Beware global warming

It is believed that greater industrialisation has resulted in the burning of more fossil fuels such as gasoline and natural gas which in turn has substantially raised the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.

While the Earth absorbs heat from the Sun and then re-emits this heat, the extra carbon dioxide in our atmosphere traps some of this heat by the “greenhouse effect”, a process which is thought to have raised the temperature of the planet. This weekend Discovery Channel ran a documentary “Global warming: what you need to know” warning of melting ice-caps, rising sea-levels, drought, and even worse changing weather patterns. The ultimate worst-case scenario is that melting ice floods the sea with a top layer of cold water which ends the circulation of warm air currents which keep the planet warmed. So ironically, the initial global warming can lead to a global winter, a scenario explored in the movie “The day after tomorrow”.

But this threat is not fiction. Even the greatest cynics who cast doubt on the phenomenon, do not fully rule it out, and may attribute global warming to natural phenomenon such as sun-flares or natural cycles of the Earth.

But recently several prominent persons have stepped forward to adopt the cause of global warming.

Yesterday French President Jacques Chirac urged the G-8 summit of world leaders in St Petersburg, Russia, to heed the issue of climate change. Chirac said: “Humanity is dancing on a volcano. We cannot discuss energy security while standing still on climate change.”

Recently former United States vice presidential candidate Al Gore hosted a television documentary on the topic, “An inconvenient truth”.

Last week actor Leonardo di Caprio appeared on the Oprah show to add his voice to concerns about global warming.

Whether you are in Trinidad and Tobago or elsewhere in the world, it’s hard not to agree that there seems to be something strange going on with the weather. For the past few years Europe has experienced both unprecedented floods and heatwaves. The United States and the Americas have experienced a huge number of hurricanes, which notably resulted in the devastation of Grenada and the flooding of New Orleans. Areas in Africa suffer drought.

Global news headlines this month include an Italian report: “Honey production upside down due to climate changes”. From Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, is a report entitled: “Storms sucker-punch region” where a weatherman said ‘We were not expecting these thunderstorms to produce tornadoes, They were a different breed of animal.’ From Scotland, the Glasgow Daily Record, ran a story entitled “90 mph winds to batter country” which opined: ‘It is unusual weather for this time of year, especially the high winds.’

So it’s hard to deny that something is amiss with the weather, whether you are recalling your own experiences of weather change, or whether you are examining global reports on the weather.

Does this affect us? Yes. While we may all be happy to eat five annual harvests of mangoes and not be too concerned about some distant polar bears, the truth is that for all our own fossil fuel wealth, Trinidad and Tobago is just as vulnerable to the dangers of global warming as any other country.

Beware and be aware, Trinidad and Tobago.