Arguments and suchlike are welcome. It is claimed at no stage that this Entry is gospel fact. If you want fact, then this other Entry is pretty good.

Global Warming: What Does it Mean?

This often comes down to matter of semantics. Global warming is the phenomenon of the mean global temperature increasing, and there is incontrovertible meteorological evidence that this has happened over the last 20 years or so. Fine - I have no debate over this. However, the following thoughts occur:

1. Meteorology is only a recently established science and detailed measurements have only been kept for approximately 30 years. One could say that a general increase for 30 years is quite a small sample size on which to base forecasts of melting ice-caps and portents of doom.

   To put it another way: imagine you have bought some shares in Marks and Spencer. You buy them on a Monday at £3:50 a share. On Thursday evening they are valued at £3:54. Now, even if you have limited knowledge of the stock market - and I'm certainly no expert - you would be fool to cling onto those shares for another couple of months because the price is going to continue rising. This would be a reasonable analogy for global warming forecasts and - if anything - the stock market is easier to predict than the weather. Weather has always had some basis in Chaos Theory (the infamous 'flapping butterfly' metaphor) which is subject by its very nature to some element of unpredictability. Which leads us on to point two...

2. The Earth is about 3.5 billion years old. When it was first formed, it was a ball of molten rock at a temperature of about 6,000°C. Even when the rock cooled the temperature was about 500°C, due to mass volcanic eruptions. Things settled down, as they do, and the Earth cooled to its current temperature but, every 10,000 years or so entered an ice age where the mean global temperature dropped to below freezing. Kinda makes the 1°C rise since 1979 look a bit inconspicuous, doesn't it?

   The point is that the temperature of this planet goes up and down all the time. There was apparently a warm spell in the dark ages where the mean temperature of this country (not sure about the planet as a whole) was somewhere in the region of 25°C for twenty consecutive summers. That didn't seem to do any lasting damage to the ice caps, did it?

   Remember that figure we quoted for ice ages? About every 10,000 years or so? Here's a fact: the last ice age finished approximately 10,100 years ago. Worried yet? I'll tell you one thing: the global warming theorists are going to look pretty damn silly if, in 50 years, we are hacking our way through the ice sheets to recover pieces of early 21st-century civilisation.

So, yes, I acknowledge that Global Warming exists, at a rate of 1°C over the last 30 years. But for meteorologists to put all their eggs in one basket seems remarkably hasty. They admit themselves that they are often dealing with unknowns; they need a Cray supercomputer to predict the weather for the next 48 hours and long-term forecasts are typically vague and unsubstantiated. Why, then, has all the furore been kicked up about global warming?

The Greenhouse Effect, that's why...

Carbon Dioxide and The Greenhouse Effect: Is There a Link At All?

The mechanics of how the Greenhouse Effect works are covered at depth elsewhere. To put it simply, infra-red radiation is abosrbed and re-emitted by the Earth, where certain greenhouse gases absorb it, get excited (this means they move around more - don't get ideas), and warm up the atmosphere by means of inter-molecular friction.

There is no doubt that this is a tenable theory: models have been reproduced in laboratories proving that this is exactly what happens. However, there is a big difference between a laboratory model and real life. The atmosphere is vast and unpredictable. Heat dissipates rapdily in the troposphere (the atmosphere we live in and breathe at ground level), and despite the 'greenhouse' moniker, it is not inconceivable that a lot of heat excapes into the much colder stratosphere.

OK, let's for a minute assume that the theory applies to the real world. Carbon dioxide is the most infamous of aforementioned greenhouse gases and lots of people are keen that emissions are cut down. For these people, there is one thing to say. You may argue, but to my awareness it is completely true: there has not been one documented scientific proof that carbon dioxide causes a rise in atmospheric temperature.

I hear you mock, but I'm afraid it's absolutely true. There have been no end of scientific papers studying this phenomenon, but not one of them has proved the connection between carbon dioxide and atmospheric temperature. I'm talking decent rational scientific proof, not Government-sponsored environmentally-friendly conclusion. Let's take a closer look...

