Climate change for dummies
Since the publication of my previous letter, (Letters, March 30, page 8), I have predictably been called a fraud, and worse, on several Web sites dedicated to conspiracy-theory climate denial.
The “evidence” floating around on these blogs like a pestilent vapor is a graph showing that, despite the continuing exponential increase in greenhouse gases, temperatures have not continued to rise over the past decade.
Ergo, global warming is an environmental conspiracy dreamt up by eco-fascists.
While it is a waste of time to try to reason with denialists, the recent “halt” in global temperatures may confuse the public and should therefore be explained.
First, it should be emphasized that temperatures have not gone down, but have remained at a historic high, higher than for many centuries.
Second, as I have argued previously (Letters, Sept. 18, 2012, page 8), the problem is not the increase in temperature, but the increase in greenhouse gases.
Their exponential rise is a cause for alarm because they trap heat (unless you want to rewrite the laws of physics). Temperatures will eventually follow this rise, but given the non-linear complexity of the Earth’s ecosystem, no serious scientist expected temperatures to follow suit in a straight, linear fashion.
Several reasons have been proposed for the recent “halt”: We are in the midst of a period of La Nina climatic events, and once the climate system changes back to El Nino events, temperatures will probably increase dramatically. Rising sulphate emissions in Asia may have a cooling effect. Solar activity has also decreased during the past decade, but is now increasing again, but still does not explain the abnormally high temperatures.
Finally, what should really concern people is the warming of the oceans.
It is another basic fact that water holds about four times as much heat as the same mass of air, and there is a lot more ocean than atmosphere.
Once the oceans have heated up, global warming will be with us for centuries to come.
It is therefore certainly possible that some of the “missing” energy was taken up by the melting of ice as well as the oceans, which have continued to get warmer and warmer.
This is the same physical principle why most of the energy in heating or cooling a room does not go into the air, but into the walls and furniture, and why badly insulated rooms require more heating or cooling.
Being surrounded by oceans, which determine weather patterns and give work to fishing fleets, the increasing temperature and acidity of the oceans — the evil twin of global warming — will undoubtedly have a widespread negative impact on Taiwan’s economy, maybe not in the next 10 years, but certainly in the next 50 years.
All these facts are basic high-school science, but the objective of climate denial is not science, but ultimately to further the profits of the fossil-fuel industry.
Now, there you have a valid global conspiracy theory.
Flora Faun
Taipei
George Santayana wrote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This article will help readers avoid repeating mistakes by examining four examples from the civil war between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forces and the Republic of China (ROC) forces that involved two city sieges and two island invasions. The city sieges compared are Changchun (May to October 1948) and Beiping (November 1948 to January 1949, renamed Beijing after its capture), and attempts to invade Kinmen (October 1949) and Hainan (April 1950). Comparing and contrasting these examples, we can learn how Taiwan may prevent a war with
Taiwan is rapidly accelerating toward becoming a “super-aged society” — moving at one of the fastest rates globally — with the proportion of elderly people in the population sharply rising. While the demographic shift of “fewer births than deaths” is no longer an anomaly, the nation’s legal framework and social customs appear stuck in the last century. Without adjustments, incidents like last month’s viral kicking incident on the Taipei MRT involving a 73-year-old woman would continue to proliferate, sowing seeds of generational distrust and conflict. The Senior Citizens Welfare Act (老人福利法), originally enacted in 1980 and revised multiple times, positions older
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has its chairperson election tomorrow. Although the party has long positioned itself as “China friendly,” the election is overshadowed by “an overwhelming wave of Chinese intervention.” The six candidates vying for the chair are former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), former lawmaker Cheng Li-wen (鄭麗文), Legislator Luo Chih-chiang (羅智強), Sun Yat-sen School president Chang Ya-chung (張亞中), former National Assembly representative Tsai Chih-hong (蔡志弘) and former Changhua County comissioner Zhuo Bo-yuan (卓伯源). While Cheng and Hau are front-runners in different surveys, Hau has complained of an online defamation campaign against him coming from accounts with foreign IP addresses,
Taiwan’s business-friendly environment and science parks designed to foster technology industries are the key elements of the nation’s winning chip formula, inspiring the US and other countries to try to replicate it. Representatives from US business groups — such as the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, and the Arizona-Taiwan Trade and Investment Office — in July visited the Hsinchu Science Park (新竹科學園區), home to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC) headquarters and its first fab. They showed great interest in creating similar science parks, with aims to build an extensive semiconductor chain suitable for the US, with chip designing, packaging and manufacturing. The