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By Shin Chul-ho
Until recently, I was a fanatic environmentalist and gave my full support to the Kyoto Protocol.
But ``Unstoppable Global Warming," by S. Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery, on the New York Times Bestseller list in 2008, distanced me far away from the theory of huge CO2-driven temperature increases.
Before the two authors enlightened me on climate cycles, I could not but stick with man-made global warming because the evidence of the recent warming trend such as melting glaciers, rising sea levels, species extinction, famine, drought and more violent weather seemed entirely plausible to me.
The book tells us that the Earth's current warming is not anthropogenic but caused by warming and cooling climate cycles.
First, in the early part of the 20th century, before humans released much CO2 into the atmosphere, Earth was, unusually, warmer than now.
Second, we have no reason to expect a bigger sea-level rise because melting rates of global warming are being offset by increased humidity, snowfall and ice deposition at the poles. Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore's scenario in his movie ``An Inconvenient Truth" can't happen because there's not enough ice to trigger it.
And the frequent flooding of Venice, Italy, is not due to greenhouse warming but its buildings and bridges weighing heavily on the soft soils of the coastal region and also due to the underlying reality that Venice is on the African tectonic plate, which is gradually sliding under the neighboring European plate at a rate of 2.5cm per century.
Third, food production historically increased during previous warming periods primarily because warming climates provided more of the things plants love; sunlight, rainfall and longer growing seasons. One of the interesting examples is the ``Roman warming" which started in 200 B.C. and ended about A.D.600. The Roman Empire continued to prosper based on climate conditions favorable to agriculture. But at its end, a sudden cold age drove the Nordic barbarians into the Roman Empire and overran it.
Fourth, the glaciers of Mt. Kilimanjaro are melting so quickly that they could disappear within 10 to 20 years, but not because of CO2 emission but because clearing for agriculture and forest fires reduced forests. The loss of foliage causes less moisture to be pumped into the atmosphere, leading to reduced cloud cover and precipitation, and increased solar radiation and glacial evaporation.
Our ``modern warming (1850~present) is most likely the first half of the next cycle, and not nearly as dangerous as the public hysteria over it. We're likely fearing something we don't have to.
The writer is a teacher at an elementary school in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province. He can be reached at heemy123@hanmail.net.
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