Climate Change and Ockams Razor

I used to be a climate change sceptic. That was about 10 years ago, but having witnessed horrendous floods in the UK and the continuing droughts in Australia I researched all the arguments for and against and then took an Ockams Razor approach:

1. Something keeps the earth some 30 degrees warmer than the moon
2. Nearly 200 years ago Joseph Fourier theorised that it was the atmosphere
3. 150 years ago, John Tyndall identified that only water vapour, carbon dioxide and ozone blocked infra red heat from earth escaping back into the atmosphere.  Oxygen and Nitrogen, which make up 99% of our atmosphere, had no effect.
4. Methane, Nitrous Oxide and CFCs have also been identified as greenhouse gases.
5. Burning fossil fuels and general industrial processes release carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into our atmosphere
6. Greenhouse gas concentrations in our atmosphere have been increasing
7. Global temperatures have been warming.

I may be slightly misquoting Mr Razor, but I do see that the simplest explanation is usually the right one.  Particularly so as, having studied all of the counter arguments, non of them stand up to peer reviewed assessment as having any long term affect on global temperatures, though some do have short term impact.

Where things get more problematic is the impact of a warming planet on our climate.  No one really knows how it will impact, especially at a local or regional level.  However the predictions made over the last 50 years or so of melting ice, greater extremes of climate, longer and deeper droughts, greater precipitation leading to flooding, more powerful storms, more prevalent heat waves and bush fires all seem quite logical from a warmer atmosphere and seem to be playing out around the globe.

You have to also take into account the level of risk.  Current predictions are for temperatures to increase over the next 90 years from 1 degree up to 6 degrees.  1 degree itself would cause some problems.  6 degrees would be catastrophic.  For comparison, if we were going to be 6 degrees cooler, we would be heading for the last ice age where New York and London were under meters of ice.

I don’t know about you, but that is not the sort of risk that I would like to gamble on for my kids and grandkids - a new one of which is due any day now - grandkid, I hasten to add!