FC NOW: The Fast Company Weblog
January 24, 2007
The Climate's Changing At Davos
The World Economic Forum is getting underway in earnest--and I do mean earnest--today in Davos. A major theme is climate change. It's a hot topic of discussion, if you'll forgive the expression, and the subject of several formal sessions. The warming of the planet feels particularly visceral and immediate here because Switzerland has been experiencing one of its warmest winters on record. For most of the two-hour ride from Zurich to Davos, there wasn't a patch of snow to be seen, even on the mountaintops. Just verdant fields.
In a debate this morning on "Making Green Pay," James E. Rogers, the CEO of Duke Energy, had the thankless task of arguing in favor of nuclear energy and clean coal. But he had one very trenchant point: that any solution to the problems of energy, the environment, and global warming must be multi-faceted. There is, as he put it, no silver bullet. Only silver buckshot.
And speaking of climate change, the temperature in Davos dropped sharply overnight, and there was a heavy snowfall.
Posted by Mark Vamos at January 24, 2007 10:16 AM | Category: davos 2007 |
2 Comments
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God does have a sense of humor doesn't he??
If you ever want a good snow storm just hold a Global Warming summit!! HA HA!
BTW, doesn't the South Pole count as part of "The Globe"?
Charlie
(Unconvinced by the hacks who are in a position to profit from Global Warming fears telling me there is global warming Just 30 years ago, they were telling us the next ice age was coming!! Gimme a break)
In nearly every statistic I've ever read, the tag line "...warmest [fill in appropriate global-warming-themed noun] on record" seems to be included.
This is the inherent flaw of the argument: We only have records for the past 100-150 years or so. Some would argue that we have records of millions of years because of glacial and sedimentary formations that are analysed to prove weather patterns from before the age of man. One thing they leave out is the margin of error for such claims. In theory, the margin could be 1-100%...take your pick.
When it comes down to knowing the history of the earth's weather patterns, and subsequently the melting of glaciers at the North Pole and higher-than-normal temps in Switzerland, we really don't know the whys and hows in full, even if the Almighty Gore thinks he does.
MAS