By I’m all for scepticism. Climate change will eventually cost billions of pounds taxpayers money and shift us towards a different way of life, so there’s every right to question its credibility. But I made my mind up a long time ago on the climate debate; the only thing I’m left sceptical about is the sceptics.
Climate change scepticism has swelled to a massive proportion. But why? The vast majority of governments and scientists acknowledge climate change to be real and a real threat but scepticism is on the rise. So how is the minority prevailing?
First, the only way to avoid the effects of climate change is to have government intervention and increased spending. To name a few examples: cap and trade, feed-in tariffs, taxes on polluters; all these cost money and no matter how small, are an expanse of government. This is in fierce opposition to right wing ideology which is perhaps why the right's general opposition to action on climate change is proving so popular, particularly in traditionally conservative countries such as America.
What has to be taken in to account, however, is the vast cost the taxpayer already pays from Governments propping up the fossil fuel industry in subsidies. The European Environment Agency found that for every £1 spent subsidising renewable energy projects, £4 is spent on fossil fuels.
But despite the costs of ignoring climate change, doing so still proves politically popular. Tony Abbott, opposition leader in Australia, described climate change as “absolute crap". It went down a treat.
Of the few scientists and politicians that loudly deny climate change, many have been found to be in the pockets of large oil companies. So while their ‘scepticism’ may be accounted for, the large number of the general public who don’t believe the problem to be man-made gain no profit from it and turn a blind eye to the 97% consensus amongst scientists.
The recent leaked emails have only armed the hard-line sceptics, but they are far from throwing all the science into doubt. The fundamental problem at the route of everyone’s scepticism is that climate change doesn’t exist for most of us in the here and now. We don’t see the vast floods, extreme weather patterns and glacial disappearances the science predicts. We don’t feel the hottest summers and the warmest winters. We don’t live with the mass migration and the lack of readily available drinking water climate change is expected to bring. But before long we will and for those in Bangladesh and similar countries, they already are.
All that can be done for now is to be consistent in our argument, transparent with the science and ambitious in our actions. Scepticism might be on the up but there’s nothing to say that won’t change.
Tagged in: Environment, World.
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Just stick to your points and yours alone, without getting personal- it doesn't look nice.
There are serious and genuine people on here Phil, who do not want to get constantly distracted by personally directed or demeaning comment.
You are clearly a highly intelligent person with much to say- so why not channel that usefully instead of having a go at people who aren't in agreement?
I wish to say no more- this thread has gone on interminably.
I won't quote you word for word- I simply don't have the time or inclination.
I think "Time Out" on this article might be a relief for all.
I certainly do have sympathy for the moderator- this seems to be stretching to eternity!
OK you got me, the entire purpose of everything else I wrote was just to allow me slip in, cunningly concealed two thirds into paragraph 3, a personal slight aimed at you. Satisfied now? Good. Now let's get back to the (presumably) important concern of yours that the world may be unalterably devastated in the next 50-100 years, and my own concern that the scientific process has been corrupted, that widespread academic fraud is being uncovered and that the resulting conclusions of the above are being used as a pretext for ruinous economic policy and appalling political judgement (e.g. taxing energy companies in the name of being green whilst energy provision for the entire country is already developing into a serious problem).
I must admit I find your tag 'so and so wrote' very combative, Phil. It always feels like a 'calling out to the class' rather than a direct address, rather like a bullying teacher, or toadying teacher's pet, and I'm sure you're neither of these things.
On this...
Now let's get back to the (presumably) important concern of yours that the world may be unalterably devastated in the next 50-100 years
C'mon. You've put hay bails into that straw man. Jo certainly didn't say that, and neither have I. Some people like James Lovelock think human population will have to shrink by 3 billion - not a nice prospect - but what scientists are talking about is not devastation, but a temperature rise of a couple of degrees: enough to cause desertification in some areas, but milder temperatures in others; species will suffer from changed habitats, and populations will move. Nobody's talking about 'devastation here'.
That's what looks offensive; the desire to create an argument where there is none. This kind of manic exaggeration doesn't help. There's enough animosity in this without caricaturing your interlocutor's position.
Also- some inference about "outsiders" at the end- which seems to imply you might be "in the know" and others not?!
This is an issue that concerns us all Phil- and we all have different experiences and opinions to offer!
And by the way, I'm not what you'd call an "envoromentalist," but I respect their views as much as anyone's.
But equally you have never -- as far as I am aware -- called for a world government, said anything about hating the modern world, or said that you are particularly opposed to consumerism (except perhaps as a cause of environmental damage). And yet these were other things I mentioned.
I can assure you that there are enough people, commentators, politicians, websites etc. out there advocating the EU on environmental grounds, for me to have more in mind when I mention it that yourself.
Sometimes we all need to step back..
I'll definitely check later ASAP.
Jo.
Could I politely ask you stop paraphrasing me and others at the beginning of your opinions/blogs to enhance your points?
Otherwise it looks very personal, especially if people are not adressing you directly.
With regard to your first point- that's a hell of an assumption, surely- when about 97% of scientists have a general consensus that the theories are accurate?
Maybe it's the other 3 % we need to examining closely too, and their credentials.
I would say they are just as likely if not more, to have "other agendas."
On the balance of probability!
Maybe you could explain your own background and why you believe what you do? It might help to put into context. Thanks.
I will return to the site over the next couple of days.
This is completely off topic - but great gossip. I've included it here becase we were talking about the need for sociologists.
http://waugh.standard.co.uk/2010/02/joanne-cash-that-meeting-in-full.html
Everyone agrees that the data showing an averaged global temperature rise of 1.4C over the last 200 years is accurate.
The geological evidence is clear that the earth has been far hotter than at present, within recorded history, as Chinese records from the late 14th and early 15th century demonstrate. There is evidence that the Chinese Fleet sailed north about Canada. They could only have done this if the infamous North West Passage was ice free for a prolonged period. There is also evidence of higher sea levels through out the 15th Century and into the 16th Century with regard to ports that are now landlocked and up to 5 miles from the sea.
Vulcanologists have only recently really begun to understand the impact of plate tectonic movements and the impact of magma 'hot spots' on CO2 release - a fissure eruption three years ago in Iceland put the equivalent of 4 years human CO2 and SO2 into the atmosphere over the three months of its eruption. That is before anyone tries to work out the impact on trapped CO2 from the underwater flumes and eruptions, some of which will be even larger than the one on Iceland, going on everyday, undetected except by seismology.
You then have to look at why the phenomenon of the heat sink water spirals in the Caribbean are getting more intense is it just the sun or is it because of ocean floor changes, in a relatively shallow ocean altering flow patterns - a possibility given the recent Haiti earthquakes. The mathematical concept of a tipping point can only become moot if the human CO2 production exceeds 40% of the standard earth content for CO2. The calculation of how much free CO2 is present on Earth is also moot because we have no clue as to the real value of the many billions of metric tons of CO2 trapped in the waters of the abyssal plains or how it got there. Is it from surface diffusion or sea floor eruptions or a bit of one and the other? The truth is we know less about the earth's oceans than we do about Mars according to all oceanographers and so the impact of the seas heating on CO2 is at best a guestimate but is complicated by the impact of a rise in ocean levels increasing the pressure overall, total surface area and the potential impact that this could mean the capacity of oceans to hold CO2 actually increases overall. The recent shift of scientists within the IPCC to focus more generally on 'climate change' rather than CO2 as the trigger also must leave one to pause for thought.
Peter J. there is a lot of peer reviewed data out there that seriously questions the validity of the IPCC's CO2 hypothesis, it is just it is being refused a platform because if explained to the public it would leave the IPCC looking daft and ask serious question about the amount of money and resource the UN and National Governments have been pouring in to it.
My problem with the CO2 hypothesis is that it is too neat, too pat for the chaotic world of climate analysis and it remains uncorroborated except by its proponents. Further it is based on averaged records covering a mere 200 years of the earth's billions of years. It feels to me that since the scientists got it right on CFC's then SO2 acid rain that the IPCC have banked on this CO2 hypothesis being the same simple cause and effect model.
PS: Peter J - no theory is ever absolute they are always open to challenge and revision otherwise E=mc2 would never have superseded F=MA or we would be still hampered by Decarte's theory of light as a mechanical property rather than Newton's brilliance demonstrating how light was in fact a wave made up of many different isolated stable units.
All I can say is, don't let the blogging get you down...get some time off here too.
Bye for now, Jo.
This type of thinking and agenda seems to have such power, and is seeping into our consciousness via mainstream media outlets.
I just wish the public en masse didn't appear to accept so much of what they read or hear; independent thought seems a rare commodity these days...
This is more a general comment about mainstream media agendas.
I only speak as an observer though- I've not studied before.
It's probably hard to find a media savvy high quality scientist who is also a cgood communicator, and can present "science" clearly to the lay public...in a balanced way.
Sorry must go now Diana and Peter- still suffering with this lurgy.
Jo.
Yes its a great idea. scientists studying us to see why we behave in the way that we do!
Suffice to say, the balance of probability is definitely in favour
of theories well publicized so far.
What bugs me is when people get personally attacked or mocked
for daring to accept such overwhelming evidence, and it becomes a political tirade.
I've seen this in local papers and on blogging sites on the net- it almost comes across like gossip and innuendo.
Most scientists are pretty open minded,logical and fair people!
Maybe some of them avoid the politics and mud slinging- and just get on with their jobs in research.
Just as an aside, it would be interesting to know though, if the Murochian empire aka Fox News is influincing a whole far right agenda though- on many topics?
Maybe someone (eg a sociologist) should be analysing that!
All best Peter, Jo.
Exactly!
What bugs me is when people get personally attacked or mocked
for daring to accept such overwhelming evidence, and it becomes a political tirade.
I'm only guessing, but this must be reaching the top 5 of LL articles for the number of comments. Only Islam raises equal interest and ire...
And also note, the main sane Labour contributors, such as Peter Barnard, steer well clear, because this issue does draw out anger, barbed attacks and endless contentious link from the scepticism/cynicism group.
The problem is that the way these threads usually go, you'd the 3 per centers represented scientific consensus.
I tried to understand this phenomenon in terms of libertarianism, groupthink, conspiracy theory and wish fulfilment below, but I really hope someone is making a proper study of it.
For the record, this kind of stuff was very prevalent in the US five years ago: but having posted up a diary on climate change scepticism on two big US blogs last week, I found that things have shifted radically. The sceptics are marginalised with the Tea Partyers.
As is often the case with these things, we get flu after the US sneezes, but often months or years later...
From what I understood between the discussion on the BBC(Radio 4,)recently- between 2 eminent scientists (without an axe to grind)-the vast consensus between scientists is indeed the premise you've presented.
Hence the need for the Kyoto and Copenhagen summits, and decades of high quality research.
An interesting point was made that we need to bring psychology and human nature into this.
"Denial" is understandable- no matter how well intellectualized. After all, accepting this stuff has massive implications- including financially, and would need massive changes in lifestyle and mindset.And many vested interests globally.
Clearly the scientific research needs to be 100& rigorous and challenging- and questioned.But to allow politics to dominate to such an extent could actually hold back progress and be destructive.
I sometimes wonder where this "anti" lobby has emanated, and to what aim.I think we should all be standing back and asking those questions too.
I'm not referring to anyone on here- it's just a general observation of why this populist "anti" subculture has sprung
up all over the mainstream tabloid press.
Could there be any link between Murdoch/Sky News/Daily Mail/Sun type of consensus? I don't know- just a guess.
But if that were the case, then that could equally be just as damaging to any of the "pros" or "cons" camps of serious scientists- since no one will undrstand any of the real facts.
If it is also true that roughly 97% of scientists believe:
"..human induced global warming is real;"
-then why is it that the remaining 3% have so much sway in the mass media- and influencing public opinion to such extent?
There needs to be much more of a balance of facts and opinion.
I am a lay member of the public, very curious about how this debate has become so political.
But my partner is an engineer and scientist, working in the energy field in the UK and Europe, and is personally scathing of the powerful anti lobby that appears predominantly political.
He says it is dangerous and misinforming.
Yes- there needs to be discussion, debate and dissent- but based on sound scientific research and unfettered by politics.
1) Perhaps it's partly to do with the kind of people climate science attracts (not being mean, but they're generally not the very best scientists) who are already more inclined to believe that the impact of man on the environment poses a danger.
2) This is combined with the unfortunate fact that as global warming looms as a bigger problem, climate scientists gain more public notice, more status and receive better funding. Climate science as a field becomes more important if climate scientists collectively produce further evidence predicting disaster. Similar incentives exist on an individual level, for climate scientists to get their name associated with a new trend, observation or computer model predicting the same. This way it is THEIR name, THEIR university that is quoted in all the academic papers, by Al Gore, by the IPCC, in the media etc. and sent to the most senior level within government departments around the world and at the UN etc.
3) Among those with genuine concerns about the environment are many who have other agendas. Some simply dislike capitalism or consumerism or even the modern world (I kid you not, I knew a woman who was fairly prominent in Anti-Globalisation protests and who celebrated all things mediaeval and reviled cars, planes etc.). Others see protecting the environment as a pretext for abolishing national sovereign states, or at least clipping their wings. Examples of this would be those who argue that we need the EU for the environment (patent nonsense since the UK's being too small to cope with this issue applies equally well to the EU) or more credibly that we need some form of world government or at least some form of power vested in a higher authority like the UN, which then gets to approve wars and police carbon emissions (the lack of democracy in this proposal seems to be either a blind spot or a matter of no concern).
Putting these three together, it's obvious that some scientists have political opinions. And even among those who do not, only a small amount of data manipulation or exuberant speculation can result in web of deceit, as one small untruth leads to a covering lie and then a refusal to share data. Very quickly, the suspicions of outsiders leads to enmity and we find ourselves in the position Phil Jones was in by the end of last year.
Points well made. What a sane and balanced approach.
I too wonder about the imbalance evidenced on these threads. Look at this article as a for instance. This is a Labour minded site, but somehow the very topic draws out a raft of contributors, mainly with right wing libertarian ideologies, and with an underlying beef about government tyranny and increased taxes. To me, who has no green credentials, they politicise the debate, and they have (perversely) made me more convinced of AGW.
I wasn't really so fussed about it until the, shall I say, climate cynics came along. I too can sniff some kind of common kind agenda or pathology. If they think they've been persuasive in shifting the debate, they've had the reverse effect on me.
This is why there are 'deniers' to use the pitiful language of the theocratic warmists.
Why science has sceptics
Here's an excerpt: "It’s odd that people talk about 'climate sceptics' as though they are a special category. All of us in the climate science community are climate sceptics. It’s our job to question and challenge everything." Any scientist will tell you that when you turn up at a conference the audience will do its best to tear your findings to pieces: no one takes anything for granted.
This may surprise you, I am a climate change sceptic from the point of accepting the climate is warming but not because of the claimed human causes.
That doesn't mean I don't drive a diesel car, I don't recycle, I don't grow some of my own food because I do.
My ethical point is very simple, a group of scientists are arguing to divert huge sums of money into trying to reverse global warming.
Money that could be used to alleviate disease and hunger in the world's poorest nations. Money that will stall economic growth that represents the best way to alleviate global poverty.
To me, it is a question of opportunity cost. Is global warming such a threat that it will kill more people than poverty, hunger and disease in the world's poorest nations?
I'm obsessive? You seem to be on here attemping to shout down anyone who doesn't beleive in your quasi-religious view of climate change 24/7.
You posted up links, and then have done an IPCC and taken the results OUT OF CONTEXT. Your "97% of scientists agree" claim is a good example. Likewise Charlie Farley immediately spotted another one of your exaggerations.
That said, you seem to have ignored the link I posted up, which shows just how much of a mess surface temperature records are.
I entered this debate early on to make a point that ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with climate science has been settled. Your survey makes the point nicely - it asks scientists "do they beleive".
