Climate Change

Scenes from Home

If we consider the fact that the human population is increasing exponentially, coupled with the reality of rapidly increasing global industrialisation, it would seem self evident that human-derived carbon emissions must be on the increase. Consider also the ease of modelling and understanding the effect of greenhouse gases, such as CO2, in the atmosphere, and the evidence that average global temperatures are increasing – and it is hard to avoid the conclusion that global warming is a very real threat to the happy existence of our offspring. Why then is there such a committed lobby of ‘climate sceptics’ who wish to deny the very existence of global warming? Is it perhaps that many of them have an undeclared interest in continuing to burn fossil fuels and in allowing developing economies to ’grow’, or am I just being a ‘climate cynic’?

A recent article in The New Scientist highlights how climate figures for 2010 make the case for global warming over the past 15 years even more compelling. The point is also made however that climate change is not something that can be argued about by cherry-picking data from a relatively short period of time – something of which climate sceptics were guilty following the publication of the 2009 figures! In order to take this issue seriously we need to take a cold hard look at data spanning 30 years and more. The beautifully constructed and thought-provoking film Home by Yann Arthus Bertrand raises many questions about our increasing population, globalisation and climate change, and is well worth a look. It lasts 90 minutes and can be accessed here.