Addresses Vatican Seminar on Climate Change
VATICAN CITY, APRIL 27, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Scientists might not have human behavior to blame for global warming, according to the president of the World Federation of Scientists.
Antonio Zichichi, who is also a retired professor of advanced physics at the University of Bologna, made this assertion today in an address delivered to an international congress sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
The conference, which ends today, is examining "Climate Change and Development."
Zichichi pointed out that human activity has less than a 10% impact on the environment.
He also cited that models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are incoherent and invalid from a scientific point of view. The U.N. commission was founded in 1988 to evaluate the risk of climate change brought on by humans.
Zichichi, who is also member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, showed that the mathematical models used by the IPCC do not correspond to the criteria of the scientific method.
He said that the IPCC used "the method of 'forcing' to arrive at their conclusions that human activity produces meteorological variations."
The physicist affirmed that on the basis of actual scientific fact "it is not possible to exclude the idea that climate changes can be due to natural causes," and that it is plausible that "man is not to blame."
To that end, Zichichi explained how the motor of meteorology depends on natural phenomena. He gave as an example the "energy sent by the sun and volcanic activity that spits out lava and enormous quantities of substances in the atmosphere."
He also reminded those present that 500,000 years ago the Earth lost the North and South Poles four times. The poles disappeared and reformed four times, he said.
Zichichi said that in the end he is not convinced that global warming is caused by the increase of emissions of "greenhouse gases" produced through human activity.
Climate changes, he said, depend in a significant way on the fluctuation of cosmic rays.
Code: ZE07042702
Date: 2007-04-27