Reference: Maybe it's time to heed the warnings, Bangkok Post, February 8, 2009

A Bangkok Post editorial says that if the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) were to melt in its entirety, the sea level would rise by seven meters and cause a great inundation of Biblical proportions (Maybe it's time to heed the warnings, Bangkok Post, February 8, 2009). The statement is a hypothetical truism. The relevant information has not been provided. We don't know if the WAIS will melt and if so how long that process would take and we don't know whether our selection of energy source would make a difference. The further claim that climate change will turn California into a desert by reducing snowfall in the Sierra Nevada takes no measure of the role of the Colorado River in irrigating what used to be a desert into an agriculturally productive area or of recent trends in snowfall in the Sierra. My guess is that the real purpose of these allegedly scientific reports is to serve a marketing function ahead of the Copenhagen meeting that will likely decide the fate of the global warming agenda and its financial benefits to the scientists engaged therein.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand