The issue of climate change (global warming, global cooling, etc), often confused or equated with weather patterns, will never go away.  It is an age-old phenomenon that has been going on in cycles of varying duration and severity since time began. 

 

Can we change or influence these cycles?  I doubt it. 

 

Can we adapt to them?  Humankind has been doing so for all its conscious existence.  According to a past Professor of Archeology at Wits, Revel Mason, three migrations from Central Africa to Southern Africa, and back, have taken place during the past 2,000 years.  These are postulated to be in response to changes in climate, which brought increasing rainfall to the south and allowed for large settlements to be established that lasted for centuries, until drought once again drove people back to the better-watered central regions.

 

So what should we do about the current emotional outcry about radical climate change that environmentalists suggest will (not could!) significantly impact humanity within the next century (or in the next decade, if you believe Al Gore and his supporters) if we don’t drastically reduce CO₂emissions immediately?  I am not sufficiently knowledgeable about the science of climate change or why a 0.05% CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere will bring about a doomsday scenario for life on our planet.  But I do know that raw unthinking emotion has taken hold in a generally poorly informed public (including politicians), that intelligent debate on the issue has been squashed by proponents of climate change, and that some of the climate science data is questionable (and rigged, if you believe that the Climate Gate Scandal at the University of East Anglia is just the tip of an iceberg).  In view of conflicting science and opinions, I can only revert to more than 60 years of observations and conclude that, for South Africa, neither the Indian nor the Atlantic Oceans have shown a rise in levels, nor has there been an increase in the severity of storms or spring tides.  In fact, the frequency of droughts over the Highveld region seems to have diminished and better rainfall patterns developed.

 

Don’t get me wrong. I fully believe that we are busy destroying our world and our animal and plant cohabitants through uncontrolled pollution, population growth and spread, avarice consumerism, and inefficient use of resources.  We need to strive to moderate these deficiencies and also reduce emissions and pollution to the best that current technology and affordability can provide, while at the same time developing and deploying advanced technologies that will further reduce or capture these.  However, to spend the vast amounts of money and effort proposed for CO₂ mitigation is absurd when other issues such as Cancer, TB, Malaria, polluted water resources, poverty alleviation, desalination technology, etc., need urgent attention.

 

Energy is the cornerstone of all human development.  We are in danger of throwing the baby (fossil fuels) out with the bath water if current demands for the immediate reduction of CO₂ are taken seriously by legislators, particularly in the Western World.  This would deprive developing countries of affordable energy (and exports), certainly in the absence of other viable energy sources, with potential dire social and political consequences for all.  It would also be viewed as a Western problem being foisted on the developing world. 

 

Fossil fuels have enabled humankind to make giant leaps forward through their availability and affordability.  They are also the stepping stone to the future by providing the energy needs of the present and the time to develop new technologies for the harnessing of other abundant energy resources such as nuclear energy and renewables.  We are not there yet, and probably need another 50 years and more before we can bid farewell to fossil fuel energy.  Besides, coal is too valuable a chemical resource to simply burn!