2012-09-20

If Climate Change Isn't Happening, Why Is the Arctic Melting?

The following question was asked on LinkedIn:

"After Climate-Gate, skeptics say that man-made climate chaos and global warming are not happening yet the Arctic's melting faster. What are your thoughts, observations and views?"

My response:

"I'm not a an expert in climate change, but I know many such experts. They are professors in environmental science, geology, hydrology, nanotechnology, and geophysics as well as researchers and other professionals in industry. I don't blindly listen to academics, but these are smart, fair people whose opinions I have come to trust over the years. They have all agreed that climate change is happening and that man is causing it for years - since long before it was fashionable.

Our climate is incredibly complex, of course, and perhaps the vast supermajority of such scientists are wrong. At the end of they day, though, if there's even a remote possibility that we are bringing about something as catastrophic as our own destruction, it makes sense to me to do everything within our power to oppose the trend.

This was a major reason that I devoted my entrepreneurial career to cleantech ventures. As a capitalist, I love how many "clean" technologies that help us address climate change simply make good business sense anyway - like energy efficiency, for example."

I also provided a link to a series of articles on How To Talk To Climate Skeptics.

1 comment:

LakerMrB said...

Not to trivialize your accomplishments, but I would like to add a bit of humor along with some reality.

According to Kemps,"It's the cows." And, the United Nations has declared that the methane from cow emissions is the "greatest threat to the climate, forests, and wildlife." Livestock emissions are responsible for 18% of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming. That's more than all forms of transportation put together.

My solution to the crisis includes encouraging more people to become vegetarians. We could then drastically and quickly reduce global warming and its effects on the environment. Of course, we would need to increase the production of Beano.