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....The Pew report found that people over 65 are much more likely than the rest of the population to deny that there is solid evidence that the earth is warming, that it's caused by humans, or that it's a serious problem. This chimes with my own experience. Almost all my fiercest arguments over climate change, both in print and in person, have been with people in their 60s or 70s. Why might this be?
There are some obvious answers: they won't be around to see the results; they were brought up in a period of technological optimism; they feel entitled, having worked all their lives, to fly or cruise to wherever they wish. But there might also be a less intuitive reason, which shines a light into a fascinating corner of human psychology.
In 1973 the cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker proposed that the fear of death drives us to protect ourselves with "vital lies" or "the armour of character". We defend ourselves from the ultimate terror by engaging in immortality projects, which boost our self-esteem and grant us meaning that extends beyond death. More than 300 studies conducted in 15 countries appear to confirm Becker's thesis. When people are confronted with images or words or questions that remind them of death they respond by shoring up their worldview, rejecting people and ideas that threaten it, and increasing their striving for self-esteem.
One of the most arresting findings is that immortality projects can bring death closer. In seeking to defend the symbolic, heroic self that we create to suppress thoughts of death, we might expose the physical self to greater danger. For example, researchers at Bar-Ilan University in Israel found that people who reported that driving boosted their self-esteem drove faster and took greater risks after they had been exposed to reminders of death.
A recent paper by the biologist Janis L Dickinson, published in the journal Ecology and Society, proposes that constant news and discussion about global warming makes it difficult to repress thoughts of death, and that people might respond to the terrifying prospect of climate breakdown in ways that strengthen their character armour but diminish our chances of survival. There is already experimental evidence that some people respond to reminders of death by increasing consumption. Dickinson proposes that growing evidence of climate change might boost this tendency, as well as raising antagonism towards scientists and environmentalists. Our message, after all, presents a lethal threat to the central immortality project of western society: perpetual economic growth, supported by an ideology of entitlement and exceptionalism.
If Dickinson is correct, is it fanciful to suppose that those who are closer to the end of their lives might react more strongly against reminders of death? I haven't been able to find any experiments testing this proposition, but it is surely worth investigating. And could it be that the rapid growth of climate change denial over the last two years is actually a response to the hardening of scientific evidence? If so, how the hell do we confront it?
I'm not sure whether the bulk of CC sceptics on this forum are indeed reaching the end of their lives. I suspect not. But this piece does present some fascinating evidence about why individuals have such trouble accepting simple matters of fact and seem to believe that they can somehow outwit science.
Would any of the 'I don't believe in CC' crowd care to reveal their age please?
There are some obvious answers: they won't be around to see the results; they were brought up in a period of technological optimism; they feel entitled, having worked all their lives, to fly or cruise to wherever they wish. But there might also be a less intuitive reason, which shines a light into a fascinating corner of human psychology.
In 1973 the cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker proposed that the fear of death drives us to protect ourselves with "vital lies" or "the armour of character". We defend ourselves from the ultimate terror by engaging in immortality projects, which boost our self-esteem and grant us meaning that extends beyond death. More than 300 studies conducted in 15 countries appear to confirm Becker's thesis. When people are confronted with images or words or questions that remind them of death they respond by shoring up their worldview, rejecting people and ideas that threaten it, and increasing their striving for self-esteem.
One of the most arresting findings is that immortality projects can bring death closer. In seeking to defend the symbolic, heroic self that we create to suppress thoughts of death, we might expose the physical self to greater danger. For example, researchers at Bar-Ilan University in Israel found that people who reported that driving boosted their self-esteem drove faster and took greater risks after they had been exposed to reminders of death.
A recent paper by the biologist Janis L Dickinson, published in the journal Ecology and Society, proposes that constant news and discussion about global warming makes it difficult to repress thoughts of death, and that people might respond to the terrifying prospect of climate breakdown in ways that strengthen their character armour but diminish our chances of survival. There is already experimental evidence that some people respond to reminders of death by increasing consumption. Dickinson proposes that growing evidence of climate change might boost this tendency, as well as raising antagonism towards scientists and environmentalists. Our message, after all, presents a lethal threat to the central immortality project of western society: perpetual economic growth, supported by an ideology of entitlement and exceptionalism.
If Dickinson is correct, is it fanciful to suppose that those who are closer to the end of their lives might react more strongly against reminders of death? I haven't been able to find any experiments testing this proposition, but it is surely worth investigating. And could it be that the rapid growth of climate change denial over the last two years is actually a response to the hardening of scientific evidence? If so, how the hell do we confront it?
I'm not sure whether the bulk of CC sceptics on this forum are indeed reaching the end of their lives. I suspect not. But this piece does present some fascinating evidence about why individuals have such trouble accepting simple matters of fact and seem to believe that they can somehow outwit science.
Would any of the 'I don't believe in CC' crowd care to reveal their age please?
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The UK should accept its fair share of asylum refugees, imo.
asylum refugees??? are there many genuine ones
Dr J 04 Nov 17:21
If you read the Stern report, or any of the UN's publications on the topic, it's fairly difficult to argue that a rise of 2% would be anything other than catastrophic for the globe.
The evidence so far seems to be entirely negative (displacement, water shortage, etc.).
Wot? Bad news sells? Wot a surprise...
If you read the Stern report, or any of the UN's publications on the topic, it's fairly difficult to argue that a rise of 2% would be anything other than catastrophic for the globe.
The evidence so far seems to be entirely negative (displacement, water shortage, etc.).
Wot? Bad news sells? Wot a surprise...
So do I, but there are very few of them.
So you are against the EU open borders etc?
Why?
I oppose mass immigration because it destroys existing communities.
So you are against the EU open borders etc?
Why?
I oppose mass immigration because it destroys existing communities.
Dr J 04 Nov 17:21
If you read the Stern report
LMAO, he's an economist, not a climatologist, that report has been ridiculed by scientists everywhere and let's be honest given his brief it may as well have been written by the Liars themselves, who for the most part (just like Al Bore) are heavily invested in green companies.
Could some muppet please put that argument up about oil companies funding climate-sceptics, it always amuses me that one.
If you read the Stern report
LMAO, he's an economist, not a climatologist, that report has been ridiculed by scientists everywhere and let's be honest given his brief it may as well have been written by the Liars themselves, who for the most part (just like Al Bore) are heavily invested in green companies.
Could some muppet please put that argument up about oil companies funding climate-sceptics, it always amuses me that one.
It,s also a nice use of English...
"Climate change deniers" automatically put you in mind of the other phrase it,s used for...Holocaust deniers
"Climate change deniers" automatically put you in mind of the other phrase it,s used for...Holocaust deniers
subversion 04 Nov 14:54
then again, there are a lot of simlarities arent there... arbitrary and unyielding 'commandments', reliance on dogma and groupthink, delusional and irrational thinking, etc etc...
Oh yeah, and science as well.
pity the 'believers' only quote the science they like isn't it Rowan
a bit like creationists
a bit like creationists
Yeah, sorry. I see your point Subversion, and you're obviously a much better scientist than me. I just thought you went a tad OTT in equating CC protestors to religious people.
Have a look at the chart in this link and then try and blame climate change on third world overpopulation with a straight face.
http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/carbon_dioxide_co2_emissions_for_selected_african_countries_in_1997
And don't forget- much of the emissions from African countries will be derived from raw material extraction and processing that is destined for use in developed countries. Ditto with China- I accept their emissions are a huge problem but this childish 'if they won't then we won't' attitude will lead us down a road to ruin.
http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/carbon_dioxide_co2_emissions_for_selected_african_countries_in_1997
And don't forget- much of the emissions from African countries will be derived from raw material extraction and processing that is destined for use in developed countries. Ditto with China- I accept their emissions are a huge problem but this childish 'if they won't then we won't' attitude will lead us down a road to ruin.
And Chippie- as i've said before, that 'petition' could be signed by ANYONE that holds a degree. So someone with a degree in Groundskeeping from Southampton Solent could be one of the 31,000 people you're pinning your hopes on.
Al Gore seems to be doing ok out of it all, he could do with a few more stooges like Dr J
Bet you Gore still flies.....perhaps hes just a dont do as I do CC warrior?
When as Eskimo passes my house in a kayak, I'll start to worry.
Isn't it funny how, when it suits, the most rabid anti discrimination campaigners suddenly stand on their heads if it suits their arguments.
No problem with a bit of ageism eh George or indeed Dr J?
No problem with a bit of ageism eh George or indeed Dr J?
Of course there is another possible explanation which George forgets. Most societies venerate their older people. With age comes wisdom. With wisdom comes the ability to sift through the evidence and arrive at a considered view whilst keeping at a distance the views of vested interests seeking to skew the debate. There are advantages to having lived to an older age and having been exposed to snake oil salesmen peddling nonsense. They may be less uncritically accepting.
That may be happening here. It may be the case that the passion and idealism of the young is what is being abused. It may indeed be the case that those seniors remember the certainty and passion of those who told us in the recent past that we were heading into a new ice age.
They may feel they have other legitimate questions which they don't feel have been addressed. They may point out that in a period of great change where dirty industrialisation occurred on a vast scale over a period of 100 years there was a small uptick in global temperatures. Thye may question why climate change fanatics are positing such large temperature rises in such a short time frame when the recent evidence is of global cooling or at worst stagnation in temperatures.
They may also question why climate change fanatics are so quiet on the rise in the global population.
That may be happening here. It may be the case that the passion and idealism of the young is what is being abused. It may indeed be the case that those seniors remember the certainty and passion of those who told us in the recent past that we were heading into a new ice age.
They may feel they have other legitimate questions which they don't feel have been addressed. They may point out that in a period of great change where dirty industrialisation occurred on a vast scale over a period of 100 years there was a small uptick in global temperatures. Thye may question why climate change fanatics are positing such large temperature rises in such a short time frame when the recent evidence is of global cooling or at worst stagnation in temperatures.
They may also question why climate change fanatics are so quiet on the rise in the global population.
Most societies venerate their older people. With age comes wisdom. With wisdom comes the ability to sift through the evidence and arrive at a considered view whilst keeping at a distance the views of vested interests seeking to skew the debate. There are advantages to having lived to an older age and having been exposed to snake oil salesmen peddling nonsense. They may be less uncritically accepting.
