Climate change by 'global warming' and confusions!!

Global warming is a phenomenon, with which more or less we all are familiar, and thanks to our extensive scientific experiments and publications for that. It was familiarised for the very first time by Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius in 1890s showing that man made carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere causing global warming. Its popularity has spread even more when the scientists started to publish their predictions on the basis of the results they were getting from their experiments. These kinds of experiments on global warming and so do the predictions are going on for last two centuries, if not more, because of their significance in different sectors (like- climate change, government policies, power company strategy, human health, conflicts, biodiversity, agriculture and importantly insurance!).

When we see any heading in the newspaper saying ‘Antarctic ice melting is highest in 1000 years’ we immediately, almost intuitively, start thinking about global warming. Recently published survey report from Australian National University and British Antarctic Survey found the rate of Antarctic ice melting is much faster than most of the scientists predicted. The report compared the melting rate with the rate in 50 years ago, and the result is- it is currently melting ten times faster! This certainly concerns all of us. However, their conducted experiment shows something else as well that the global temperature has gradually increased 1.6 degrees Celsius or 2.9 degrees Fahrenheit over the last 600 years. It may immediately question the issue of global warming if not melting of ice as it has a melting point (zero degree or above). Though the temperature was increasing it did not reach up to the melting point and it is still the case today. But the most fundamental question to ask is that what was causing the temperature to rise 600 years ago in such a rate. In asking this question I am not saying there was not any human activity that could have been influencing global warming but there definitely was not same amount of activities which are considered responsible for global warming as we are having today. So what made the rate of temperature rise pretty much similar? It trends to prove that the recent global warming and climate change are natural and there is nothing to do with the human activities.

Our global greenhouse gas emission has increased in many folds over the years since we started to use fossil fuel. Today’s emission of CO2 is 75 per cent higher than 1970s. But the recent statistics shows that the impact on climate change has slowed down ruffling all the scientists and the people who predicted the changes. It eventually forced IPCC to alter their exaggerated prediction about the disappearance of Himalayan glaciers by 2035. Now, they have developed another theory that the increase of industrial pollution in Asia or deep-ocean is taking more heat that the surface or clouds are blocking the sun from heating the planet or greenhouse gas traps less heat than it was predicted are contributing to less impact on global climate change. However, none of these theories has any scientific proof.

Although these questions are not answered yet, the consensus among the scientists is in the line with IPCC. It has been shown that more 90% of us think that human activities are the main reasons for global warming and climate change and there could be huge price to pay if we don’t take precautions now. If it is true then there would not be anything to account to our future generations for our inaction to reduce the impact on the environment. But there can be another arguments- can we held people responsible for something that is not conclusively proved? We all agree the global temperature is rising but what is causing this temperature to rise is still to be proved beyond reasonable doubt to justify the actions halting the activities thought to be responsible for the climate change.