Sunday, June 28, 2009

By ANDREW SHELDON

Hanno, Saitama

For some time now we have been told that humanity is unleashing a global environmental crisis, and that if we don't act now we will do irreversible damage. These are serious claims. Governments around the world are spending huge amounts of money to correct a problem that may not be a problem.

As a geologist I was inclined to question the assertions. It became apparent to me several years ago that a lot of scientists were publishing dubious research to support the global warming claim. I had performed no research on this myself; I merely seized on the fact that the evidence often seemed self-refuting or demonstrated a poor thought process.

It also became apparent to me that there was a philosophical explanation for what was happening. My university science and critical thinking skills were telling me that what I was reading was nonsense. It was only after completing "research" recently that it became apparent that there is no crisis.

By my perspective the climate is changing as it always has. Humans will just have to adjust to it. It is human arrogance or humility that leads to the conclusion that we could do so much damage, or be so evil. I also have a perspective that "nontechnicians" will relate to. The evidence I have gathered is nothing as exciting as ice cores from Antarctica or oxygen-isotopes from fossilized bird droppings. It consists of simple, readily available statistics pertaining to the global population and the dimensions of Earth.

While a lot of "greenies" run around scaring people with science they don't understand, I'm here to present third-grade math that is easy to grasp. The basic facts, which come from Wikipedia, plus my calculations show the implausibility of the global warming hypothesis: For every person on the globe there are seven hectares of land area, but if you consider the columnar volume of the atmosphere above each person on Earth, you realize that you couldn't possibly be the culprit of global warming. It was arrogance to think otherwise.

Conclusion: The global warming hypothesis fails the common-sense test. This third grader thinks Western governments want to introduce a more comprehensive carbon tax because world petroleum reserves are being depleted.

The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.

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