It used to be called the House of Lords until it was filled with cronies on the back of a donation or a nudge and a wink
It used to be called the House of Lords until it was filled with cronies on the back of a donation or a nudge and a wink
Speech codes are rare in the industrialized, Western democracies. In Germany and Austria, for instance, it is forbidden to proselytize Nazi ideology or trivialize the Holocaust. Given those countries' recent histories, that is a restraint on free expression we can live with.
More curious are our own taboos on the subject of global warming. I sat in a roomful of journalists 10 years ago while Stanford climatologist Stephen Schneider lectured us on a big problem in our profession: soliciting opposing points of view. In the debate over climate change, Schneider said, there simply was no legitimate opposing view to the scientific consensus that man - made carbon emissions drive global warming. To suggest or report otherwise, he said, was irresponsible.
Indeed. I attended a week's worth of lectures on global warming at the Chautauqua Institution last month. Al Gore delivered the kickoff lecture, and, 10 years later, he reiterated Schneider's directive. There is no science on the other side, Gore inveighed, more than once. Again, the same message: If you hear tales of doubt, ignore them. They are simply untrue.
I ask you: Are these convincing arguments? And directed at journalists, who are natural questioners and skeptics, of all people? What happens when you are told not to eat the apple, not to read that book, not to date that girl? Your interest is piqued, of course. What am I not supposed to know?
Here's the kind of information the ``scientific consensus" types don't want you to read. MIT's Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology Richard Lindzen recently complained about the ``shrill alarmism" of Gore's movie ``An Inconvenient Truth." Lindzen acknowledges that global warming is real, and he acknowledges that increased carbon emissions might be causing the warming -- but they also might not.
``We do not understand the natural internal variability of climate change" is one of Lindzen's many heresies, along with such zingers as ``the Arctic was as warm or warmer in 1940," ``the evidence so far suggests that the Greenland ice sheet is actually growing on average," and ``Alpine glaciers have been retreating since the early 19th century, and were advancing for several centuries before that. Since about 1970, many of the glaciers have stopped retreating and some are now advancing again. And, frankly, we don't know why."
When Lindzen published similar views in The Wall Street Journal this spring, environmentalist Laurie David, the wife of comedian Larry David, immediately branded him a ``shill." She resurrected a shopworn slur first directed against Lindzen by former Globe writer Ross Gelbspan, who called Lindzen a ``hood ornament" for the fossil fuels industry in a 1995 article in Harper's Magazine.
I decided to check out Lindzen for myself. He wasn't hard to find on the 16th floor of MIT's I.M. Pei-designed Building 54, and he answered as many questions as I had time to ask. He's no big fan of Gore's, having suffered through what he calls a ``Star Chamber" Congressional inquisition by the then senator . He said he accepted $10,000 in expenses and expert witness fees from fossil- fuel types in the 1990s, and has taken none of their money since.
He's smart. He's an effective debater. No wonder the Steve Schneiders and Al Gores of the world don't want you to hear from him. It's easier to call someone a shill and accuse him of corruption than to debate him on the merits.
While vacationing in Canada, I spotted a newspaper story that I hadn't seen in the United States. For no apparent reason, the state of California, Environmental Defense, and the Natural Resources Defense Council have dragged Lindzen and about 15 other global- warming skeptics into a lawsuit over auto- emissions standards. California et al . have asked the auto companies to cough up any and all communications they have had with Lindzen and his colleagues, whose research has been cited in court documents.
``We know that General Motors has been paying for this fake science exactly as the tobacco companies did," says ED attorney Jim Marston. If Marston has a scintilla of evidence that Lindzen has been trafficking in fake science, he should present it to the MIT provost's office. Otherwise, he should shut up.
``This is the criminalization of opposition to global warming," says Lindzen, who adds he has never communicated with the auto companies involved in the lawsuit. Of course Lindzen isn't a fake scientist, he's an inconvenient scientist. No wonder you're not supposed to listen to him.
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2006/08/30/mits_inconvenient_scientist/
More curious are our own taboos on the subject of global warming. I sat in a roomful of journalists 10 years ago while Stanford climatologist Stephen Schneider lectured us on a big problem in our profession: soliciting opposing points of view. In the debate over climate change, Schneider said, there simply was no legitimate opposing view to the scientific consensus that man - made carbon emissions drive global warming. To suggest or report otherwise, he said, was irresponsible.
Indeed. I attended a week's worth of lectures on global warming at the Chautauqua Institution last month. Al Gore delivered the kickoff lecture, and, 10 years later, he reiterated Schneider's directive. There is no science on the other side, Gore inveighed, more than once. Again, the same message: If you hear tales of doubt, ignore them. They are simply untrue.
I ask you: Are these convincing arguments? And directed at journalists, who are natural questioners and skeptics, of all people? What happens when you are told not to eat the apple, not to read that book, not to date that girl? Your interest is piqued, of course. What am I not supposed to know?
Here's the kind of information the ``scientific consensus" types don't want you to read. MIT's Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology Richard Lindzen recently complained about the ``shrill alarmism" of Gore's movie ``An Inconvenient Truth." Lindzen acknowledges that global warming is real, and he acknowledges that increased carbon emissions might be causing the warming -- but they also might not.
``We do not understand the natural internal variability of climate change" is one of Lindzen's many heresies, along with such zingers as ``the Arctic was as warm or warmer in 1940," ``the evidence so far suggests that the Greenland ice sheet is actually growing on average," and ``Alpine glaciers have been retreating since the early 19th century, and were advancing for several centuries before that. Since about 1970, many of the glaciers have stopped retreating and some are now advancing again. And, frankly, we don't know why."
When Lindzen published similar views in The Wall Street Journal this spring, environmentalist Laurie David, the wife of comedian Larry David, immediately branded him a ``shill." She resurrected a shopworn slur first directed against Lindzen by former Globe writer Ross Gelbspan, who called Lindzen a ``hood ornament" for the fossil fuels industry in a 1995 article in Harper's Magazine.
I decided to check out Lindzen for myself. He wasn't hard to find on the 16th floor of MIT's I.M. Pei-designed Building 54, and he answered as many questions as I had time to ask. He's no big fan of Gore's, having suffered through what he calls a ``Star Chamber" Congressional inquisition by the then senator . He said he accepted $10,000 in expenses and expert witness fees from fossil- fuel types in the 1990s, and has taken none of their money since.
He's smart. He's an effective debater. No wonder the Steve Schneiders and Al Gores of the world don't want you to hear from him. It's easier to call someone a shill and accuse him of corruption than to debate him on the merits.
While vacationing in Canada, I spotted a newspaper story that I hadn't seen in the United States. For no apparent reason, the state of California, Environmental Defense, and the Natural Resources Defense Council have dragged Lindzen and about 15 other global- warming skeptics into a lawsuit over auto- emissions standards. California et al . have asked the auto companies to cough up any and all communications they have had with Lindzen and his colleagues, whose research has been cited in court documents.
``We know that General Motors has been paying for this fake science exactly as the tobacco companies did," says ED attorney Jim Marston. If Marston has a scintilla of evidence that Lindzen has been trafficking in fake science, he should present it to the MIT provost's office. Otherwise, he should shut up.
``This is the criminalization of opposition to global warming," says Lindzen, who adds he has never communicated with the auto companies involved in the lawsuit. Of course Lindzen isn't a fake scientist, he's an inconvenient scientist. No wonder you're not supposed to listen to him.
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2006/08/30/mits_inconvenient_scientist/
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/222_Exchange.pdf
Richard Siegmund Lindzen (born February 8, 1940, Webster, Massachusetts) is an American atmospheric physicist and Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lindzen is known for his work in the dynamics of the middle atmosphere, atmospheric tides and ozone photochemistry. He has published more than 200 books and scientific papers.[1] He was the lead author of Chapter 7, 'Physical Climate Processes and Feedbacks,' of the IPCC Third Assessment Report on climate change. He has been a critic of some global warming theories and the alleged political pressures on climate scientists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lindzen
Richard Siegmund Lindzen (born February 8, 1940, Webster, Massachusetts) is an American atmospheric physicist and Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lindzen is known for his work in the dynamics of the middle atmosphere, atmospheric tides and ozone photochemistry. He has published more than 200 books and scientific papers.[1] He was the lead author of Chapter 7, 'Physical Climate Processes and Feedbacks,' of the IPCC Third Assessment Report on climate change. He has been a critic of some global warming theories and the alleged political pressures on climate scientists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lindzen
There IS a problem with global warming... it stopped in 1998
For many years now, human-caused climate change has been viewed as a large and urgent problem. In truth, however, the biggest part of the problem is neither environmental nor scientific, but a self-created political fiasco. Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).
Yes, you did read that right. And also, yes, this eight-year period of temperature stasis did coincide with society's continued power station and SUV-inspired pumping of yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
In response to these facts, a global warming devotee will chuckle and say "how silly to judge climate change over such a short period". Yet in the next breath, the same person will assure you that the 28-year-long period of warming which occurred between 1970 and 1998 constitutes a dangerous (and man-made) warming. Tosh. Our devotee will also pass by the curious additional facts that a period of similar warming occurred between 1918 and 1940, well prior to the greatest phase of world industrialisation, and that cooling occurred between 1940 and 1965, at precisely the time that human emissions were increasing at their greatest rate.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3624242/There-IS-a-problem-with-global-warming...-it-stopped-in-1998.html
You've got to love these lefties. Any lemon out there been sold and they are buying. :D
For many years now, human-caused climate change has been viewed as a large and urgent problem. In truth, however, the biggest part of the problem is neither environmental nor scientific, but a self-created political fiasco. Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).
Yes, you did read that right. And also, yes, this eight-year period of temperature stasis did coincide with society's continued power station and SUV-inspired pumping of yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
In response to these facts, a global warming devotee will chuckle and say "how silly to judge climate change over such a short period". Yet in the next breath, the same person will assure you that the 28-year-long period of warming which occurred between 1970 and 1998 constitutes a dangerous (and man-made) warming. Tosh. Our devotee will also pass by the curious additional facts that a period of similar warming occurred between 1918 and 1940, well prior to the greatest phase of world industrialisation, and that cooling occurred between 1940 and 1965, at precisely the time that human emissions were increasing at their greatest rate.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3624242/There-IS-a-problem-with-global-warming...-it-stopped-in-1998.html
You've got to love these lefties. Any lemon out there been sold and they are buying. :D
Chippie
What if you/they are wrong?
