Expanding the possibilities within climate science

In 1800, only 2 percent of the world's population lived in urban areas. Urban population has grown from 751 million in 1950 to 4.2 billion in 2018. This is 55 percent of the world's population. According to the United Nations, this is projected to rise to 68 percent by 2050. Although, some cities are decreasing in population, China, India, and Nigeria are experiencing rapid urbanization.

In contrast, world rural population is now close to 3.4 billion, and is expected to peak in a few years. World rural population is expected to decline to 3.1 billion by 2050, according to the same United Nations report.

Rapid urbanization is bringing with it a number of undesirable environmental effects. Increasing urban sprawl is creating urban heat islands (UHL), causing excessive heat during summers, and creating milder winters. Cities reflect heat back out into the atmosphere at 15-30 percent less than rural areas. This means that cities are warmer by 0.6-1.3^o C, than rural areas. Urbanization is also creating poor regional air quality, resulting in haze and pollution troughs across cities and surrounding regions.

With 'World's hottest day' headlines drumming up climate alarmism, nothing is mentioned about the limited time that temperature records have been kept. Daily world temperature record keeping only goes back around 160 years, at the most, when humans have existed on the Earth for more than 300,000 years.

When other research is examined that was undertaken for other purposes than climate change, many benefits have been found. Agronomic research crop yields increase dramatically as temperature and CO² levels rise. For example, results of my own research, back in the 1990s showed that tea-tree (Melaleuca alternifolia) is adaptable to the Malaysian climate and oil yields are higher than the corresponding yields of plants grown along the north coast of New South Wales by a factor of 4, the major production centre in Australia. Higher temperatures in Northern Australia have allowed farmers to cultivate tropical fruits, including jackfruits, rambutan, durian, dragon fruit, and longans.

Climate change is creating the conditions and opportunities to develop new industries in Australia.

Time and time again, it has been found that warmer climate is generally favourable for quicker growth cycles and higher yields of crops. So global warming has positives that can be beneficial.

Climate change is still very much an evolving domain of science. There needs to be a much wider diversity of research to better understand the dynamics of climate change. Making important strategic decisions upon what is known about climate change today, could have disastrous consequences in the future.