The Guardian is being conservative or pessimistic - depending on which of the following figures you accept.  Nigel Lawson writes in today's Sunday Telegraph, "... global warming we can expect by the end of the century is probably rather less than the IPCC had predicted: perhaps some 35F (1.5C)."

 

Lawson's actual point, an argument that seems overlooked in ad hominem attacks, is that attempting to stop or reverse climate change by stopping CO2 emissions will stop development worldwide and condemn millions to continued poverty.  Hence, he suggests, we should accept climate change (whatever the cause) and concentrate on adaptation, which is what humans are good at.

 

The media this week made great play of the claim that Himalyan glaciers are retreating because of the soot deposited by thousands of wood-burning cookers.  This seems to overlook satellite images of the huge amounts of smoke spread annually from rainforest burning for illegal logging - that's a "development" that does need capping. The health benefits from better domestic stoves is a separate matter, as is deforestation on Himalyan slopes.

 

Climate change is blamed for potential sea-level rise, but one example that featured in the media was the plight of inhabitants of the Carteret Islands, between New Guinea and Indonesia.  They were said to have the fastest rising sea-level in the world.  Unfortunately (for them) the islands sit on the edge of the tectonic plate that is subducting under Asia.  Sea up or land down - it's all relative.

 

My favourite quote came from a paper in Nature: what we have to remember is that, in terms of the Earth's climate, the last million years have been quite anomalous.

 

Allan