It’s been scorching hot day after day. People say that if you fall on the pavement, you can suffer serious burns from the heat of the asphalt. Even the cicadas seem to have disappeared. These days, their larvae may be cooked underground before they ever emerge, and summer arrives with hardly a chirp.
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Come to think of it, it’s not just the cicadas that have gone quiet. The anti-CO₂ campaigners seem unusually silent as well. Perhaps COVID stole their spotlight. Or perhaps global warming has accelerated so rapidly that many have concluded it is already too late for CO₂ regulations to make much difference.
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Anyway, environmental issues have never been purely scientific debates. They have also involved competition for university positions, television appearances, speaking engagements, and various forms of influence. To preserve their dominance, advocates of the “CO₂-is-the-culprit” theory often worked aggressively to silence anyone who suggested that climate change might have causes other than carbon dioxide..
It reminds me of the way rival branches of Christianity in earlier centuries fought less over faith than over church property and tax revenues.
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Those who engaged in such tactics now bear a responsibility to speak up. By focusing the world’s attention almost exclusively on CO₂, they may have delayed the adoption of other measures that could have more effectively helped societies adapt to climate change.
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Throughout Earth’s history, temperatures have risen and fallen repeatedly. In Japan, for example, sea levels around 10,000 years ago were roughly five meters higher than they are today, implying warmer temperatures as well—perhaps one or two degrees Celsius higher on average. If carbon dioxide alone were responsible for rising temperatures, then atmospheric CO₂ concentrations would have had to decline dramatically afterward.
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The CO₂-centered view may also reflect a certain European belief that humanity can reshape nature itself. Yet major climatic shifts can occur simply because Earth’s axis tilts slightly or because solar activity changes. A one-degree change in Earth’s tilt, or a modest increase in sunspot activity, can have significant climatic consequences.
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What we are experiencing today may be less “global warming” than a growing climatic instability. Summers are becoming hotter, yet winters in many places have also become harsher. That suggests that the underlying causes may lie not only on Earth but perhaps in the Sun as well.
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For example, since 2020 the number of sunspots has been rising steadily, indicating increased solar activity. Sunspot activity is known to fluctuate in roughly eleven-year cycles.
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I support the spread of electric vehicles and see no problem with expanding carbon-emissions trading. But climate policy cannot rely solely on reducing CO₂ emissions.
We should also encourage technologies that convert heat into usable energy, improve cooling systems, assist those who cannot afford air conditioning, develop inexpensive insulation methods for buildings, and expand irrigation projects in regions increasingly threatened by desertification. Climate adaptation must be approached from a global perspective.
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Looking back at Earth’s climatic history, every warming period has eventually come to an end. It is not that the Sun is now suddenly expanding toward the end of its life, nor has Earth’s axial tilt dramatically increased. This period of warming, too, is likely to have its limits.
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