Climate change a 100% robust hoodwink

24th February 2017

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy

     

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I had to explain to somebody that, in 1945, the US dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan. The first was a uranium atom bomb and the second a plutonium bomb.

Following the detonation of these devices, the US, Britain, France and Russia developed programmes to test bombs of increasing power. The power of these bombs was measured first in kilotons equivalent energy for TNT explosive and then in megatons. ‘TNT’, as we all know, stands for trinitrotoluene (now, there is a word to teach the baby), but, for simplicity, we may as well call it dynamite.

Each country took its turn to do bomb tests. The Americans decided that their traditional testing ground, White Plains, in New Mexico, did not have enough real estate to accommodate all the tests, so they moved to the Bikini Atoll, in the South Pacific, where they could, with ease, kick the inhabitants off their home territory and then conduct 23 nuclear tests, which effectively blew significant chunks out of the atoll, rendering it uninhabitable. This is probably where, speculation has it, the phrase ‘not in my backyard’ originated. The bikini, invented by designer Louis Réard, may have been named after the atoll, because, like a nuclear explosion, it leaves a lot of real estate barely covered.

All in all, until 1998, when the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, or NPT, was signed, a total of 1 872 nuclear tests were conducted. These released energy of 630 749 kilotons of TNT over a period of 50 years.

To put this in perspective, the Oklahoma City bombing was a car bombing of the Alfred P Murrah federal building in downtown Oklahoma City in 1995. The bombing destroyed one-third of the building, killed 168 people and injured more than 680 others. The blast destroyed or damaged 324 other buildings within a 16-block radius, shattered glass in 258 nearby buildings and destroyed or burned 86 cars. Oh, um . . . it was a 2.3 kiloton bomb. Virtually all the yield from an atomic bomb appears as heat. And 630 749 kilotons of TNT is about 5% of the total world consumption of energy in 2015.

So, one would imagine, when all the bombs stopped going off, we would see a significant alteration to global warming or climate change. There is none. My mother would have said: “Put that in your pipe and smoke it.”

Very fortunately, we have another event coming up shortly that can prove once and for all if climate change is real. If the stopping of the bombs did not lead to significant change in the climate change rate, there is another factor which, as my East German friend says, “iss on zer plate”. It is Donald Trump. The new US President has declared that he wants to “cancel billions in payments to United Nations climate change programmes”, and he probably will. So, let us assume that the Donald makes good on his pledge.

One presumes that all those people who attend the conferences in Paris, Copenhagen, Lima or Bonn are actually doing something that is going to reduce the effects of climate change. Looking at videos of the Paris event, one was struck by the fact that most of the papers presented were given in lecture theatres and conference halls that were very poorly attended. One got the impression that many of the delegates had managed to get someone to pay for free accommodation and transport and were just using the opportunity to have a free holiday.

This may be unkind – perhaps they were doing field analysis of the effect of climate change on the Bois de Boulogne and the Eiffel Tower. But let us be kind and assume that the climate change conferences have a very real and marked effect on the progress of climate change. And now Trump’s gonna pull the plug on the finances. We should see the rate of climate change increase as rapidly as a Table Mountain fynbos fire. Never have we been in a more exciting time, whereby we can play truth or dare with the world. This is thrilling stuff, almost as much fun as playing with atom bombs.

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

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