North-West Passage

I've heard a lot of people call global warming/climate change a hoax and of course I have my own opinion on the phenomena.

First off. The name change. Yeah, totally political. People are more willing to believe in "climate change" over "global warming" simply because when winter gets brutal, it makes no sense to think that the world is getting warmer. All it tells me is how ignorant a certain demographic of the population is. You see, weather and climate are two VERY different things. The definition of weather (from one of my envi.sci. textbooks) "includes an area's short-term temperature, precipitation, humidity, wind speed, cloud cover, and other physical conditions of the lower atmosphere over a short period of time--the atmospheric conditions we experience day by day". Climate (from the same book) is a "region's general pattern of atmospheric or weather conditions over a long time--years, decades, and centuries. Average temperature and average precipitation are the two main factors determining climate, along with the closely related factors of latitude and altitude. Many factors contribute to a local climate, including the amount of solar radiation reaching the area, the earth's daily rotation and annual path around the sun, air circulation over the earth's surface, the global distribution of landmasses and seas, the circulation of the ocean currents and the elevation of landmasses.

Second: The environment is a LOT like the economy. You change something and there is an affect in what feels like an unrelated area.

For example. If you lose 100 jobs in production of refrigerators, you will lose 50 jobs in the production of refrigerants and 25 jobs in production of steel. With 175 jobs lost you will find a decrease in demand for luzury goods like big screen tvs. Then you lose jobs in that area as well. This is of course, a very simple model. The environment is just as wide spread. The death of honey bees in Europe will cause a decrease in food supplies that would normally be sent to Africa. You would think that it would just mean the death of more Africans. Nope, because American's will take up the slack. Our food supplies would decrease, increasing our prices.

Now for the "real" environment. Water is amazing--it absorbs an amazing amount of energy without changing temperature. Ocean currents are probably the most important influencer on climate. It's why England doesn't freeze while Greenland does. But the oceans can only take so much. Watch a pot of water boil. In a split second the water goes from 99.9C and not boiling to 100C and is boiling.  If you increase temperatures, you increase evaporation of oceans, thus increasing the salt concentration of the oceans because salt is not evaporated. Increased salt concentrations will make them reach levels that fish and other sea life cannot survive. If the fish die, then humans can't eat them. Also, if the fish die, the other sea predators, whales for example cannot eat them. The whales will die and thus can't be used by individuals for food or oil--whalers will go out of business. Also, increasing ocean temperatures causes some funky things to happen with ocean current systems. You see, there are layers to the ocean with lower levels with temperatures holding at a pretty constant amount (kept warm by the Earth's core). The surface is warmed up by the sun. But there are certain physical properties that get messed up as temperatures change. The yearly turn-over of the oceans is caused by changes in temperatures--if temperatures are screwed up, they won't happen. If you're studying a lake, you can watch every fish die when the lake doesn't turn over and replinish oxygen into the lower levels of the water and put nutrients into the upper level.

So, what causes an increase in temperatures? Who cares. Doesn't matter. Be green because it's economical and sustainable. Be green because it doesn't destroy the environment and kill off the beautiful bugs that make it possible to have food, the animals that clean up our wastes, or the plants that give us the oxygen that we breathe.

Still don't believe me that the climate is changing? How about this fact. We now have a North-West Passage that was the dream find in 1600. Had there been a NW passage back then, life as we know it would be very different. England might not have decided to send settlers to this new world, or would have at least not have invested so much money--their focus was on getting to Asia. Recently, (within the last 2 years) the NW passage was crossed. This is probably the most visible example of how the sea-ice up there has melted and probably the most widely noticible examples of visible climate change. Weather change wouldn't cause that much ice to melt--only sustained increased temperatures would be enough to cause it.

Latest article on carbon levels here.