The Great Global Warming Swindle

...and Mars appears to be undergoing the same changes as us, which would certainly suggest a non-terrestrial cause:

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1660

I think many people, non expert numpties like myself included, have been very suspicious of arguments about CO2 causing climate change. The common sense arguments just don't stack up. I remember all the talk of a new ice age in the 70's because temperatures had been falling for 30 years. (Despite apparently ever growing Carbon emissions)

CO2 is nothing more than a trace element in the atmosphere. The planet itself, particularly the sea, produces more CO2 than everyone on earth by a huge factor. Then there's animals too. Medievil times were far warmer, the 17th Century was much colder. The world warms up, the world cools down. The power produced by the Sun seems an entirely more logical argument. Then all of a sudden, bad science began to appear. It's clearly bollox, polar bears and penguins have coped for millennia, I'm they will continue to do so.

Pollution is not a good thing, anyone from a local being downwind of a chemicals factory in India or stuck behind a London Taxi would agree. CO2 casuing global warming? I just don't buy it.

It's clearly vested interests. Bad science hijacked by industries and politicians using it to persuade others over their arguments. Be it taxation, Nuclear energy, alternate engineering, research firms needing cash. Al Gore's movie? Nice flick, good arguments perhaps, bad science, nice profits I bet.

The same old hot air from those who would rather not change their comfortable Western lifestyles.

On polar bears, cases are turning up of their drowning for first time due to absent sea ice. We're going through a mass-extinction event and it's time to wake up.

Nick

OK lets change our comfortable Western lifestyles for the sake of it, feel a lot better and just see what happens then.

quote:

On polar bears, cases are turning up of their drowning for first time due to absent sea ice. We're going through a mass-extinction event and it's time to wake up

For the first time? Really? You know this? And you think that is caused by increased CO2? Why?

quote:

We're going through a mass-extinction event and it's time to wake up.

Not sure what you are really saying.

The earth is going through a period of change, as it has done many times before.

Geologically recent ice-ages come and go in three cycles (interwoven) of 100,000 years, 40,000 years and 20,000 years. Mankind has survied the lot, but usually flourished in the inter-glacial warm periods, when temperatures were higher than now.

Whether the current change will lead to mas-extinction is unclear.

What is clear, is that this change isn't caused by CO2 emmissions produced by industrialisation. What's also clear is that cutting back on CO2 emmissions will be less effective at preventing this change than pissing-in-the-wind.

Still, there's loads of money in this business, from politicians and doom-gloom merchants down to the nuclear/renewable energy proponants and even as low as the train companies. It also helps us to justify putting the brakes on the developing world as well.

There are too many people in the world, using too many finite resources. These are the issues that we need to tackle.

Cheers

Don

quote:

There are too many people in the world, using too many finite resources. These are the issues that we need to tackle

Absolutely. Send 'em to Mars. Bastards.

quote:

For the first time? Really? You know this? And you think that is caused by increased CO2? Why?

Given your tone of voice, I guess you are not seriously interested in a reference, but the information came from a wildlife biologist speaking on the recent BBC World Service series on climate change. The consistently worrying aspect for me was the way in which birth and death preditor-prey cycles, which were in synchrony a decade ago, are now being disrupted by the recent rapid temperature increases. Whole insect species have gone extinct in some areas as they matured at the wrong time in relation to their usual prey. I posted links to useful summaries of the science of human-induced global warming earlier, so I won't repeat them here.

Nick

Apologies if the tone inferred I am not interested. I most certainly am. However I have yet to be persuaded on the CO2 issue as most arguments I have seen don't stack up, almost as if they only reveal the bits that aid the arguments and not the bits taht don't and it seems to be more akin to a religious fervour than good science. The climate certainly does seem to be changing. As far as I can tell it was ever thus. CO2 does not seem to be the cause. The merits in the argument of cyclical solar energy seem far greater and more believable. If you could point me in the direction of the links I would be obliged.

