A different take on global warming

The Hindu , Thursday, February 18, 2010
Correspondent : Staff Reporter
G. Madhavan Nair interacts with students

The former Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation G. Madhavan Nair said here on Thursday that human intervention was not the only reason for climate change, but that solar radiation also had a major role in global warming and climate change.

Interacting with students at the ‘Science-mathematics-environment awareness camp' organised by the Kerala State Balasahitya Institute, Mr. Nair said that changes in climatic patterns and global temperature were observed much before the issues of pollution and carbon emission came up.

Warming effect

“In the beginning of 20 century, for around 45 years, when human intervention was much less compared to today, there was a warming effect at the global level. Later on it changed to cooling effect and the average global temperature actually came down. Now again in the past few years, there has been a warming effect. This means that human intervention is not the only reason for climate change. The coupling of the sun and the earth also has some role to play in it,” he said.

India's heritage

Replying to students' queries Mr. Nair said that India could be proud of its rich heritage in astrology as the calculations on planetary and stellar movements done by the Indian astrologers more than 6,000 years ago were found to be almost similar to those done by modern-day scientists using sophisticated equipment.

“But our astrologers believed that the stellar and planetary movements had some effect on humans and living beings on earth. This is something that has not been scientifically validated so far,” he said.

Asked whether he believed in any future apocalyptic event that could end the world, Mr. Nair said that there was no threat to the earth from the outer space, at least for the next 70 years.

“Maybe after a billion years because of the sun's radiation there could be some effect on the earth and its atmosphere. But may be human beings will survive this because of some mutation they acquire over the years. These are all long shot imaginations though,” he said.

Mr. Madhavan Nair said that a lot of precaution needed to be taken before going for space explorations using rockets fuelled by nuclear fuel.

“If anything goes wrong in these expeditions, it can lead to contamination of earth's atmosphere, which can be very dangerous. Only Russia and the U.S. have developed rockets with nuclear fuel technology,” he said.

Chandrayaan

Mr. Nair said it was because of the failure in certain calculations of moon's radiation that the Chandrayaan Mission of Indian Space Research Organisation had to be prematurely aborted.

The camp was earlier inaugurated by Cultural Affairs Minister K.C. Joseph.

 
SOURCE : http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Thiruvananthapuram/a-different-take-on-global-warming/article3383256.ece
 


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