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An inconvenient Truth: Truth or deception?

An inconvenient truth : Truth or deception?

By Juan Guillermo Rivera Berrio

In this corner presents theories on climate change, both reports official and unofficial. The reader can draw their own conclusions, one of which is that we get closer to the actual knowledge against this phenomenon that affects the current population and future generations.

In November last year launched the documentary An Inconvenient Truth, former presidential candidate of the United States, Al Gore. The 96-minute film has generated a polemic against the real causes of climate change.

"I am Al Gore ... used to be the next U.S. president ", this phrase and other comments in the development of the documentary gives the impression of a political tinge, a possible smear campaign and the current president, why not a shot the next election. The multimedia extravaganza shows in great detail, the dramatic speed with which glaciers and the poles have melted in recent years, the speed of global warming with its attendant side effects, including the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

Image taken from the movie

The central thesis defending Al Gore is as follows: When the sun's energy reaches Earth , much bounces back into space. The problem now is that gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and over thirty other "greenhouse" (as methane) help to create a layer that trapped heat of the sun. The direct consequence is global warming. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, largely due to the consumption of fossil fuels has increased exponentially, from 280 ppm (parts per million) before the industrial revolution to about 380 ppm.

Al Gore's statements coincide remarkably with the report presented in Paris, three months after the premiere of the documentary, by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, an acronym in English), report in which more than 2,500 scientists. The Ministry of Environment of Spain published on the internet an unofficial translation of the IPCC report. Some conclusions are reproduced below

Changes in the amount of greenhouse gases and aerosols in the atmosphere, changes in solar radiation and in land surface properties alter the energy balance of the climate system.

carbon dioxide gas is the most important anthropogenic greenhouse. The global atmospheric concentration has increased from 280 ppm (preindustrial) to 379 ppm in 2005, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide in 2005 exceeds by far the natural range of the past 650,000 years ( 180 to 300 ppm) as ice cores show.

The primary source of increased carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere since pre-industrial era is the use of fossil fuels, together with land uses that pose a significant but smaller contribution.

knowledge of the influence of anthropogenic warming or cooling the climate has improved since the Third Assessment Report (TAR), leading to state with a very high level of confidence that the net effect half of human activities since 1750 has result in warming

The climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in average air temperatures and oceans, widespread melting Snow and Ice and rising global mean sea level.

Eleven of the last twelve years (1995-2006) are in the ranking of the twelve warmest years in the records of instrumented surface temperatures (since 1850).

New data show that losses in the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica have very likely contributed to sea level rise from 1993 to 2003

The observations show evidence of an increase in intense tropical cyclone activity in the North Atlantic since about 1970, correlated with the observed warming of surface temperature (SST) in the tropics.

paleoclimatic information supports the interpretation that the warmth of the last half century is unusual in at least the past 1,300 years.

Most of the increase since the middle of the twentieth century the average temperature is due, most likely , the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gases.

Continued emissions of greenhouse gases at current rates, or an increase in these rates would cause further warming and induce many changes in the global climate system during the century that would very likely be higher than those observed during the twentieth century.

is likely that episodes of extreme heat, heat waves and heavy precipitation events tend to be increasingly common.

climate processes, feedbacks, and time scales imply that anthropogenic warming and sea level rise would continue for centuries even if concentrations of greenhouse gases stabilized.

anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide continue to contribute to warming and sea level rise for more than a millennium, due to the timescales required to remove the gas from the atmosphere.

After reading the report and see the film, it seems that the IPCC as being directed to Gore, or that he had free access to the findings before public disclosure.

What then is the debate?

The rejection of the protocol Kyoto global warming by the United States, led by its President (the adversary of Al Gore), the results obtained by scientists and the undeniable evidence of climate change, is the ideal setting for "revenge" the losing candidate. It then states that the interests of the documentary is political.

But the debate is only against the intent of the documentary. Moreover, there are scientists who disagree with the conclusions of the IPCC, criticized the report supported by results "highly probable " , these scientists constantly called "skeptics" in the documentary, are hired, according to Al Gore, by oil companies or the state (Bush or oil companies, which is the same) to convert in theory what the facts show. However, despite the claims against the machine, supposedly mounted by the oil companies, there are other theories that are worth knowing, at least as a light in the tunnel apocalyptic hosted by Al Gore.

global warming could be caused by cosmic rays

This thesis is defended by scientists at the National Space Centre Denmark and is known as the cosmoclimatología . is said that our carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere have a minimal effect on terrestrial climate change compared to another factor, far more radical but natural: cosmic rays from exploding stars and reaching to the atmosphere of Earth with varying intensity depending on the Sun's magnetic field measurements satellite two decades have demonstrated a direct link between the intensity of the impact of cosmic rays and Earth's climate. Reinforce other recent research Danish discovery which aroused some controversy in the scientific community. One of the scientists of great renown is Henrik Svensmark, who published 'Cosmoclimatology: a new theory emerge' in the journal Astronomy & Geophysics last month.

