I am perplexed when I read extreme adjectives used to try present convincing arguments. The recent letter in the Aug. 5 St. Albert Gazette titled, ‘Climate change denial criticized’, screams at you with words like “monstrous global warming potential” and “stupendous economic loss.” It is as if yelling louder will make a more convincing argument.
I undertook a small search to find actual data on climate change and came across a research paper by Syun-Ichi Akasofu of the University of Fairbanks. In this study, Syun-Ichi presents various “data” or “observations” with evidence that the current warming trend started prior to the increase in CO2 emissions due to human activities. The paper is criticized elsewhere because it does not present a theory or mechanism for the observations … it just presents the data, hmmm … I would encourage readers to view the paper and decide for themselves; it is freely available at http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ns.2010.211149
I suspect that human activities are impacting climate change, but that there are also large naturally occurring variations that are very significant. Global warming models of a decade ago predicting accelerated warming have been shown to be incorrect to the point where we now talk about “climate change” instead of “global warming.” It seems to me that the data speaks for itself.
Ralph Smeding PEng., St. Albert
