Questions for Thailand's global-warming team

How pathetic to read that the delegates to the next Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit will eat vegan to highlight global warming. Some questions need to be answered now by the Thai government’s team on global warming. How can carbon dioxide from cows, or any from other process, cause warming when CO2 makes up only 0.03 per cent of the atmosphere? How can the planet be warming if the ice at both poles is expanding?

A new Nasa study reveals that a build-up of Antarctic snow that began 10,000 years ago is currently adding enough ice to the continent to outweigh the losses from its thinning glaciers. The research challenges the conclusions of other studies, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2013 report, which says that Antarctica is losing land ice. According to the new analysis of satellite data, the ice sheet showed a net gain of 112 billion tonnes per year from 1992 to 2001, slowing to 82 billion tonnes annually between 2003 and 2008.

Meanwhile the Arctic ice sheet is larger than ever, with a 60-per-cent increase in the span of ocean covered by unbroken ice compared to this time last year – the equivalent of almost a million square miles. The Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific has remained blocked by pack ice all year, forcing some ships to change routes.

The Thai government’s global-warming team, by blindly following foreign masters, is doing a great disservice to the country. We can now brace for carbon taxes and restrictions on power generation, maybe even on livestock!  

Thomas Turk