Theres a chill about global warming Radhika Singh NEW DELHI 24 APRIL THERE is a dark shadow looming over the world. It's the shadow of drought. It spreads from India to the US, from the Middle East to Australia. Temperatures world-wide are on the rise, lakes and rivers are drying up, cattle and other animals are dying and crops are withering.

Indeed, it seems Mother Earth is in the throes of climatic changes, the implications of which are wide and devastating. Since the seventies, global temperatures have gone up from 13.8 F to 14 F. This may not seem a big deal, but small changes in temperature can cause terrible calamities like droughts, floods, cyclones and hurricanes. Look at the current picture. Even as India battles with one of its worst-ever droughts, so is the US  the Mississippi valley and the mid-west have been reeling under one for the past few months  and Florida is next on the hit-list. Eastern Canada, too, has been in the grip of a drought for the past three years; the water level in the Great Lakes is below the 80-year average.

The pincer is pressing into Australia too: it led to a number of forest fires last year; it's eating into the Pacific island-state of Hawaii, where rainfall has been below normal for over a year; it's drying up scanty water sources in the Middle East. Indeed, drought is fast becoming a global phenomenon.

We can actually feel the rise in temperatures in India. In northern India, from Kashmir where the apple crop is threatened, to Haryana and Delhi, temperatures are currently 7 to 8 degrees above normal. The US has just recorded its warmest ever winter in the last 106 years. At 41.7 F, which has been the average temperature recorded there in the first quarter of 00, it is more than a degree higher than the warmest ever temperature recorded in the 90s.

Why is this happening? Most of us know why  it's humankind's unthinking and relentless quest for energy. To quote the Earth Day 2000 30-year report card from the Worldwatch Institute: As our growing population increased its burning of coal and oil to produce power, the carbon locked in millions of years worth of ancient plant growth was released into the air, laying a heat-retaining blanket of carbon dioxide over the planet.

To boot, an unchecked generation of industrial gases has been depleting the ozone cover. In fact, the ozone layer over Antartica has already been punctured. The net result: temperatures have risen and scientists predict this this would disrupt weather as never before. Indeed, annual damages from weather disasters have increased over 40-fold.

A couple of recent examples: Hurricane Mitch which took the US by storm, and the cyclones and floods last year across India which ravaged several states. In fact, the super cyclone in Orissa in 99 is said to typify the kind of horror that's in store for us.

The resultant economic loss is enormous. For example, world-wide the damage from storms in 98 is estimated at a whopping $93bn. Unless the trend is reversed, losses will only mount. As for the current trend, things are getting only hotter. According to the Intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC), Earth's surface is likely to warm at least 2 F in the short run, and as much as 9 F by the end of the 21st century. The Nineties have seen record-setting warming  the two hottest years on record were 97 and 98. Are there beads of sweat on your brow?

http://www.economictimes.com/today/25lead02.htm

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), April 24, 2000

Answers

Well, yes and no. The Washington Post, which has been alerting all and sundry to the problem of global warming, had 24 col. inches on the topic. It was filled with statistics, not "my god, it sure is hot today, Mable".

And what was the bottom line? The statistics showed an increase of one degree. And this is F, not C. One degree over the past ONE HUNDRED YEARS.

All one need do is to look at tree rings (bristle cone pines, going back 4500 years) or take corings from Icelandic snow or corral reefs to determine that the temperature of the earth goes up. And down. And back up. And back down.

Twenty years ago, the people who were telling us that the earth was getting colder are now the same folks telling us it is getting hotter.

Think about it: how accurate is the average 5 day forecast? Not very.

Having said all the above, I agree that it is a good idea to cut back on petroleum use.

-- alex (cognitiveone@yahoo.com), April 24, 2000.

The cycle continues as it always has. People forget that we are currently in a cold cycle. Greenland was in fact green when it was first discovere

-- james moyer (dinocoder@yahoo.com), April 26, 2000.