Faldo, nobody's arguing that there is no global warming. It's just that there appears to be little or no scientific evidence to use as a basis for the constant refrain that the CO2 that we've injected into the atmosphere is causing it. After all, global temperatures DECLINED between 1945 and 1979. The research I saw seemed to support a natural cyclical approach to climatic changes.
I have similar doubts (but I've seen no research to support them) about the "causes" of the "hole in the ozone layer" over the Southern Ocean. CFCs? Well, if that's the case then why isn't the hole over the
northern hemisphere? That, after all, is where the vast majority of CFCs have been released, isn't it? I can't buy the "they're heavy so they sink to the bottom" argument, in case anyone was thinking about advancing it!
It's all too emotive as far as I'm concerned. The political correctness thang seems to have taken over. The Padre is quite correct. If you are a scientist and you want grants for research into climatological change, you have to subscribe to the PC theories
du jour.
I've also seen varying sets of figures on what Kyoto would actually achieve. They all differ in detail, but the upshot is the same in each case. Countries who've signed up and who will try to be "honest brokers" and meet their commitments will potentially beggar themselves to defer the projected unregulated rate of warming for (and this is where the variability comes in) between
3 and
6 years. While I have very little time for the Bush administration, they're bang on about this one. To meet Kyoto would cost somewhere between $300 billion and $400 billion per annum for twenty years (from memory). This would cripple the US economy. Not just slow it down. And for what?
Here's a short article which puts it into perspective:
http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Kyoto_Count_Up.htm
