It’s annoying how new scientific surveys always contradict earlier ones.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Coffee’s bad for you until it’s okay, then it becomes beneficial.
Spuds are in – out – back again. That sort of thing.
I’m awaiting the one that says if a couple of beers are possibly good for you then a keg is simply brilliant.
A bucket of Southern Comfort and Bailey’s Irish Cream may be the pathway to Nirvana.
But I have to say – all jokes aside – I’ve been long watching the alleged debate about global warming and, up until now, if I’d had to pick an “ism” I probably would’ve said humans are trampling too hard on the surface of the planet and need to learn to walk more gently.
What’s put me off being firmly one thing or another is the rude way people beat me around the head and shoulders demanding I join their beliefs and their equally strident sloganeering.
I simply don’t know – and doubt if anyone else really does – what the go is with climate.
BUT I am glad to now unequivocally report that there’s a good reason people like me should have been cautious about signing up for one climate “ism” or another.
Three things have happened in recent weeks which to my mind prove that we’ve been so keen to paint ourselves as the bad guys that we’ve accepted woefully inaccurate data.
Study 1: August 19, 2015. The respected global journal Nature reported that we’d over-estimated the amount of carbon emissions from China by a staggering 14 per cent. Why? Because someone forgot to include in the calculations that China was using a lower quality coal which emits less carbon. Oops.
Study 2: September 3, 2015: the equally respected Wall Street Journal published a jaw-dropping study, also first published in Nature, which said we had also badly underestimated the amount of trees on the planet. The previous estimate was about 400 billion. Nope, satellite imagery had shown an estimated 3.04 TRILLION. That’s 7.6 times as many trees as we had used in calculations on climate change.
That’s 422 trees per person instead of just 55.5. Oops, we did it again.
Study 3: The Australian, October 4, 2015. Not so much a study as the analysis of studies so far when electrical engineer Dr David Evans, a man who helped predict climate change for the Australian Government’s Greenhouse Office, says the maths process was wrong and the amount of impact carbon dioxide has on climate is between one-fifth and one-tenth what the International Panel on Climate Control says it is. Oops for a third but possibly not a final time.
Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but the situation now – according to those sources - is this: China, the world’s worst polluter is putting out far less carbon emissions than previously calculated. There are almost eight times more trees on the planet gobbling carbon than previously calculated. And, finally, what carbon emissions there are have between 20 per cent and 10 per cent the impact previously calculated.
Y’know, I’m starting to get optimistic about future beer consumption studies.
Until then, I’ll stick with my long-held philosophy: no matter whether pollution is damaging more of the planet, or there are ever more humans sharing it, the answer is still the same: live smarter and be nice to each other.
Gawd, I’m going to break out in a verse of Kumbaya at this stage.