The Skeptics of Global Warming

Global warming is a huge problem that could eventually threaten all life on earth. Despite this alarming view there are many people who pass off global warming as a myth and a conspiracy perpetrated by environmentalists to try to damage the economies of developed countries.

Understandably there are skeptics to just about anything in this world, yet I always assumed the global warming skeptics were extremists who had either gone brain dead from watching Fox News too much or who had direct economic incentive to deny global warming and were thus acting in their self-interest. For this reason, I had never given much thought to the other side of the global warming debate, the disbelievers. However, the other day a fellow Union student started spouting off about the 'myth of global warming'.

I was taken aback at this direct contact with a global warming skeptic because I had also seen global warming as a scientific fact that was backed up by so much research that only a fool could disbelieve in it. I was faced with the question of how a seemingly intelligent person enrolled at a highly regarded liberal arts school could ignore a multitude of scientific evidence. This situation has gotten me interested in learning more about the science of global warming.

The main argument of this student was that the world is getting warmer as a result of a natural global warming trend. Several scientists, some of which conveniently are financed by energy companies, argue this same point. Fred Singer, an atmospheric physicist has stated that the effects of continued human CO2 emission would be minimal. As more scientific data has come in that backs up climate forecasts the number of skeptics has shrunk.

These skeptics have a a conspiracy theory that global warming was made up by environmentalists to "further regulate business and cripple the great industrialized economies of the world, foremost among them the United States" (Roberts 120). One republican senator even claimed climate change was the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people"(120). These opinions are ridiculous when you look at the multitude of scientific evidence that backs global warming up. The research shows that temperatures have risen three degrees over the last century, the same temperature change that started the last Ice Age and took five thousand years to come about.

This rapid temperature change can hardly be seen as a natural trend, a three degree change over a century looks enormous compared to one over five thousand years. This problem is exponentially growing, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change "contend[s] that unless CO2 emissions can be dramatically lowered in the next several decades, global temperatures will climb by as much as seven degrees Fahrenheit by 2050 and by as much as ten degrees by 2100"(120). Evidence of the harm this change is causing can be seen by a 15 percent shrinking of the polar ice caps, a 10 inch increase in sea level, and glacial melting.

The effects these climate changes will have on our lives will be huge if nothing is done to quell CO2 emission. We would see drying out of temperate zones, forest fires would increase, the extremes of the seasons would be more pronounced and all this would have affect wildlife populations. The increased temperature would also foster more diseases that have been confined to the tropics and, "could give rise to eighty million new cases of malaria a year and allow the disease to spread to Australia, the United States, and Southern Europe", according to a study done by Belgian and British researchers (121).

Besides the environmental and human impact of climate change the economic impact will be staggering. Crop failure, soil erosion, desertification, and flooding would all cause huge agricultural losses estimated at $265 billion per year. The effects of salt-water intrusion on our drinking water would cost another $300 billion a year to fix. The added medical costs of increased disease, famine, and natural disasters would cost additional billions of dollars (121). It would be foolish to take no action when we are faced with these predictions.

Another major problem is that climate change will most harshly affect those countries that can least afford it. Africa and Indonesia would be most affected by rising sea levels, floods, and crop failures. Climate change will also alter the monsoon season which is critical to the billions of people in Asia. A famine in this region of the world would displace millions of citizens and could be, "the last straw on the camel's back," for many of these countries (122). Of particular concern is China who has the second largest population in the world and whose agriculture is expected to be the most affected in the world which would create "a hundred million famine refugees and generate political instability on an almost unimaginable scale" (122).

Despite these dire predictions and universal acceptance of global warming not much is being done to help the problem. Everyone agrees that we as a world eventually need to drastically cut our CO2 emissions yet we are wary to take the first step. Developing countries in particular have no plan to cut CO2 emission, in fact, China is creating its energy system around coal, the most polluting energy source. Some industrialized nations like Russia and the United States have fought efforts to curb global warming. The problem is economics, the United States is unwilling to give up economic growth to try curb the problem and industries pour millions of dollars into lobbyists who make sure the government does not pass any unfavorable legislation against their employers.

Granted, implementing a strategy against global warming would cost an immense amount of money the decision to put off the problem will end up costing much more in the future. It seems to be a popular choice to ignore problems and let the next generation deal with them but this course of action may prove fatal to our earth. Cutting CO2 emissions will take many years as the excess CO2 needs to be absorbed by sinks in our environment. So even if we cut out CO2 emission the world would still need many years to recover. As a researcher at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change says, "even if human beings stopped emitting all carbon today, we're still looking at about two to three centuries for the natural sinks to remove the excess CO2 that is already in the atmosphere and return CO2 to its pre-industrial level" (125).

In my opinion the skeptics of global warming are simply conservatives who see any imposition on business as a crazy liberal attempt to slow economic growth. These people do not seem to want to take any responsibility for the state of the world. We need to not be so arrogant and recognize that our behaviors do have consequences and it is the moral and smart thing to try to limit these consequences.