colin-yorkshire said:
....................... hang on a bit something going wrong here, thousands of years of stable climate, while the human race was using wind power, and horses for transport, then after the invention of steam, internal combustion engines and powered flight, it changes rapidly, and man has had no effect on the change, ok so what has, the sun has got no hotter, the earth is no nearer to it, it has the same orientation it has had for a millennia yet it is getting warmer, weather patterns are changing the world over, sea levels are rising, and there seems to be one main cause, it may not convince some but it scares the hell out of me, that is if there is a hell, 😗 but that is not proven as hell would only exist if there was a God who threw out one of his followers, :S and there is no real proof of that is there.
Hello Colin,
The earth has continually changed it's climate, it has never been static. It constantly changes it's distance to the sun, there is irrefutable evidence the magnetic poles have moved and even reversed, which affects the amount and direction of stellar particles impacting the earth. Super volcano's and less significant ones have all affected the atmosphere, either by changing the main constituent proportions and by providing physical particles the change the amount sunlight striking the earth's biosphere.
There is evidence that our surface temperatures have been far more extreme than we see today. Tectonic plates means that landmass that forms the UK was previously been at a very different latitude and thus generic weather and temperature conditions.
I have read that at some time in the past there is evidence that climate change was far more rapid and wide ranging than we see today.
Historically the climate has always been changing. It was changing before humans even evolved, in fact the climate needed to change to make it able to support mammalian infestation. Therefore man's activity cannot have initiated climate change.
I do believe we may have affected some aspects of it and for that reason we should be taking steps to manage and reduce our impact. But what no one can predict is how much we have affected it, what we are experiencing may just be a natural cycle.
We do know that rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere does trap more solar heat, and man's activity is producing CO2, but no one can tell you how much our emissions are raising the global ratio, because there are many natural sources of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses such as volcano's. That is not an excuse to do nothing.
Regardless of how little a personal saving may be, if everyone prevented just 1% of our emission, then that is 1% of the human races total emission. One of our biggest personal producers are cars, so choice of car can make a significant impact on our personal emission.
Based on the pretext that reduction in emmisions is a good thing, any reduction regardless of how small must also be a good thing, That places the onus on the individual to make an effort, even if your neighbour does nothing.