CLIMATE CHANGE

While I consider the main threat to life in the West is to come from oil depletion, the major challenge for people in developing countries is from climate change. In poorer countries, particularly African ones, many people still have to eke a living from the land and flooding and droughts can cause famine. This situation will only get worse, thanks to dictators like Robert Mugabe who inherited a wealthy country only to destroy it. With governments like his in Africa are people in the devolped world going to be so ready to put their hands in their pockets to help them as they did during the Band Aid and Live Aid era of the mid-eighties?

Thirty years ago, based on scientific studies of previous Ice Ages and Interglacial Periods during this current Ice Epoch, we were told that we were heading for another Ice Age. Now we are experiencing an unpredented period of global warming not seen since the start of the previous Interglacial Period 124,000 years ago. Some point to natural fluctuations in the Sun and Earh's orbit. The Medieval Period (about 1000 to 1400AD) saw a warm period when vikings lived on the south-east coast of Greenland. At about 1400AD the climate cooled, causing the viking settlers to abandon Greenland and the winter of 1607 in Britain was the severest on record with trees killed by the cold and ships stranded out at sea by pack ice. Since then the climate warmed, even before the Industrial Revolution started pumping out Carbon Dioxide and today, some believe that the current global warming is due to our continuing warming from the 'Little Ice Age'.

However most scientists, polititians and lay-people now believe that Global Warming is caused by human activity. With America and Europe along with Austrailia and other countries enjoying properity and with Brazil, India and China fast playing catch-up the number of power-stations, often fueled by coal to power their consumer goods has gone up, as has car ownership. In fact as I write this India had just launched their own cheap peoples' car, costing only £1250 (US$2500), it will follow in the footsteps of the American Ford Model 'T', German Volkswagon Beetle, the French Citroen 2CV and the British Mini (made by several companies) as the car that gets it's population motoring.

Along with CO2 emmisions, made worse by deforestation, Methane which is far more effective at trapping heat is also being released into the atmosphere. This is due to increased cattle farming and also from the melting of the Siberian permafrost.

The effect on Britain could be dramatic. Recently Britain has experienced warmer summers and record high temperatures but also bad summers such as the floodings of 2007. Thanks to the Gulf Stream the British Isles and Scandanavia enjoy a milder climate than that of say Newfoundland and Eastern Siberia which is at the same latitude. As the summers get hotter the Greenland Ice Sheet will melt faster, depositing fresh water in the Arctic Ocean, along with several major Russian rivers whose flow will increase. This could divert or stop the Gulf Stream, resulting in a colder climate for Britain. It will become harder to grow the variety of crops we need on this densly populated island and famine may result.