temperature and the amount of C02 in the atmosphere. And since, according to the movie, humans are responsible for the increase of C02, we are also to blame for the global warming.However, there is another film which aims to disprove what Al Gore has claimed, The Great Global Warming Swindle by Martin Durkin. According to this movie, there is a direct link between C02 and temperature, but in the opposite way that Al Gore believes. Actually, C02 increases as a result of the temperature rising, not the other way around.With huge participants as Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, claiming that Global Warming is just a political stunt to gain popularity and Dr. John Christy (receiver of N.A.S.A. award for Exceptional Scientific Achievement as well as a special award from the Meteorologist Society) putting forth evidence that C02 is not the cause, the movie delivers a fatal blow to the believers. The movie explains that if the global warming was due to greenhouse effects, there would be a significant increase of temperature in the troposphere (since the gases would trap more heat here). However, weather balloon recordings as well as satellite data does not support this. Furthermore, they claim that whilst all human industries combined put out approximately 6.5 gigatons (1 gigatons = 1,000,000,000 tons) of C02 whilst all animal life puts out a staggering 200 gigatons. Throughout the movie, they do not only put down the common belief that C02 is the cause of it all, they also investigate what could really be the cause.Piers Corbyn, a British meteorologist, claims he has found a way of predicting weather as well as the answer to the question “what is causing the temperature rise?”.Dr Corbyn believes that the reason for this is increased solar activity. In The Great Global Warming Swindle Corbyn reveals hard evidence showing the correlation of solar sunspots (which indicate a high amount of solar activity) and the average temperature of the earth. The theory that sunspots are correlated with solar activity has been around for a long time and scientists have noted the amount of sunspots with temperature for over 200 years. It is with the help of these documents that Dr Corbyn has been able to establish his theory.
(Recordings from 1797 – 1997)To conclude, there are a lot of probable theories with many scientists backing them up, claiming completely opposite things. Even though The Great Global Warming Swindle, disproves many current scientific theories, there is no way we can really check the authenticity of all the research all they’ve conducted.
Works Cited
Dr.
Thomas Schafer, interview. “The Great Global Warming Swindle”, created by Martin Durkin, Broadcasted on Channel 4, March 8, 2007.
www.abd.org.uk/climate_change_truths.htm, by ABD (The Association of British Drivers), June 10, 2006. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article516033.ece, Times Online, February 18, 2005.
