736 Global Warming Schwarming
Oh dear, why is this so difficult? A letter in the newspaper today rehashes the old chestnut: Global warming started millions of years ago with the demise of the ice age! Chris Jobson (see below) talks about apples while the discussion about "global
warming" is about oranges: it’s not about the changing of climates
world-wide over millennia, oscillating between ice ages and warmer periods
(which is natural and undisputed), the oranges we talk about is “man-made
global warming.”
Which indeed started about 180 years
ago, at the onset of the industrial revolution. If one wants to be precise,
man-made global warming actually started about 5000 years ago, at the onset of
argriculture and animal husbandry. Natural climate change is very gradual, a
degree or two over thousands of years (much too gradual for the individuals
living at the time to experience on themselves).
Man-made gloabal warming is much too
rapid for comfort: a degree or two in a couple of hundred years is very much
within every living person’s (and their direct descendents’) range of
experiences.
Oh ignorance, your name is too much
(little and limited) scientific knowledge;
and the truth is, ignorance - unlike our planet -
will last forever.
SMH letter by Christoper Jobson:
No, global warming didn't start 180 years ago; it started millions of years ago with the demise of the Ice Age and the truth is that this planet is not going to be in existence for ever.