I believe that AGW *might* exist, but even Arrhenius only predicted a 1.5C temp change if C02 doubles, and that is small in comparison to temp changes the Earth has experienced pre industrial man. On current (lack of) hard evidence, I certainly don't believe we should start taxing the hell out of everything, with the winners being big business and governments.
You however are clearly a diehard believer, and nothing I can say will ever get through to you. You honestly believe that the world will end if we don't do something. If that suddenly changes, let me know.
((As an aside, several studies have shown sulphur dioxide, S02, pumped into the atmosphere in small quantities, would act to limit C02 based warming. This geo-engineering would be very cost effective. There would be no need for emmissions taxes, and it could be done from existing sulphur mines, so very eco friendly. Why is it then, I wonder, that the green lobby is so against this kind of solution? I wonder.....))
It may seem to you like I'm shouting everyone down, but step back and look at this thread. I'm one of the few who dares venture into this debate because British blogs are dominated by sceptics (though I object to the name for the reasons I put).
You say you entered the debate to make a point about absolutely nothing, but only now do you give a measured response: AGW might exist. Shame it took so long.
But as for me being a 'believer'. I don't think the world will end. I've written about this kind of apocalyptic thinking and I hate it. I think we might have some problems with climate change however, not to mention energy supplies, and some other species high up in the food chain might suffer some disruption
I don't actually believe in anything in terms of green politics - all I've seen is the blogospheric consensus it's all a scam, and the scientific consensus that it isn't. I just prefer to trust the experts rather than guys on blogs.
(Did you see my NASA link about 2009 being the hottest year on record in the Southern hemisphere?)
Finally, you've made another assumption. I'm not in the green looby. And I don't know what the solutions to this are. Geoengineering might be, but there are many unintended consequences. Reducing carbon emissions seems a good precautionary measure, though I have no beef for taxes, in general or particular.
We can argue the science until we're blue in the face, but the fact remains that the only discussion worth having is the reaction to scientific theories. What people are annoyed about isn't the science itself, it is valuable to investigate a theory to its fullest, but one thing I've noticed is everything you bring up is based on the singular theory of man made intervention causing climate change. Perhaps that is what the scientists presume as well, so they are looking for a link and CO2 to them seems to be it.
Its a theory. I'm chuckling as I type that, because that is what this is all reduced to, theories by believers and non-believers in one man's theories. An industry has been built around it, politicians crowd around it like a moth to a flame and whatever stance anyone takes, we defend it with vigor.
The bit I take exception to, as you highlighted in a reasonable manner, is claiming one side to be a denier. The word denier has been adopted by modern politics to insinuate something it was never meant to insinuate and I really don't care for it. I love the English language and I'm against it being abused by politicians who want to use it to force an agenda. I'm not spelling out what I mean purposely in the hope you know what I mean and understand where I'm coming from with this.
Man made climate change or whatever it will be renamed in the coming years, is a debate. Politicians believe that debate is over because of scientific data, but the very nature of science means the debate is never over. Physics for instance, does it remain absolute or is there more to it? Nature, do we understand every aspect of this on our planet? We know more about the moon than we do about our deepest oceans.
If we're talking science, the 97% thing is rubbish Peter. I'm not being aggressive or attempting to annoy you, but I am pointing out that if 97% categorically agree that man is causing climate change, science should no longer be trusted. Just 3% still studying whether what the other 97% believe is wrong? Sorry, that's not science. If the 97% is to be believed then they no longer deserve to be classed as scientists. Instead they must now refer to themselves as some sort of religion.
Science is questioning everything, constantly. It may be a bit of a crappy debate Peter, but science is science, politics is politics. Which do we argue today?
All scientific paradigms are theories: I mentioned Evolution, Newtonian Physics. They are best explanations and predictive models until something better comes along. And my point to Monkeybot remains true: if we waited for 100 per cent certainty to build technologies based on those theories, we wouldn't have progressed from the neolithic.
Theory is not a pejorative term in science.
If we're talking science, the 97% thing is rubbish Peter. I'm not being aggressive or attempting to annoy you, but I am pointing out that if 97% categorically agree that man is causing climate change, science should no longer be trusted. Just 3% still studying whether what the other 97% believe is wrong? Sorry, that's not science. If the 97% is to be believed then they no longer deserve to be classed as scientists. Instead they must now refer to themselves as some sort of religion.
That's just wrong. Scepticism is related to objectivity. You're not being sceptical nor objective if you wilfully diverge from the overwhelming evidence, say, that the world is round and we live in a heliocentric solar system. I think you'll find more than 97% of scientists agree with Copernicus and Ptolemy on that one though. Does that make them religious nuts?
AGW is hardly at the same level of certainty as Heliocentrism, but my consistent point has been to show that its pretty much the consensus among earth scientists. I have written below about the balance of risk (as William Hague has mentioned recently) as a precautionary measure, even if the odds were even. But they're not according to people who know a lot more about this than you and I.
Remain a sceptic all you want, but to ignore the facts of the current consensus is just denial I'm afraid. It may be wrong. You may hate it. But it's there.
But Newtonian physics is NOT the best explanation/predictive model.
Of course Newtonian Physics is no longer the best predictive model. But I 'mentioned' this downthread apropos of technologies built without 100 per cent knowledge - such as most rocketry. The practical impact of the Eisensteinian model on space exploration only came later, since relativity theory involves such vast distances or high speeds. The practical example Monkeybot could adduce was GPS: a lot of space exploration predates that.
General Relativity explained the precession of the perihelion of Mercury around 1915-ish. Somewhat prior to exploration with rocketry.
The confusion probably arises from the difference between Special and General relativity. The special theory comes in when you're just talking about relative speed and acceleration. General relativity explains how being in a gravitational field is equivalent to undergoing an acceleration.
Newtonian physics predicted the position of Neptune and predicted a non-existent planet, Vulcan, inside the orbit of Mercury.
Newton's work on optics was probably of more benefit to space exploration. His telescope was arguably what got him admitted to the Royal Society.
Oooh, now that sounds interesting. Care to boldly go where no man has gone before? Einstein famously stated that nothing of any mass could travel faster than light. Relativity theory has more to do with time than travel. Hence Einstein's famous quote "What time does Oxford arrive at he train?"
In terms of future space travel, there are many other scientists all with theories to traverse space-time. Einstein's own theories are now open to a great deal of sceptical scientific debate. Hawking's own work flies directly in the face of some of Einstein's assertions.
Space Exploration currently relies on as much on Newtonian science as much as the applied sciences of rocketry, computerisation, materials technology.
Where the next leap forward comes from is anyone's guess.
General Relativity is to do with space-time and travelling through it. The whole point of it is that the two are inseparable. Matter bends space and curved spaces affect the trajectories of objects travelling through them.
I thought his most famous quote was "God does not play dice." Thw fact that I'm typing this on a computer shows how wrong he was on that.
The quote is probably non-attributable... however, it does elude to the famous Einstein Train & Platform thought experiment that places time at the point of origin for two bolts of lightening hitting a moving train at the front and the back at the same time.
Which bolt of lightening gets to you first compared to what an observer on the platform would see?
Alternatively, the train is not moving at all, travel is the point of origin and it is time that is the variable.
Hence the famous quote, "What time does Oxford arrive at the train?"
That's all.
Unfortunately, unlike Schrodinger's cat, when we built a machine big enough to open the box, we just found a more complicated box inside.
Still, it's all grist for the science mill.
Do you see where I'm coming from yet? I understand your points and for the most part I reckon you're making a good argument, but we were doing so well without the whole 'denial' crap. Come on.
I don't think it's fair to call a lot of what I see on British blogs 'scepticism' - as I said it's a form of credulity in many ways. In the extreme cases then, denial should be allowed - or perhaps 'lying'. But maybe a better rebranding of scepticism for the basic trend on this article - and it's fairly representative of what I see on blogs and unrepresentative of the science - is perhaps climate change cynicism?
Will you allow me that for the more toxic remarks?
Cynicism would be a good choice though if I were to have the option. It removes that whole political element of linking it with other more distasteful practises and adds a bit of respect to the debate. I know it sounds silly, but that is one thing that makes me rant like I do, a lack of respect with the use of the English language to describe those who disagree. It happens in many debates.
One thing I will admit to is a tad of exaggeration to make my point and I don't mean to, but when you're faced with what appears to be everyone else saying one thing and you believing another, occasionally you do tend to stray a bit.
Climate change, man made or not, is an excellent subject for debate. You're good at arguing Peter and it is enjoyable to explore all the options with you, lets continue those options and see if we, as a group on the LL, can find more middle ground. I think we've found some already and the more we find, the closer we get to a possible solution for politicians rather than the see all, tax all option which people really do find offensive.
is a paper well worth reading if you have the time.
NO NO NO NO NO
The 97% figure that you keep relentlessly referring to IS ONLY for the subset of climatologists suryed within one particular survey AND it only refers to humans playing "a role" in climate change. The question makes no reference to C02.
That survey was conducted in 2008 well before the CRU emails were released, and well before a lot of the real inspection of temperature records was carried out. It would be interesting to see how different that survey would read today.
As it is, the only person misrepresenting things here is you.
More parsing: it talks of earth scientists and human contribution to global warming. The C02 hypothesis emissions is not universally accepted: I never said it was. But the majority think it's the most likely cause, and those that underplay carbon emissions agree that the loss of carbon sinks through deforestation is a human activity.
How am I misrepresenting? Unlike you I provide copious links to dozens of articles (below those in the last few months) which feed to the consensus opinion, garnered from many other sources beyond the IPCC.
You don't see how obsessive you are about this do you? You think you've somehow refuted the importance of this because, what?, it may only be 90 per cent of all earth scientists who agree?
Can't you see how absurd that is?
No. Well carry on. In the meantime...
The basic premises of anthropogenic climate change have been endorsed by more than 40 scientific societies and academies of science, including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries
If that suddenly changes, let me know.
Hope all is going well- I hope to be listening again on Friday for BF.
Jo
That is the science, that is why the bloke from NASA wanted the IPCC to tone down their statement, the rest is just politics.
The point could well be moot as vulcanologists say the Yellowstone supervolcano is predicted to blow in the next 100 years as the dome is currently expanding at 7.4 cm a decade.
97% of the world's scientist think it does. How the mechanisms work - the positive and negative feedback loops in the climate are the main subject for debate.
Why people are constantly trying to misrepresent the consensus here baffles me, but I've written below about this and won't bore by repetition.
I have to say that I wouldn't expect anything else from the cult of global warming and manipulation of facts. As the saying goes, there are lies, damned lies and statistics.
This is desperate parsing on your part. You missed the word 'earth scientists'. 97% of the world's earth scientists agreed that temperatures have been warming and that human activity is a likely contributor.
Let me make this more simple for you:
The basic premises of anthropogenic climate change have been endorsed by more than 40 scientific societies and academies of science, including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries
One thing I think should be accepted is the simple fact that not everyone agrees with the CO2 theory. If that could be accepted instead of branding people or calling people stupid for not believing a theory, maybe a good debate could be had. Not saying that's you Peter (J) btw, I was more than impressed with the fact we debated without all that rubbish.
The problem isn't the theory, the problem is politics. Bring politics into a debate, bring taxes as a solution and there is bound to be some heated debates.
No, I didn't read Peter T's links on Yellowstone, though I did see a documentary about it a few years back. It's true that a major volcanic eruption would cause global cooling, but relying on that to mitigate possible AGW is rather like hoping that a lightning bolt might light your cigarette.
I absolutely agree on keeping politics out of the science as far as possible. I also have no problems with scientists who have an alternative theory to AGW. What is beginning to irk, especially after protracted debate in this thread, is the non scientists who turn up and wilfully ignore the issue of objectivity. If three people sees a unicorn and 97 don't, one naturally questions the judgement of the three. That doesn't mean they're deluded. But posters who ignore this obvious context, and swing by to cite one link about dodgy data or headstrong scientists, don't progress rational debate.
I've never myself proposed taxes as a solution. Happy to hear any solution really. But I strongly suspect that those who hate taxes from a (fair enough) libertarian standpoint, then go and construct a rationale against AGW itself, and trash scientists, rather than attacking the issues of taxes themselves.
At a certain point, it does cease to be reasonable scepticism and debate about probabilities, solutions or part solutions: it becomes a form of denial.
Not that this has characterised most the debate here.
functioning!
Jo x
I've had this all week, and it's getting worse.Not much fun
whilst being a parent! Will be getting some help tomorrow.
But thankyou again! You take care too,
Jo.
I'd agree on the fluids, but just make them alcoholic. Flu seems to have its own trajectory regardless of what you do - so why not self medicate?
So there is surely no point in making it all so personal?
It was clear on that brief debate I referred to yesterday on R.4,
that there is a great deal of evidence and consensus about climate change theories. Also- rational dissent from other scientists, and politics in between.
But- scientifically, an evolving, ongoing picture that is not "black or white."
At the moment, like much else in science, a balance of probablities, based on decades of research.
It might be best to leave it for a while, as it gets so heated?
I'm sure there are many other issues to comment on LL.
Thankyou, Jo.
PS.I can't spend longer on this today- I am seriously feeling very unwell with flu.
Get well, keep warm and plenty of sleep!!!!!
Otherwise- why the need for Copenhagen, Kyoto etc? Or this vast document written by scientists themselves?
I've already stated before I'm not an expert- but that doesn't mean the lay public are not entitled to engage, or observe "process" on this. We are all involved- and it is our futures.
I personally hate it when politics start to dominate.
But the significance of Andrew Lacis' rejected comment is that the "consensus" is a sham. It consists of scientists that are on-message being included in the report, and those with "equal validity" that are off-message being excluded.
What will it take for you to get outraged about this?
What is really beginning to outrage me is the constant selection of one bit of evidence, one voice, or even one mild critic of a certain method, to the paranoid premise of a global conspiracy theory on this issue. You fail to see the lack of objectivity in your own cause, and - as I say way back down thread - bang on and on about one scientist, one error, one incident to the exclusion of thousands of others that don't suit your cause.
The self deceiving optics of this are quite stunning.
I barely know where to begin...
This is a prominent scientist in the field, on the public record, available for all to see on Harvard University's library website saying that:
a) Chapter 9's Executive Summary is "possibly the most important one in the whole IPCC report - it's the one where they decide that global warming is manmade. This is the one where the headlines are made."
b) "There is no scientific merit to be found in the Executive Summary."
The IPCC report excluded HIS comments; I and no one like me ever excluded theirs. And yet now you say that it's me making the exclusions of stuff I don't want to hear. Wow.
As for "one bit of evidence, one voice, or even one mild critic", the exclusion of Andrew Lacis' comments is merely the embarrassing revelation topical right now. There's been stuff like this pouring out every day, from Pachauri's "voodoo science" (that'll be India's leading Glaciologist to you and me) through to the inexcusable antics of Phil Jones that kicked the whole thing off three months ago.
You barely know where to begin?
That's because you are wasting your time and ours on this, and missing the bigger (uncontested) picture. Reports from the last three months:
A major glacier in Antarctica is about to collapse.
A major new study says the ability of plants to absorb some human-emitted carbon dioxide probably has been over-estimated.
A January report in nature says the number of strong storms in the western Atlantic could double by the end of the century
A February edition of science says ocean acidification could diminish phytoplankton blooms, thus undermining the source of half the world's atmospheric oxygen. And, of course, January saw this report, in Science Daily:
Meanwhile a new analysis of global surface temperatures by NASA scientists finds the past year was tied for the second warmest since 1880. In the Southern Hemisphere, 2009 was the warmest year on record.
Although 2008 was the coolest year of the decade because of a strong La Nina that cooled the tropical Pacific Ocean, 2009 saw a return to a near-record global temperatures as the La Nina diminished, according to the new analysis by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. The past year was a small fraction of a degree cooler than 2005, the warmest on record, putting 2009 in a virtual tie with a cluster of other years --1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, and 2007 -- for the second warmest on record.