What's wrong with moving forward to "green/clean" technology?
Not in a dumb way, eg raping the countryside planting beet or whatever for biofuels.
I dont see any real downside on the macro scale to assuming that man made global warming is a fact.
What if you/they are wrong?
What's wrong with moving forward to "green/clean" technology?
Not in a dumb way, eg raping the countryside planting beet or whatever for biofuels.
I dont see any real downside on the macro scale to assuming that man made global warming is a fact.
You sound like Al Gore, he's busy making an absolute fortune on the back of it.
He's far more concerned with his own wealth than the planet
He's far more concerned with his own wealth than the planet
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/6496196/Al-Gore-profiting-from-climate-change-agenda.html
The first carbon billionaire
The first carbon billionaire
I dont give a toss about Al Gore - just common sense to me.
Of course loads are going to profit by it, and loads are going to lose out.
But in the grand scheme of things thats irrelevant.
Moving technology forward so we use electric cars and high speed rail links instead of planes etc etc etc - It aint a bad idea is it, given the potential consequences?
Of course loads are going to profit by it, and loads are going to lose out.
But in the grand scheme of things thats irrelevant.
Moving technology forward so we use electric cars and high speed rail links instead of planes etc etc etc - It aint a bad idea is it, given the potential consequences?
It may not be a bad idea but its the motives that get me. Gore (and I'm sure theres others) like to give the impression they're on some sort of moral crusade to save the planet when actually making hundreds of millions along the way is the priority.
Good for them I say, I'm a great believer in making money - just be honest about it.
Good for them I say, I'm a great believer in making money - just be honest about it.
as usual, there seems to be a great deal of confusion, especially amongst the dumb lefty, politically spun drivel that Dr J posts
firstly, CO2
it is ACCEPTED SCIENTIFIC FACT that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and that increased CO2 levels will have a heating effect
HOWEVER
it is also ACCEPTED SCIENTIFIC FACT that there are many other variables responsible for global temperatures, such as surface albedo, solar intensity, weather patterns, etc etc etc
the full interactions are NOT FULLY UNDERSTOOD, and are certainly not subject to a consensus
and it is these complex interactions that are the reason that Chippie is able to post articles showing global temperatures FALLING while CO2 levels are rising
IN ADDITION
the full consequences of a combination of potential warming / CO2 concentration rise are NOT FULLY UNDERSTOOD either
for example, science tells of some definite dangers
- rising sea levels
- increased ocean acidity
- changing climate patterns (the key being CHANGE - for some it will be positive, for others negative)
however, science also tells of some benefits, especially to plant growth rates
- temperature is one limiting factor in plant growth (as long as the change leads to jungle-like rather than desert-like conditions)
- CO2 is another limiting factor in plant growth (and this will apply to pretty much all vegetation/agriculture regardless of climate)
so basically, any impartial scientist will tell you that the totality of the change due to greenhouse gas levels rising is very difficult to predict with any certainty
that we have the foggiest clue what these changes will be, and whether they will be a net negative, is far from certain... the global ecosystem has all kinds of positive and negative feedback systems that will come into play that we cannot possibly comprehend in their entirety
however, that there will be changes is certain... humankind has never existed on earth with the predicted levels of CO2 forecast for years to come... so i guess we'll be finding out the impact the hard way (or the fun way, depending on how you look at it)
firstly, CO2
it is ACCEPTED SCIENTIFIC FACT that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and that increased CO2 levels will have a heating effect
HOWEVER
it is also ACCEPTED SCIENTIFIC FACT that there are many other variables responsible for global temperatures, such as surface albedo, solar intensity, weather patterns, etc etc etc
the full interactions are NOT FULLY UNDERSTOOD, and are certainly not subject to a consensus
and it is these complex interactions that are the reason that Chippie is able to post articles showing global temperatures FALLING while CO2 levels are rising
IN ADDITION
the full consequences of a combination of potential warming / CO2 concentration rise are NOT FULLY UNDERSTOOD either
for example, science tells of some definite dangers
- rising sea levels
- increased ocean acidity
- changing climate patterns (the key being CHANGE - for some it will be positive, for others negative)
however, science also tells of some benefits, especially to plant growth rates
- temperature is one limiting factor in plant growth (as long as the change leads to jungle-like rather than desert-like conditions)
- CO2 is another limiting factor in plant growth (and this will apply to pretty much all vegetation/agriculture regardless of climate)
so basically, any impartial scientist will tell you that the totality of the change due to greenhouse gas levels rising is very difficult to predict with any certainty
that we have the foggiest clue what these changes will be, and whether they will be a net negative, is far from certain... the global ecosystem has all kinds of positive and negative feedback systems that will come into play that we cannot possibly comprehend in their entirety
however, that there will be changes is certain... humankind has never existed on earth with the predicted levels of CO2 forecast for years to come... so i guess we'll be finding out the impact the hard way (or the fun way, depending on how you look at it)
The climate change fanatics site 1998 as the year when El Nino was at it height and that this is why global temperatures have dropped since.
Accepting their argument, by implication they are also accepting that even historically minor events like this have significant climatic impacts which can easily counteract whatever, if any, effect that man is having.
Perhaps the fanatics are just a little too arrogant.
Accepting their argument, by implication they are also accepting that even historically minor events like this have significant climatic impacts which can easily counteract whatever, if any, effect that man is having.
Perhaps the fanatics are just a little too arrogant.
You boys appear to be going down EO's road of selectively cherrypicking timeframes in order to deny that temperatures have risen. Chippie is so desperate that he's citing an eight-year period, ffs! Hey Chippie, it appears to be colder now than it was in July - why not build a 'scientific' argument around that?
The obvious way to find out the truth is to look at NASA's data over the last century (when carbon emissions have risen most rapidly). Once you do this, it's simply impossible to deny that temperatures are increasing.
The obvious way to find out the truth is to look at NASA's data over the last century (when carbon emissions have risen most rapidly). Once you do this, it's simply impossible to deny that temperatures are increasing.
In response to these facts, a global warming devotee will chuckle and say "how silly to judge climate change over such a short period". Yet in the next breath, the same person will assure you that the 28-year-long period of warming which occurred between 1970 and 1998 constitutes a dangerous (and man-made) warming. Tosh. Our devotee will also pass by the curious additional facts that a period of similar warming occurred between 1918 and 1940, well prior to the greatest phase of world industrialisation, and that cooling occurred between 1940 and 1965, at precisely the time that human emissions were increasing at their greatest rate.
:D
:D
the same person will assure you that the 28-year-long period of warming which occurred between 1970 and 1998 constitutes a dangerous (and man-made) warming.
No, Chippie, I am clearly suggesting to you that the only appropriate methodology is to examine a time frame of 100 years or longer. No cherrypicking convenient or inconvenience periods.
I know you're not too stupid to understand that, so could you please look at NASA's stats since 1900 before making yourself look idiotic again with another half-baked cut n' paste?
Thanks.
No, Chippie, I am clearly suggesting to you that the only appropriate methodology is to examine a time frame of 100 years or longer. No cherrypicking convenient or inconvenience periods.
I know you're not too stupid to understand that, so could you please look at NASA's stats since 1900 before making yourself look idiotic again with another half-baked cut n' paste?
Thanks.
``We do not understand the natural internal variability of climate change" is one of Lindzen's many heresies, along with such zingers as ``the Arctic was as warm or warmer in 1940," ``the evidence so far suggests that the Greenland ice sheet is actually growing on average," and ``Alpine glaciers have been retreating since the early 19th century, and were advancing for several centuries before that. Since about 1970, many of the glaciers have stopped retreating and some are now advancing again. And, frankly, we don't know why."
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/222_Exchange.pdf
If you believe that a firm conclusion can be drawn either way, then truly you are an idiot.
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/222_Exchange.pdf
If you believe that a firm conclusion can be drawn either way, then truly you are an idiot.
So subversion is pinning his hopes on some rubbish about plants growing more (last time I checked, deserts were encroaching on arable land at record rates- see California and Southern Spain), and Chippie wants to fiddle while Rome burns because he doesn't believe a 99/1 split in opinion is enough to draw a conclusion yet. Let's just keep our fingers crossed then (although I shouldn't be surprised, this being a gambling website!).
The BNP position on this is actually a sensible position for sceptics imo.
The BNP position on this is actually a sensible position for sceptics imo.
...before making yourself look idiotic again with another half-baked cut n' paste?
:), Chippie.
Why are you so afraid of the primary evidence (i.e. NASA's long term trends in global temperatures)?
:), Chippie.
Why are you so afraid of the primary evidence (i.e. NASA's long term trends in global temperatures)?
alfie - rubbish about plants growing more?
learn some basic biology ffs :D
carbon dioxide is plant food. am i wrong?
learn some basic biology ffs :D
carbon dioxide is plant food. am i wrong?
its amazing, on the one hand the dumb lefties throw around accusations of denying science, and then on the other hand morons like alfie seem to be in denial about simple GCSE-level science :D
(i.e. NASA's long term trends in global temperatures)?
LMAO, there has been at least 75 major temperature swings in the last 4500 years and you choose to refer to 100 years as long. :D
(Helpful hint for Dr J - the planet has been here billions of years, not hundreds. )
4.54 billion years to be exact (ish), you really think we are capable of trashing it in 50 years? :D
LMAO, there has been at least 75 major temperature swings in the last 4500 years and you choose to refer to 100 years as long. :D
(Helpful hint for Dr J - the planet has been here billions of years, not hundreds. )
4.54 billion years to be exact (ish), you really think we are capable of trashing it in 50 years? :D
And recalling your feeble attempt previously at some very basic maths I can see no point in you even attempting to conceive a billion. Maybe better if you just speak about the last 100 years or so and we'll all just humour you. ;)
Dr J
You boys appear to be going down EO's road of selectively cherrypicking timeframes in order to deny that temperatures have risen.
Why do you continue to lie? The evidence is irrefutable that if you take the time frame which you request that temperatures have indeed risen. Take another time frame and you have a different result. So why do you continue to put that straw man up?
The questions still remain:
Has there been such fluctuations previously?
Has it been proven that man has caused this recent warming?
If we are going to be seeing several degrees rises in the next few decades then why has it cooled over the last decade?
Will it necessarily be a bad thing?
