Well you do.   You advise that the reports produced are wrong and provide us information about how.  You don't question the science, but refute it based on your own knowledge.  I once again ask, what is your education? Shouldn't be hard to answer, Maqqa!  Why are you deferring from answering?

An old story retold
Why was a really famous geologist writing this when human population was just one third, and CO₂ emissions from burning fossil fuel just 10%, of today’s rates?

For one thing Woodward was aware of the work of another giant of science – the Swedish chemist and Nobel Laureate Svante Arrhenius whose name is still part of the everyday chemistry vernacular.

Arrhenius demonstrated the greenhouse effect of CO₂ in 1896 estimating that a doubling of atmospheric CO₂ would lead to a temperature rise of 5-6°C. A few years later he settled on a 1.6°C warming, not far off the current consensus of 2-4.5°C.

The scientific basis for the CO₂ greenhouse effect was established over 100 years ago, before Einstein and relativity, before the Curies and radioactivity, and before Fleming and antibiotics, not to mention DNA, quantum mechanics and plate tectonics.

In fact it precedes just about everything we think of as modern science, not to mention Leninism.

In his 1923 book, Sherlock commented “Man’s work is … as worthy of a place in geological text-books as are the actions of the sea or the rivers".

The dawning of a new geological era
It would be no surprise to Sherlock or Woodward that the international geological community is now considering inaugurating a new geological epoch – named the Anthropocene – in recognition of the geological impact of our own species.

While climate sceptics are surely not alone in having a sense of disbelief in the immense scale of human activity, these figures speak for themselves.

We are indeed a geological agent of unprecedented power.

Faced with that stark reality now, it would be folly at best to maintain the fiction that we are too puny to impact the planet – at worst, it is just plain reckless.

Whether we like it or not, for better or for worse, we are already engineering our planet.

This is the fourth part of our series Clearing up the Climate Debate. To read the other instalments, follow the links below:

Part One: Climate change is real: an open letter from the scientific community.

Part Two: The greenhouse effect is real: here’s why.

Part Three: Speaking science to climate policy.

Maqqa wrote on Jun 16^th, 2011 at 9:17pm:


Maqqa, what's your education? After all, it seems you are constantly trying to prove climate change is rubbish. So, if we are to listen to you, I think we are at least entitled to know your background? So, what's your education?