14. The Global Warming Conspiracy...

...or not. Well, we had 'climategate' (poor old Nixon, he'll never be rid of this), now the boffs tell us the hole in the Ozone layer is actually helping to keep the climate cool and drat and blast, banning them CFCs might just close up that hole and increase the rate of global warming.

It's a shame, it seems to me, that a perfectly sensible body of scientific data is becoming increasingly obscured by apocalyptic claims that stretch the bounds of credibility. On the other hand, there's little sense in the conspiracy theorists claims that its all a plot by 'the elite' to keep world control. Let's face it, the whole theory hit the big time in the US during the Republican's watch - the very party that are tight in with the Oil industry and other CO2 producers. The 'elite' are precisely the one's who are most negatively affected by the demands for changes in lifestyle, economics, and industry that result from accepting global warming because it is they that have got all the investments and holdings in the established industries. It is the source of their power. If it was a conspiracy theory by the powerful to completely reorder world economics, they would be undermining the very industries that made them powerful in the first place.

Looking for a sensible balance on this issue, I don't think anyone has any credible reason to deny that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is radically higher than anything that has been seen in the Earth's history, and that has to be a cause for concern. Quite what it means both in terms of global climate change and consequences to human civilization is another matter.

Indeed, the more I look into this issue the more I come round to the conclusion that the scientists predictions are subject to so many variables that there is little that can reliably be counted on. The fact that the hole in the ozone layer is now being touted as something that may be of more benefit than harm to us, is - to anyone old enough to remember the scare-mongering that went round on this issue - seriously undermining the scientists credibility to know what they are talking about.

That said, I don't see how anyone can sensibly think that pumping more and more CO2 into the air is likely to be either good or harmless: it's so far out of the natural cycle (never over 330 parts per million in over half a million years, but up to nearly double that in less than half a century, well over 600ppm now), it just makes sense to get it under control.