Stopping climate change requires proactive steps
Elizabeth Dahl
Issue date: 2/6/07 Section: Opinion
I am writing to respond to the Jan. 23 editorial on climate change by Caitlyn Slivinski. Ms. Slivinski is correct when she says that there are "other factors besides humans that contribute" to climate change.
The Earth is a complex system and we know for a fact that climate fluctuates naturally with glacials and interglacials occurring at intervals of 100 thousand years.
We also know that there have been other natural abrupt climate changes caused by events like the Mt. Tambora eruption and the Younger Dryas, a sudden glaciation most likely a result of the slowing of North Atlantic deepwater formation. Not a single climate scientist disputes the fact that there are natural climate changes. Climate scientists know with great certainty that when past climate changes occurred, the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere also changed.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, a panel of scientists from all over the world charged with assessing climate change science and making reports for policy makers, found in a 2001 report that in the 20th century there has been a large scale warming of the earth's surface.
This corresponds to the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the last century that is caused by people, most of which is due to the use of fossil fuels. Ms. Slivinski points out that global warming "may challenge us to come up with a new, possibly better way to live." She is absolutely correct.
We need to find a new way to live and we need to find this new way to live before we change the climate too much more. Many of the top climate scientists in the world believe that we are within a decade or so of the "point of no return," after which we may not be able to reverse any climate changes we have caused.
Climate scientists are now studying more drastic ways of dealing with warming, including purposefully causing a nuclear winter and injecting particles into the stratosphere.
Climate change is something that every-one should be aware of and take seriously.
The Earth is a complex system and we know for a fact that climate fluctuates naturally with glacials and interglacials occurring at intervals of 100 thousand years.
We also know that there have been other natural abrupt climate changes caused by events like the Mt. Tambora eruption and the Younger Dryas, a sudden glaciation most likely a result of the slowing of North Atlantic deepwater formation. Not a single climate scientist disputes the fact that there are natural climate changes. Climate scientists know with great certainty that when past climate changes occurred, the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere also changed.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, a panel of scientists from all over the world charged with assessing climate change science and making reports for policy makers, found in a 2001 report that in the 20th century there has been a large scale warming of the earth's surface.
This corresponds to the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the last century that is caused by people, most of which is due to the use of fossil fuels. Ms. Slivinski points out that global warming "may challenge us to come up with a new, possibly better way to live." She is absolutely correct.
We need to find a new way to live and we need to find this new way to live before we change the climate too much more. Many of the top climate scientists in the world believe that we are within a decade or so of the "point of no return," after which we may not be able to reverse any climate changes we have caused.
Climate scientists are now studying more drastic ways of dealing with warming, including purposefully causing a nuclear winter and injecting particles into the stratosphere.
Climate change is something that every-one should be aware of and take seriously.
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