The Hindu Business Line , Monday, October 07, 2013

Correspondent :

The recently released 5th IPCC Assessment report on climate change says scientists are 95 per cent certain that humans are the ‘dominant cause’ of global warming, and have been since the 1950s. According to the report, “concentrations of carbon-di-oxide, methane and nitrous oxide now substantially exceed the highest concentrations recorded in ice-cores in the past 800,000 years” with their levels in the atmosphere having increased by 40 per cent, 150 per cent and 20 per cent respectively from pre-industrial levels. Over the last two decades, the Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheets have been losing mass, glaciers are shrinking, and Arctic sea ice and the Northern Hemisphere’s spring snow cover continue to decrease in extent. Yet, there is a heated argument over this climate phenomenon, with detractors from the fossil-fuel lobby terming this a “global conspiracy”. They seem to have latched on to certain points in the IPCC report, which says that rates of global warming have actually slowed in the last 15 years. Also, the current estimate of warming is lower than earlier predictions about the same. But taking out of context the objective findings of IPCC for propaganda will only amount to further delay in our response to climate change. In any case, the fossil fuel lobby needs to realise that we are running out of fossil fuels and it is vital sustainable energy technologies be developed. How serious do you believe the problems related to climate change are — are we like the frog in the slowly boiling water? If indeed climate change poses a real and imminent threat, what measures can we take on a daily basis to combat it?

SOURCE : http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/on-campus/our-view/article5207031.ece