GLOBAL WARMING... WHAT GLOBAL WARMING?!

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2nd February 2010

GLOBAL WARMING... WHAT GLOBAL WARMING?!

With a colder than normal December and January and reports of IPCC scientists fluffing the facts, it’s no wonder that many remain sceptical about the threat of Global Warming.

Unusually cold weather has affected most parts of the UK this winter and it’s big news. The thing is, you can’t miss it. The snow and ice is quite literally in your face! It has a massive visual impact, it causes travel disruption, it closes schools and makes you late for work. Then you when you get home and collapse on the sofa you're bombarded with it on the TV news!

So, for those who would rather not think too hard about global warming, it provides the perfect excuse to assume the scientists have got it all wrong.

Add to that the news this week that the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) boffins have been presenting us (not for the first time) with less than perfect information and you can see that the sceptic’s argument is strengthened even further.

For the vast majority who haven’t made up their minds one way or the other, this double whammy of snow and misinformation makes it all the easier to put the difficult problem of global warming to the back of their minds until another day.

Unfortunately this is the exact opposite of what the IPCC should be helping governments from around the world to achieve. It also weakens the strength of the underlying science that it is generally believed to be correct : that we are experiencing global warming as a result of human activity. Even those scientists attacking the IPCC’s methods are not challenging the idea that global warming is taking place and may in the future threaten human health and food production.

I’ve said before that there needs to be a short term tangible financial or physical benefit before the all important majority will embrace change. Bearing this in mind and the fact that for many people worrying about the environment is way doen their priority list, lack of confidence in the information we receive from the IPCC is a major blow and quite simply should not have happened.

And as for the weather ; of course the weather will vary but this gives us little or no hold on global warming when individual weather events are taken in isolation. Global warming is a rise of average temperature across the world, decade by decade. The UK covers less than half of one thousandth of the Earths surface, so unfortunately a bit of snow in our back yard doesn’t mean a mini ice age!

Hopefully, with time, the science will become clearer, the issues and solutions identified and maybe then we can all pull together to sort this problem out. For the moment however, I fear too many folks all around the country will be saying, “Global warming? What global warming? You must be joking, it’s freezing!”

For those of you who would rather not stick your head in the sand, why not take a look at our energy saving tips for some easy ways to do a bit of energy saving yourself?