What did I say about obsession? What did I see about missing the bigger picture?
What is your aim here? What - given your complete lack of objectivity - is your agenda?
If it's to point out the guy who chairs the IPCC is a d**khead: I don't know, I don't care, and this minor management issue is a ridiculous waste of time against the bigger picture.
I'd love to say what I really think about your tireless and tiresome trolling on this issue, but site moderation rules won't let me.
The question is about tipping point: note that its within a hundred years, which is 'about to' in terms of the age of the glacier.
So you think this 'highlights' some of the problems: which is interesting, because it is precisely this continuous parsing over details while ignoring 90 per cent of my content, which seems to me to be a much much bigger problem.
On Malcolm Gladwell
Wow, coming from you, this guy must be a piece of work.
Yesterday, there was an excellent discussion and debate with 2 invited speakers,(both eminent scientists)- and listeners, about this so called "ding dong" between pro and and anti views on climate change/denial.
It was "Call You and Yours"- deifinitely worth a listen, and may be retrievable on BBC i player?
With regard to the IPCC report(of what I only know from media sources)- the view was, that one page/piece of research in amongst 1000's of others did not discredit the rest; in fact a huge amount of credible scientific research has gone into this.
This is not about black and white hypotheses- it is about the balance of probabilty based on known scientific data, which is constantly evolving.
Also- balanced and objective discussion is needed, not pure politics- which can obfusicate any "truths" which might emerge that might actually help the planet.
If this "ding dong" is only "so called", what have you to say to the comments below by Andrew Lacis?
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/authors/alacis.html
Following are his comments about Chapter 9 of the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), which is "possibly the most important one in the whole IPCC report - it's the one where they decide that global warming is manmade. This is the one where the headlines are made."
In his official capacity, he commented on Chapter 9's Executive Summary:
"There is no scientific merit to be found in the Executive Summary. The presentation sounds like something put together by Greenpeace activists and their legal department. The points being made are made arbitrarily with legal sounding caveats without having established any foundation or basis in fact. The Executive Summary seems to be a political statement that is only designed to annoy greenhouse skeptics. Wasn't the IPCC Assessment Report intended to be a scientific document that would merit solid backing from the climate science community—instead of forcing many climate scientists into having to agree with greenhouse skeptic criticisms that this is indeed a report with a clear and obvious political agenda. Attribution can not happen until understanding has been clearly demonstrated. Once the facts of climate change have been established and understood, attribution will become self-evident to all. The Executive Summary as it stands is beyond redemption and should simply be deleted."
http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/7798293?n=17
But of course Andrew Lacis's comment did not appear in the report. And the reason why the editors rejected the comment?
"Rejected. [Executive Summary] summarizes Ch 9, which is based on the peer reviewed literature."
This is how the "consensus" has been constructed. By simply rejecting sceptical comments, eliminating all but the most alarmist of opinions.
Does anyone on Labour List still believe the IPCC has a shred of credibility??
Also the play being referred to yesterday was I think "Enron"-? in the West End. It sounds fantastic.
The point in that discussion was that current issues and "big" topics can be explored and presented powerfully to audiences through drama/theatre, which transcend conventional discussion, and sometimes boring politics.
Heard a discussion about theatre this am,(with Andrew Marr/guests)-and someone commented more issues about current "truths" and "reality" can be explored through this medium than any number of politicians' speeches or text books.
Imagination and "thinking out of the box" is sometmes needed on these big questions...
Having said all of that, my partner is an engineer and scientist working in the energy field, and is rather scathing in general of this current trend/culture of climate scepticism.
So it seems scientists vary greatly in their views, and can perhaps be just as swayed by politics as any other group?
I think we just have to see things in context, and see people from where they are coming from.
Also- there is no absoloute right or wrong.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/1999/supervolcanoes.shtml is a good place to start, the BBC also have the full program transcript available to read from this page.
http://armageddononline.tripod.com/volcano.htm gives a pretty rough guide on Yellowstone
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090921093600.htm gives a more technical but easily understood piece on a super volcano caldera found in the Seisa Valley in the Alps
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090709140817.htm gives an introduction into why seismologists are getting increasingly worked up about 'locked' sections of the fault and its implication.
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/10/local/la-me-eureka-earthquake11-2010jan11 gives a report on the recent earthquake in North California (it was January's). For the 4th February quake in the same area go to: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqinthenews/2010/nc71348851/#summary for technical data or http://www.merinews.com/article/earthquake-in-north-california-again/15796924.shtml for a more friendly approach.
Hope this helps and explains why one supervolcanic event will knock CO2 as the 'cause' of climate change into a 'cocked hat'.
I am retired, hold no shares but am a trained scientist and system analyst and the data leaves me unconvinced of CO2's role in accelerating climate change which is always going on and has always gone on. I would tend to advise that the world needs to worry a lot more about the increased volcanic activity at plate boundaries around the world and the increasing probability of a series of earthquakes that will make Haiti look a picnic in comparison coupled with a series of super volcanoes going off and tsunamis that will make the Indian Ocean experience pale into insignificance - all predicted within the next 10 to 100 years.
The San Andreas fault is currently under the greatest tension ever recorded and had 6.0 earthquake last week in its Northern section.
In comparison to the destruction on its way from plate tectonic movements whether CO2 is or is not causing climate problems is actually small beer as the expected eruptions of the Yellowstone or Santorini super volcanoes will eventually prove and which no Copenhagen agreement will do squat diddly about.
Think about the idea of an area the size of Yorkshire going 40,000 feet vertical over one day causing blast destruction all the way to London and Edinburgh putting billions of tons of ash, rock and sulphur gas into the atmosphere which will coat Europe in a 40 metre thick layer of volcanic ash down wind.
That worries me a heck of a lot more than an iffy hypothesis on human CO2 impact!
Any thoughts?
Hmm. Honestly I think you should stick with all embracing, 'unelite'. With any luck the OE Dictionary might pick up on that as the new buzz word for 2010.
The problem with 'Rhetorician' is that they may think it's a compliment.
I can think of some other words for them, but I don't think Alex allows those (quite rightly).
Agreed.
"Unelite" seems to fit somehow.
@Bill
Ed "holding back the tide" would be quite cool. Wonder if Alastair Cambell is paying attention?
I seriously hope they don't use the 'holding back the tide' line. Much too easy for an unsympathetic Sun editor to subtitle 'Silly Knut'. (Of course they may miss it and make some other reference to the Anglicised Canute.)
'Defense of the realm', 'Once more into the breach', might work, unless you guys notice the obvious headline trap I haven't spotted.
What Ed must absolutely avoid is to be obviously wearing a suit below the protective clothing.
BTW the East coast defences are in severe need of some maintenance/rebuild. They were after all originally put in place after the disastrous east coast floods, which extended as far south as Canvey Isle. (Though given the way the Norh Sea narrows going further south, can't think why south of the Thames seemed to get off lightly.)
Interstingly enough there was discussion a year or so back about even removing the warning sirens along parts of the Norfolk coast, which frankly misses the point in having sirens installed in the first place.
The title of this article couldn't be more accurate really, because it isn't about the CO2 theory really, it is about much more. If you really want to wins friends and influence people, especially at a political level there needs to be more leading by example. There needs to be more concern for the real issues that face local people. Talking globally and having a global view is admirable, and as a nation we should take a part in the effects of environmental disasters worldwide. For instance we have excellent emergency services here, highly trained divers and world class, well, rescuers for want of a better word.
The thing is though, people will always worry about their immediate environment, human nature I suppose, but saying that, if people could see local action that solved their immediate environmental concerns, they would be more open to things that are for the greater good. What Labour have managed though is to make the greater good undesirable by pushing too hard with inappropriate media and that really infuriates me to the point I do tend to explode in a torrent of angry words.
If I was not bothered, I wouldn't bother if that makes sense.
Hence my political comments on "moderation" and reducing the corruption in Parliament. BIG MONEY MP'S are the very last people to speak about the environment as they have taken from the trough to lead spectacularly unsustainable lifestyles.
I do not know what lifestyle Ed Milliband adheres to, but I hope it is a sensible one.
You have it! Alex can confirm I would make a terrible reporter, with interviews anyway ;)
Lessons learnt.
On the serious stuff such as tidel defences I would agree, a number of different locations receive funds from a variety of sources, particularly where they are asigned Conservation Status, usually Salt Marshes and other Wetlands Habitats, funds can come from a wide range of sources including the EU and conservation groups such as the RSPB.
It is years since I looked at it in any detail though.
Yes you are quite right. I missed that one. I did think of it, just didn't write it!
Its probably not the best analogy anyway - but i think the things you are saying ing your own post actually give the clue to the way forward on this.
I think - in fairness to the governments thinking on this that they get criticism from one side for acting too fast and criticism from the other side for going too slow. Because of my knowledge of some of the people involved in this I think I can say that they have always been looking for the ways to move people along with them in a way that is not too disturbing or too difficult.
The point at which the whole game changed to my eyes was when a group of plumbers started using twitter to persuade politicians of the value of a boiler scrappage scheme.
It is not necessary for everyone to understand or accept everything, but the fact that practical men like the plumbers and like the chief executive of BP, as well as the many people involved in the many other industries who submitted recommendations before copenhagen, (I have read a number of these) are now all willingly on the travelator and moving along nicely, means that the changes we need to happen are already underway.
The feed in tariffs which start in April will bring in another big boost to this, and the potential for help to build more social enterprises will be the ideal opportunity for the active and concerned environmentalists to increase the speed at which their communities can adapt positively to change.
If Tony Haywood ( have i remembered the name right) is right about peak oil, and about gas supplies, then perhaps we can afford to go just a little slower than some of the most anxious environmentalists might have thought necessary (I have friends - who are certainly very anxious). If this is the case it would be good, because though I do not have a temperamental resistence to moving rapidly to a low carbon life style - and can see much that is potentially positive, I do see that for some this is all something too big and too uncomfortable.
With copenhagen we had this concept of a date on which a piece of paper must be signed - or it would all be very terrible.
there is no piece of paper, no drama , just incremental change that we will adjust to as we go!
No extra taxes, no spin, but Ed sat on a digger ready to put in place something that is so necessary to guard our coastlines, it would be so much more effective than the current drivel they put together for advertisements.
Whether I believe in man made climate change or not should be largely irrelevant for the most part because I do believe that we should take care to replace what we use and to repair what is necessary to keep our present lives and our history sound. I used to take a keen interest in ornithology until the people involved became obsessed with man made climate change and its effects on the birds. Why is it not acceptable to just look after the habitats of the creatures here in the UK without resorting to the CC Blame Game? It really annoys me.
Maybe then there is a balance between what most people want, which is a nice place to live and what the politicians seem to want, which more often than not is more taxes. A more relaxed approach rather than a threat - how ridiculous to have a countdown to Copenhagen with the 10 days left line, as you say, a piece of paper with some signatures. It doesn't stop the cliffs disappearing into the sea at Happisburgh.
I'd love to talk more about the boiler scrappage scheme, but I've noticed we're trying to keep to topic more now on the LL. Although, would boiler scrappage fall into the whole man made climate change bracket?
Personally I think positive steps shown to the public about what could be done, like investing heavily into coastal defences (I know, I won't let it lie) would have some positive vibes when it comes to transport issues. I may not believe in the CO2 theory, but current transportation methods can't continue forever and it is wise now for Britain to take a bold step and develop new technology that leaves the combustion engine behind. Is it possible? Can a nation stripped of its industry and in some areas, its talent come up with ground-breaking technology that will change how we view personal transportation? I hope so.
Diana, there's a reason for that - the govt kept banging on about 50 days to save the world.
I don't think people know what to do, clearly using a different lightbulb will make next to no difference whatsoever, the bizarre ads on the tv (between ads for 4x4s and the spiralling consumerism that our economy relies on) asking us to drive five miles less a week are bizarre coming from people jetting round the world and as for the Heathrow extension, its like someone telling you to stop smoking whilst blowing smoke-rings in your face. If we have to lower our CO2 emissions then we need to do it on a massive scale not the pathetic tinkering at the edges that we see from the government. And that's before you look at China, India, the USA . . .
I doubt 99.99999% of the population could tell you one thing that was agreed at Copenhagen, I know I can't.
Agreed.
Practical political solutions over empty rhetoric for Prima Donna politicians any day of the week.
He is quite clear that the Shadow cabinet are are fully behind taking action on Climate Change. He was taking the view which I indicated in my previous post on this subject. There may be some doubts about the level and speed of climate change, but even if there was a 50:50 chance that catastrophic climate change is being caused by carbon emissions then on the precautionary principle we have to take action.
I am sure that a lot of the resistance to this must come from the belief that taking action is going to be accutely painful, I think if you listen to the clip from the chief executive of PB, further down this thread it is possible to see a future that is not going to be so bad, and may actively be better.
Many of the things we would do - and as he shows clearly - are already doing to reduce carbon are things that will actively improve the quality of the environment too.
I am reminded a little of medieaval arguements about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. These discussions will keep being fascinating to some people, but the world is moving on and will move on.
I was thinking of the travelators in the Birmingham international centre. Once you are in there you can behave in lots of different ways. You can get on the travelator and stand still whilst it moves you along. You can stroll down it. You can run down it, or you can spend a huge amount of energy by running backwards against the direction of travel, causing a bit of pile up as you go. You can even get off the travelator and stand by the side, holding a discussion, but in the end, most people who enter that corridor will end up down the other end.
I understand you analogy, but my point way back then was there has to be the political will to move forward, and its gone awfully quiet, especially with regards to charging the average citizen for carbon credits.
I wasn't aware of the Conservatives position as I tend to switch off, especially with William Hague recently. Will they be following on with the carbon credit idea? Would they be brave enough to introduce it and risk another poll tax rebellion?
That's what I think this comes down to really Diana, the information is available to all and you have to make a decision whether to believe it or disbelieve it. If you disbelieve it, any taxes imposed will seem as unfair to people as the poll tax did. Depending on the level of taxation will depend on the public reaction, along with the number who believe and the number who do not.
Granted, I'm in the latter category, but I would be more than happy to pay tax to rebuild sea walls and barriers. More than happy to be taxed for the development of a more efficient and cleaner personal transport system and I would be very happy to pay tax, or for that matter donate money, if the wind farms where shifted offshore and the inland developments were abandoned. The benefits out at sea just to the marine life would be worth the move.
I'm feeling quite odd this evening, quick Alex, post up a PPC interview!
No, the "route" (sic) of everyone's scepticism is as follows:
a) the paucity of data
b) what little there was has been closely guarded (if the data supports the claims, why not share it?)
c) now the data has come to light it has been exposed as fraudulent, biased, misleading rubbish
d) far from being the work of scientists, much of the data was produced by the likes of the activist organisation, WWF (and then signed off by professional scientists in the final report - in other words, they're scientists only in name, not in substance)
e) evidence of deliberate deception and attempts to sabotage of the process of peer-review
f) ...and so on and so forth. I can't be bothered to keep rehearsing the same old points right now (I've made them so many times on Labour List). Professor Beddington, the Government’s chief scientific adviser has said that climate scientists should admit that sceptics were right on some hotly-disputed issues. In other words, he and a large part of the scientific establishment have been massively discredited by the whole saga and should eat humble pie (Beddington hoping to look a bit less stupid and gullible by being one of the earlier rats jumping ship).
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7003622.ece
The bloggers took on professional scientists, the universities, big business, big government, big media -- and beat the lot of them. http://www.spectator.co.uk/spectator/thisweek/5749853/the-global-warming-guerrillas.thtml
Just got back from a late afternoon canvass, and had to deal with one of the very few actually racist voters. Not a pleasant business.
Well done on your work. Keep it going!
Peter and Kieran, you both have very similar points on this and I'm not being lazy, but my reply is directed at you both.
