Monday, January 21, 2008 Velasco: Climate change, is it real? By Diana B. Velasco Grain of Salt
"A spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe, in the face of which we, with our modest powers, must feel humble." -Albert Einstein
I NEVER was a cineaste. I watch an average of two or three movies a year, almost never rent DVDs and am dependent on watching cooking shows on TV for mindless entertainment.
As a result, while every other person on earth had already seen "An Inconvenient Truth", I was able to see it just last week - and only because it was shown in my PhD class. Talk about living under a rock.
So many thoughts swirled in my head at the unfolding of Al Gore's narrative on the inevitable demise of the planet due to global warming. He presented alarming trends that would supposedly result in the melting of the polar ice caps, cataclysmic weather patterns, drought and floods.
He said that by 2025, the brunt of the effects of 21st century carbon dioxide emissions would be felt by the inhabitants of the planet. And that unless we did something now, right now, the Philippines would be buried 20 meters under the sea.
I took it all with (no pun intended) a grain of salt. But I will be straightforward in answering this column's title. Yes, the climate is changing, that is true. I will not deny to feeling disturbed by allegations that the decimation of the human race is being caused by the burning of colossal amounts of fossil fuel.
However and contrary to what is being driven in the documentary again and again, we have to be cognizant that climate change is a natural phenomenon.
As a geologist, I know that fluctuations in global temperatures are as old as the earth itself. For the past several million years, the pattern of rising temperatures often heralded the onset of a new ice age. It may seem incomprehensible but you can check the science.
If the planet gets hotter, it does not mean that the rise will go on and on and cause the planet to self-destruct. If that were the case, we would have been annihilated millions of years ago.
After some time, rising global temperatures actually instigate the earth to go on a self-conserving mode, causing it to cool down. In four thousand years or less, the planet will be covered by sheets of ice and some tropical countries may experience snow for the first time - it's too bad we won't be around to frolic in a winter wonderland.
Another case in point is the fact that the earth was much, much hotter four hundred years ago than it is now, a time known as the Medieval Heat period. Four hundred years ago, there were no cars, no coal-burning factories and no significant sources of carbon dioxide pollution. If global warming is due to the burning of fossil fuel, how come it was hotter four hundred years ago? And how does one explain the cyclical spikes and lags in earth temperatures ever since the world began if human beings are the instigators of global warming?
I could give you all the facts, and we would never see the end of it. Climate change has been a topic of hot debate between the leading scientific minds ever since Al Gore stopped being vice president and became an environmental activist. He is charming and, in the documentary, comes across as sincere, earnest and knowledgeable.
Heck, he even got a Nobel Peace Prize for giving the same presentation thousands of times. There were moments when I almost got carried away by the tone of his voice, his expressions, the lines on his face. His performance was flawless, and I began to understand why he is a successful politician.
Al Gore and his believers, however, are guilty of something. They are guilty, not of willfully perpetuating the greatest hoax in recent times or of insisting that those who do not believe in their cause believe that the earth is flat. I can forgive them of that. As a scientist, what I find unforgivable is their vanity. Yes, they are guilty of vanity. The coverage given to the phenomenon of global warming is an indicator that man believes he is not just a mere speck in an unfathomably large universe but such a significant part of it, that he holds more power over the earth than all the forces of the cosmos combined.
Last decade, the issue was the ozone layer. What did we do? We banned aerosols and chlorofluorocarbons. The issue has died down and recent studies show that the hole in the ozone has gotten smaller. But really, how many percent of that recovery was because we stopped using aqua net? Not much. It truly is a humbling reality check, but you should know that our ozone layer regenerates itself even if we all just used conditioner.
Am I refusing to accept the fact that the planet is indeed getting warmer? Of course not, because the earth is indeed getting warmer - as it has a few hundred times before. Am I refusing to accept the fact that we need to do something about carbon dioxide emissions? Of course not, because indiscriminately burning fossil fuels lowers the quality of our living environment and causes respiratory sicknesses and mars the beauty of a clear night sky with sickening smog.
But to jump to the conclusion that the planet will drown, the weather will go berserk and the earth will turn against us because we release a lot of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is preposterous, extremely alarmist and borders on lunacy.
Our love for the environment should be anchored on understanding that to love the planet means to love the place we live in and, consequently, increasing the quality of the life that we live on our short stay on earth. But to scare ourselves with doomsday scenarios is not only inconvenient but also very unnecessary.
(You may email missabsinthe@yahoo.com for your comments and reactions.)
