Is the public at risk of being brainwashed into accepting measures that would be economically disastrous?
If an elderly mother in intensive care developed a fever, her metabolic rate going up with increasing levels of respiratory CO2, what would be the appropriate remedy? Instruct her carers to turn off her life support system and threaten a hefty fine if they refuse?
If that sounds crazy, what are we being urged to do on a massive scale to save Mother Earth, by politicians and economists, egged on by the media? "We" are to blame for global warming and unless we do something drastic, we face a global catastrophe. So a carbon tax is proposed to curtail mobility alongside costly alternatives to fossil fuels, like nuclear power or roof-top windmills. The measures proposed are so draconian they could trigger a global slump, the likes of which have not been seen since the 1920's. There is no debate. The voices of independent experts are virtually inaudible, drowned out by repetitive, round-the-clock news chatter. Isn't it high time to take a fresh appoach?
While the world was led to imagine an imminent disaster was in the making, in January 2007 snow blanketed large parts of New Mexico, Arizona and Northern Mexico while our world leaders gathered in snowy Davos in the Swiss Alps for the World Economic Forum where this 'big issue' was being aired. At the periphery of the agenda were some matters touching our healthcare industry, including the perceived threat of a global pandemic from a human transmissible mutant of the H5N1 avian influenza virus and the challenge of distributing flu vaccines to billions.
Life on Earth became possible and evolved thanks to the greenhouse effect coupled with a fairly stable climate - despite solar flares, cosmic radiation and tectonic activity. The major greenhouse agent (accounting for about 95%) isn't carbon-based, but stratospheric water vapour (good clean H2O). Anthropogenic contribution, ie, what "we" and "our" ancestors have "caused," amounts to less than 0.3% while the alleged carbon culprit isn't CO2, but methane generated by ruminant animals, paddy fields, marshes, bogs, termites, land-fill sites, and even by tropical forests.
What's scary is the amount of methane, which is over 20 times more powerful and more persistent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas, stored in Arctic and Siberian tundra permafrost and under the oceans. A methane mega-burp from such sources, as measured in hundreds of gigatons, might trigger a runaway warming effect. Compared with that, CO2 from combustion of non-renewable energy sources is trivial. Furthermore, new research into melting polar ice-caps suggests that the Arctic Ocean could absorb triple the volume of CO2 - acting as a sink to steady the atmospheric levels.
So, let's push for an open debate. Let non-governmental experts speak out and counterbalance the flow of hot air in the popular media that is softening up all of us before we are clobbered with massive stealth taxes and an ensuing economic melt down.
In Spring, 20-21 March, the 6th Annual Bio/PharMOS event in Monaco will tackle issues nearer to reality -- investment in outsourcing services, expanding opportunities in natural products and nutraceuticals and regulatory issues, and how to be prepared for a possible influenza pandemic.
Jim Miller, who is a leading expert and the publisher of Bio/Pharmaceutical Outourcing Report will review current trends, including the role of India and China, in outsourced development and manufacturing.
Further details of Bio/PharMOS 2007
Keywords : Environment, Earth greenhouse effect, global warming, CO2, stratospheric water (H2O) methane global economy, taxation, Arctic ocean, tundra, Siberia, avian influenza H5N1, human transmissible mutant, pandemic
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