What's Up with the Weather by Theodore Greenberg - Article Example

Is this increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide causing global warming and drastic changes in the earth's climate, or is carbon dioxide a benign gas not requiring regulation According to Fred Palmer from Western Fuels, "There is no basis to say that more carbon dioxide in the air is going to lead to catastrophic global warming." But Marty Hobert of New York University states that "If a man is going to have a future on this planet, it is absolutely inevitable we must find another source of energy.

" Tom Wigley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research believes that the time for mankind is near an end, that due to the doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the average world temperature will soon rise five degrees Celsius, eight degrees Fahrenheit. Fred Singer and James Tefril of George Mason University found the data ambiguous. "You're dealing with something that's very complicated," says Teferil. "You're dealing with something where there's legitimate uncertainty in the science.

"In 1997 Charles Keeling published forty years of observations which showed a rise in carbon dioxide levels from 330 to 370 parts per million, directly attributable to the use of fossil fuels by industry. In that same year, Vice President Al Gore went to Kyoto Japan for the Kyoto Conference where the United States and Japan were to agree to make efforts to curb carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels and to fund research for the development of alternative fuels such solar energy, wind power, and hydrogen.

The Senate, however, in an unprecedented vote of 95 to zero, refused to ratify the Kyoto protocols, and the entire project became a non-starter. Today, alternative fuel sources are still not commercially competitive with fossil fuels, not yet 100% dependable, and cannot deliver the quantities of energy needed to supply the 10 trillion watts of electricity per year the world demands. Will global warming soon cause catastrophic events No one really knows. The power companies know they have to keep their grids up and deliver electricity to their customers.

To do this they use fossil fuels, the most dependable, the cheapest resource they have available.