I appreciate what you're saying about this being a global issue and I acknowledge that, I'm not trying to come across as a little Englander, but I'm talking about what I know. I live here and I accept much of my knowledge about other countries comes from what I read rather than personal experience. I've travelled about a bit, but I wouldn't class a month in Turkey or even a few months in the Americas as giving me any sort of special insight into world affairs. I've never been to Africa, India, in fact, I've haven't been to the majority of the worlds countries.
Saying all that, what I've said about man made climate change, the debate, applies to the rest of the world. Just as politicians will manage to make the average Briton poorer through taxing the population based on scientific theories, they will also manage it abroad. The difference is, the effect will unfortunately be greater abroad as not many countries have what we have here in Britain.
Telling someone with no running water, no electricity and no access to a car that they somehow contribute to polluting the planet probably isn't going to make much difference. Are they really going to listen? Would someone working for the price of a Mars bar for a whole week sit back and think to themselves that they should lower their carbon foot print or would they be thinking about the next meal, or whether they have the resources to care for their family?
Many countries rely on international trade, they rely on some large companies that work between their country and countries in the developed world and what is the political solution to the man made climate change theory? It is to tax these companies, pure and simple. To increase the costs based on their use of transportation, whether it be by air, by land or by sea. Do you think these companies will solely pass on the cost to the developed world, or do you believe they will share that cost out with everyone? Lets assume that is what they will do. So a tax here by a British politician will have a direct effect on the world's poorest because they will receive less, one way or another, than they do now.
If we're not talking about the financial aspect and concentrating on freak weather events, the supposed result of man's pollution, surely we're not going down the route of thinking anything a British politician can come up with will stop that? Unless politicians here are gifted with super natural powers, they can't stop natural floods any more than they can stop someone getting mugged in Salford. It is going to happen, whatever measures are put in place. Countries will suffer droughts, they'll suffer food shortages and from what I've seen in my short life, the developed world tends not to pay much attention to that most of the time, people are left to their own devices. Will man made climate change theory change that?
I accept my argument is loose and badly written here, my attempt last night was no better, but I can't imagine how this scientific theory will improve the lives of the worlds poorest. I can imagine how it will effect them negatively and I can also imagine them looking at discussions like this with some amusement. We have the luxury to debate like this because we live in a rich country, we turn a tap for water, buy our food fairly locally to where we live and there is a very small minority who are without electricity here in the UK, and some of those do it through choice.
Can you explain what the positive aspect of man made climate change theory will be on the developing world? How will people their see a benefit if we insist they don't use the technologies they are beginning to, the technologies we now perceive as dirty or polluting? Do we have a right to dictate their development based on a scientific theory largely recognised in the developed world, but a theory that the world's poorest are a bit too busy surviving day to day to worry about?
Kieran, I appreciate what a difficult job you're doing. I've spoken many times to Ralph, both face to face and on here, about campaigning against the BNP and I know it is not a bowl of cherries. I may not be the most positive chap about the state of the Labour Party, but keep up the good work. If you're anything like as dedicated to it as Ralph is, I should imagine it is taking up a great deal of your time at the moment.
Sorry I couldn't reply sooner, literally been out campaigning all day. I didn't take it as a personal attack don't worry - it was all constructive and I appreciate it a lot. I remember you mentioning coastal defences and all the other environmental issues that aren't getting the money they deserve - I think all are underfunded but when hundreds of millions are spent on climate change there's a much much greater risk of misuse which worries me.
But then again, I do think if it's properly allocated (in to funding the poorest nations to develop clean technologies to lift people out of poverty like we did with fossil fuels) then I think it's money well spent. Climate change ia affecting the poorest nations and the poorest people first so given that massive injustice, in trying to prevent that, yes I do call myself Labour.
I know those arguments are based on the assumption that man made global warming exists and is causing it so you probably won't agree with that but that's my view anyway.
I was out canvassing today and a lot of the responses people got were "no thanks I'm voting BNP" so to be honest climate change never came up. It goes to show some faith needs to be restored to ztop so many people resorting to that vote and climate change won't ever do that. It pains me to say it, and the environment and climate change is why I want to go in to politics, but it can never be a priority at this election which I was always aiming it to be (in my campaigning at least.) There's too much at stake and I saw that today.
But seeing the debate this has brought is more than encouraging. Whether you consider it to be true or not, a lot of people care about it and everyone's responses have shown that. And thanks for all your feedback also - very much appreciated.
Sorry to interupt the debate!
Kieran
Don't be silly, its your article, nice to see a LL contributor joining in the debate so much.
But what if it's just a hoax. What if we're making the world a better place for no reason at all?
So let us assume that it was revealed that the theory was wrong, that for whatever reason the current understanding of CO2 on the environment was incorrect. I know that is against your belief but please bear with me on this for the sake of debate.
To begin with you would have the population of many countries getting very angry with the corporations who have taken full advantage of the man made climate change theory. They have profited nicely from the theory by charging levies in the case of power supply companies, and even companies as diverse as bed manufacturers have attempted to use the theory in their marketing literature.
That aside, there is the tax imposed by numerous governments, but with this being a British site with primarily a British audience, lets concentrate on the UK. The government have used the theory to promote activities including recycling, which is a good thing as it has the minimum cost to the household and the maximum benefit to our local and national environment, but at the same time they've used the theory to increase the fuel tax, escalating it to the point where it is now effectively UK businesses in their day to day running and filtering down to the prices we pay, or to do the short version, essentially promoting poverty.
Not satisfied with that, the government now propose to introduce legislation that requires companies to buy carbon credits. Now presuming that the theory has been proved incorrect, can you imagine the fallout from that one?
You can view it in a fluffy way, that we'll be improving the planet for future generations even if the theory is incorrect, or you can view it in the here and now. The here and now means that people will be treated to increased poverty for the benefit of the rich and the benefit of a scientific theory. Think about it. The response of the government, and I see little difference from a party political point of view, is that the way to deal with this is to sell the amount of carbon an individual can use, so of course the poor fair worse than the rich.
The fact is that this isn't about proving pedantic points or me trying to insert ID cards into the argument and hoping no one will notice (kudos for realising what I was doing though) but this is about the quality of life for the people of Britain. Believe the theory, but you have to consider the governments response to the theory because it effects the poorest in society.
Okay, you can now argue I've invented all that to back up a weak position, but I haven't Peter. My position isn't weak because I don't believe the evidence points to the cause of environmental changes being caused by CO2. I read my history and I see climate events happening that have scared the pants of the people in that time, but its Mother Nature. She's kind and she's cruel. She doesn't obey scientific theory and she certainly doesn't abide a fool. She'll lift you up and spit you out if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time and she is anything but predictable.
I don't argue with your 97% figure, I believe that the scientific community are following the theory and investigating the CO2 line to its fullest, but if the initial premise is wrong, all scientific data resulting from it is fundamentally flawed. I still maintain that it has always been hard historically to gain funds for scientific research, but now governments can see a viable income stream, they are more than happy to pump funds indirectly to the scientists. Anyone who steps out of line does not receive funding, so if you're a scientist do you risk being the one who can't carry on with research on principle?
David Bellamy did. He risked it all and be honest Peter, the guy is a legend, but when do you see him on the television? When you do see him recommended now? His career ruined for daring to disagree! Is that what man made climate change is about? Getting rid of the non-believers? Accusing them of being deniers, trying to tap into that 'holocaust denial' vibe?
I will grant you that your style of debate is exceptional in the fact that you don't attack the individual, you don't try to brand someone a nutter and you do try to keep to the facts at hand, but Peter, if the facts at hand are flawed, you're debating something that can't be defended. Can you tell me categorically that the facts are absolutely correct? Can you tell me that the scientists aren't seduced by those limitless budgets that they have never had the privileged of having before?
Quoting me websites to prove what you're saying is all very well. Quoting big names in science is also all very well, but if the initial theory is flawed, it makes it all nonsense. Am I making sense with this? I'll add that I don't expect you to agree, but do you see where I'm coming from logically?
Nice reply. I read it twice just so I didn't miss anything. I think we could continue amiably this way discussing the ins and outs of it. But I have two questions;
1. David Bellamy. Is it really true that he's not on TV because of some position on Global Warming? I find that hard to believe. He was an environmentalist and ecologist, and kind of more active David Attenborough. Knowing TV quite well as I do, I doubt he's been marginalised because of anything principled or intellectual.
2. Ultimately we're talking about science here, and to cut to the chase I ask you I ask you: "What is your evidence?" I can summon up reams of evidence of global warming. I can provide lots of correlations, and even causation mechanisms that connect it to CO2 and man made emissions. Picking out errors in someone else's data, is not evidence. Even if you destroyed the whole theory through such means it would not be evidence of your case, it would just reduce my theory to belief.
This is not a debate about my beliefs. I'll say again, I have no interest in green issues, investment in the environmental lobby, or perverse desires for ecological catastrophe. Personally, I wish it wasn't true, but the evidence convinces me it probably is.
Because this is on the level of evidence and rationality, your enjoyable and otherwise admirable comment actually doesn't help me at all with the debate.
Anyway, back to subject, or at least what we're discussing. It is true with David unfortunately. Almost as soon as he voiced doubts about the man made climate change theory he was removed from the television set and relegated to DVD. I very much enjoy David. He's has a likeable personality and a good way of getting across science so it is easy to understand.
I'm not a great television watcher, but my wife absolutely loves nature. She will watch anything and everything to do with nature and she makes a point of putting it on the television. I sit with my back to the television whilst typing here, but I can hear it quite clearly, and when nature is on, I watch too. But David Bellamy has been absent for too long. Instead we have people on there who try any tenuous link they can to man made climate change and they spoil what should be a good program. They insinuate that the viewer should feel guilty instead of enjoying the wonders that we have in the world and they attempt to tell us it will all be gone if we don't act. But we don't act do we? We still destroy forests, we allow coastlines to erode and we consume far more than we need. You see, I'm off again.
I agree that initially there were definite correlations in gathered data, but as time progresses and the climate changes, the links look weaker and weaker. The scientists do try hard to explain that the initial theory is still valid, but they try too hard and explain away things that really should be researched more thoroughly.
I disagree that this is a debate about your beliefs though Peter, you believe what science tells you currently whereas I do not, so it is about beliefs. Do you believe the scientists, and if you do, is it blind faith or would you question their findings? Ever?
I too am enjoying an amicable debate, I wish they were all like this, it would help blood pressure levels enormously. But I say again, more than impressed with your arguments, it is quite tough to come back at you and not sound like a complete idiot. At least I hope I'm not. Blimey, hadn't considered that.
Two brief responses, and then I must definitely stop blogging for this weekend. It's all displacement from what I really should be doing.
You say:
It is true with David [Bellamy] unfortunately. Almost as soon as he voiced doubts about the man made climate change theory he was removed from the television set and relegated to DVD.
Er... As I said, I doubt any TV executive would have made a decision on such an intellectual or rational basis. It would have been something more venal like ratings, production fees, or just a senior executive was his supporter left. I've written about TV commissioning culture here, so it's a bit of pet topic of mine (it's my job). Like you, I'm a small business trying to survive in a bizarre mixed economy. It's fairly random what happens.
I've never been an eco warrior. In fact, though I was depressed and concerned about pollution aged 11, I've always been mistrustful of the movement, so it's odd we've changed places. Of course I'm also suspicious of scientists. When I did A Level geography in the Late 70s, the world was supposed to die of over population by now. But this is not about projection - it's mainly historical data. I'm not also denying there may be unexpected events, a volcanic eruption, solar emissions etc. which actually counteract the global warming with cooling, and make us grateful that we averted another ice age by burning fossil fuels. But I also recognise the difference between hope and hard fact. I want our politicians to prepare for the worst. If something better comes along... well great. But politics is the art of not relying on optimism. Leave that realm to faith and adventure.
I want coastal defences to be put to a priority level now, not after some fancy meal in Copenhagen. I want the government to start looking at the National Grid in a serious way and understanding that the decommissioning of the 'dirty' coal plants can not begin until we have realistic alternatives. And most of all I want them to stop their forced planning consents for land-based wind turbines, realise the dangers and pitfalls and investigate the seas. The answers are there, they just need to look.
Fossil fuels will run out eventually, so it is logical to find alternatives, but instead what we have is a government (and I don't mean just Labour, the Conservatives were as bad) who think that fossil fuels are just a source of tax to enjoy. Why not reinvest heavily now for alternative fuels and reap the rewards later when the nation is much richer as a result of not being reliant on fossil fuels?
Our end goals are similar Peter, but our beliefs are different. We both agree I think that we want a better Britain and a Britain that doesn't rely on fossil fuels. The only difference is that I don't want man made climate change to be used as an excuse to tax the nation even more than it is and seriously hold back the progress that can be made. And it will Peter, the government will essentially destroy the trust if it already hasn't and there will be a backlash. I don't want that and I would hope science doesn't want it either.
Its not the end of the world at all at the minute, but if politicians are not sensitive to the electorate, it may be the end of the issue soon. What is that saying, the softly one about catching a monkey? Can't think if it, but hopefully you know what I mean and I'm not mixing my metaphors again.
Oh, I promised to stop blogging, but perhaps one last comment tonight on this issue on the basis of consensus.
Yes, we have similiar goals. Perhaps our difference then is, with your emphasis on coastal defences, and mine on internationally approved science, is that I will always remain a bit of an oddity in England (though an increasingly large minority). My grandfather fled from the Armenian holocaust. My kid brother adopted from the Caribbean. My partner is Polish. I lived in India and America... I'm an internationalist by blood and instinct. I love the British countryside, spend most of my adolescence there, but the idea of pulling up the drawbridge appals me. Why? Because people like me would be left out.
That's what I really detect in English climate scepticism: it wouldn't be so bad for us. We're an Island, so could easily fend off the mass migrations (if not sea level rises). The British climate is so temperate, hotter summers would probably suit us (and save us the bad foreign holiday exchange rates of sterling at the moment). People like you and my friends are already remarkably self sufficient, a la Good Life, and there's something about the English archetype of the eccentric, combined with a Blitz spirit, which makes us fairly impervious to global alarums and apocalyptic prophecies.
That much I get, and admire in some way, and am thankful for living in this foggy damp little isle.
But part of my heart will always be 'abroad', and I cannot cut myself off from the rest of the world without bleeding.
Completely off-topic, but did you get to your local library to look up some J K Galbraith books?
"Culture of Contentment" - highly recommended (and by B Bendle as well ....)
A perfect interlopation from one who, his handle suggests, believes it is all word games anyway, and nothing but a subjective reality is described despite all these pleas to evidence.
But Ludwig, without reminding you quite how you almost f**ked up World War II in your takedown of Alan Turing, let me remind you who completely agrees with your interweaving of thought and emotion: scientists. Antonio De Masio and Ramachandran agree you cannot separate thought from emotion in that bifurcated way outlined by semi autistic Descartes. Thought is emotion, emotion is thought.
We perform massive parallel processes in our brains, which are simultaneously soaked in potent psycho active drugs. You can't separate what happens from the 'feeling of what happens'. But thought, emotion and instinct aren't separate categories: they are actually the fast unconscious thought processes that protect us from chaotically incalculable events. And what tells us this, what confirms both our biases, and our amazing quadratic equations which make me run with this ball? Neuroscience.
Forget cant and Kant. It took a mathematician and cryptologist to shorten World War II. And it takes a scientist sometimes to tell us the value of poetry.
If you re-read what I wrote, you will see that it is directed at people who will accept the scientism of some, but not the scientific inquiry of others. For myself, since I don't understand the science, my position is simply one of belief. So, overall, I was referring to lay people's attitudes.
I'm afraid that I don't do cognitive science and neuroscience - one of my prejudices - so, yes, that is an area of ignorance.
Sorry. Should have explained my cryptic late night reference. There was a famous occasion when Turing talked to Wittgenstein about his theories for a Universal Calculating Machine (the precursor of the modern computer). Wittgenstein said, I paraphrase: "But Alan. All your theories are just number games. They won't change the world"
Fast forward 15 years later. Turing has been instrumental in decrypting enigma, saving the Atlantic lifeline from the U-Boats, and shortening the war by two years.