You boys appear to be going down EO's road of selectively cherrypicking timeframes in order to deny that temperatures have risen.
Why do you continue to lie? The evidence is irrefutable that if you take the time frame which you request that temperatures have indeed risen. Take another time frame and you have a different result. So why do you continue to put that straw man up?
The questions still remain:
Has there been such fluctuations previously?
Has it been proven that man has caused this recent warming?
If we are going to be seeing several degrees rises in the next few decades then why has it cooled over the last decade?
Will it necessarily be a bad thing?
its obvious why those such as Dr J continue to lie and politicise/distort the science... they believe the oversimplified, distilled message that they have been spoon-fed because
a) climate change is 'trendy'
b) their own scientific understanding is far too limited to ask questions
c) they are far too biased to admit there are many sides to this complex debate
this thread contains a wealth of examples doesnt it... for example in alfies little rant he scorns widely understood and accepted science linking CO2 levels to plant growth, and is also very happy to observe the negatives of warming for some areas (ie desertification) without observing the positives for other areas (ie colders areas becoming warm enough to sustain far more wildlife)
pitiful really. but to be expected of the dumb lefty brigade. gotta stay on message, eh comrades? :D
a) climate change is 'trendy'
b) their own scientific understanding is far too limited to ask questions
c) they are far too biased to admit there are many sides to this complex debate
this thread contains a wealth of examples doesnt it... for example in alfies little rant he scorns widely understood and accepted science linking CO2 levels to plant growth, and is also very happy to observe the negatives of warming for some areas (ie desertification) without observing the positives for other areas (ie colders areas becoming warm enough to sustain far more wildlife)
pitiful really. but to be expected of the dumb lefty brigade. gotta stay on message, eh comrades? :D
why is 100 years enough - perhaps it needs to be studied over thousand or millions of years. 100 years gives the answer that the cc fanatics want, so therefore "it must be right".
oh and before you attack the messenger on the ageist basis of my screen name - i am younger than william hague
oh and before you attack the messenger on the ageist basis of my screen name - i am younger than william hague
It's amazing, on one hand subversion throws around accusations of not understanding science then blindly cites unproven theory on global warming and increased plant growth!
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/12/021206075233.htm
Increased CO2 isn't the only feature of climate change, throw in more extreme weather conditions, droughts in some areas and floods in others, increased temperatures and soil nitrogen levels and it's not surprising that global food production is predicted to decline by 30%.
And what use will any increase in arable land be to people who are having to flee their countries because they can't feed their families? I suppose you expect the countries who will 'benefit' from this side effect will take them in?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/12/021206075233.htm
Increased CO2 isn't the only feature of climate change, throw in more extreme weather conditions, droughts in some areas and floods in others, increased temperatures and soil nitrogen levels and it's not surprising that global food production is predicted to decline by 30%.
And what use will any increase in arable land be to people who are having to flee their countries because they can't feed their families? I suppose you expect the countries who will 'benefit' from this side effect will take them in?
read that article carefully alfie, and notice how many times words like 'perhaps', 'not sure', etc are used
thats the point i'm making - there is serious lack of consensus and understanding in this area
but there is no lack of understanding about the link between CO2 concentration and plant growth (this is GCSE-level science), merely about other POTENTIAL but far from certain consequences
but well done, in your last post at least you've finally admitted that there are some side-effects that are going to be positive
the bit thats extremely difficult to predict, and which you'll find if you approach objectively there is far less consensus than you think, is how the negatives and positives will balance out
keep it up and you may be able to leave behind the brainwashed hysteria :D
thats the point i'm making - there is serious lack of consensus and understanding in this area
but there is no lack of understanding about the link between CO2 concentration and plant growth (this is GCSE-level science), merely about other POTENTIAL but far from certain consequences
but well done, in your last post at least you've finally admitted that there are some side-effects that are going to be positive
the bit thats extremely difficult to predict, and which you'll find if you approach objectively there is far less consensus than you think, is how the negatives and positives will balance out
keep it up and you may be able to leave behind the brainwashed hysteria :D
alfie255 07 Nov 12:55
And what use will any increase in arable land be to people who are having to flee their countries because they can't feed their families? I suppose you expect the countries who will 'benefit' from this side effect will take them in?
see what you've done here alfie? by admitting there might be positives, you've asked a much more sensible question than your previous hysterical ranting
the answer is - of course i don't 'expect' anything, except that this is the exact kind of question that policymakers will have to answer, especially when it becomes clearer to the masses that some countries will BENEFIT from climate change, which is not part of the usual spoon-fed nonsense being spouted as truth by the greenies these days
And what use will any increase in arable land be to people who are having to flee their countries because they can't feed their families? I suppose you expect the countries who will 'benefit' from this side effect will take them in?
see what you've done here alfie? by admitting there might be positives, you've asked a much more sensible question than your previous hysterical ranting
the answer is - of course i don't 'expect' anything, except that this is the exact kind of question that policymakers will have to answer, especially when it becomes clearer to the masses that some countries will BENEFIT from climate change, which is not part of the usual spoon-fed nonsense being spouted as truth by the greenies these days
The 100 years figure is appropriate because it's only over the last century that man-made carbon emissions have risen dramatically. There weren't many factories churning out pollution 50,000 years ago imo.
I've been to a dozen or so talks by CC sceptics and every one of those guys would be embarrassed by the way you amateur scientists completely misrepresent their position.
For a start, to deny that temperatures have risen during the last century is akin to denying that water runs downhill. No scientist would ever refute global warming.
Where a small minority of scientists disagree with me is in terms of the connection between carbon output and temperature rise. In other words, you can argue about the degree to which CC is man-made. The small minority of scientists that do this are invariably made to look stupid by the majority who are able to compare to graphs and see a plain-as-day correlation.
I've been to a dozen or so talks by CC sceptics and every one of those guys would be embarrassed by the way you amateur scientists completely misrepresent their position.
For a start, to deny that temperatures have risen during the last century is akin to denying that water runs downhill. No scientist would ever refute global warming.
Where a small minority of scientists disagree with me is in terms of the connection between carbon output and temperature rise. In other words, you can argue about the degree to which CC is man-made. The small minority of scientists that do this are invariably made to look stupid by the majority who are able to compare to graphs and see a plain-as-day correlation.
Over the past half-century, we have become used to planetary scares. In the late Sixties, we were told of a population explosion that would lead to global starvation.
Then, a little later, we were warned the world was running out of natural resources. By the Seventies, when global temperatures began to dip, many eminent scientists warned us that we faced a new Ice Age.
But the latest scare, global warming, has engaged the political and opinion-forming classes to a greater extent than any of these.
The readiness to embrace this fashionable belief has led the present Labour Government, enthusiastically supported by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, to commit itself to a policy of drastically cutting back carbon dioxide emissions - at huge cost to the British economy and to the living standards not merely of this generation, but of our children's generation, too.
That is why I have written a book about the subject.
Now, I readily admit that I am not a scientist; but then neither are the vast majority of those who espouse the currently fashionable madness. Moreover, most of those scientists who speak with such certainty about global warming and climate change are not climate scientists, or Earth scientists of any kind, and thus have no special knowledge to contribute.
Those who have to take the key decisions aren't scientists either. They are politicians who, having listened to the opinions of relevant scientists and having studied the evidence, must reach the best decisions they can - just as I did when I was Energy Secretary in Margaret Thatcher's first government in the early Eighties.
But science is only part of the story. Even if the climate scientists can tell us what is happening, and why they think it is happening, they cannot tell us what governments should be doing about it. For this, we also need an understanding of the economics: of what the economic consequences of any warming might be, and, if there is a problem, the best way of dealing with it.
First, then, what is happening? Given that nowadays pretty well every adverse development in the natural world is automatically attributed to global warming, perhaps the most surprising fact about it is that it is not, in fact, happening at all. The truth is that there has so far been no recorded global warming at all this century.
The world's temperature rose about half a degree centigrade during the last quarter of the 20th century; but even the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research - part of Britain's Met Office and a citadel of the current global warming orthodoxy - has now conceded that recorded temperature figures for the first seven years of the 21st century reveal there has been a standstill.
The centre now officially expects global warming to resume at some point between 2009 and 2014.
Maybe it will. But the fact that the present lull was not predicted by any of the complex computer models upon which the global warming orthodoxy relies is clear evidence that the science of what determines the world's temperature is distinctly uncertain and far from "settled".
Genuine climate scientists admit that Earth's climate is determined by hugely complex systems, and reliable prediction is impossible.
That does not mean, of course, that we know nothing. We know that the planet is made habitable only thanks to the warmth we receive from the rays of the sun. Most of this heat bounces back into space; but some of it is
trapped by the so-called greenhouse gases which exist in the Earth's atmosphere. If it were not for that, our planet would be far too cold for man to survive.
The most important greenhouse gas is water vapour, including water suspended in clouds. Rather a long way behind, the second most important is carbon dioxide.
The vast bulk of the carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere is natural - that is, nothing to do with man. But there is no doubt that ever since the Industrial Revolution in the latter part of the 19th century, man has added greatly to atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide by burning carbon - first in the form of coal, and subsequently in the form of oil and gas, too.
So it is reasonable to suppose that, other things being equal, this will have warmed the planet, and that further man-made carbon dioxide emissions will warm it still further.
But in the first place, other things are very far from equal. And in the second place, even if they were, there is no agreement among reputable climate scientists over how much this contributed to the modest late-20th century warming of the planet, and thus may be expected to do so in future.
Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth has enraged some who claim it is inaccurate propaganda.
It is striking that during the 21st century, carbon dioxide emissions have been growing faster than ever - thanks in particular to the rapid growth of the Chinese economy - yet there has been no further global warming at all.
Carbon dioxide, like water vapour and oxygen, is not only completely harmless but is an essential element in our life support system.
Not only do we exhale carbon dioxide every time we breathe (indeed, an important cause of the increased amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is simply the huge increase in the world's population), but plants need to absorb carbon dioxide in order to survive. Without carbon dioxide, there would be no plant life on the planet. And without plant life, there would be no human life either.
While climate scientists disagree about how much further warming continued carbon dioxide emissions might cause, there is an established majority view.
This is articulated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an offshoot of the United Nations, whose view is that 'most' of the modest (0.5 per cent) late-20th century warming was "very likely" caused by man-made carbon dioxide emissions.
