“Carbon emissions” are not “carbon”, as many people erroneously assert, but are really “carbon dioxide emissions”. CO2 is a benign gas that is not pollution at all but instead is the very stuff of life as it is a crucial reactant in plant photosynthesis.

Similarly, the comments about sea level rise in the piece are quite misleading. Yes, sea level has been generally rising since the end of the last glacial over 10,000 years ago, but the rates of change are, in comparison with what it has been, quite low. And the idea that the Maldives are sinking due to sea level rise is not supported by the data – take a look at what sea level expert Professor Nils-Axel Mörner of Sweden wrote in the Copenhagen Climate Challenge, another appeal “to world-leaders assembled at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen”, but one that says some very different things to the above referenced Beijing Appeal:

http://tinyurl.com/yarajhu

Note also what Professor Mörner says about sea level rise in Bangladesh and other areas.

There is no question that sea level rise will, and probably is right now, threatening some important repositories of heritage and history. But the assertion that “Rising ocean levels associated with climate change will swamp every coastal city in the world if unchecked” is misleading on two counts – one, that anything unusual is happening at present or will happen very quickly in the foreseeable future with respect to sea level rise, and two, that we can “check” it, or in any way slow it down. Climate changes all the time and sea levels will naturally respond and so we must adapt to this. But the hypothesis (and it has never been more than that) that human-caused so-called “greenhouse gas” emissions, which is what most of Copenhagen was about, are causing a climate crisis is highly speculative with more and more research suggesting this is very unlikely.

The assumption in the above article seems to be that the science of the issue is “settled”. Reality is the complete opposite. In fact we are in an era of negative discovery where the more we learn about climate change science, the more we realize we do not understand.

Formulating rational government policy in the light of this massive uncertainty is a topic that should be discussed and is one of the issues I will suggest to the students in my survey course at Carleton U we debate/discuss in our last lecture coming up on April 6.

For some background on this uncertainty, I suggest readers have a look at the Copenhagen Climate Challenge at

http://www.copenhagenclimatechallenge.org/

Tom Harris
Instructor – ERTH2402
Executive Director – International Climate Science Coalition