Fast forward to now. Turing laid the basics for modern computing, the same means by which we are communicating (and hopefully) changing the world now.
I should have put that comment in context. My bad. Hopefully rectified now.
Gilbert Ryle, _The Ghost in the Machine_
I'll think about the rest!
Sorry for going off-thread.
Well said. Of course like Bill i concur on the methods employed by government here.
As I said climate change has and always will be with us.
The implications are though, what the government will and can be trusted to do when it has such a poor and weak record on this area. I dislike the focus on CO2 when there are other things too which the Government is not acting upon.
It is almost like a childish cartoon where we must feel happy about our Governments "green" or "environmental record" when in fact they are only dealing with one small portion of a very big pie.
That is my problem with the situation as government avoids dealing with the challenging problems holistically or even recognising what they are.
Good debate Peter and Bill a very good read.
what ever you want to say
The greenhouse effect Q&A article on wikipedia seems to get edited every few days, which doesn't suggest a consensus.
Nor do I understand the lack of objectivity from yourself. Where do you get your 97% of scientists number from, for example?
I think you'll find though, that the credulity of (so-called) skeptics is increasing, much in proportion to the credulity of (so-called) warmists and the IPCC - who can also easily be accused of cheery-picking data.
Try looking up a paper on Surface Temperature Records by D'Aleo and Watts from the SPPI if you need any evidence that global warming data hasn't been subect to at best errors, at worst manipulation.
Blimey, Dani. You claim to have some scientific expertise, but the 97% figure is everywhere: try Science Daily
As for the fact the wikipedia article changes every day - that's exactly as it should be. The consensus is not fixed. It takes into account reams of new research, and different editors arbitrate disputes on the basis of citations and verifiable facts from well known sources. On the Global Warming article, wikipedia has been quite exemplary.
And what part of my initial comment don't you understand? Of course there are errors in data gathering, analysis, and interpretation. There has to be. This is science. But that doesn't prevent, for all your cherry picking of anomalies, the fact that the basic premises of anthropogenic climate change have been endorsed by more than 40 scientific societies and academies of science, including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries.
Cavil all you will. Tell me that water vapour has a cooling effect because it's cooler when cloudy (er... wrong... cloud cover reduces heat loss in winter and at night). But none of this has dented the consensus. One swallow does not a summer make, and you're confusing proper and widespread caution about data with out of hand denial of widely accepted - and rather important - scientific evidence on man made global warming.
Your point 2. below is wrong wrong wrong!
The positive feeback mechanism you talk about is that warmer air holds more water vapour. Water vapour is a greenhouse gas so more heating. This firstly relied on the Arrhenius equation being truly valid (which it isn't in this case) AND it ignores the negative feedback case. Water vapour also reflects IR rays (i.e. sunlight hitting the earth) so also provides a cooling effect.
((makes sense if you think about it - its colder if its cloudy))
So yes, water is a greenhouse gas, but the feedback loop to C02 is not true, and not necessarily one way either!
((the above is also in a very basic nutshell why the Arrhenius equation doesn't work in relation to a greenhouse effect))
I would be really careful using wikipedia as a source to "prove" AGW or "disprove" problems with it. The article you mention has been heavily edited by one person, and some of the statements it makes are unverifiable.
As an example, the link it gives to the "greenhouse effect"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas
A lot of the article is good science, but there are a few really very significant errors.
For example;
1. The Arrhenius equation has been shown not to be valid in this case. Experiments have shown that pressure heating in the atmosphere (and convection in a greenhouse) is the dominant heating method.
It's also worth noting that even Arrhenius himself suggested that a doubling of atmospheric C02 would only lead to a 1.5-2C temperature rise, whereas the IPCC use much more alarmist temp rises.
2. The article suggests that without greenhouse gasses, the Earth's temperature would be 33C (yes!) cooler. This is probably true, but for the reasons above again - no atmosphere, no pressure heating. NOTHING to do with any "greenhouse" effect of the gasses.
3. The article makes errors about various gasses atmospheric longevity. Essentially it makes a distinction between phase changes (water) and chemical changes (C02) as a case for differing effects on a greenhouse effect by dint of atmospheric longevity of said gas. Really, only NET atmospheric concentration should be taken into account (if you are to use current models anyway).
4. This is only hinted at (and dismissed) in the article, but the largest by product of human industrial activity is water vapour. Not C02. Most industrial processes create loads of it. Power stations almost universally use steam turbones to actually generate power (coal/oil/nuclear heats water to steam, steam drives turbine).
"Power stations almost universally use steam turbones to actually generate power (coal/oil/nuclear heats water to steam, steam drives turbine)."
The steam turbine isn't the electrical generator - it provides the shaft that provides the rotation in the generator.
Also, combined cycle gas turbine stations - which have come from nowhere at the beginning of the 1990s to provide almost one-third of our generating plant capacity in the UK in 2007 - burn gas in a gas turbine and the waste heat is used to heat water for a "conventional" steam turbine.
Given our precarious natural gas prospect now, it could be said that the decision to construct so much combined cycle gas turbine station capacity was not one of the wisest that has been made.
Thanks for the warning on Wikpedia regarding scientific information. Sources all important here and I shall be more cautious with it in future to check the original sources.
You're wrong to say I rely on wikipedia articles. In fact this is the first time I've linked to the Global Warming Q&A because I happened to review both the article, discussion pages and links.
If you have a problem with the separate Greenhouse Effect article, edit the page, cite sources, and see how it stands up to the editing process. The Global Warming article is actually a featured piece because it's withstood years of claims and counter claims and represents the best up to date consensus you can find on the web.
Again, this is a case of shooting the messenger, and while whole areas of the theory and data will remain subject to investigation and debate, I don't understand the lack of objectivity from yourself or MT. 97% per cent of scientists in the field agree with proposition that the globe is warming and human activity is likely to have had an impact.
My initial comment on scepticism stands: the credulity of the so called sceptics is fairly shocking, as is the ubiquitous cherry picking of small amounts of data, while ignoring an objective assessment of the whole.
Kieran, can you explain why the last bought of global warming 1,000 years ago was any different to the warming we are experiencing now? And, given the fact that there was no factories, cars, aeroplanes or shipping, and a tiny fraction of the number of humans and farmed animals, why did that worming take place?
Unless the 'climate warmers' can explain this, and how it is different this time, they would do well not to waste our time or money.
I do look at the wider picture Peter and I'm not consumed by selfish wants and needs. I look after my animals, I look after my family and I look after my environment. I also look in horror at the way our country is treated by business.
Now business I understand. I know there is a need for profit, but at the same time there is responsibility and from the SME's I see this responsibility in bucket loads. Unfortunately big business doesn't grasp this simple concept, and it rides rough shot over us with government backing and there is my problem. If this environmental disaster is upon us, why allow big business to buy credits? Think about it for a minute? Why let big business pay their way out of the problem? They can afford it, they will pay, but if its true that CO2 is destroying our planet, they are allowed to do it if they pay a tax?
It's hypocritical to the extreme to expect the individual to pay, yet let off the huger corporations with a mere tax for their activities, but then you look at it in context, why are the politicians so keen on the CO2 myth? It raises taxes from all quarters, thats why.
You can kid yourself that its to save the planet, but its not really. Watch Ed Miliband and listen to his claims, then research each one of them. You'll realise quickly that he hasn't a clue.
In the beginning I believed that climate change was caused by man and I was very concerned, so I researched it. I looked at the data, I listened carefully to the arguments, but to be honest the more I heard, the more I was convinced that it was about research finance and government taxes.
The greens are happy that the government listen and appear to act, but they conveniently ignore the things that really effect our environment. Think hard about the times you've heard about the government acting on coastal erosion? I bang on about it, I'm passionate about it. I want the fossils on our coasts preserved. I want the residents of coastal properties protected, and for the record, I live inland by about 25 miles. But the government?
A relatively easy solution to coastal erosion, but they do anything? No. They don't. And do you know why? Because they'll have to spend money with relatively little political gain. So our coasts erode. They disappear and politicians continue to talk about China or India. They will deflect to any area of the world aside from the UK, because they care not about environment, they care about money.
One of my many issues with Andy Burnham is his disregard for environment in his constituency. Ask him what was sacrificed for his prized Sports Village. Ask him what he bulldozed over and wait a good few months before you realise he won't answer. He can't answer. He can't respond. He's in Peter's (another Peter) pocket, but that's the price he paid for being allowed to be MP and get some bits from Ikea, eh Andy?!
What the MPs don't realise is that they had lives before they became MPs, that there was a time when they wouldn't sell out, when they were innocent. Now they are not. They have sold out, but unfortunately for them, some of us didn't. Some of us don't care about the cash and are quite happy with our lives as citizens of the United Kingdom. We see what they are twisting to suit their own gains, and the environment is one of them.
Believe it or not Peter, I'm what would have been deemed 30 years ago as a bit of an Eco warrior. Now, I'm against this whole man made climate change thing, just like my mentor, David Bellamy. Can you ask yourself why I would be like that? Why I would turn so harshly against so-called scientific evidence? And why I would argue that the government have got it so wrong?
I'm not the denier, yet they brand me that way. Question - why?
I only got to hear the last 15 minutes, but John has assured me I will be able to listen to the whole play on BBC i player.
I thought really raw powerful stuff, and a lot of black humour.
Lenny Henry was excellent.
I'd like to listen to the whole play, and will get back to you next week.
A fantastic achievement Peter!
Bye for now, Jo.
You make some good points- but it's the anonymity of blogging I think that can bring out a bit of bullying from a few peristent ones. Maybe that's why many reading this site might not wish to comment- I don't know.
In person, yes- I'm a passionate believer in justice and fairness, and don't shy away from difficult situations.
But I do believe strongly in respect, and tend to treat people
as I would want to be treated.
Blogging can be a bit of a minefield- but also very good for writing, sharing information(eg about chickens!), and networking.
And on LL- sharing ideas and campaigning.
So much good can be done- but I think it's important we have a site we feel comfortable to use, as we sharing very personal ideas and thoughts.
I wish you luck Bill,and I hope to be on here from time to time.
Jo.
Maybe they have different accents from the north and south?!
Re babies- after a 10 year absence in our extended family, we suddenly have 4 due in one year! So no matter how gloomy 2010 may be on the political front, those babies are still being born...
I have really enjoyed hearing about the chickens- maybe you and Bill could write an article to encourage potential owners?!
Also- Peter- sorry to interrupt your excellent discussion on
the science front.Your intellect and knowledge astonishes me!
Wishing you all a very good night, and have a lovely weekend.
Jo.
No, thanks for the interruption. This particular subject gives me a headache. Hope you enjoyed BF and have a great weekend with your multiplying extended family (sod their carbon footprints they sound fun)
Jo
Jo.
Hope you are ok. I think the expenses storm is over now so you put away your brolly as I for one shall focus on cleaning the party and I think i shall not be alone.
Nighty night.
I think John was rather relieved to hear I might be blogging less- he might get to see a bit more of me...and it can be incredibly addictive and time consuming- I'm not very disciplined!
Also many things to do.
But it seems I won't be able to completely stay away.
I'll probably pop on here to read some of the articles and comments from time to time.
PS- could I just say- Thomas, I didn't mean to leave out your chickens- and I'm very impressed with yours and Bill's dedication!
Why don't you get together to compare chickens?
My best friend locally has got 3 and they are beautiful.I had no idea they had so much character and intelligence; they follow her around like a dog!
Sorry- really must say good night now; we've got a big family weekend coming up- and a new baby to meet!
Jo.
'Why don't you get together to compare chickens?'
lol. I think his are probably somewhere near Manchester whilst ours are a bit further south (obviously pronouced 'f' and not 'th') and east. They don't fly very well.
Hopefully the baby enjoys the attention;)
Yes, it is true I really value LL, and love debate and discussion.
But I'll be 100% honest with you and say I find it gets pretty rough on the blogging front at times.
I do find the tone can get very nasty and aggressive on occasions, and I don't particularly want to share a space with people like that.
On the other side though, there are many who I highly value, and have had some great discussions with- so I do find it rather sad.
On a practical front though, I have very limited time, and can't always follow things through as I'd like to.
So I think the best compromise is to post intermittently/occasionally on articles that are important to me, or I have something to say.
But I am fully in support of Alex and all he is doing on here.
The articles are generally fantastic, and I really like the LIVE list.
My only hope is that the "tone" could be a bit more civil, despite differences of opinion.
Wishing you luck too Bill.
All best, Jo.
PS I do like Twinings tea- the Earl Grey variety.. is there something I should know?!
Jo, fully understand where you're coming from and from my earliest experience of the LL I had to deal with nastiness. Unfortunately its politics, it is a very nasty business because there is a lot of self interest and more, a lot of passion. We all go overboard at times.
I have disagreements and I swear, I never mean to be nasty. I'll be sarcastic and I will ram the point home in my opinion, but I never mean to be nasty. Ask Ralph about my face to face method of getting a point across. He was getting mad outside a nice establishment in the centre of London, not because he hated me, but because I challenged him and goaded him. I wanted to see whether he would face down the BNP voter on the doorstep and he proved he can do it with his eyes shut. When he's proved it, I pushed some more to see what he'd do, but he carried on being the Ralph I know and not losing it.
Separating the people who are genuinely nasty and those who really are passionate and want to make a difference is the key and you seem to me to be someone who is passionate and wants to make a difference. To do that you have to deal with the nasties. I appreciate wholeheartedly that this will mean the occasional comment rather than going at it hammer and tongue, but consider something for a minute - you view injustice on a daily basis. Do you sit in silence or speak out? I choose the latter every time.
This is just very brief- as it's so late.
I've said this before, but my partner John is and engineer and scientist, and has worked for many years in the energy industry.
He also works closely with the EU and partner companies across Europe.
He is very knowledgable about climate change science and renewable energy technologies, and reads a great deal of research.
We don't discuss a great deal, but he has told me he feels so angry about what appears to be a huge "anti lobby" out there which is scare mongering and misinforming.Also doing a lot of damage.
He believes it to be possible there is an element of vested interest from lobby groups and individuals- so highly political.
I'm not sure if this mainly emanates from USA.That would seem logical when one considers big business interests involved.
Clearly it is complex and contentious subject that arouses a lot of emotion.But also a lot of denial.
I do know that the vast consensus of credible scientists do agree on the basic premise- and maybe Kieron will enlighten us further on the details later.
Good night!
Jo.
Thanks Jo. That's what I also hear from anyone with any expertise in this field. I've no need to repeat what I feel about the psychology of this so called sceptic movement. As for links with vested interests, there's actually one in the article which I mentioned in my first comment.
Great to see you back here, as Bill says. If you can't keep away, why not join the party?
Hearing about their behaviour patterns reminds me a little of some of the blogging and bloggers on here!
Jo.
Kieran, one thing I would say is don't take what I say as a personal attack. We do disagree and I do tend to bark, but its because I'm as passionate about this as you are, just from another angle. I will debate with you and it may appear that I am a nasty bugger with a poisoned tongue, but genuinely, you have a good eye for your writing and although you may again write something many might disagree with, keep that writing up. Many agree with you too, they're just not as verbal.
Very much looking forward to seeing more of your stuff and hearing more of your views, even if you don't like Twinings.
I have to go for the night so rather than rush some half-arsed reply now I'll get back to you tomorrow with a decent response. I'm pretty sure we'll never agree but I really appreciate your comments. And everyone elses, I'm glad it's generated such a debate.
Night all!
Every point you raised - carbon credits, tree logging, coastal neglect, carbon offsetting and misuse of fuel tax - have I defended any of those? And have I denied massive governmental hypocrisies? If I did then I'd accept what you said. Plus I don't drink Twinings...
So yes, you didn't mention what I have outlined, but do you know why? Because you'd be defending something that can't be defended. And there is the real deal for you. You can't defend the issues I've raised, yet you cherry pick what you think you can defend because you believe you're backed up by science.
