Mostly I agree with the statement that climate change has nothing to do with fossil fuels, despite there being some contradictable evidence. There are also some reasons why David Bellamy’s statement could be wrong.
There have been many times in history where the world’s co2 has been from 3 to 10 times higher that it is now, however the climate itself hadn’t changed greatly, so why is the co2 so important nowadays? One of the reasons for this could be that the ipcc has been in charge of climate change reports since 1988 and although there are many scientists on the team the organisation itself is controlled by politics rather than the science, thus creating a manipulated result. Leading from this if climate change (global warming) wasn’t such a big scare, the public would give less money towards ‘stopping it’ and research leaving a large amount of people unemployed. This would mean the public body is being misled and the complete matter is over exaggerated to suit the government.
Furthermore the world’s climate has always been changing with little to no help from human influence. This has been proven through both the little ice age and the medieval warm period. The little ice age happened between the 1500 and 1800 where global temperature dropped to an average of around -0.8 degrees. During this time around 1780 industrialisation began in England, leaving London burning a substantial amount of fossil fuels and yet the temperature didn’t increase properly till around the 1800. This proves that although higher levels of co2 where being pumped into the air, they had little effect on the climate. The medieval warm period happened much earlier ion around 1000 to 1100 where temperatures where on average around 0 degrees. During this time there was no co2 being burnt and put into the atmosphere. This would suggest that levels were supposed to be lower than the ones during the little ice age because there was less input for it to be higher. This also supports the idea that humans burning fossil fuels aren’t the control of climate change.
Over the last 542 million years there has been a change of 15 degrees in global average temperatures, this ranging from extremely hot to cold temperatures and fluctuating without any pattern. In this time humans have been around for about 200000 years so the addition of burning fossil fuels is near to nothing compared to old ‘hot’ periods of time. This enhances the idea that climate change is completely natural and that there is no unambiguous atmospheric signal identified that links in with climate change. This suggests at a larger scale that the public has been given misleading or twisted information in order to acquire money. An example of this could be that since 1890 over 50 billion dollars being spent the scientific research is weak and uncertain with no hard-core evidence to back up the points/ideas. Following on from that carbon dioxide is the smallest contributor top greenhouse gasses, with a measly only 26% concentration, it’s hard to believe that it is the main cause/reason for rising temperature.
Saying that however all records previous to 1960 can be ruled out as inaccurate and non-reliable. This making it extremely difficult to make precise predictions about what the future holds for climate change. In 1960 is the first year that co2 was measured and recorded meaning any comparison before then is with missing information. This makes it difficult to see a change or pattern because there is no relatable cause between before 1960 and after 1960. This also means that we have little data to manipulate and evaluate to make predictions and spot patterns, leaving it entirely possible that the burning of fossil fuels could help with rising temperatures as there is a correlation between the two. As temperature rises so does co2, even if there are fluctuations.
Also the speed at which climate change is happening is frightful, normally it would take around 1000 years? Same time as mass extinction but possibly due to the industrial revolution, global temperatures have risen almost identically to the rate of population growth as has co2 parts per million in a tiny time period of about 50-70 years. Continuing this the concentration of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere has increased to levels unprecedented on 800000 a year. Scientist david moduey claims that ‘the levels of power are unsustainable’ and that we need to cut down on them or co2 levels will continue to rise and leave a planet unable to live on for future generations. Also Nicholas stern believes that ‘we only have a 50% chance of keeping global temperature rise below 2 degrees’ suggesting that we are responsible for at least 50 if not more percent of what will happen to climate change implying that the burning of fossil fuels has a large impact and is responsible for what could or could not happen. This also goes against what david bellamy believed and supports the idea that the burning of fossil fuels contributes if not being the main factor.
In my opinion I agree to most extent of the statement from david bellamy about the burning of fossil fules not having an effect on climate change, because although rates have increased previously the same events have taken place when there was little to no human impact therefore making the process a natural one and unpredictable one where the best you can do is prepare for it and accept it when it comes, because there seems to be little point in my opinion spending and wasting money to try and predict a natural fluctuating cycle.