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"Of course we can, after all its our doing!" is probably what most of you are thinking this instant. Many of you might just be considering turning the page in search of something more credible, and understandably so.

Yet, if the incessant bombardment by the media and the alarmist tendencies of the more influential (read politically correct) sections of the scientific community have numbed your senses into submission to their version of global warming, then read on.

Now that I have your attention, it would be mutually beneficial that we are in agreement on a few things at the very outset. First and foremost, I have absolutely no doubt that global warming as a phenomenon is a reality. Second, any facts and/or scientific findings mentioned here are attributable to eminent scientists and climatologists and not to the whims and fancies of a first-year management grad.

Throughout history, science has been looked upon with veneration and its proponents treated with unparalleled respect. Yet, this most noble of disciplines has not been immune to the influence of socio-political forces. Time and again the politically, socially and often religiously backed idea has prevailed over the one backed only by scientific evidence and rationality. Certain schools of thought are often suppressed only because they seek to dispel universally accepted norms (often myths!).

Global warming is the case in point.

For the past decade or so, climatologists have been crying foul over how human beings are the primary cause of global warming and that industrialization and deforestation are indeed the main drivers of what is increasingly being touted as impending doom. Based on this belief, solutions such as curtailing the rapid growth of industrialisation, stopping deforestation to house an ever-increasing global population, capping the carbon emissions on a country-wise basis (the mandate of the Kyoto Protocol), among others are being proposed.

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* Contributed by -
Misal Mehta,
Media Relations Coordinator,
Department of Management Studies,
IIT Delhi.