And if the growth of such emissions continues unabated, their 'best guess' is that in 100 years' time, the planet will be somewhere between 1.8 and 4 per cent warmer than it is today, with a mid-point of a shade under 3 per cent. (Incidentally, this was published before the early 21st century warming standstill was officially acknowledged, so was not taken into account.)
Alistair Darling told us in his recent Budget speech that this would have "catastrophic economic and social consequences". But that is just alarmist poppycock.
Let's look at just two of the alleged "catastrophic" consequences of global warming: the threat to food production, leading to mass starvation; and the threat to human health, leading to disease and death.
So far as food production is concerned, it is not clear why a warmer climate would be a problem at all. Even the IPCC concedes that for a warming of anything up to 3 per cent, "globally, the potential for food production is projected to increase". Yes: increase.
As to health, in its most recent report, the IPCC found only one outcome which they ranked as "virtually certain" to happen - and that was "reduced human mortality from decreased cold exposure".
This echoes a study done by our own Department of Health which predicted that by the 2050s, the UK would suffer an increase in heat-related deaths by 2,000 a year, and a decrease in cold-related mortality of 20,000 deaths a year - something that ministers have been curiously silent about.
The IPCC systematically exaggerates the likely adverse effects of any warming that might occur because estimates of the likely impact of the global warming it projects for the next 100 years are explicitly based on two assumptions, both of them absurd.
The first is that while the developed world can adapt to warming, the developing world cannot.
The second is that even in the developed world, the capacity to adapt is constrained by the limits of existing technology. In other words, there will be no technological development over the next 100 years.
So far as the first of these two assumptions is concerned, if necessary, the developed world will focus its overseas aid on ensuring that the developing countries acquire the required ability to adapt. The second is, of course, ludicrous - notably in the case of food production, where, with the development of bio-engineering and genetic modification, the world is currently in the early stages of a genuine revolution in agricultural technology.
All in all, given that global warming produces benefits as well as costs, it is far from clear that the currently projected warming, far from being "catastrophic", will do any net harm at all.
To which it will be replied that while that may be so for the world as a whole, the people in the developing world will indeed suffer.
But the greatest curse of the developing world is mass poverty, and the malnutrition, disease and unnecessary death that poverty brings. To impede their escape from poverty by denying them the benefits of cheap carbon-based energy would damage them far more than global warming ever could.
Nonetheless, on the basis of its deeply flawed assumptions, the IPCC predicts that if the warming is as much as 4 degrees centigrade by the end of this century, then the economic cost would be a cut of between 1 per cent and 5 per cent of what world output (GDP) would otherwise have been - with the developed world suffering much less, and the developing world much more than this.
But supposing the developing world suffers as much as a 10 per cent loss of GDP from what it would have been in 100 years' time.
That means that by the year 2100, people in the developing world, instead of being some 9.5 times better off than they are today, will be 'only' 8.5 times better off (which, incidentally, will still leave them better off than people in the developed world today). And, remember, all this is on the basis of the IPCC's own grotesquely inflated estimate of the likely damage from further warming.
So the fundamental question is: how big a sacrifice should the present generation make now in the hope of avoiding this?
The cost of the drastic reduction in carbon dioxide emissions which we are told is necessary would be huge. The Government has introduced legislation to force us to cut emissions by between 60 per cent and 80 per cent by 2050, and Tony Blair, as self-appointed head of a group of "experts", last month declared that "emissions in the richer countries will have to fall close to zero".
One thing is clear: the "feelgood" measures so popular among some sections of the middle classes, from driving a hybrid car and having a wind turbine on one's roof to not leaving the television set on standby, are trivial to the point of total irrelevance. What would be required is for all transport to be 100 per cent electric, and all electricity to be generated by nuclear power.
To cut back carbon dioxide emissions on the scale the present Labour Government (supported by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats) is demanding would require a fundamental restructuring of the economy, involving a rise in the cost of energy dwarfing anything we have seen so far.
No doubt we could afford this hardship if it made sense. But does it? The UK accounts for only 2 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions. Even if the entire European Union adopted this policy, that accounts for only 15 per cent of global emissions.
By contrast, China - which has already overtaken the U.S. as the biggest single emitter - has said that there is no way it will agree to a cap on its carbon dioxide emissions for the foreseeable future. And India has said precisely the same.
Both of them point out that it was the industrialised West, not they, that caused the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations during the last century, and that it is now their turn to catch up.
Also, that their emissions per head of population, although rising fast, are still well below those of the U.S. and Europe; and that their overriding priority is - quite rightly - the fastest possible rate of economic growth, and thus the most rapid emancipation of their people from poverty. One good reason why there will not be any effective global agreement.
So the chief consequence of decarbonising here, and making energy much more expensive, would simply be to accelerate the exodus of industry from the UK and Europe to China and elsewhere in the developing world - with, as a result, little or no reduction in overall global emissions.
And even if there were a global agreement to cut drastically carbon dioxide emissions, the economic cost of doing so would far exceed any benefit.
So does all this mean that we should do nothing about global warming? Well, not quite. (Although doing nothing is better than doing something stupid.)
We do need to monitor as accurately as we can what is happening to temperatures across the globe, and we do need to assist the developing countries to adapt to a warmer temperature, should (one day) the need arise.
It makes sense, too, to invest in research in the hoped-for technology of generating electricity using commercial carbon capture (so that carbon dioxide emissions might be "captured" before they can escape into the atmosphere) and also, as the U.S. is already doing, in the technology of geoengineering to cool the planet artificially.
But that is about the size of it. This is not the easiest message to get across - not least because the issues surrounding global warming are so often discussed in terms of belief rather than reason.
There may be a political explanation for this. With the collapse of Marxism and, to all intents and purposes, of other forms of socialism too, those who dislike capitalism and its foremost exemplar, the United States, with equal passion, have been obliged to find a new creed.
For many of them, green is the new red. And those who wish to order us how to run our lives, faced with the uncomfortable evidence that economic prosperity is more likely to be achieved by less government intervention rather than more, naturally welcome the emergence of a new licence to intrude, to interfere, to tax and to regulate: all in the great cause of saving the planet from the alleged horrors of global warming.
But there is something much more fundamental at work. I suspect that it is no accident that it is in Europe that eco-fundamentalism in general and global warming absolutism in particular has found its most fertile soil. For it is Europe that has become the most secular society in the world, where the traditional religions have the weakest hold.
Yet people still feel the need for the comfort and higher values that religion can provide; and it is the quasi-religion of green alarmism, of which the global warming issue is the most striking example, which has filled the vacuum, with reasoned questioning of its mantras regarded as little short of sacrilege.
Does all this matter? Up to a point, no.
Unbelievers should not be dismissive of the comfort that 'religion' can bring. If people feel better when they drive a hybrid car or ride a bicycle to work, and like to parade their virtue in this way, then so be it.
Nonetheless, the new and unattractively intolerant religion of eco-fundamentalism and global warming presents real dangers. The most obvious is that the governments of Europe may get so carried away by their own rhetoric as to impose measures that do serious harm to their economies. That is a particular danger at the present time in the UK.
Another danger is that even if the governments do not go too far and damage their own economies, they may still cause great damage to the developing world by engaging in what might be termed green protectionism. The movement to make us feel guilty about buying overseas produce because of the "food miles" involved is just one example of this.
And France's President Sarkozy is currently urging the European Union to impose trade barriers against those countries that are not prepared to limit their carbon dioxide emissions.
It should not need pointing out that a lurch into protectionism, and a rolling back of globalisation, would do far more damage to the world economy - and in particular to living standards in the developing countries - than could conceivably result from the projected continuation of global warming.
But even if this danger can be averted, it is clear that the would-be saviours of the planet are, in practice, the enemies of poverty reduction in the developing world.
So the new religion of global warming, however convenient it may be to the politicians, is not as harmless as it may appear. Indeed, the more one examines it, the more it resembles a Da Vinci Code of environmentalism. It is a great story, and a phenomenal bestseller. It contains a grain of truth - and a mountain of nonsense.
And that nonsense could be very damaging indeed.
We appear to have entered a new age of unreason, which threatens to be as economically harmful as it is profoundly disquieting. It is from this, above all, that we really do need to save the planet.
N.Lawson
------------------------------------------------------------------
Back home in Tennessee, safely ensconced in his suburban Nashville home, Vice President Al Gore is no doubt basking in the Oscar awarded to "An Inconvenient Truth," the documentary he inspired and in which he starred. But a local free-market think tank is trying to make that very home emblematic of what it deems Gore's environmental hypocrisy.
Armed with Gore's utility bills for the last two years, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research charged Monday that the gas and electric bills for the former vice president's 20-room home and pool house devoured nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours in 2006, more than 20 times the national average of 10,656 kilowatt-hours.
Is Gore's Energy Consumption Hypocritical? "If this were any other person with $30,000-a-year in utility bills, I wouldn't care," says the Center's 27-year-old president, Drew Johnson. "But he tells other people how to live and he's not following his own rules."
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/GlobalWarming/story?id=2906888&page=1&page=1
Al Gore, the former American vice-president, yesterday hit back at critics who are labelling him the first "carbon billionaire" from his earnings as an investor in green technology, dismissing them as "global-warming deniers".
While the former presidential candidate is not a lobbyist in the traditional sense, he is a frequent visitor to Capitol Hill where he continues to press members of Congress to pass legislation to curb emissions. In April, he was famously put on the spot about his business interests in the industry by the Republican Marsha Blackburn.
Mr Gore, who earns in excess of $100,000 (£60,000) for speaking engagements reacted testily to the implication in her question about a possible conflict of interest. "Congresswoman, if you believe that the reason I have been working on this issue for 30 years is because of greed," he said, "you don't know me".
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/al-gore-denies-he-is-carbon-billionaire-1814199.html
Didn't deny it, did he? Just avoided answering.
Him and Bliar are heavily invested in green technology, it's ok though, they are straight kind of guys....
Then, a little later, we were warned the world was running out of natural resources. By the Seventies, when global temperatures began to dip, many eminent scientists warned us that we faced a new Ice Age.
But the latest scare, global warming, has engaged the political and opinion-forming classes to a greater extent than any of these.
The readiness to embrace this fashionable belief has led the present Labour Government, enthusiastically supported by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, to commit itself to a policy of drastically cutting back carbon dioxide emissions - at huge cost to the British economy and to the living standards not merely of this generation, but of our children's generation, too.