A poyando this thesis, Space Science Reviews just published another article in which fourteen researchers point to over 140 pages the implications of astronomy, the Sun and cosmic effects on Earth and Earth's climate.

Finally, the European Organization for Nuclear Research , based in Geneva, announced last October that the project known as CLOUD ( Cosmics Leaving Outdoor Droplets ) has begun collecting data to determine the influence that cosmic rays could have on cloud formation and climate of Earth .

Iris Effect

Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), doubt that climate change is a problem, takes the view that he called the "rainbow effect." As the iris closes when faced with a bright light in a warmer world will produce more water vapor which in turn form more clouds, which are in charge of blocking the sunlight. Contrary to the argument Al Gore, who says the only thing that clouds would be trapping heat.

also warms Mars and the Martians do not have cars

Another thesis (defended by oil) that the warming is natural that we, as an example cited in the 40 to 70 and temperatures dipped into the world, but the C02 was getting worse. This shows that the increase in C02-to-benefit is minimal and has little to do with what is happening. Based on data collected by the missions of NASA the to Mars in 2005, where it was discovered that carbon dioxide in the form of "ice" near Mars's south pole had been reduced after three consecutive summers, a controversial theory considers that this warming, produced simultaneously in Earth and Mars suggests that recent climate change on our planet may not be caused by human action. The cause of global warming is unknown

The cause of global warming is unknown

Another group of scientists argue that are hasty claims of Al Gore and the IPCC. Claude Allegre, French geophysicist, former education minister, Professor at the Universities of Yale, Carbridge, Cornell and la Sorbona , expresa

"The increase in the CO ₂ content of the atmosphere is an observed fact and mankind is most certainly responsible. In the long term, this increase will without doubt become harmful, but its exact role in the climate is less clear. Various parameters appear more important than CO ₂ . Consider the water cycle and formation of various types of clouds, and the complex effects of industrial or agricultural dust. Or fluctuations of the intensity of the solar radiation on annual and century scale, which seem better, correlated with heating effects than the variations of CO ₂ content".

In a recent interview with the daily La Nación of Argentina, holds

"It is propaganda for Al Gore, who wants to be president of the United States, but says things that are completely crazy. For example, sea level will rise six meters ... At this time, the sea rises two and a half inches per year. Means that increases 25 centimeters per century, not six feet. "

Professor David Deming of University of Oklahoma (Author of over thirty research articles and a text of hydrogeology), argues that global warming is evident but its cause remains uncertain, " In my opinion, It Would Be Foolish to ESTABLISH national energy policy on the basis Misinformation and irrational hysteria of . "(Testimony to U.S. Senate Environmental Committee in December 2006). It is branded as defending the interests of oil companies.

The great global warming swindle

The Ice is melting ... The Sea is Rising ... Hurricanes Are blowing ... And It's
All Your Fault ... Scared? Do not be ... It's Not True . With these words, and ast March 8, the channel 4 of British television, the documentary begins The Global Warming Swindle . Without all the trappings of Al Gore and with the participation of so-called skeptical scientists, presents a version that contrasts with the award-winning An Inconvenient Truth .

Some of the arguments are:

The land has a long history of climate change. The warming is a natural process.

The temperature dropped unexpectedly in the economic boom of the postwar period, when CO2 emissions grew dramatically.

Satellite data do not support the model of global warming by greenhouse gases.

anthropogenic production of CO2 is miniscule compared to that produced by nature (volcanoes, carbon dioxide produced by animals, bacteria, decaying vegetation).

New evidence shows that the variation in solar radiation is related to climate change.

Finally, they present as an additional argument, the phenomenon of cosmic rays.

This is the quick outline of the current debate. Some say that there are political and economic interests in the IPCC and environmentalists who advocate it, for its part, the other side defends itself by arguing that scientists who support the thesis, are first rate, with articles "peer reviewed".

What truly valuable this debate is its emphasis on the fact that we are all actors in the problem, so exposure through the mass media. What we can not ignore, regardless of the causes is that something is happening on our planet. We do not need a theory to feel the intense cold of last winter in Europe or in stifling heat our Aburrá Valley.

Whether or not global warming, CO2 emissions into our atmosphere must be controlled, so be breathing cleaner air as we scorched.