Whether you drink Twinings or not it's irrelevant. I drink lots of coffee and the occassional alcoholic beverage, but it doesn't make me right. What does make me right is the fact that you can't prove your hypothesis beyond reasonable doubt, so guess what, you don't get to hang that man. And if the man isn't going to be hung, you now have to justify to me the taxes that won't go towards the coastal defences I hinted at, you have to explain where the fuel tax goes and more so, you have to tell me how the poor will cope with the current state of affairs.
Call yourself Labour? Well think about the poor in all of this and I'm sorry, but you're not thinking this through. Have a think and get back to me. You've produced a very well written article and although I may disagree with you, I acknowledge you're a good writer and the fact you've replied as you have, you have a bloody good heart as well. You are passionate because you won't let me get away with ripping into you, but think about it for a minute and see beyond what you're told. Why would a government readily accept a concept or scientific proof if it was going to cost them more money? They wouldn't. They accept it because its the biggest money spinner of all time.
Its the end of the world as we know it Kieran, you just have to pay a little extra tax to ensure it ends well for the rich!
A remarkable evening. With the contributions by Diana, Max and Mike I do feel very reasurred about the situation regarding some aspects of the environment and I have learnt some things to.
Thanks all!
Obviously there are more very scary issues but this is a good start i think.
Would you, or anybody else here, hang a man for a crime without sufficient evidence?
Go on, tell me you would. Explain to everyone here how you'd hang an individual by the neck until he is dead without sufficient evidence?
Wouldn't happen would it? But lets throw that one to the dogs for now as I've got another question for you. You rely on your evidence being correct, so its a short argument, lets concentrate on other avenues.
Can you explain how the sale of carbon credits will 'save the world'? Can you guarantee that the money from carbon credits, sold to industry on the pretence of man made climate change, will actually be used to 'save the planet'?
No, you can't and do you know why the people of Britain don't believe a word coming out of the politicians mouths? Because their lips move. That is how we know they are lying and it doesn't help that your spokesman, the great Ed, hasn't a bloody clue what he's talking about. Again and again he rolls out desertification and flooding as being caused by man made climate change and unfortunately for him and everyone else, the scientists disagree. And you tell me scientists and politicians are together on the issue of man made climate change?
Few more questions for you, keep you busy for a day or two maybe.
Why is logging continuing to make way for sugar beet if trees offset carbon? Money more important that climate is it?
Why can the rich buy lots of little carbon credits and spew out what they want, but the poor get left with wind power which is about as useful to producing reliable electricity as a fart?
And when do you decide when enough is enough? When the scientists tell you so, or when the poorest have become so poor that they decide to start killing each other to survive?
Why, if it is such a desperate issue, is the government grabbing money on fuel taxes and not ploughing this into alternative fuels or even rebuilding the national grid to a level that would support electric vehicles?
If you're so concerned about the environment, why have the coasts of Britain been neglected for the past 50 years and allowed to erode beyond repair in some cases?
Why is the government ignoring the dangers of land-based wind turbines instead of exploring off shore options, saving the hassle and providing some real options to ensure that we are not reliant on wind power to give the national grid a boost?
Why is it that every planning issue that bulldozes over an environmentally protected area happens because the likes of Donald Trump flashes the cash?
Had enough or are you thirsty for more? I could carry on until the methane-producing bovine ruminants come home, but then I'm talking about facts rather than fiction whilst you brand me as a 'denier'.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but climate change will never hurt me. I recycle my rubbish because it makes sense, I grow vegetables and keep chickens because it makes sense and I keep my travel to the minimum because it makes sense. None of this is done to save the planet, it is done because it makes sense to my life and to my families life. If it didn't, I wouldn't.
Love your story about the chickens. A mate of mine just go two lovely specialised chickens from Poland. But his dog got into the kennel, killed one and the other flew away.
Your localised version of environmentalism makes sense too, except the first line
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but climate change will never hurt me. I recycle my rubbish because it makes sense, I grow vegetables and keep chickens because it makes sense and I keep my travel to the minimum because it makes sense. None of this is done to save the planet, it is done because it makes sense to my life and to my families life. If it didn't, I wouldn't.
Er...Better wait and see on that first line. That's a faith based statement. Read Jared Diamond's great book called Collapse about how seven cultures, from Easter Island to Vinland, were destroyed because people didn't think beyond their local needs. Look at what's happened with soil denudation in Haiti, or what happened in the Caspian, or indeed the acidic smog that killed thousands in London until the Clean Air Act.
Rearing your own chickens is great. Maybe it's a start. But why then would you go on to decry any kind of collective action to mitigate the much larger risks (and you have to accept - even if you minimise them - there are risks) which affect us on a wilder scale.
We have been given the gift - or perhaps the curse - of seeing the bigger picture.
On that bigger picture: I can't help thinking about Turkeys in this context, rather than chickens. A group of Turkeys lived an idyllic life. They were regularly fed, housed, kept warm. A nice vet would visit occasionally to give them antibiotics if they were ill. They lived in a kind of paradise. Why should they be concerned about the people driving past with their Christmas trees. Why should they bother that the Great Escape was repeated again on TV. It didn't concern them. They kept themselves to themselves, and did no one any harm.
And then Christmas came, and a large truck pulled up to take them to the abattoir.
I liked the analogy with the Turkeys.
The problem I have is that whilst I have seen the climate get warmer over the years, the models being used seem incapable of even vaguely accurate short term predictions, which seriously calls into question the models and the assumptions they are based on.
Just over 6000years ago the climate was cooler but had C02 at todays levels, so clearly it isn't just CO2.
Either the explanations are too simplistic, or the modeling is.
So if it isn't just CO2, what else contributes, and is, hopefully, measurable? The answer to that question would deal with a lot of sceptism and produce better models that could be used to predict trends and therefore supply the evidence to base policy on.
An eminently reasonable response, and I'm glad you got my Black Swan analogy.
I confess to not knowing that CO2 levels were higher 6,000 years ago, but was the earth's albedo level also much higher? (I.e. the amount of reflected light due to snow coverage).
James Lovelocks sudden change of heart came six years ago when he looked at the combination of increased CO2 with ocean current stratification, ice retreat, and the unlocking of methane from the arctic tundra. Methane and ammonia are of course even more powerful greenhouse gases than CO2.
Every scientist I've ever heard have said that, yes, the short term effects are highly unpredictable. But it's taken 20 or 30 years for the majority to come to this consensus. The modelling is getting more and more sophisticated, as is the data collection. How come these thousands of scientists, analysts and date collectors think, on balance, there's more likelihood our carbon output is contributing to the problem than not?
The problem isn't reasoned analysis. It's the ineptitude of those who spread the message.
Whilst I agree on balance of probality, it doesn't constitute proof. And as you say there are other issues, such as ocean floor methane being released to the surface, plus the bovine exhaust.
The key thing, is that every time some organisation which is supportive of the concept of man made global warming makes a public weather prediction which turns out really wrong, they devalue the pronouncements the make on this subject.
It doesn't help that the Met office guy appeared on the BBC saying the cold spell was confined to Northern Europe whilst our Korean supplier guest engineer was telling us of record snow falls in his country, and our Japanese colleagues were reporting similar.
Too much attempted spin and not sticking to the facts means that no one now knows who is truthful, credible, and what the facts actually are.
If the models are not good for short/medium predictions then don't make them.
Last winter was what I would term a normal winter I remember from my youth, this winters as being pretty cold, but no way on a par with 80/81 despite the journalistic nonsense on this.
The BBC published a survey, I think yesterday, that showed convinced sceptics were level pegging with those who beleive it's all related to man made CO2. A massive change in opinion over a single month.
The reason for this. Ed Miliband promises us disasters, that can't be linked in this way. The Met office foolishly made public prediction of a mild winter, and actually we're in the midst of a pretty cold winter.
Frankly, Isaac Newton reckoned light was made of particles and not wavelike, despite performing the classic experiment to demonstrate wave like properties. I don't take things on trust from suppliers at work without supporting evidence, even though they are repeating recieved wisdom, I don't understand why anyone else would think they could avoid this level of evidence, regardless of their supposed expertise.
To be honest I think the man made climate change lobby is damaging itself more quickly through it's own actions than that of it's opponents.
A rational argued case such as your own, with clear and not utterly simplistic explanations, is something that they should be learning from.
Otherwise they lose the argument until there is some undeniable manifetation in weather patterns to take its place.
You've given me the best explanation yet as to why scepticism is rising, despite the scientific consensus. There's been complacency, paranoia and an element of defensiveness among the experts, despite the fact that no scientific body of national or international standing presently rejects the basic findings of human influence on recent climate.
They certainly haven't got their message out, and this debate has a least spurred me to get myself a bit more informed.
On that, though it's a bit dry, I would highly recommend the wikipedia Q&A about recurrent claims and misunderstandings about Global Warming.
Hope you're chickens laid today. Given the great environment you give them, I bet those eggs are tasty.
Eggs were good.
How do you manage to insert embedded links?
The curious thing to me on climate change is the deafening silence in media reports about the Greens current stance. Maybe that is considered so obvious that nobody bothers to mention it. Still you'd have expected them to make some fuss about Copenhagen.
You insert links by inserting these tags either side of the word or phrase you want linked to (only in this case I'm using {} instead of the angular brackets because otherwise it would make a link
For example, if you wanted to link to this comment in Labour list.
You'd actually type...
For example, if you wanted to link to {a href=http://www.labourlist.org/how-to-win-friends-and-influence-people-on-climate-change#Comment79965}this comment{/a} in Labour list.
But of course replacing the two sets of {} with angular brackets < and >
Have go. It takes a bit of getting used to, but you soon do it automatically.
As for the Green stance. You've highlighted something very important. Though Mike Thomas bunches everyone together as Greenies, Warmies and Lefty Lentilista, the climate change movement is only peripherally attached to the ecological movement, as its science based rather than political.
In fact the morphing from a generalised ecological emphasis to a specific focus on climate change has caused many greens a lot of problems. Previously the ecological movement was basically campaigning to protect natural systems from the impact humankind. The focus of global warming is to protect humankind from impact of natural systems.
What I've seen of the green movement is a split. Former greenpeace activists now support increase of nuclear power because, compared to the threat of GW, the balance of risks favours movement away from fossil burning fuels until alternative technologies come on stream
Also, while having been heavily anti urbanist in the past, environmental activists are now recognising the efficiency of cities, and observing that the rapid growth in urbanisation has actually led to the re-greening of formerly marginal subsistence farming.
It's all quite fascinating, but it also confounds the sceptics assumptions that the 'Greenies' and the 'Warmies' are actually the same group of people with the same interests at all. This failure to distinguish the political from the scientific, and the misanthropic from the anthropogenic, is another sign of how undeveloped and uninformed the kind of scepticism you find on British and US blogs can be.
Thanks for the tip.
Did have a quick look at the Greens site and it as you suggest concentrating on the ecological, though climate change does get the odd mention.
Won't link to it. They don't need any help.
Have you considered gift wrapping these 15inch shells, to reduce the appearance of high explosive going 'whoosh' and heading towards lala lands wafer thin defences?
On the chickens. Ours are Sussex's and the useless wenchs stop laying in the winter. Any better luck with yours?
Worried about the room though now there are six of them, so building an 8ft x 6ft run for the other side of the shed in a good shaded spot, give them more options for wandering about and they really like corn on the cob. Not the KFC variety though.
Blimey, I sound like a chicken nerd! Two are rescue chickens, or at least that's the way we view them as they were in such a state when we got them. Another two are well-looked after and we bought them healthy and laying. Last two are from my brother-in-law. He raised them from chicks and found he couldn't deal with their habits, so I took them and they've really enjoyed their new environment.
See, I'm changing the planet just one chicken at a time! And the eggs are delicious!
Lol. Sounds like we should reduce the space our lot wander around in that or they've been disturbed by the two continental giant rabbits they have to share the run and garden with.
From what you're saying it sounds like the ladies have been aquired at different times. Any hen pecking/bullying problems?
By the way, I think 'chicken nerd' always refers to the person whose had the beaky, evil tempered, prima donnas longer than the next person. (Rabbits are lovely in comparison)
Don't get me wrong, blood has been drawn on occasion and I have physically separated them, but then that's all part of keeping free range hens. They need a good amount of room to run around, they're very territorial and they will have a good old peck at anything they are unhappy about, but the solution. Home grown lettuce. Works a treat and they settle very quickly. Too much and they start scrapping again, but just enough and they all run around happily.
I don't view them as just pets or as a source of eggs, but they're a bit of a research project. I want them to be as happy as they can be, so I build new perches, improve the run and mix up their feed. Nothing wrong with looking after your animals. I have a pregnant cat who is currently rubbing my leg for her supper, 6 marine fish and 3 fresh water fish all waiting for their evening meal and 2 rugrats, or children as others call them, who have settled for the evening finally. Time to relax and have a glass of wine, even if it is midnight!
Thanks for the free consultation. My son has been keen to get rescue hens to add to our five, but I've been concerned about potential pecking.
I don't know if you've tried it, but there's some purple dye stuff that you put on the pecked area and the others seem to stop pecking that spot. (We've also tried some evil smelling stuff, which is meant to ward off the peckers, but has merely served to make sure I have one coat I can't wear in company.)
cheers
Chicken nerd II
Biggest problem so far has been the fight for the egg laying spot, a little corner in the shed that they've chosen to lay in. Have you got any solutions to that? They will fight over it with a certain viciousness, and I've tried putting out another patch for them to lay, they just won't lay there.
I would love to keep ducks and even half considered pigs a while back. Got the room for them. Well, I say that, I'd have to give up the potato patch and some of the peas. I like my vegetables.
I really do sound like I'm in the Good Life or something, but it makes me, my wife and my kids happy. It might not be saving the planet, but its giving us better produce than the supermarkets, its cheaper and I get to make sure the chickens are well looked after. Might sound a bit soft, but they're good old birds. They give me regular eggs and give them a nice environment to live in, it's a good deal for all of us.
re egg laying. We've got a coop with two nesting spots. I've never seen more than two try and get in at the same time so probably not two much violence. (Well, apart from the time a rabbit decided to join them.)
Of course it helps I suppose that one of them has never laid. So avoiding too much demand for the spots. As she nominally belongs to the daughter she's avoided a sticky end.
You need a body of water for ducks which means a pond is pretty much a minumum requirement. (Don't fall in said pond, as water isn't clean and you tend to find you can only remember hearing laughing sounds as opposed to offers of assistance. That's farmers daughters for you.)
Almost forgot. Yes, the eggses are excellent. Much better than so called free range from the shopses.
One thing I can't abide by and it infuriates me is the way some farmers mistreat their animals. Chickens are not stupid and they really do respond to a good environment. I know this is not politically correct, but I've wanted to cage one particular farmer and treat him to the same kicks he's dealt out to his so-called free range chickens, see how he likes it.
The space requirements for being able to call a chicken free range are a bit poor to say the least.
I'd probably draw the line at trying to kick a farmer. The ones I've met tend to be built like members of All Black front row.
Can't believe we're on a political forum discussing our chickens though.
The alternative is GB!
Back to chickens.
My wife is a bit of a free range nazi when it comes to telling people to make space for their chickens. To be honest it's rather easy for us, because we have a pretty large garden, and about 20% is fenced off as a run, and when the weathers OK they can join the rabbits and children in the rest of the garden.
Good for keeping the grass down and the ants. Not so good for small birds(killer chickens) and 'fraidy cats.
The chickens seem to especially like sunning themselves. I know it goes against convential wisdom but I think they appreciate the outdoor space rather more.
Non-layers become dinner at our house I'm afraid, might not sound particularly animal loving, but although I treat them as our pets, they are a source of food for the most part. Luckily they all lay and not only that, they lay well, but I'm dreading the day when they stop. Not worried about having to do the deed as such, I believe if you wish to eat meat, you must be willing to kill the animal and look it in the eye whilst doing so, but the day will come.
