I managed to catch the second in this series of programmes by David Attenborough, which was shown on BBCtv last night. Link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/hottopics/climatechange/climatechaos.shtmlSome interesting and scary material. Amongst the interesting points made in this programme were the projection that the amount of greenhouse gas emitted by commercial aircraft is set to double in 25 years, and that China will build a new coal fired power station every week for the next seven years.
Some people are dismissive of the global catastrophe that awaits our grndchildren if we do nothing to cut our carbon emissions. They say that the earth "goes through cyclic changes", and ascribe
all global warming to this. However, the climatologists interviewed by Attenborough are using supercomputers (the one shown looked like a Cray) with a processing speed of 10,000 mips to form a prognosis based on the data supplied, and the predicted global increase in temperature is based not on cyclic changes, but purely on the volume of
man-made greenhouse gas. Thus, the analysis leaves little doubt that human activity is responsible for the bulk of the problem.
An interesting crumb of comfort was provided by the American scientist Steve Pencala, of Princeton University, who has a seven point plan for how to cap greenhouse gas emissions at 2006 levels.
I'll post more later - I'm short of time just now.
