Query Over Ability to Stop Climate Change

The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)

2 May 2011

For the last five decades a debate on climate change has rocked the world. Global warming due to human activities alarm is now an agenda in the world economic order. Scientists wrestle among themselves over whether climate change that brings global warming is entirely a man-made phenomenon.

They fight over whether climate change is real or not, they all wonder whether hard science justifies climate change that is entirely caused by emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs), mainly carbon dioxide – CO2.

All scientists agree that there is climate change and that it is attributed to both natural causes and to human factors.

They also agree that emissions of GHGs are also causes of these climate changes. What they do not agree is the GHGs being the principal cause of climate change today. The reason to this disagreement is rooted in the fact that most scientists can’t comprehend the huge numbers of time scales that geologists use; hence most of the scientific community has little knowledge of geology.

In geology past climate changes, sea level changes, ice sheets come and go, life will always change, and extinctions of life will always happen. In a geological perspective, climate change variability is a complex phenomenon in which the atmosphere is influenced by geological processes like earthquakes, volcanoes, sun’s activity and cosmic processes.

To reduce modern climate change to one variable; that is human-produced carbon dioxide is not science, especially as it requires abandoning all we know about planet Earth, the sun and the cosmos. The planet Earth is dynamic and evolving with climate changes that are cyclical and random. These changes are imbedded and firmly written in geological times; in sediments, past soils, ice sheets and in rocks.

Before we can understand present climate change, we must understand how climate has changed in the past. Using isotopic elements as fingerprints, geologists can precisely analyze these rocks, past soils, sediments and ice cores to help reconstruct climatic change history. From these studies climate change geological history shows that the Earth has warmed and cooled on all times scales, whether, they be geological, archaeological, historical or within our own lifetime.

If we humans are warming the planet now, how do we explain alternating cool and warm periods during in the past? Geological knowledge shows that climate change that is imbedded in the geological past indicate glacial (cold) and interglacial (warm) periods, some of which were very catastrophic. Extreme warm or cold climates could wipe out whole species of life. The dinosaurs – ancient reptiles of old that dominated the planet Earth during the Jurassic geological Period 65 million years ago did perish due to a major climatic change.

Geological evidence records the history of climate change from geological times to present times and reads carbon dioxide and temperatures that were extremely high and disturbing than today. For instance geological records indicate that during the beginning of the Pleistocene geological Period 2.5 million years ago the world experienced a major climate cooling.

This period was a time of worldwide volcanic activities in which volcanic eruptions choked the world for some years from light bringing a major cooling. At this time multitude of mammals and other species were extinct as they could not adapt to these fast changing climatic conditions.

Around 20,000 years ago geology records a time called Last Glacial Maximum (maximum cold) temperatures began to rise to over 5°C above the background of the time. The records also show that in the Holocene geological Period from around 10,000 years ago CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere rose from 260 parts per million by volume (ppmv) to 280 ppmv by 1,000 years ago. This is a natural increasing trend in the warm geological period of pre industrial times.

It is worth noting that around this time where temperatures and CO2 values started to rise there were no humans by then to change the climate as is claimed today. This Earth is a living planet that must age away as the galactic and cosmic forces adjust to keep the balance of stars and planets in the universe. Geologists are certain that climate change that will include drying up of the Earth is part of the natural aging process of the planet Earth and must come.

Whether humanity mitigates climate change or not the living planet Earth will be transformed. The Earth will experience a worsening climate regardless of whether we mitigate or not.Those who advocate that humans can stop a climate change are not honest to their own conscious. Spending billion of money to try and stop climate change that is supposedly caused by one little factor; man-made greenhouse gases is a waste of time and resources.

Humankind must use its intellect, money and time to prepare to live in a new climatic environment that may be harsh than the present.Dr Kafumu, who is an expert in climate and environmental geology, is currently the Commissioner for Minerals in Tanzania.

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