23 septiembre 2006

"The heat is on"

The Economist is one of my favourite magazines. The point is it´s not just about economy, but about all kind of issues. In September you can find a special report on climate change. A really interesting report.. But, what´s the fuss about?

After reading this report, the conclusion is clear: there is a climate trend but nobody knows for sure what is happening.... No worries, diferent reports offer a wide range of predicted termperature rises, from 1.4º to 5.8º by the end of this century.

But there are some facts that nobody can deny: the relationship between CO2 concentration and the rise of temperatures, the relationship that links Hurricanes and sea-surface temperatures, the changes in the Ocean Stream, glaciars melting and, no doubt about it, the human hand.


Antarctica is one of the main data sources. Scientinsts can look for previous episodes of climate change in the ice core. And it´s a fact that the higher the CO2 concetration, the higher the temperature. Another fact is climate has followed a periodic pattern, but CO2 concetration is higher than never before (more than 300ppm) . And even if you are blind, the pattern is clear... "It´s white and it´s in a bottle".

It´s said that "The nature is wise" and we´ll be able to deal with all these problems. It´s said as well that "we can easily adapt to the environment" But this last quote is tricky. Human being is the only animal that can adapt the environment to suit themselves, the world´s other inhabitants still have to adapt themselves to their environment. And who knows... maybe it´s for this reason that we are not aware about the problem that is on the sly around the corner. And like it or not, if the most pessimistic theory turned out to be real, we could never say that it was out of blue.

1 comentario:

Zorro de Segovia dijo...

Industrial economy defenders use to say that climatic changes are being originated for natural causes. Yes, may be, if this process takes thousands of years. However, the current climatic alterations happens so fast.
I don´t think in this kind of chances. Please, look the graphics and think about the inmediate future. We have no time to lose.