• Question: what are your opinions on climate change?

    Asked by 08ahorner2011 to Amelia, Jim, Liz on 23 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Amelia Markey

      Amelia Markey answered on 23 Jun 2011:

      This is a big issue and quite a tricky questions to answer.

      Firstly let’s be scientists and look at the evidence….

      Reading taken to monitor climate change have only been available for just over 100 years. Now any scientist will tell you that the more readings you have (the more evidence you have) the better and some of these early readings may not have been very accurate anyway.

      there are a lot of potential causes for changes in the climate. One is the impact of humans. We increase CO2 emissions by burning fossil fuels and this leads to increased CO2 in the atmosphere leading to the greenhouse effect. There are also other things that can cause this such as volcanic eruptions. Variations in the tilt of the Earth, the orbit of the Earth and emissions from the Sun can also contribute to change sin our climate.

      I’m not an expert on these matters but when you form an opinion you need to look at as much of the evidence as possible. I don’t think humans are the only cause, this is a natural process but we could be contributing to the speeding up of climate change.

      Whatever you think it’s always good to recycle and try and cut down the energy you use to try and protect our environment for future generations 🙂

    • Photo: Jim Caryl

      Jim Caryl answered on 23 Jun 2011:

      I think that climate change is real, and that it is influenced by human activity.

      Whilst I am pretty well informed about other fields of science, I am not a climate scientist, and I have not pored over the data to make this assessment myself. I happen to trust in the scientific process, and the consensus amongst scientists who know their stuff is that climate change is very real.

      It’s sometimes difficult, especially when you’re not an expert in the area, to accept what scientists may have to say about their subject, but the scientific method is such that no one lab can make an unsubstantiated (without evidence) bold statement, because another lab somewhere can use the same methodology to test that lab’s claim; so there is no sense in not telling the truth.

      I expect other scientists outside of my field to recognise that the threat of increasing number of antibiotic resistant bacteria is a serious and present threat to all of us. In fact, most scientists accept this. I’ve written in the past that antibiotic resistance is very similar to climate science in some ways – people (media/scientists) like to point out the problem, and talk about why we’ve arrived in this situation. They also like to point out possible solutions to address the problem. However, very little action is ever taken, because like climate change, antibiotic resistance is a *global* issue, and all countries need to take measures to solve the problem, otherwise people will just continue to import superbugs when they travel between countries.