HEAT WAVE OR BIG FREEZE, WE JUST LEARN TO ADAPT

Daily Post, 25 July 2006
 HYPERLINK "http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/breakingnews/tm_objectid=17442226%26method=full%26siteid=50061%26page=3%26headline=can%2dwe%2ddo%2danything%2dabout%2dglobal%2dwarming%2d-name_page.html" \t "linkWin" http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/breakingnews/tm_objectid=17442226%26method=full%26siteid=50061%26page=3%26headline=can%2dwe%2ddo%2danything%2dabout%2dglobal%2dwarming%2d-name_page.html

By Benny Peiser

In my work, I look at how societies throughout history have dealt with climate change.

Britain has gone through extreme cold periods like the Ice Age. Then we had warm periods in the Middle Ages, cold periods again, and we are now in a warm period.

All societies have different experiences with the weather. The question is: how can they become less vulnerable to climate change and build up their resilience?

We have to look at coping with and adapting to these weather events, because - in the short term at least - we will not be able to change it.

I do not think anyone is questioning we are now in a period of global warming, so we should expect summers to get hotter. But there is no way that, in the next one or two generations, we will be able to do anything about global warming.

Although Britain is trying to do something, most countries cannot. Even Europe as a whole is failing to control carbon dioxide emissions. Meanwhile, in the Far East, China is building one coal-fired power station a week.

There is still a debate on how much of global warming is due to human input and how much is simply a case of natural warming cycles.

However, we should forget about the science behind global warming - that is irrelevant. What matters is what people do to protect themselves when a hot summer is on the way. People say this is the hottest summer since 1911. All that means is they must have had a terribly hot heat wave 95 years ago. What caused that?

There was no global warming in 1911 and carbon dioxide emissions were far below today's. Who did they blame back then? Perhaps God. Or maybe they just put it down to freak weather.

We have had periods in the last few thousand years where it was much warmer than it is today. It is nothing people cannot cope with. It is just unusual because individuals have such short memories.

Many years ago, societies were more rigid and could not cope with climate change. Many were agricultural, and if they had a drought, a failed crop could lead to starvation. But this is nothing we are concerned about today. A lot of people are not that unhappy about the warm climate. Older people suffer if they have not got support. But, by and large, children and normal people love it, and it is not causing an economic or social disaster.

I personally think, from a scientific perspective, it is irrelevant whether the current heatwave is due to a freak weather event or caused by a general warming trend, because there will always be heat waves.

In the near future, whether global warming is man-made or not, we will still have to deal with the consequences.

It is an illusion to think we can reverse that trend.

To cut a long story short, people need to live with hot summers.

Copyright 2006, Daily Post