1. There are a lot of scientific articles which note a correlation between carbon dioxide concentration and air temperature. A lot of people mistake this for proof. However, and this is a big 'however':

   a) Each of these papers studies a very small area. I appreciate that most scientists don't get very good funding, but honestly! Is proof for one cove or bay supposed to be an indication for 'Global Warming'? I have read umpteen of these articles, and they are packed full of words like 'allegedly' and 'apparently'. These are not tabloid gossip columns, for goodness sake! It is quite clear that those that have written them have been subsidised to find a certain result. A good scientific paper will state things as plain fact, not played down to the public interest. I am yet to encounter a global warming-related paper that does this.

   b) This point stands on firmer scientific ground, but first a little lecture in philosophy and Henri Louis Le Chatelier...

   Le Chatelier was a French philosopher and scientist (at that time when the two were vaguely one and the same), and came up with a profound insight: one which is easily intelligible but at the same time applicable to no end of topics, including chemistry, economics, politics, large-scale history, and even story-telling. Le Chatelier's principle is as follows:

   If a system in equilibrium is subjected to a constraint, the system will automatically act in such a way so as to remove that constraint.

   This is basically a fancy way of saying that - without any intervention - balance eventually restores itself, and things rarely cascade out of control. I'm sure you can think of a multitude of examples for yourself.

   Remember me saying that scientists have found a correlation between carbon dioxide and atmospheric warming? This is not proof of cause-and-effect, though, is it? Just, for a minute, turn the whole thing on its head and imagine it as effect-and-cause. We can use Le Chatelier's principle to explain why this may very well be the case.

   It is worth noting that the vast majority of the aforementioned studies take place in a coastal region. Coastal regions being chiefly known for their predominance of sea. Now, carbon dioxide and water take up a simple chemical equilibrium, as follows:

   CO_2(g)⇔CO_2(aq)

   All this equation means is that gaseous carbon dioxide will, at a constant temperature and pressure, be at equilibrium with aqueous carbon dioxide (carbon dioxide dissolved in water). We know that water will dissolve large amounts of carbon dioxide: take the average fizzy drink as an example.

   Particularly of concern are the words 'at a constant temperature'. Increasing the temperature will cause the equilbrium to move, because it is an imposed constraint. In this case, it causes carbon dioxide to come out of solution - in effect, particle kinetics mean there is 'no more room' in the water. The effect, again, can be demonstrated with any fizzy drink: a chilled one is much more fizzy than a warm one.

   So, if the temperature around an ocean region was increased (we have already seen that this happens on our planet without any prompting), the water would release dissolved carbon dioxide to the air, hence providing the scientists with their correlation. This turns the whole theory on its head: could it be that global warming causes more atmospheric carbon dioxide?

2. Another key point is the presence of other greenhouse gases. Somehow, carbon dioxide seems to have grabbed all the press attention. What about water? Gaseous water contributes, per gram, over 10 times the global warming effect that carbon dioxide does, but do we hear calls for that to be cut down?

   Largely, of course not. To interfere to that extent with the natural water cycle would be suicide for most living things on Earth. However, one contributing factor can be removed, and quite quickly. Jet engines spew out huge amounts of water vapour, and comparatively little carbon dioxide, but the aerospace industry is still expanding rapidly. I have not heard one single political or media call for airline flight to be restricted when it is quite clearly a luxury, as opposed to the fossil-fuel-burning efforts of electricity generation and road transport, which would be deemed almost a necessity in today's society.

   Oft-quoted (correctly) as one of the biggest global-warming contributors, methane does not receive half the press it should. We all know where it comes from, right? Cow farts, yeah...

   Not only is methane a greenhouse gas, it is a potent energy source too. If the reported emissions of bovine methane are true (I admit I am unwilling to check up on this), then somehow capturing the methane should be able to power at least a small house per herd per day. Unfortunately, this would mean penning the cows, with a resultant reduction in milk and beef quality, not to mention the uproar from the Animal Rights crowd.