The central premise of man-made global warming is that CO2 drives global warming. According to the data presented last night the reverse is actually true, indeed with a 800 year lag. There is apparently no evidence to support the theory that CO2 causes warming theory. On the otherhand there is a very clear correlation between Solar activity/Cosmic rays/clouds and rising earth temperatures.

Now if someone can put as compelling a scientific case for CO2 causing global warming then I'm open to persuasion.

In the meantime I will continue to minimise my impact on the environment as that is, and always has been, the decent thing to do irrespective to whatever "mother earth" gets up to.

Regards,

Willy.

quote:

Originally posted by JamieWednesday:
If you could point me in the direction of the links I would be obliged.

(Reproduced from the earlier thread on 'Leaving Naim Equipment Switched On'). The policy summary will get you to heart of the scientific arguments quicker than any second-hand information in the media. The amount of warming from both natural and human sources are given.

"Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) website
http://www.ipcc.ch

where there is a nice summary for policy makers and non-specialists
http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf
"

quote:

Originally posted by Willy:
The central premise of man-made global warming is that CO2 drives global warming.

It is actually carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Carbon dioxide mainly from fossil fuel use and changes in land-use, while methane and nitrous oxide changes are primarily from agriculture.

Thanks, I'll read them over the weekend.

Although I see that from an admitedly merely cursory glance so far, that both are reports from the IPCC. The same IPCC created when Margaret Thatcher was trying to find arguments for increased energy production from nuclear power which happens to be a relatively low CO2 emitting form of energy compared to Oil and Coal...

Margaret Thatcher may have been responsible for a lot of things, but the science of global warming predates her by a long period of time. If anything, the nuclear issue has directed efforts away from key technologies such as renewables, carbon sequestration and energy efficiency.

Nick

quote:

It is actually carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Carbon dioxide mainly from fossil fuel use and changes in land-use, while methane and nitrous oxide changes are primarily from agriculture.

The CO2 production from fosil-fuel use is insignificant compared to the amount of CO2 released from the oceans due to sun-activity. Its also small compared to that release by volcanoes etc etc

Increased methane production from animals started 10,000 years ago when man domesticated sheep and goats and cows. This is still low compared to the natural release from the earth.

I would have to do some refresher reading to comment about nitors oxide.

The earth's climate, changes due to natural causes.
Man's influence in causing climate change is miniscule.
Man's ability to stop climate change is non-existent.
Man's ability to prosper at the expense of others, by riding on the "environmental" bandwaggon, is almost infinite.

Cheers

Don

Nick,

Last night's programme, very convincingly, demolished the credibility of the IPCC.

Cheers

Don

So... Someone watches a TV program on channel 4 and now they're a global warming expert. No one can possibly know anything for sure. Consensus among scientists suggest humans play a large role in global warming.

Until I get my masters in meteorology, I'd just as soon take the word of the consensus. Global warming 'industry'( as far as I know, no such thing) and channel 4 aside.



Sanch

Despite teh huge amount to airtime and column inches devoted to the "man is the cause of global warming" case I have yet to see a rational scientific argument supported by suitable evidence. A lot of obfuscation of the details that would convince me.
The channel 4 programme presented an argument that we wern't the cause of global warming and supported it with joined up evidence.

No such thing as a Global Warming industry? Well we may disagree on sematics but something that consumes multiple billion dollars a year, sends 6000 delegates to Nigeria and multiple other locations does have a large vested interest in pertetuating the man is to blame theory.

Simply put why doesn't someone use a little of the vast sums of money spent on this to produce a pro-man as teh cause of global warming documentary to the scientific standard of last nights programme. I want something beyond "chickin lickin" hysteria. Neither an I satisfgied by Al Gore waffling on and glossing over inconvenient facts with "the relationship between CO2 and warming is more complex than that". Yes it is. It's the exact bloody opposite of what they claim!

Regards,

Willy.

A little experiment:

Open a can of lager in a warm room. Open another in a cold room.

Watch.

A warm room has a greater capacity for CO2 and will absorb it faster.

quote:

Originally posted by chiba:
...and Mars appears to be undergoing the same changes as us, which would certainly suggest a non-terrestrial cause:

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1660

Or that Martians should be greener

Just watching the news and Philips are trying to convince us to switch to their low energy lightbulbs and save the planet. Ho and indeed hum.