That is why I have written a book about the subject.
Now, I readily admit that I am not a scientist; but then neither are the vast majority of those who espouse the currently fashionable madness. Moreover, most of those scientists who speak with such certainty about global warming and climate change are not climate scientists, or Earth scientists of any kind, and thus have no special knowledge to contribute.
Those who have to take the key decisions aren't scientists either. They are politicians who, having listened to the opinions of relevant scientists and having studied the evidence, must reach the best decisions they can - just as I did when I was Energy Secretary in Margaret Thatcher's first government in the early Eighties.
But science is only part of the story. Even if the climate scientists can tell us what is happening, and why they think it is happening, they cannot tell us what governments should be doing about it. For this, we also need an understanding of the economics: of what the economic consequences of any warming might be, and, if there is a problem, the best way of dealing with it.
First, then, what is happening? Given that nowadays pretty well every adverse development in the natural world is automatically attributed to global warming, perhaps the most surprising fact about it is that it is not, in fact, happening at all. The truth is that there has so far been no recorded global warming at all this century.
The world's temperature rose about half a degree centigrade during the last quarter of the 20th century; but even the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research - part of Britain's Met Office and a citadel of the current global warming orthodoxy - has now conceded that recorded temperature figures for the first seven years of the 21st century reveal there has been a standstill.
The centre now officially expects global warming to resume at some point between 2009 and 2014.
Maybe it will. But the fact that the present lull was not predicted by any of the complex computer models upon which the global warming orthodoxy relies is clear evidence that the science of what determines the world's temperature is distinctly uncertain and far from "settled".
Genuine climate scientists admit that Earth's climate is determined by hugely complex systems, and reliable prediction is impossible.
That does not mean, of course, that we know nothing. We know that the planet is made habitable only thanks to the warmth we receive from the rays of the sun. Most of this heat bounces back into space; but some of it is
trapped by the so-called greenhouse gases which exist in the Earth's atmosphere. If it were not for that, our planet would be far too cold for man to survive.
The most important greenhouse gas is water vapour, including water suspended in clouds. Rather a long way behind, the second most important is carbon dioxide.
The vast bulk of the carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere is natural - that is, nothing to do with man. But there is no doubt that ever since the Industrial Revolution in the latter part of the 19th century, man has added greatly to atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide by burning carbon - first in the form of coal, and subsequently in the form of oil and gas, too.
So it is reasonable to suppose that, other things being equal, this will have warmed the planet, and that further man-made carbon dioxide emissions will warm it still further.
But in the first place, other things are very far from equal. And in the second place, even if they were, there is no agreement among reputable climate scientists over how much this contributed to the modest late-20th century warming of the planet, and thus may be expected to do so in future.
Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth has enraged some who claim it is inaccurate propaganda.
It is striking that during the 21st century, carbon dioxide emissions have been growing faster than ever - thanks in particular to the rapid growth of the Chinese economy - yet there has been no further global warming at all.
Carbon dioxide, like water vapour and oxygen, is not only completely harmless but is an essential element in our life support system.
Not only do we exhale carbon dioxide every time we breathe (indeed, an important cause of the increased amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is simply the huge increase in the world's population), but plants need to absorb carbon dioxide in order to survive. Without carbon dioxide, there would be no plant life on the planet. And without plant life, there would be no human life either.
While climate scientists disagree about how much further warming continued carbon dioxide emissions might cause, there is an established majority view.
This is articulated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an offshoot of the United Nations, whose view is that 'most' of the modest (0.5 per cent) late-20th century warming was "very likely" caused by man-made carbon dioxide emissions.
And if the growth of such emissions continues unabated, their 'best guess' is that in 100 years' time, the planet will be somewhere between 1.8 and 4 per cent warmer than it is today, with a mid-point of a shade under 3 per cent. (Incidentally, this was published before the early 21st century warming standstill was officially acknowledged, so was not taken into account.)
Alistair Darling told us in his recent Budget speech that this would have "catastrophic economic and social consequences". But that is just alarmist poppycock.
Let's look at just two of the alleged "catastrophic" consequences of global warming: the threat to food production, leading to mass starvation; and the threat to human health, leading to disease and death.
So far as food production is concerned, it is not clear why a warmer climate would be a problem at all. Even the IPCC concedes that for a warming of anything up to 3 per cent, "globally, the potential for food production is projected to increase". Yes: increase.
As to health, in its most recent report, the IPCC found only one outcome which they ranked as "virtually certain" to happen - and that was "reduced human mortality from decreased cold exposure".
This echoes a study done by our own Department of Health which predicted that by the 2050s, the UK would suffer an increase in heat-related deaths by 2,000 a year, and a decrease in cold-related mortality of 20,000 deaths a year - something that ministers have been curiously silent about.
The IPCC systematically exaggerates the likely adverse effects of any warming that might occur because estimates of the likely impact of the global warming it projects for the next 100 years are explicitly based on two assumptions, both of them absurd.
The first is that while the developed world can adapt to warming, the developing world cannot.
The second is that even in the developed world, the capacity to adapt is constrained by the limits of existing technology. In other words, there will be no technological development over the next 100 years.
So far as the first of these two assumptions is concerned, if necessary, the developed world will focus its overseas aid on ensuring that the developing countries acquire the required ability to adapt. The second is, of course, ludicrous - notably in the case of food production, where, with the development of bio-engineering and genetic modification, the world is currently in the early stages of a genuine revolution in agricultural technology.
All in all, given that global warming produces benefits as well as costs, it is far from clear that the currently projected warming, far from being "catastrophic", will do any net harm at all.
To which it will be replied that while that may be so for the world as a whole, the people in the developing world will indeed suffer.
But the greatest curse of the developing world is mass poverty, and the malnutrition, disease and unnecessary death that poverty brings. To impede their escape from poverty by denying them the benefits of cheap carbon-based energy would damage them far more than global warming ever could.
Nonetheless, on the basis of its deeply flawed assumptions, the IPCC predicts that if the warming is as much as 4 degrees centigrade by the end of this century, then the economic cost would be a cut of between 1 per cent and 5 per cent of what world output (GDP) would otherwise have been - with the developed world suffering much less, and the developing world much more than this.
But supposing the developing world suffers as much as a 10 per cent loss of GDP from what it would have been in 100 years' time.
That means that by the year 2100, people in the developing world, instead of being some 9.5 times better off than they are today, will be 'only' 8.5 times better off (which, incidentally, will still leave them better off than people in the developed world today). And, remember, all this is on the basis of the IPCC's own grotesquely inflated estimate of the likely damage from further warming.
So the fundamental question is: how big a sacrifice should the present generation make now in the hope of avoiding this?
The cost of the drastic reduction in carbon dioxide emissions which we are told is necessary would be huge. The Government has introduced legislation to force us to cut emissions by between 60 per cent and 80 per cent by 2050, and Tony Blair, as self-appointed head of a group of "experts", last month declared that "emissions in the richer countries will have to fall close to zero".
One thing is clear: the "feelgood" measures so popular among some sections of the middle classes, from driving a hybrid car and having a wind turbine on one's roof to not leaving the television set on standby, are trivial to the point of total irrelevance. What would be required is for all transport to be 100 per cent electric, and all electricity to be generated by nuclear power.
To cut back carbon dioxide emissions on the scale the present Labour Government (supported by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats) is demanding would require a fundamental restructuring of the economy, involving a rise in the cost of energy dwarfing anything we have seen so far.
No doubt we could afford this hardship if it made sense. But does it? The UK accounts for only 2 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions. Even if the entire European Union adopted this policy, that accounts for only 15 per cent of global emissions.
By contrast, China - which has already overtaken the U.S. as the biggest single emitter - has said that there is no way it will agree to a cap on its carbon dioxide emissions for the foreseeable future. And India has said precisely the same.
Both of them point out that it was the industrialised West, not they, that caused the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations during the last century, and that it is now their turn to catch up.
Also, that their emissions per head of population, although rising fast, are still well below those of the U.S. and Europe; and that their overriding priority is - quite rightly - the fastest possible rate of economic growth, and thus the most rapid emancipation of their people from poverty. One good reason why there will not be any effective global agreement.
So the chief consequence of decarbonising here, and making energy much more expensive, would simply be to accelerate the exodus of industry from the UK and Europe to China and elsewhere in the developing world - with, as a result, little or no reduction in overall global emissions.
And even if there were a global agreement to cut drastically carbon dioxide emissions, the economic cost of doing so would far exceed any benefit.
So does all this mean that we should do nothing about global warming? Well, not quite. (Although doing nothing is better than doing something stupid.)
We do need to monitor as accurately as we can what is happening to temperatures across the globe, and we do need to assist the developing countries to adapt to a warmer temperature, should (one day) the need arise.
It makes sense, too, to invest in research in the hoped-for technology of generating electricity using commercial carbon capture (so that carbon dioxide emissions might be "captured" before they can escape into the atmosphere) and also, as the U.S. is already doing, in the technology of geoengineering to cool the planet artificially.
But that is about the size of it. This is not the easiest message to get across - not least because the issues surrounding global warming are so often discussed in terms of belief rather than reason.
There may be a political explanation for this. With the collapse of Marxism and, to all intents and purposes, of other forms of socialism too, those who dislike capitalism and its foremost exemplar, the United States, with equal passion, have been obliged to find a new creed.
For many of them, green is the new red. And those who wish to order us how to run our lives, faced with the uncomfortable evidence that economic prosperity is more likely to be achieved by less government intervention rather than more, naturally welcome the emergence of a new licence to intrude, to interfere, to tax and to regulate: all in the great cause of saving the planet from the alleged horrors of global warming.
But there is something much more fundamental at work. I suspect that it is no accident that it is in Europe that eco-fundamentalism in general and global warming absolutism in particular has found its most fertile soil. For it is Europe that has become the most secular society in the world, where the traditional religions have the weakest hold.
Yet people still feel the need for the comfort and higher values that religion can provide; and it is the quasi-religion of green alarmism, of which the global warming issue is the most striking example, which has filled the vacuum, with reasoned questioning of its mantras regarded as little short of sacrilege.
Does all this matter? Up to a point, no.