One of the reasons I won't keep rabbits. Unfortunately I tend to eat rabbits. I don't view them as pets, but a source of food when I'm camping. Same reason I want to keep pigs and ducks, food more than anything else.
Admittedly I don't think we can manage a water body large enough for the ducks. The one thing I want to ensure is that if we're keeping animals that they are happy. I sound positively mercenary don't I? My butcher likes me because I'm realistic, I buy his produce to eat and I know where it comes from. What makes him chuckle is my need to see the process and understand it. Part of being a omnivore I think, understanding it isn't all shrink wrapped produce from the supermarket.
Brilliant program on one of the channels, caught it a few weeks ago, Kill it, Cook it, Eat it. Usual rubbish of trying to shock the viewer, but valuable to show the meat eater what happens to the animals and the value of a well-kept animal. Should be compulsive viewing if you eat meat as far as I'm concerned. Likewise if you don't eat meat, it will remind you why you won't eat meat, which is why I a lot of respect for those vegetarians and vegans who don't do it for fashionable purposes.
Haven't skinned a rabbit in years but know what you mean about knowing what goes into getting food on the table.
I think though it's time to call time on chicken discussions tonight though.
Cheers
Awesome.
Naughty naughty.
Wikpedia
"The southern boundary of the Sahara, as measured by rainfall, was observed to both advance and retreat between 1980 and 1990. As a result of drought in the Sahel, the southern boundary moved south 130 kilometres (81 mi) overall during that period.[20]. Deforestation has also caused the Sahara to advance south in recent years[citation needed], as trees and bushes continue to be used as fuel source."
Sorry fella. I guess you are one of the religious types on one faiths and not a practitioner of facts.
You've hit the nail on the head really. Because CLimate change is so hard to prove one way or another to any degree of certainty, it becomes a matter of belief or faith, though one shrouded in the veils of science.
If you take the analogy further, it even has its own heaven and hell, as well as high priests (Al Gore, anyone?). It has a bible (AR4) and infidels to boot. What more do you need!
((and please, i'm just drawing an analogy, not a direct comparison))
Stretching your analogy in another direction and then twisting it slightly, the biggest problem I can see is no attempt to control 'begatting' as opposed to the waste prroducts of the consequent consumption.
Yes. It is good isn't it. It very much ties in with the message i get from David too, that there is actually a huge amount of networking, action and developement going on as a result of the preparation process for Copenhagen.
My Husband is a historian, and he was very philosophical about the way things went at copenhagen. He reckoned it wasn't the point. The piece of paper doesn't matter, it is the way theis man says that everyone is now on board and moving in the same direction.
The commercial interests and the green interests are now aligned.
Hope your day went OK by the way.
Diana
Yes your husband is very right. I am very reassured now that the correct people are making the correct practical decisions. If anything I think the politicians are chasing the success and wisdom of their betters.
You have made my evening ;)
I am in a little pain but ok, the news was good. I will send this condition into remission. I beat asthma, eczema and I will beat this too.
Do you need further funds for further research?
So I assume that little things like facts won't affect or change your confirmed views.
Sound like religion to me....
I liked it for two reasons. First - because this style of interviewing - giving one person time to say something in reasonable detail seems to work really well, and secondly because of the message he is giving. It is quite long, It is all worth listening to, but if you are going to skip then the last minute is the most important.
Just listened to it. Very encouraging stuff. Thanks.
I totally agree. There are lots of environmenatl issues out there which have little or nothing to do with climate change, and are arguably much more important. Climate change (C02 based) has basically become the sole focus though, and funding for that is actually squeezing heavily the funding for other environmental programs.
Put it this way, there is a lot more to pollution then a bit of inert gaseous plant food in the atmosphere.
1. As Keiran says below, C02 has increased to about 380ppm in the atmosphere, from around 250ppm 100 years ago. Seems like a big change, but in % terms it is pretty insignificant. You'll be interested to know that most houses have about 1000-1500ppm inside, and greenhouses yet more. This is considered normal and safe.
2. C02 is basically inert. It's a terrible greehouse gas, apart from it only being in the atmoshpere in small concentrations. It IS distributed fairly evenly though, which makes it easy to measure and easier to computer model. Water Vapour (and other gasses e.g. CFCs), arguably a much bigger greenhouse gas, CAN'T be modelled well at the moment because it forms clouds. Thus C02 has become the focus for climate change research. Plus I suppose, telling everyone that water is about to endanger the entire planet might not be taken as seriously.
On general science/climate change;
3. It is incredibly difficult to just measure temperature accurately, let alone do it globally. It is then very hard to link it solely to C02 increases in the atmosphere. TO do that you have to have an accurate temperature record (which we don't) AND be able to account for many other effects, such as other gasses, solar effects and environmental effects.
To say that climate change (predicated on C02 emmissions) is settled is simply a lie. 97% of scientists agree that C02 *could* have an effect, but I'll bet you that 97% would probably want to see more data too.
It is simply NOT ENOUGH to say "the earth has warmed" and "C02 has risen" to make to link them in scientific terms. Even the IPCC give huge margins for error on the effect in AR4, given I suppose, that they don't really know.
4. As for the greenhouse efffect itself; most people think its about little rays of sunlight being trapped in the atmosphere by nasty gasses and warming the planet.
Well kids, it happens but is almost irrelevant. The two most important systems for heating the planet surface are a) direct solar heating and b) pressure heating (from the weight of the atmosphere)
As a general note Keiran - you *are* parroting from a gospel. You believe in climate change, believe being the key unscientific word which the pro AGW camp always use.
Whilst climate change is almost certainly happening, I would hate to bet on the biggest cause, and likewise also bet against the change being all one way.
BUT if we do assume that it is real and want to do something about it, then you have to be ready for significant increases in tax and energy costs, which will go straight into the pockets of big business. That money could be used for growth, or alleviating poverty, or international development. Instead it will end up in places like energy companies and banks. I find it no surprise that the head of the IPCC is a major stakeholder in big oil, steel and most tellingly, several carbon emission exchanges.
Truly a great post. Thank you.
Very interesting and informative.
but I still we should be very concerned about the environment. Resources (fisheries, timber, food) are not limitless and we need an economic model to deal with this and politicians to plan for this.
We cannot keep multiplying like mad rabbits out of a hat. There is only so much in this finite world.
Desertificiation is a serious threat and is spreading and needs to be addressed somehow.
There is a very serious case regarding the environment and I feel we are being mislead to the very nature of what the real problems are.
(It a mystery, like those multiplying polar bears who, according to AGW believers, really should be dying out as they cling to melting ice-floes....)
I am glad it is you have cheered me up. What about the problems elsewhere though?
Max I don't doubt you but could you provide a source for this one.
Then it would cheer my mood.
Bang in 'Greening of the Sahel" into any search engine; there are literally thousands of articles to choose from.
The Sahel is the big sand strip across Africa, it greens and turns to desert thoughout history. It is thought that if it wasn't green, ancient man would never have transitted into the Middle East to create civilisation as we know it.
After years of decline, it is getting greener again.
I was an engineer on one of the NOAA surveys of the area in the 1990s. Needless to say, the assembled scientists were "interesting" in their opinions of the so-called "consensus".
"I was an engineer ..."
Er, haven't you told us you are a scientist, took a degree in Environmental Sciences, or something like that?
What discipline of "engineering?" : civil, mechanical, electrical, chemical (the basics) or instrumentation/control, electronics, production ....
Mr Thomas, I doubt your credibility greatly. I was awarded a degree in Civil Engineering at Loughborough in 1967 (which is possibly on the public record) and to read your comment "I was an engineer ..." offends me greatly.
Not to mince words, I think you are full of ess aitch eye tee.
What did I say; "They're coming.."
Fascinating to see group think in action. Rather than counter my basic premise about the closed system of faith and credulity in so called climate chage scepticism, you've actually confirmed it. Either you reach for some quasi scientific qualification (I was a landscape gardener/space jockey etc) or cite sources which actually prove the opposite of what you say.
Can Mike Thomas please post his links on the 'greening' of the Sahel again, because they reveal that this greening is largely due to urbanisation. His links on the ice caps not melting also prove exactly the opposite. His comparison with Galileo is apt, though not in the way he intends it, because - much like the Inquisition - his blind conviction is a filter which fails to see the facts present even in the arguments he cites.
So we're back to faith - the self convinced echo chamber represented here that thinks everything is all right, and the rest of the scientific community which thinks, on balance, the world is getting warmer, and that carbon emissions probably have something to do with it.
The zealotry of this elect band of self selected experts is noted. As is their self interest: they want to pay lower taxes, driver faster cars, sod 'lentilistas' etc. It's clearly a political ideology, driven by some kind of mistaken belief that environmentalism arose on the left, and a libertarian paranoia that every warning is, like Y2k, some kind of scam by scheming central governments to bleed us.
I must be honest - I have no vested interest in the anti carbon lobby, no history of environmental activism. My first book about cities was a deliberate push back against the dominance of the eco myth of a pastoral idyll, and I've written about how a desire for environmental apocalypse is a new version of religious end thinking.
But the collective delusion on display here is quite unsettling and remarkable. I don't think I've seen such a group of otherwise (relatively) rational people shut their minds to evidence quite so dogmatically. I half think you all must have met before on some climate sceptic site - or maybe listen too much to Jeremy Clarkson. But joking aside, this whole phenomenon frankly amazes me, and apart from the double appeal of conspiracy theory and wish fulfilment (as I first suggested) I have no other explanation for it.
On a passing note, it should go without saying I hope you're not all just victims of some kind of sect-like hysteria. For the sake of my kids, and their kids, I desperately hope all these tenuous and tendentious 'facts' you prove turn out to be right, and I can return here with egg on my face, and still drive my car, burn coal, leave the lights on, and not worry about the future of the planet.
I wish you were right - my wish fulfilment is strong too. But nothing anybody has ever shown in these debates has reassured me. In fact, you worry me more about the fate of humanity if it responds to crises in this irrational way.
What did I say; "They're coming.."
Fascinating to see group think in action. Rather than counter my basic premise about the closed system of faith and credulity in so called climate chage scepticism, you've actually confirmed it. Either you reach for some quasi scientific qualification (I was a landscape gardener/space jockey etc) or cite sources which actually prove the opposite of what you say."
Which of my qualifications is quasi-scientific - the BSc Physics or the MSc Nanotechnology?
I wasn't saying you were wrong on climate change, I was just pointing out that you know bugger all about physics and should probably stick with using analogies that you understand. When you make obviously false claims about one area of science, it makes your other claims less believable.
I wasn't saying you were wrong on climate change, I was just pointing out that you know bugger all about physics and should probably stick with using analogies that you understand.
A) How was anyone to know your attitude to 99% of my comment, when you just make a drive by swipe about one analogy. I reserve the right to mangle any analogy I like.
B) And you still haven't explained how my analogy is wrong. I said that Newtonian physics was sufficient for most rocketry and interplanetary travel. If you're saying Relativity and Quantum physics are necessary for GPS, does that invalidate the analogy (since many interplanetary missions predate GPS)? If so, let me know....
But saying I know 'bugger all' about physics is not only rude, and technically a teensy weensy bit wrong, it doesn't further any debate, does it? The whole point of this is to share information, and on climate change understand the processes that 'experts' have deployed. And let's remember... nobody loves a smarta**e.
As opposed to making wild sweeping generalisations about my motivation without any evidence to back it up. Reserve the right to make dumb statements and I'll reserve the right to point them out.
"B) And you still haven't explained how my analogy is wrong. I said that Newtonian physics was sufficient for most rocketry and interplanetary travel. If you're saying Relativity and Quantum physics are necessary for GPS, does that invalidate the analogy (since many interplanetary missions predate GPS)? If so, let me know...."
Relativity is required for GPS in the same way that it's required for communicating with any object that orbits the Earth as the frequency of any light (including radio signals) changes as it leaves our gravity well.
"But saying I know 'bugger all' about physics is not only rude, and technically a teensy weensy bit wrong, it doesn't further any debate, does it?
Rude is accusing my physics degrees of being "quasi-scientific". You brought this on yourself.
The whole point of this is to share information, and on climate change understand the processes that 'experts' have deployed.
Is that what you think you were doing? All I heard was you making baseless accusations about my motivations and intelligence.
And let's remember... nobody loves a smarta**e."
That's unfortunate for both of us - however, I don't need any else to validate my life and I'm the smartest arse.
Actually, if this bandwidth is being expended on the presumption I included you on people with 'quasi scientific qualifications' - you misread my post, or I should have phrased it more clearly.
Look downthread and you'll see who claimed to be an 'engineer' or 'consultant'; that was directed at them. Read my comment and see I dedicated a separate paragraph in response to you.
I have no idea of your motivations, and until now neither asked nor desired to know your qualifications. I still don't see quite what you find objectionable given the terms of my initial analogy, but the underling point still stands: we have to do things (launch rockets/explore the globe/counter carbon emissions) often with imperfect knowledge.
What did I say; "They're coming.."
Where could I possibly have gotten the idea that the following post was directed at me? Maybe you should put the "@ MonkeyBot" at the start of the paragraph directed at me instead of the start of your post. Which paragraph was specifically directed at me?
"I still don't see quite what you find objectionable given the terms of my initial analogy, but the underling point still stands: we have to do things (launch rockets/explore the globe/counter carbon emissions) often with imperfect knowledge."
The analogy was wrong. We didn't explore the universe relying on Newtonian physics, that's all there is. Now, read the next bit very slowly so that you can make sure you understand it.
When you make claims about one area of science that are false, people are less likely to believe your other claims.
You're providing a perfect example of what Charlie complains about when he says,
"People are very cynical of politicians who clearly don't understand what they are talking about and themselves don't understand the issues - are you a scientist Kieran or just a right-on believer that parrots the gospel?"
This is why kids don't believe government warnings about cocaine after they've been told that cannabis is deadly. I'm just saying that sloppy analogies can do more harm than good.
Because I still have no threading of comments, either in IE/Firefox or Chrome, I've no idea if this imprecation is directed to me and Monkeybot or Peter T and Bill D.
Splitting the difference, you'll see I've rectified a misunderstanding of MB's when he took the wrong para addressed to him. It's by way of explanation and ramping down the argument, so I trust hasn't overstepped any warning you might have given us.
Alex's comment ('fights empty rooms') followed immediately after Peter Thompson to Bill (six minutes after MB's to you).
As always, you're a gem. Did you ever sort out your correspondence/falsifiability debate with Phil Mill. Or did it descend, rather like mine with MBs, into rancour and willy waving?
Thanks for your intervention, which I saw tonight. It was purely tangential to the discussion, so not really worth pursuing, but I learned something from it. I tend too often to 'pimp my piety' (haha!).
If you want links, go and find them. You have no science qualifications at all for a start so good luck in your quest to debunk the skeptical view.
The fact is that the warmist view is flawed, not fatally, but a large section of the scientific community have been found to be far more interested in securing a political position and securing funds from Big Oil than any conclusive scientific theory.
The paleoclimatology is now under serious scrunity and so far it is not looking good. No paleoclimatology, no scientific background to the cyclical nature of earth's climate.
The entire scientific field, if discredited, would need to effectively start again.
The very fact that the senior scientists at CRU seem to be more interested in fabricating a story of Russian hackers releasing the data rather than a disgruntled CRU staff speaks volumes.
Peter, here are some further development as AR4 unravels.
1. Himalayan glaciers are not melting as quickly as thought. The fact they are melting has more to do with deforestration than climate.
2. The positive feedback of increased CO2 in the atmosphere has been found to be not as severe as predicted. This was the vital tenet of the warmists that increased CO2 would cause a runaway positive feedback to amplify temperature increase. This is now thought to be false, the effect is thought to be relatively mild.
