Czech President Questions Global Warming, Attacks Al Gore’s Climate Campaign

Czech President Vaclav Klaus, who is also the current President of the European Union, has once again voiced his skepticism about global warming.

At an event at the World Economic Forum, in Davos, the Czech President said he doubts that global warming is actually occurring and that many scientists fail to consider alternative theories regarding the issue. He also attacked former US Vice President and environmental activist, Al Gore, of failing to look at the complete picture in regard to the global phenomenon.

The Czech President didn’t mince his words in questioning the legitimacy of the scientific community’s concerns regarding global warning.

I don’t think that there is any global warming, I don’t see the statistical data for that. I’m very sorry that some people like Al Gore are not ready to listen to the competing theories. I do listen to them.

Global Warming, Eutrophication Creating Death Zones In Oceans

A recent article on the Times Online website looks at the rapidly increasing ‘Dead Zones’ in our seas and oceans. Dead zones are the regions where the marine life cease to survive mainly due to lack of oxygen. Rapid depletion of oxygen in the oceans is leading to great loss of biodiversity which has been deteriorated by 25% during the last three decades.

Global Warming Is Heating The Seas

Solubility of oxygen decreases with increase in temperature so the increasing temperatures deplete the dissolved oxygen leading to death of millions of marine organisms. As stated in the Times article the concentration of DO decreases from 10ml to just 4ml as the temperature increases from 0°C to 25°C. 4ml is the bare minimum required by most marine organisms to survive on while many require higher concentration of DO.

Due to the changing temperatures the directions of the ocean currents have also changed significantly. These currents now carry warm waters to the areas which never received warm waters. The warm and cold waters form layers in different levels of the oceans disturbing the ecosystem of the ocean. This thermal stratification further prevents dissolution of free oxygen in the oceans leading to further loss of marine life.

What Comes First: You Or The Planet

The question people are asking themselves more often than ever before. Everybody loves technology; our hunger for better, faster & gen-next devices never quenches. But as the issue of global warming and its impact on the lives of common people like us is being discussed with increasing concern, we find ourselves caught in a classic moral dilemma.

A few days back I was reading an article about ‘food miles’. It explained how the physical distance traveled by a food product from the farm to our plates contributes the carbon dioxide emissions. I thought what can we do about this, we can’t just stop eating food or move to the farmlands so that the food doesn’t have to ‘travel’ much to reach me.

In the past few months there have come up numerous websites which help you calculate your ‘carbon footprint’. Yahoo! too came up with its ‘Green’ site encouraging people to pledge some amount of carbon dioxide that they would try to save by using their appliances & vehicles more efficiently. But how many of us really follow that and what percentage of our ‘pledge’ do we actually succeed in achieving. Most people tend to calculate their carbon footprint as a fun thing or they treat it like a game. Very few of us seem really serious about it.

People tend to blame their governments or more commonly the developed countries. I don’t have the numbers but I’m pretty sure that the CO2 emissions due to our individual activities (buying big cars & our habits of leaving appliances running when we don’t need them, to name a few) easily outdo the industrial emissions.

Many of us wish & want to do our bit to minimize our individual carbon emissions but more often then not we find ourselves trapped between our desires for technology & comfort on one hand and our conscience which tells to fulfill our responsibilities towards our planet.

Politics changing with changing climate

Well earth’s climate is not the only thing which is changing. The political climate across the world is also changing and how.

Till a few years back the issues which used to dominate any major election worldwide were the respective country’s economic state, public health structure, and religion or security issues. But as the ice melted at the poles so did these traditional issues.

People are now more concerned about the changing climate than ever before. People around the world now easily relate the changing global climate to their way of living.Be it a hurricane on the Gulf coast, floods in central Europe or draught in Portugal or Spain, the first question that comes in the minds of the people is that are our leaders doing anything about the changing climate?

People now directly relate the rise in food products to the pressure on farmlands due to the change in climate which effects the growth of the crops. People now want their governments to switch from the traditional fuels to more clean fuels. People now think twice before buying a new car or installing a new air conditioner. It is clear from the industry trends that the consumers now want more fuel efficient cars.

With changing climate, the concerns of the masses are also rising. The people want to action; the people want to see the measures discussed in international conferences to be implemented.

It’s the first time the history of the American Presidential elections that the issues of climate change & global warming have become such a hot political property. Every potential candidate wants to get it right as far as these controversial issues are concerned. But the like the people around the world, the Americans are also divided on the issue of how or to what extent global warming is effecting our climate.

None the less, our politicians are fast gearing up to use these issues to their advantage to gain as much political currency as they can.