Comments on: Northern Hemisphere Is Becoming Warmer Than Southern Hemisphere

By: Herrie

Herrie — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 09:36:00 +0000

Not being a Christian Geek (from Dutch ‘gek’ — simpleton or zany!) or a left-winger (but a liberal of the more tranquil kind) and not being addicted to writing Amazing Fantasies (if I didn’t hate emoticons, I would have inserted a placatory smiley here) … I am extremely skeptical about theories that blame us humans for the warming that has been observed in the last two decades or so (coming hard on the heels of a long cooling trend, I think? ) and expectations of the coming Armageddon that (significantly?) started gathering momentum round about the end of a millennium. The two great millennial panics (1000 AD and 2000 CE) have been really hard on us! If one looks at the huge and obviously unpredictable swings in temperature during the most recent glaciations and interglacials, one must surely wonder how much natural factors beyond our command or ability to predict have to do with variations in temperature over relatively short periods. Should the fact that we still have no clue about the real engine driving the ice ages not give us pause? By playing safe and misapplying the precautionary principle we could land ourselves in serious trouble if, with little warning, fickle Nature decides to swing back the other way and we need all the warmth we can get. Perhaps it would be more sensible to do what we humans do best — concentrate on coping as best we can with climatic swings. Perhaps we should pay more attention to civil engineering, architecture and innovative farming and food-production methods to safeguard our future against unpredictable extremes of both heat and cold? H. sapiens has been highly successful at coping with climatic extremes, and there can be little doubt that we are going to need this skill for the rest of our existence on earth. Why not start now? If we now throw money at fruitlessly trying to stop the tide coming in once, and reduce efforts to eradicate poverty and disease, we may well be the makers of our own hell on earth. As I see it, the precautionary principle should tell us that, while we must obviously learn to be more responsible in our dealings with Nature, we cannot make any assumptions whatsoever about what our Fickle Old Mother has up her sleeve. Beware the hubris of science!.

By: Sam van den Berg

Sam van den Berg — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 09:36:00 +0000