The Immediate Solution to the Climate Crisis by Brent Silby

The Immediate Solution to the Climate Crisis

By BRENT SILBY

Learning Advisor in PhilosophyUnlimited (UPT) SchoolChristchurchNew ZealandCopyright © Brent Silby 2007During the late 1990's and early 2000's, global warming has crept intothe public awareness. We have been told that climate change isoccurring, and our future on Earth could be bleak if we continue downour current path.The purpose of this article is to suggest that if we make simplechanges to the way we do things, we can halt (or at least slow) globalwarming. For many people, it is too difficult to make radicalmodifications to the way we live our lives. This may be true, but we canstill slow climate change without changing our lifestyles. We just need tobe a bit more clever about how we do things.

The Issue

Global warming and subsequent climate change are acceptedphenomena. There is no dispute among scientists that this is occurringon Earth. Despite consensus among scientists, however, the theory of

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climate change is still disputed among popular media and the generalpublic. It seems that everyone has a point of view on the topic, and thepeople who are least qualified to question the theory happen to have theloudest voice in the media. For this reason, it is worth reiterating thetheory behind global warming and relating this theory to current eventson Earth.

The Greenhouse Effect

The mechanism that drives global warming is known as the

greenhouseeffec

t. To understand how the greenhouse effect works one needs onlyto look at how a glass greenhouse works. The glass acts as a sort of trap, which lets heat from the Sun in and will not let it all escape. Earth'satmosphere works in much the same way. It contains a range of gases,some of which have a natural heat absorption property. As heat from theSun (in the form of thermal infrared radiation) arrives at the planet,some of it is reflected back into space while the atmosphere absorbs therest. As the atmosphere absorbs infrared radiation it becomes graduallywarmer, thus making Earth's climate warmer. The key gases involved inthis process are Carbon Dioxide (CO2), Carbon Monoxide (CO), Methane,and water vapor.It turns out that life on Earth relies on the greenhouse effect. If allthe heat from the Sun was reflected back out into space, the surfacetemperature of Earth would be about 20 degrees Celsius below zero. Ouratmosphere would be frozen and the planet would be unsuitable for therange of species that it currently hosts. This is not to say that life would

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be impossible; it is simply to say that life as we have come to know itwould not have evolved.Throughout the history of life on Earth, there has been a goodbalance between the production of heat trapping gases and mechanismsthat remove such gasses. This balance has ensured the averagetemperature sits in a range comfortable for life. Heat absorbing gasesproduced through natural processes have been removed through naturalprocesses. When these processes are left to run undisturbed, theatmosphere contains enough heat trapping gas to ensure the protectivegreenhouse blanket remains intact, and life can continue to flourish.There have, of course, been fluctuations in average levels of heattrapping gas in the atmosphere, and the average temperature of theEarth has risen and fallen as a result. But these fluctuations are part of the natural cycle of the Earth and the Sun, and are gradual, taking tensof thousands of years to shift the average global temperature by acouple of degrees.We know that CO2 is a heat trapping gas, and we know that acertain amount of CO2 is required to produce the greenhouse effect,which keeps our environment suitable for life. Now, what happens if weadd more CO2 to the atmosphere? Common sense tells us that if CO2 isa heat trapping gas and we add more to the atmosphere, then we willtrap more heat. If we add enough CO2 to the atmosphere, we may trapenough heat to significantly alter the environment. Skeptics maycomplain that there is no evidence to show that adding CO2 to theatmosphere will have a significant impact. Fortunately for us we haveevidence relatively close by. The planet Venus contains a denseatmosphere of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Its surface temperatureis about 470 degrees Celsius. Now, given the planet's distance from the

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