5 'til Midnight

chrisp — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 21:13:00 -0800

The Doomsday Clock was updated today due to increased risk of nuclear war and a perceived degradation in the global climate. Climate change is a recent addition to the criteria for the clock. This adds a great deal of scientific credibility to the concept of climate change. I hope this raises awareness that this is a real problem.

There is constant debate regarding climate change. I find most people to be very misinformed about it, unfortunately. Most recent research points to climate change happening, but not as a ”runaway greenhouse effect.” Rather than seeing exponential increases in CO2 and temperatures, they both seem to be reaching a limit. That means they reach a certain saturation point more and more slowly. This is caused by several feedback mechanisms present in our environment. For example, the process of melting ice sheets actually soaks up CO2, which slows down the rate of overall CO2 increase. There are many other examples of this type of behavior. Fortunately, we’re probably still a ways off from the “point of no return.” These mechanisms will eventually break though, and I hope that people can understand the gravity of how important it is to take care of our environment before that happens. Most scientists are in agreement that this is a critical issue. The fact that it was added to the Doomsday Clock’s criteria underscores this. It means that there are now two critical issues that scientists generally feel are imperative to the survival of the human race, nuclear war and climate change.

ANYTHING we do to help fix this problem is worthwhile, whether it’s biased or not. The UN and nations that provide global leadership should be upheld to the expectation of providing leadership for both of these issues.

clog: Tag Science

5 'til Midnight