Climate change — Is it the cause or the effect?

Abstract

Climate change and global warming are currently hot topics. There is no doubt that warming is taking place in some parts of the globe as evidenced by melting of ice caps and glaciers, sea level rises, temperature rises, among other changes. At the same time, skeptics are of the view that the issue is blown out of proportion, and that warming exists locally and that it is premature to conclude that it is a global phenomenon. Projections made into the future climate have many uncertainties. These include model uncertainties, data length and their representativeness, calibration and validation issues, and the logic of projecting into 100 years or more into the future with a relatively short window of observations. What is not made known to the public at large is a balanced view that highlights the real scientific evidence and limitations and uncertainties of their findings. As a result the general public do not get a balanced view of the issues and get to know only a partial truth and not the whole truth. In this paper, an attempt is made to revisit the issues in the light of available information, and to highlight the important role of increasing population, with the objective of giving a reasonably balanced view since opinions about the issues are either biased or divided.