Unbelievers should not be dismissive of the comfort that 'religion' can bring. If people feel better when they drive a hybrid car or ride a bicycle to work, and like to parade their virtue in this way, then so be it.
Nonetheless, the new and unattractively intolerant religion of eco-fundamentalism and global warming presents real dangers. The most obvious is that the governments of Europe may get so carried away by their own rhetoric as to impose measures that do serious harm to their economies. That is a particular danger at the present time in the UK.
Another danger is that even if the governments do not go too far and damage their own economies, they may still cause great damage to the developing world by engaging in what might be termed green protectionism. The movement to make us feel guilty about buying overseas produce because of the "food miles" involved is just one example of this.
And France's President Sarkozy is currently urging the European Union to impose trade barriers against those countries that are not prepared to limit their carbon dioxide emissions.
It should not need pointing out that a lurch into protectionism, and a rolling back of globalisation, would do far more damage to the world economy - and in particular to living standards in the developing countries - than could conceivably result from the projected continuation of global warming.
But even if this danger can be averted, it is clear that the would-be saviours of the planet are, in practice, the enemies of poverty reduction in the developing world.
So the new religion of global warming, however convenient it may be to the politicians, is not as harmless as it may appear. Indeed, the more one examines it, the more it resembles a Da Vinci Code of environmentalism. It is a great story, and a phenomenal bestseller. It contains a grain of truth - and a mountain of nonsense.
And that nonsense could be very damaging indeed.
We appear to have entered a new age of unreason, which threatens to be as economically harmful as it is profoundly disquieting. It is from this, above all, that we really do need to save the planet.
N.Lawson
------------------------------------------------------------------
Back home in Tennessee, safely ensconced in his suburban Nashville home, Vice President Al Gore is no doubt basking in the Oscar awarded to "An Inconvenient Truth," the documentary he inspired and in which he starred. But a local free-market think tank is trying to make that very home emblematic of what it deems Gore's environmental hypocrisy.
Armed with Gore's utility bills for the last two years, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research charged Monday that the gas and electric bills for the former vice president's 20-room home and pool house devoured nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours in 2006, more than 20 times the national average of 10,656 kilowatt-hours.
Is Gore's Energy Consumption Hypocritical? "If this were any other person with $30,000-a-year in utility bills, I wouldn't care," says the Center's 27-year-old president, Drew Johnson. "But he tells other people how to live and he's not following his own rules."
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/GlobalWarming/story?id=2906888&page=1&page=1
Al Gore, the former American vice-president, yesterday hit back at critics who are labelling him the first "carbon billionaire" from his earnings as an investor in green technology, dismissing them as "global-warming deniers".
While the former presidential candidate is not a lobbyist in the traditional sense, he is a frequent visitor to Capitol Hill where he continues to press members of Congress to pass legislation to curb emissions. In April, he was famously put on the spot about his business interests in the industry by the Republican Marsha Blackburn.
Mr Gore, who earns in excess of $100,000 (£60,000) for speaking engagements reacted testily to the implication in her question about a possible conflict of interest. "Congresswoman, if you believe that the reason I have been working on this issue for 30 years is because of greed," he said, "you don't know me".
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/al-gore-denies-he-is-carbon-billionaire-1814199.html
Didn't deny it, did he? Just avoided answering.
Him and Bliar are heavily invested in green technology, it's ok though, they are straight kind of guys....
Obviously i can't be bothered to read this long-winded thread, it wouldn't be efficient in any way shape or form. But I think you are making a mistake if you suppose people deny climate change for the sake of it.
Nobody really denies climate change at all. What people do deny is that humans are the main agent in climate change. CC has been going on since the dawn of time. If every plant, animal, and human were to die tomorrow there would still be CC. It is an incredible presumption of modern science that us humans really affect the future of this planet.
I recall watching a programme recently in which the presenter earnestly banged on about the threat humans were posing to planet Earth. And then casually at the end he mentioned the fact that in the past our planet has moved from equable temperatures to Ice Age in the space of 50 years, ( far quicker than we could make such a shift if we tried ).
So please stop boring us with this nonsense. Just because we have recently learnt that our planet has climatic changes, doesn't mean that us pathetic humans are the ones driving it all.
We are just the fashion victims trying to make personal gain out of it.
Nobody really denies climate change at all. What people do deny is that humans are the main agent in climate change. CC has been going on since the dawn of time. If every plant, animal, and human were to die tomorrow there would still be CC. It is an incredible presumption of modern science that us humans really affect the future of this planet.
I recall watching a programme recently in which the presenter earnestly banged on about the threat humans were posing to planet Earth. And then casually at the end he mentioned the fact that in the past our planet has moved from equable temperatures to Ice Age in the space of 50 years, ( far quicker than we could make such a shift if we tried ).
So please stop boring us with this nonsense. Just because we have recently learnt that our planet has climatic changes, doesn't mean that us pathetic humans are the ones driving it all.
We are just the fashion victims trying to make personal gain out of it.
Chippie - no-one reads your boring, weird cut n' pastes.
slimfast - it's very difficult to argue that there's no correlation between carbon emission and CC when you look closely at the two graphs over recent decades.
slimfast - it's very difficult to argue that there's no correlation between carbon emission and CC when you look closely at the two graphs over recent decades.
Dr J 08 Nov 20:48
Chippie - no-one reads your boring, weird cut n' pastes.
Weird, deniers, shills...... oh dear - what are these tactics. Btw, have you refused anything that seems rather long? :D
slimfast - it's very difficult to argue that there's no correlation between carbon emission and CC when you look closely at the two graphs over recent decades.
Wow, have you looked at 2 graphs? Well, that combined with your PhD in the relevant fields clinches it.
What a total plonker.
And btw, this paragraph ( that you ignored ) seems to sum you up rather nicely.
There may be a political explanation for this. With the collapse of Marxism and, to all intents and purposes, of other forms of socialism too, those who dislike capitalism and its foremost exemplar, the United States, with equal passion, have been obliged to find a new creed.
For many of them, green is the new red. And those who wish to order us how to run our lives, faced with the uncomfortable evidence that economic prosperity is more likely to be achieved by less government intervention rather than more, naturally welcome the emergence of a new licence to intrude, to interfere, to tax and to regulate: all in the great cause of saving the planet from the alleged horrors of global warming.
Chippie - no-one reads your boring, weird cut n' pastes.
Weird, deniers, shills...... oh dear - what are these tactics. Btw, have you refused anything that seems rather long? :D
slimfast - it's very difficult to argue that there's no correlation between carbon emission and CC when you look closely at the two graphs over recent decades.
Wow, have you looked at 2 graphs? Well, that combined with your PhD in the relevant fields clinches it.
What a total plonker.
And btw, this paragraph ( that you ignored ) seems to sum you up rather nicely.
There may be a political explanation for this. With the collapse of Marxism and, to all intents and purposes, of other forms of socialism too, those who dislike capitalism and its foremost exemplar, the United States, with equal passion, have been obliged to find a new creed.
For many of them, green is the new red. And those who wish to order us how to run our lives, faced with the uncomfortable evidence that economic prosperity is more likely to be achieved by less government intervention rather than more, naturally welcome the emergence of a new licence to intrude, to interfere, to tax and to regulate: all in the great cause of saving the planet from the alleged horrors of global warming.
"faced with the uncomfortable evidence that economic prosperity is more likely to be achieved by less government intervention rather than more, naturally welcome the emergence of a new licence to intrude, to interfere, to tax and to regulate"
ROFLMAO ... the first, but probably not the last time i've found that initialism appropriate on the politics forum :)
ROFLMAO ... the first, but probably not the last time i've found that initialism appropriate on the politics forum :)
Impressive rebuttals from Dr J and gus. One is laughing the other name calling.
Ah well.
Ah well.
Dr J is still stupid enough to believe that the nation which is the largest single CO2 emitter, which has nearly tripled its emissions in just over 15 years, and is still increasing rapidly, doesn't need to be involved... because according to his arrogant Western-centric mentality, its a 'developing' country
a couple of lines in Chippies post explain the consequences of this thinking perfectly, but of course Dr J is far too biased to notice this
a couple of lines in Chippies post explain the consequences of this thinking perfectly, but of course Dr J is far too biased to notice this
sub
It's too long for him to read. Next time I'll put pictures in the post, just for him. ;)
It's too long for him to read. Next time I'll put pictures in the post, just for him. ;)
his reaction is quite typical of these dumb biased lefties
can't be bothered to read or acknowledge anything that contradicts the dumbed-down factoids they've been spoonfed... and then accuse others of being 'deniers' :D
can't be bothered to read or acknowledge anything that contradicts the dumbed-down factoids they've been spoonfed... and then accuse others of being 'deniers' :D
Wow, have you looked at 2 graphs?
Have you, Chippie?
Quite why you think it's more credible to cut n' paste ad nauseum than to study primary evidence and draw your own conclusions I don't know.
You seem to be alarmingly willing to allow other people (usually paranoid, ungrammatical right-wing bloggers) to speak on your behalf.
:0
Have you, Chippie?
Quite why you think it's more credible to cut n' paste ad nauseum than to study primary evidence and draw your own conclusions I don't know.
You seem to be alarmingly willing to allow other people (usually paranoid, ungrammatical right-wing bloggers) to speak on your behalf.
:0
So these 2 graphs that you have seen prove it, do they?
Excuse me whilst I :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D
Excuse me whilst I :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D
Chippie -
In your opinion (that means no cut n' pasting I'm afraid), have global temperatures risen or fallen in the last 100 years?
Here's a clue from NASA:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A.lrg.gif
If you refuse to believe that there's any connection between this rise and the massive increase in carbon emission over the same period, can you please provide us all with your alternative explanation?
Thanks.
In your opinion (that means no cut n' pasting I'm afraid), have global temperatures risen or fallen in the last 100 years?
Here's a clue from NASA:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A.lrg.gif
If you refuse to believe that there's any connection between this rise and the massive increase in carbon emission over the same period, can you please provide us all with your alternative explanation?
Thanks.
Dr J
I've been to a dozen or so talks by CC sceptics
I always knew you were a bit weird but you constantly raise the bar.
I've been to a dozen or so talks by CC sceptics
I always knew you were a bit weird but you constantly raise the bar.
Dr J 08 Nov 21:39
(that means no cut n' pasting I'm afraid)
That's a bit rich given the ridiculous cut n' paste that you opened up this thread with. Not to mention it's ageist.