   It would appear from recent findings that decaying vegetable matter produces large amounts of methane in any case. This would be a very strong argument against any artifical 'human' cause of the greenhouse effect.

The Larger Scale....

OK, let us for just one moment assume that things happen just as the media says (and when has that ever been the case?). Carbon dioxide is released in increasing amounts by power stations, cars and suchlike and this causes the planet to get warmer. I'm not saying this is the case, but let's just treat it hypothetically.

There are still quite a number of cases which argue against long-term global warming ever becoming a problem:

Oceans Dissolve Carbon Dioxide

The fact that water dissolves carbon dioxide has already been mentioned, and moreover 70% of the Earth's surface is covered in ocean. Most of it is well over a mile deep, so there is no shortage of water. As long as atmospheric carbon dioxide keeps increasing, the oceans will abosrb more, and there is a huge limit to the amount of gas they will dissolve.

Now, sure, this phenomenon will not actaully remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but it will slow the rate of carbon dioxide accumulation dramatically, and no forecast that I've seen takes full account of this. Plus, there is the added advantage that crustaceans and molluscs use dissolved carbon dioxide to make their calciferous shells, and will proliferate in carbon dioxide-rich environments. So, keep burning that coal, because there's plenty of lobster on the menu!

Plants Thrive in a Carbon Dioxide-rich Atmosphere

As far as a tree is concerned, you can't have too much CO₂ in the atmosphere. A plant's rate of photosynthesis will continue to increase, as long as it has access to all the other conditions required for life. Plants will continue to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and as a bonus will grow larger and quicker. As long as they can be kept watered (and water isn't just going to disappear), this might even spell an end to global drought. Trees transpire (pass water through their superstructure), keeping gaseous water in the troposphere, where it will form clouds and continue the water cycle.

Human Arrogance

Possibly what I hate most of all about the whole global warming argument is the fact that we - merely one of billions of species on this planet - hold ourselves accountable for all that's going on. This, on a planet that is massive, huge beyond the conception of many of us. This planet has the ability to pump more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through one massive volcanic explosion than we could in a year.

I'm not saying we have no right to use this planet; far from it, I believe we should extract all the resources necessary for our survival and progression. But to claim that we own the planet and are responsible for its actions?! Don't make me laugh. This planet proves several times in every year that, through no fault of the human race, it is capable of bringing us to our knees, or perhaps even wiping us out together. Is there not an argument to be made for letting destiny take its course, because - when it comes down to it - on a global scale we are most certainly not in control.

Le Chatelier Again...

Perhaps one of the more ethereal arguments, but one I have great faith in, is again that based on Le Chatelier's Principle.

The Earth, the atmosphere, the geosphere, and the biosphere make a giant system. This is constantly attempting to live in equilibrium, as systems will. It has endured turmoil in the forms of volcanoes, meteorite strikes, plate tectonics, and Adolf Hitler, but every time it has achieved equilibrium once again, just as Le Chatelier forecast. I would not attempt to place global warming in any order of seriousness, nor do I have any belief in a divine being who will set things right. What I do have utter, unshakeable belief in is the genius of Le Chatelier in that his Principle has never been disproved. The Earth, as a big equilibrium, will do its best to shake off increased carbon dioxide levels at minimal cost.

Yes, this may be in the form of a global disaster that wipes out half the human species. I hope not, because that will imply that we were to blame in the first place, which disproves most of the above.

If, just if, the worst happens, we have learned enough in the last 10,000 years of sentience to adapt - and adapt quickly. None of this genetic evolution business for us; humans are capable of adapting to Earth's conditions within a generation, and this ability might just be essential if Le Chatelier was correct.

So Where Do We Lie?

We are quite aware that global warming exists, but no-one - and I repeat no-one - is sure of the cause and whether the human race is responsible. A sense of perspective is what we must all have, especially in light of terrible disasters such as Kiribati, the Tsunami and the Pakistan earthquakes. Whatever damage we do as people cannot scratch the surface of what the Earth can do herself.

If Le Chatelier was correct, the Earth can rid herself of global warming. Perhaps the political theorists had better hope it's not by getting rid of them.