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Toy:
A little experiment:

Open a can of lager in a warm room. Open another in a cold room.

Watch.

A warm room has a greater capacity for CO2 and will absorb it faster.

Not quite sure what that's got to do with global warming. (Whether man made or natural.)

That the earth is getting warmer seems to be uncontested, and indeed it seems to be happening at a faster rate then ever known.

That we are chewing up the finite resources of our planet (and littering it with pollutants and rubbish that no natural processes can destroy) also appears self-evident.

That global warming threatens our habitats and agriculture seems clear.

Wether you link mankind's activities and global warming or not it is as clear as day to me that we need to look at the way we use and despoil our world, and pretty swiftly too.

Saying we are 'not responsible' may be an argument (although it is now a highly vociferous but tiny minority who repeat it) but even if correct it does not mean we should abdicate responsibility for trying to do something about it.

Bruce

quote:

However, changes in CO2 levels lag changes in temperature by some 800years!

True or not, this is mere supposition. It may be backed up by data and hypothesising - and if the study was undertaken with good methodology and the results disseminated amongst peers according to the accepted norms - then it is science. It may be science that refutes other findings too - but one thing is for sure and that is that those who make the claim that mankind is responsible for climate change have engaged in the same process to find their own results.

Television producers aim their material at the twelve year old mind (or less). This means that any documentary on any scientific subject will necessarily simplify and gloss over any real source of controversy. The twelve year old's notion of what the word "fact" means is very different to a scientist's notion.

Most lay argument I have heard against the science of climate change has proceeded from a certainty that mankind is not powerful/widespread/large enough to cause such huge changes to a planetary ecology - and reinforce that certainty with any expert opinion that the news media decides, that week, to print or broadcast.

I live in New Zealand. Our local ecology has suffered several extinctions of plants and animals. Without the smallest doubt these extinctions are the result of human interference with the ecology and there is always a cascade effect.

The changes that the proponents of climate change are advising us to make to our methods of production and our use of energy are changes that we need to make anyway. Simply from the point of view of efficiency and the finite nature of much energy resource - they're all good ideas.

quote:

Originally posted by Stephen B:

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Toy:
A little experiment:

Open a can of lager in a warm room. Open another in a cold room.

Watch.


A warm room has a greater capacity for CO2 and will absorb it faster.

Not quite sure what that's got to do with global warming. (Whether man made or natural.)

Repeat it often enough and you cease to care about global warming.

Regards,

Willy.

Bruce,

I agree with what you say in most of your post above. Just look back at my earlier ones to confirm.

However, when you say

quote:

Saying we are 'not responsible' may be an argument (although it is now a highly vociferous but tiny minority who repeat it) but even if correct it does not mean we should abdicate responsibility for trying to do something about it.

Most of the world's population has said nothing about the subject. A lot of polititians/businesses with vested interests in the latest band wagon have said a lot during the past two years. The "tiny minority" are not necessarily wrong, just because they are small in number.

There was good evidence that cfc gasses had depleted the ozone layer. We did something about it.

There is no really compelling evidence that man's activity is a significant contributor to CO2. There is some evidence that man's activity over the past 10,000 years has contributed to the methane and nitrous oxide.

The CO2 levels are determined by ocean temperature which in turn is driven by cosmic/sun activity.

Gross simplification, no doubt. But doesn't make it wrong. Last night's programme was a useful summary or introduction to this subject. Like all good tv programmes, it was easliy watchable, but no substitute for further reading.

For man to try to influence CO2 levels by curbing coal/oil use is, as I said before, like pissing in the wind.

Should we reduce coal/oil burning?. Yes. Why ? Because its a finite resource. and it can pollute our atmosphere to an extent that affects our health.

Should we stop farming animals? No. Why not? Because the methane contribution to global warming isn't critical and the food source, including cow's milk for north-west europeans, is valuable to our survival.

Cheers

Don