There has been at least 75 major temperature swings in the last 4500 years - were these caused by Man please?
(that means no cut n' pasting I'm afraid)
That's a bit rich given the ridiculous cut n' paste that you opened up this thread with. Not to mention it's ageist.
There has been at least 75 major temperature swings in the last 4500 years - were these caused by Man please?
I've been to a dozen or so talks by CC sceptics
I always knew you were a bit weird but you constantly raise the bar.
:)
It's the best way to learn about the counter-arguments, imo. What's surprising is how feeble the 'evidence' is - one guy acknowledged that the odds of CC not being linked to rising carbon emission were over 10,000-1.
Their point is that correlation doesn't always entail causation, and that other factors could also be at work. Fair enough, but that's hardly a reason not to tackle the issue (as they all acknowledge).
I always knew you were a bit weird but you constantly raise the bar.
:)
It's the best way to learn about the counter-arguments, imo. What's surprising is how feeble the 'evidence' is - one guy acknowledged that the odds of CC not being linked to rising carbon emission were over 10,000-1.
Their point is that correlation doesn't always entail causation, and that other factors could also be at work. Fair enough, but that's hardly a reason not to tackle the issue (as they all acknowledge).
one guy acknowledged that the odds of CC not being linked to rising carbon emission were over 10,000-1.
And if some guy plucking a nice sounding random number out of thin air isn't proof enough then I don't know what is! :D
Please.
And if some guy plucking a nice sounding random number out of thin air isn't proof enough then I don't know what is! :D
Please.
Dr J 08 Nov 22:03
Their point is that correlation doesn't always entail causation
by golly, i think he's finally figured it out! :D
Their point is that correlation doesn't always entail causation
by golly, i think he's finally figured it out! :D
Dr J 08 Nov 20:48
Chippie - no-one reads your boring, weird cut n' pastes.
slimfast - it's very difficult to argue that there's no correlation between carbon emission and CC when you look closely at the two graphs over recent decades.
But so what? Can you give me a comparison of CC over the last few decades compared with the last few decades minus 1000 years, minus 2000 years, minus 10000 years etc etc.
The last few decades in isolation is practically meaningless.
Chippie - no-one reads your boring, weird cut n' pastes.
slimfast - it's very difficult to argue that there's no correlation between carbon emission and CC when you look closely at the two graphs over recent decades.
But so what? Can you give me a comparison of CC over the last few decades compared with the last few decades minus 1000 years, minus 2000 years, minus 10000 years etc etc.
The last few decades in isolation is practically meaningless.
I've cranked up the heating and am sitting in my boxer shorts. I'm trying hard in my own little way to get the graph to start climbing again. 8 years of stagnation is way too long, we need a lot more global warming here in the uk.
Isn't there one school of thought that says an increase in temperature brings with it an increase in CO2, so rather than CO2 leading temperature changes its the other way around.
That said global temperature hasn't increased in 11 years.
But i agree with those that say we're looking at far too small a time frame to conclude there is a definite connection between mans co2 and climate change (notice how its not called global warming anymore), but there has certainly been a concerted effort to push that theory as fact and as far as i can tell the only motive behind that is to make a few people very wealthy while further controlling the populous with another tax thats going to cripple industry and financially cripple a lot of families.
No doubt there are thousands of people involved in the environmental movement that have genuine concerns for the well being of this planet but they need to realise the people that are really going to benefit are a few elite very wealthy families and anyone that supports a further restriction in peoples freedoms.
That said global temperature hasn't increased in 11 years.
But i agree with those that say we're looking at far too small a time frame to conclude there is a definite connection between mans co2 and climate change (notice how its not called global warming anymore), but there has certainly been a concerted effort to push that theory as fact and as far as i can tell the only motive behind that is to make a few people very wealthy while further controlling the populous with another tax thats going to cripple industry and financially cripple a lot of families.
No doubt there are thousands of people involved in the environmental movement that have genuine concerns for the well being of this planet but they need to realise the people that are really going to benefit are a few elite very wealthy families and anyone that supports a further restriction in peoples freedoms.
Chippie in Whitehall 08 Nov 22:10
one guy acknowledged that the odds of CC not being linked to rising carbon emission were over 10,000-1.
And if some guy plucking a nice sounding random number out of thin air isn't proof enough then I don't know what is! :D
Please.
Why would that be plucked out of thin air. Those odds will be exact based on some kind of statistical analysis.
I think there should have been more comment about Dr J being ageist. Had someone made a point about black people being fools or heaven forfend a derogatory comment about "butt bangers" or "rug munchers" his howls of outrage would have been heard throughout the land.
What a hypocrite.
What a hypocrite.
Why would that be plucked out of thin air. Those odds will be exact based on some kind of statistical analysis.
Ok, link please? :D
Ok, link please? :D
Those odds will be exact based on some kind of statistical analysis.
Made me giggle too
Made me giggle too
I think there should have been more comment about Dr J being ageist.
More than a tad odd when you consider he is ancient himself.
More than a tad odd when you consider he is ancient himself.
While we're at it can someone give me a rundown on the recent CC on Jupiter. 'Cos i'm guaranteeing it's more spectacular than Earth's CC
Will Al Bore still be using private jets on a regular basis?
Will he donate his $1 billion to planting trees or something like that?
Will he donate his $1 billion to planting trees or something like that?
About as likely as Dr J not licking his ball sack.
global temp.is 1 degree less than 2000 years ago......fact......its an excuse to push taxes .
creditor
Do you have a source for that statistic?
If you do there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth on here.
Do you have a source for that statistic?
If you do there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth on here.
And if some guy plucking a nice sounding random number out of thin air isn't proof enough then I don't know what is!
Just to be clear, the guy who quoted the figure was what you boys would call a 'climate change sceptic' (in other words, he's on your side, not mine!)
Larry's - I'm sorry if the 'ageist' comments upset you. It was Monbiot's theory, not mine.
;)
Just to be clear, the guy who quoted the figure was what you boys would call a 'climate change sceptic' (in other words, he's on your side, not mine!)
Larry's - I'm sorry if the 'ageist' comments upset you. It was Monbiot's theory, not mine.
;)
This guy, that guy, unsourced numbers, some meeting, la la la. Not very scientific is it.
And let me get this straight, this guy who just happened to say this nice round number to you is a sceptic - the kind of sceptic who actually believes what he is sceptical about.
Be honest, you're just making things up now.
And let me get this straight, this guy who just happened to say this nice round number to you is a sceptic - the kind of sceptic who actually believes what he is sceptical about.
Be honest, you're just making things up now.
Have you ever spoken to a scientist who is sceptical, Chippie? Read a book perhaps?
You seem to have no concept at all of what their position is, I'm afraid.
:(
You seem to have no concept at all of what their position is, I'm afraid.
:(
Back to name calling.
Eh?
There's no name-calling there - I'm just asking exactly what research underpins your faith in CC scepticism.
Don't be such a luvvie.
Eh?
There's no name-calling there - I'm just asking exactly what research underpins your faith in CC scepticism.
Don't be such a luvvie.
I've posted enough links on this thread to answer that. You choose not to read them, that's fine.
Maybe it's best if you just stick with name calling and your 100 year time frame...
Maybe it's best if you just stick with name calling and your 100 year time frame...
Big Charlie 05 Nov 12:44
When as Eskimo passes my house in a kayak, I'll start to worry.
Still so sign.
When as Eskimo passes my house in a kayak, I'll start to worry.
Still so sign.
I've posted enough links on this thread to answer that.
Okay, so your entire position is based on unreliable Internet sources. No peer review, no vetting procedure, no editorial oversight.
That's an automatic 'fail' for my undergraduates...
Okay, so your entire position is based on unreliable Internet sources. No peer review, no vetting procedure, no editorial oversight.
That's an automatic 'fail' for my undergraduates...
An automatic fail to me is someone fabricating the position of others in order to further their own argument without having to engage in the debate.
A tried and tested NL tactic. Shameful.
A tried and tested NL tactic. Shameful.
Speaking of "fabricating the evidence" - here is how Global warming scam artists have fabricated the data :
....Actors voice:
....Actors voice:
slimfast 08 Nov 23:42
Those odds will be exact based on some kind of statistical analysis.
Made me giggle too
I can't comment on how credible the usage of statistics is, but that 10000-1 figure isn't going to be random is all I'm saying. It'll be statistically accurate based on whatever sample. The sample might not be very representative of course.
Those odds will be exact based on some kind of statistical analysis.
Made me giggle too
I can't comment on how credible the usage of statistics is, but that 10000-1 figure isn't going to be random is all I'm saying. It'll be statistically accurate based on whatever sample. The sample might not be very representative of course.
And this thread is simply an exercise in name-calling and prejudice.
Can't you climate creationists simply hold a honest debate without resorting to false data, name-calling, smearing or dodgy criminal prosecutions?
Can't you climate creationists simply hold a honest debate without resorting to false data, name-calling, smearing or dodgy criminal prosecutions?
Chippie really is unique imo.
Watching him get all agitated because someone mentioned his stupidity is comedy gold, imo.
Let's hope he says "Well, can you?" one more time...
Watching him get all agitated because someone mentioned his stupidity is comedy gold, imo.
Let's hope he says "Well, can you?" one more time...
Chippie in Whitehall 17 Nov 16:45
this thread is simply an exercise in name-calling and prejudice.
Chippie in Whitehall 18 Nov 13:43
Keep dreaming - stupid.
:D
Priceless.
this thread is simply an exercise in name-calling and prejudice.
Chippie in Whitehall 18 Nov 13:43
Keep dreaming - stupid.
:D
Priceless.
http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37&Itemid=1
Here's a better theory, from scientists, not left wing journalists.
Here's a better theory, from scientists, not left wing journalists.
Can't you climate creationists simply hold a honest debate without resorting to false data, name-calling, smearing or dodgy criminal prosecutions?
LOL @ 'climate creationists' in the middle of that sentence.
There was a debate, it was called IPCC AR4. The sceptics lost. The next one will be called AR5. Perhaps they will do better this time.
All the rest is just rhetoric.
LOL @ 'climate creationists' in the middle of that sentence.
There was a debate, it was called IPCC AR4. The sceptics lost. The next one will be called AR5. Perhaps they will do better this time.
All the rest is just rhetoric.
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