Global Warming: The Need for Control

I have been musing about the issue of Global Warming for a while now. I am a self-confessed sceptic. I do not deny the fact of global warming, it is quite certain that the climate showed a slight upward trend of about 0.6C in the last 100 years or so. In the same time CO2 emissions have increased. In the absence of better explanation most scientists have linked the two. So far I have not seen any conclusive proof that higher CO2 levels do in fact cause higher temperatures. Most predictions of future calamities come from computer models that are only as good as the assumptions that go into them. Moreover, the sheer range of the future temperature predictions such as IPCC's 1.8 - 6.4 over the next 100 years makes these predictions almost useless in any meaningful analytic sense.

Leaving the science out of the equation for a moment, why do so many people embrace GW despite the large uncertainties that exist? I believe one explanation is our need for control. In the days of old when traditional religions ruled, we would've simply concluded that God is warming up the planet and would've asserted control by prayer. Oh heavenly Father, let us pray for the globe to cool... In a modern secular society where efficiency of prayer has been comprehensively discredited we need to assert control by other means and rituals. We insist our politicians must sign inter-planetary CO2 bans no matter how futile; we install solar panels, wind turbines, buy carbon offsets and convince ourselves that small things can make a real difference. One such exercise in futility was last weekends Earth hour in Sydney. Launched with much fanfare by environmentalists and Green politicians, Earth Hour's organisers have signed up around 2000 businesses and numerous individuals to turn off their lights for one hour last Saturday night to help avert climate change. The practical result of this gesture was to cut as many greenhouse gasses as generated by just two return flights from Sydney to London... As useless as it gets. British GW preacher Sir Nicholas Stern currently touring Australia could've achieved half of such cut by simply staying at home.

People want to believe that by showing green virtue they can bring about a stable climate and avert the coming catastrophe. This is clearly wishful thinking. Our climate is in constant flux. It has changed over millennia and will continue to do so. Even ambitious agreements such as Kyoto will at best achieve 0.07 C reductions in global temperature by 2050, that's if all that we know about CO2 is absolutely correct. It is barely plausible that we can control the climate in a way that would deliver the sort of climate we desire. Still, accepting that we have no impact on climate leaves us in the mercy of Nature (Gods) and makes us feel venerable. We need to be in the driver's seat. Doesn't matter how flawed and preposterous the sheer suggestion that we can control the climate is, it is still better than idea of being at the climate's mercy. We need to pray...