Climate-Change – the questions nobody wants to answer

In early December the World Climate Summit will be held in Cancun Mexico, and the issue of man-made climate-change will be leading newscasts and back on the front pages.

So far, 2010 has provided lots to talk about:

• floods throughout central Europe from May to August requiring the evacuation of 23,000 people.
• wildfires in western Russia in July and August coinciding with the hottest summer in recorded Russian history; a state of emergency was declared in 35 regions due to fire or drought-induced crop failure.
• Pakistan flooding in July that at one point submerged approximately one-fifth of the country’s total land mass.

Munich Re, a global insurance industry player possessing one of the best weather-related incident databases in the world, is asserting that 2010 has been the warmest year since such records began well over a century ago.  And, the 10 warmest years on record all fall within the last 12.

Yet the vocal dissenting minority questioning the science of global warming – including respected scientists – hasn’t gone away.

Last November, Climategate exposed credible evidence seeming to indicate that something other than a desire to “follow the evidence wherever it leads” was at play within the well-funded climate-change research industry.

So the World Climate Summit has an unparalleled opportunity to move past the rhetoric and begin to address the objections of those who ask legitimate questions about climate-change science:

• do the changes in temperature recorded possibly reflect a natural cycle of variations that would be evident if equally accurate measurements were available over a longer period of time?
• does the evidence demonstrate human/industrial activity to be a significant or relatively minor factor?
• are the projections of continued warming supportable?  On what assumptions are they based?
• what are the reasonably provable future consequences of climate change?

I for one, am hoping the minority position has a voice in the process and a seat at the table – for the good of us all.

Tags: climate change, Climategate, environment, flood, global warming, World Climate Summit