3. Oceanographic data has been revised to show the oceans giving up heat not storing it. Again, this implies a cooling planet not a warming one. Due to the sheer scale of the heat sink effect of the ocean, to reverse heat flow takes decades. Now, this raises a very important question.
If the oceans are now dumping heat into the atmosphere, what on earth have global temperature been doing for the last 10-15 years? The warmists have been telling us they are increasing; they must certainly have not. More importantly, as the Sun is the major forcing element of ocean temperature, why is solar forcing still largely ignored by warmist computer modelling?
You find the rebuttal to these points and I'll consider a debate with you.
Good luck.
Lastly the "think of the children" argument is pretty weak, they certainly where not forefront to any decisions made certainly by this government over the last 13 years, why do you want to constrain policy in this area like that?
Remember I do not back Heathrow's Third Runway, Labour do and that is Labour's credibility on the environment for you there.
I note you no longer post your links to articles on ice cap melts or reforestation in the Sahel, because they do not support your arguments. So I take it you've conceded those.
You now come back with some new points. You say three, but actually it's four. (As ever your responses are filled with imprecisions).
I'm not sure it's my job to keep on knocking down every small bit of counter evidence you bring. Since neither of us are scientists it's probably easier to defer to the fact that no scientific body of national or international standing presently rejects the basic findings of human influence on recent climate.
But if you really want to engage in this proxy debate :
1. Himalayan Ice Melt: as you know the theory is of global warming, not localised warming. Increased global temperatures lead to more precipitation in some areas - perhaps explaining the increased snow cover in the Antarctic (but not preventing the break up of the coastal ice shelf)
2. Yes, the calculations for the actual greenhouse effect of C02 have been revised downwards, but the biggest contributor to global warming is in fact water vapour, this acts as a positive feedback mechanism that amplifies the effect of CO2.
3. Most of the heat dissipates below the 700 metres where historic measurements are taken. And of course, oceans temperatures increase more slowly than the land because of the larger heat capacity, and the loss of heat through evaporation. They take longer to warm, and longer to cool, which looks good now but could be troublesome later.
4. You're absolutely wrong about this - of course scientists are constantly looking at solar forcing but though variations in the sun's output have been the cause of past climate changes, the solar variation in the last thirty years does not correlate with the increase in temperatures.
This is too easy, Mike. And of course, it only confirms the blind prejudice on this subject, the willingness to latch onto the smallest bit of evidence as proof of your conspiracy theory and wish fulfilment. It's the group psychology that actually fascinates me more on this, and you're a fantastic example of what I'm interested in.
The planet is not uniformly warming Peter, below 20 Latitude, temperatures have been in decline. In the Northern Hemisphere, temperatures are now also in decline and have been since about 2001/2.
No-one is stating that climate change results in a uniform increase in temperature. Try again.
As for 2, 3 and 4. Congratulations. Basic science.
In terms of 4 though, the contribution of solar forcing to rising temperature is around 10% and 90% attributed to AGW.
Solar forcing is attributed to create 0.1W/M2 of heat according to the IPCC and yet CO2 is attributed at 1.38W/M2
Answer this. If it only roughly 10% attributed to solar forcing, why has there been temperature increases detected on Mars occurring at the time the increases on Earth started?
Please the 'wind storms' theory has been disproved thanks to NASA probes.
Also, if CO2 outstrips by a factor of almost 14 in terms of solar forcing heating the planet, surely then any drop in solar output would not result in a pronounced drop in temperatures?
Yet, as the Sun has been in a prolonged period of solar minimum, why have global temperatures dropped so readily (incidentally removing much of the increase over the last 20 years)?
Here's the rub Peter.
Either C02 is not the major forcing gases that IPCC says it is.
Or the Sun has a far more pronounced effect on the atmosphere than it is currently being given credit for.
Carry on....
Off topic, but perhaps of some importance: the German and French governments have advised their citizens not to use IE 6-8 because of the large security hole exploited by the Chinese, hacking into Google, but also, it is alleged some thirty other businesses. M$ apparently knew of the hole last Sept., but failed to issue a fix until January - allegedly. There is - allegedly - concern of more holes in the browser.
Sounds like a good reason to ditch IE and move to something decent' like Safari, Firefox or Chrome...
There are a number of research papers and reports available on the web (I'll try to source some). A good overview - http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/deserts/desertification/ - provided by the US Geological Survey - indicates that desertification has more to do with poor land management that overall 'climate change'.
You need to remember that once North Africa was the bread basket of the Roman Empire. Today it is a shambles. Blame the Visigoths - and the goats!
I concede to you Max on your point and i collectively thank you both for relying on facts as well as experience!
This is good news for me as desertificiation in Africa was a major worry of mine. Let's hope it improves elsewhere across the huge continent.
Thanks.
MIke and Max are wrong. There has been some greening of the Sahel despite no increases in rainfall - probably due to urbanisation and decline of grazing cattle. The same is true of the Amazon by the way, which is growing back in many places thanks to population shift. But vegetation is not growing fast enough yet to provide a carbon sink; so warming continues (yes despite local weather and a cold winter in Europe. Conditions in North Kenya, the Sudan and Somalia have got dryer over recent years. I know, because I have relatives in Kenya and they talk about it all the time.
Climate change isn't a question of everywhere getting warmer and drier at the same consistent rate. There are all kinds of climate effects that could make some areas wetter and dryer. But James Lovelock, once an optimist about climate change, has studied all the feedback loops - especially loss of snow, release of methane, lack of convection in ocean currents. The problem is that all of those found so far are positive.
I'd really advise you Ralph, since you're going to have some say in these matters (with any luck) not to listen to the siren voices of Max, Mike or indeed myself. Go talk to some real climate scientists, let them brief you on the current models, projections and the balance of risk.
The only damage this self-reinforcing cult of climate change denial can do is when countries like Saudia Arabia use it as a pretext for not doing anything to reduce emissions - or when elected politicians are captured by the lobby, or near cult, that so many of these responses here represent.
If you read what I have said. I have not disputed the presence of climate change which has been around as long as the earth has. If you read my earlier comments you will see this.
I agree climate change is not just about the earth getting warmer, i never said it was.
I was discussing desertificiation which occurs for a wide variety of reasons. They were quoting research from people who were measuring rainfall etc in the areas discussed.
You need to read the context of the discussion not just assume we are talking about whether or not climate change is occuring. Of course it is. Of course it was and of course it always will do.
But at the moment the politicals are not discussing the practicalities they are talking garbage about factors we have very little control over. The role of CO2 in isolation of other gasses and other variables is questionable. This renders the whole debate weak.
Politicians need to learn some science and then they need to understand the situation before talking abour 2 degree changes they can no more control than I can the gravitational pathway of Mars.
You have to remember that over the short term temperatures fluctuate as evidenced by artic core samples, growth rings of trees, pollen levels and habitat and community composition and location.
The long term trends do display an increase in temperatures that stretch back fifteen thousand years at least.
So we know this is happening with people or not, the long term trend is that the planet is getting warmer.
That is a fact.
But whether or not we are involved in this trend either as an addition or an effector (we may well be) is pretty irrelevant. The answer to these issues is to ensure we have the practical policies to address the physical problems as and when they occur when we can detect them and try and manage the other equally pressing problems too which are just as likely to wipe out or be as drastically detrimental to us.
Please read my comments earlier in this article.
No problems with your comments Ralph, only that Mike T and Max failed to come with links. Last time Mike T did, along with links he said showed the ice caps weren't melting, the content actually refuted his premise. So I'd just be wary about being reassured by a couple of anonymous non experts on the internet.
As for temperature changes, my understanding is that there is detectable warming in the last three decades which are very much out of line with the climatic variations (minus large volcanic eruptions) that have been posited since the last ice age. Of course, those historic models may be wrong - but that's not the peer reviewed consensus.
Taken on board.
De-politicise the science for a start. Conduct the science in an open and transparent manner.
Forget Cap and Trade, it is a con and now the biggest cause of VAT avoidance and tax evasion.
Lastly, what on earth is a 97% consensus?
A scientific theory is a theory until every single skeptic has thrown the kitchen sink at it. It is called peer review.
It seems that when the warmists science is scrutinised in the crucible of peer review, it falls to pieces.
The latest scandal is a vital series of oceanographic data has been revised due to errors, downwards. The result, the oceans are giving up heat not stored it.
In other words, the oceans are now cooling.
This doesn't happen in physics, chemistry or any of the other sciences, how so?
Because the science isn't faulty.
This is a baseless assertion.
Popper's argument that the fundamental principle of science is falsifiability is ridiculed by most philosophers of science.
That's probably why they’re philosophers and not scientists. Richard Feynman described science in the following way: "In general we look for a new law by the following process. First we guess it. Then we compare the consequences of the guess to see what would be implied if this law that we guessed is right. Then we compare the result of the computation to nature, with experiment or experience, compare it directly with observation, to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is – if it disagrees with experiment it is wrong."
Substitute hypothesis for “guess” and falsify for “disagrees with experiment” and you can see that Popper and Feynman were both saying basically the same thing.
That's correspondence theory, I would have thought, rather than Popper's falsifiability.
Another unsubstantiated assertion. What a waste of time.
It's certainly a waste of time if all you can do is be rude to people. I know you can be better than this Phil, but the last series of comments to Ludwig are classic cases of 'trolling'
Ludwig Wittgenstein took it upon himself to dismiss -- in passing! -- one of the giants of 20th Century philosophy, one whose ideas about science were taken seriously enough by Albert Einstein for the two men to be academic correspondents (I have in my possession fascimiles of the letters written in handwritten German). Many doctors study Popper as part of their ethical training, and the quantum physicist David Deutsche wrote a book as recently as 1998 extolling Popper's theory of knowledge as one his four "strands" constituting the fabric of reality.
For all this, Wittgenstein tells us Popper's ideas were "discredited some time ago". What have his discreditors worked out that Einstein missed? Why was David Deutsche ignorant of these errors as recently as 1998? I was hoping to find out from Wittgenstein his reasons for thinking that Popper's ideas about falsification were wrong. Instead, all we're told is that he is "ridiculed by most philosophers of science" (like that proves anything) and then that "That's [re Feynman's quote] correspondence theory, I would have thought, rather than Popper's falsifiability."
Each time we're offered no arguments, no reason for buying Wittgenstein's claim. Instead, all we've given is the plain assertion followed by a deafening silence. I know it seems harsh but unsubstantiated assertion really is a waste of everyone's time.
The reason that I can't go into greater detail at the moment is that my study is a tiny boxroom crammed with stuff, so that it is often difficult to get at the right books.
I have to admit to having an environmental degree from the UEA.
I agree with your sentiments. I became disenchanted not with the issues as much as the existing politics and egoism in science at the time. Never mind Party politics. So I chose to not use my degree.
But you know it really is a choice for the individual. Though I agree with your position on professional objectivity which is critical in science.
I think science is not skepticism though, but more curiosity. It is finding the answers to a hypothesis and seeking enlightenment. It is in many ways an art form because of the inhernet values that lie beneath the questions and hypothesis.
My main concern is resources not climate change. Climate change is going on, it has always been going on. You can find traced of human habitation on the North sea floor. They have done this they even showed it on a Time Team special.
We must ensure that we are prepared for climate change but to constantly argue about it's causation is so irrelevant. It is happening so we manage for it. Practical solutions to practical problems as and when we realise them in whatever shape or form they take.
Politics has (either deliberately or not) just confused the issue and raised more questions that nobody benefits from.
It is so silly.
Curiosity is what makes you want to know the answer. Science is the method you use to ensure that you get the correct answer. Skepticism is inherent because you must always allow for the possibility that you are wrong and go through every possible way you can to prove that you are wrong.
It's not an art, it's a discipline although its products are often beautiful,
No you are confusing the general term of science which I think is through practice or experiementation or measurement with scientific methodology. The methodology is the discipline. Additionally many scientists spend much of their time trying to prove they are RIGHT and often dismissing doubts.
Where this reached almost ludicrous levels was in the historical record of Pythagoras.
But throughout to greater and lesser extents human values tend to get involved or passions, and it is a form of expressionism at an elemental level.
The modern scientific method you can argue is an accepted discipline that permits and uses statistical measure to corroborate the chances of validation. Of course ironically, it does not always work but is a very powerful tool when it does.
Just look at the breadth and extent of Physics in its theoretical composition, it requires sometime titanic levels of imagination to attempt to even begin to try and unify the two major composite parts.
There is a huge amount of "art" in science. But i agree with you the results can be wonderful to behold as well as utterly dire.
I've got no problems with environmentalism. I grow some of my own veg, I recycle, I buy local meat and produce. I drive a diesel car.
I see energy as the most pressing issue, this country must get itself off oil.....
If this country was deadly serious, it should embrace the hydrogen economy. Fuel cell home generation, hydrogen automotive engines, nuclear to hydrogen infrastructure.
It would resurrect automotive technologies, new infrastructure and create a truly 21st century economy. Imagine that, a major world economy free of the influence of oil AND the lentalista global warming nuts.
I too thought about the idea of a hydrogen economy but there are things it's good to have fuel cells and hydrogen burners for and some it isn't.
Basically you need to generate electricity to then generate the hydrogen, so automatically using hydrogen is less efficient than using electricity, however it is generated.
Where hydrogen as a fuel would be useful is where you have no access to electricity and need a portable energy source with high caloric value.
So generally of more use to the military and in areas with no/inadequate electrical distribution infrastructure.
There was ironically, as the IMechE are clearly not electrically biased, a good presentation on this recently in connection to power sources for vehicles by the IMechE which investigated how the CO2 effect of different fuel types can be compared.
Of course the assumption was the electricity supply mix from coal, gas, nuclear, renewable, was as in current conditions.
... and from the person who just the other day was condemning personal comments.
Most of the 'good' science is being done by the 'deniers' and that is why they are winning the argument.
It is the childish nature of modern day juvenile politics.
You have those for the environment being harsh and then you have those against looking after the fuel lobby. Just as you have those for Immigration (unlimited amounts) having ago and naming racist those who do not any at all.
The truth lies between them I find.
Too much political correctness on either side Mike.
You are right it would take a serious political settlement to sort this out. From what I have witnessed MP's are not the smartest rabbits when to comes to science.
I really do not think they need a pay rise I do think wqe need better MP's though and money clearly has not drawn in the best.
Copenhagen was doomed to fail and I really wanted to proven wrong but was not.
So far the only Politician to prove me wrong on a political issue is Alex of Labourlist.
On this one I agree with you.
It is such a big issue and is a core issue, if not THE core issue. Ironically the majority of people would see the logic of the argument we have placed.
But that is it is it not. We are concerning ourselves with real threats to the future of our children. Like we have already discussed climate change has always been with us but there are other things to and we need practical solutions for practical problems. Not an endless debate on causation.
Of course this is too down to earth and to close to the truth for our dear politicians to comprehend in cloud cuckoo land.
Imagine transport that creates no pollution except water, cheaper power because it has less further to travel. Cheaper food because it comes from next door.
It will take one hell of a political settlement and it requires a degree of honesty I think that the current government is incapable of.
And saying that, something the opposition is incapable of too.
I think saying you believe in something as opposed to stating that it is scientifically verifiable, and then having a go at anybody who doesn't 'believe' is pretty much an 'Inquisitorial' approach without merit.
If you can't produce evidence, then it is merely a matter of opinion. Not exactly a convincing argument.
We are not talking about the difference between using classical Newtonian equations to plot a moon landing, because the relativistic terms are irrelevant for those short distances, but a model of climate change that seems incapable of producing any predictions that are subsequently verified by events.
For instance the Met offices predictions of BBQ summer and mild winter are now admitted to have been due to the fact that the temperature rise that was predicted, hasn't occurred.
Whilst I can accept the climate trend is for increasing warmth, and it may be related to mans activities I find the shrill screeching of the 'believers' irritating and worse, is actually convincing the undecided that the pseudo science of the oil company placemen is matched by the pseudo science of the most vocal advocates.
If climate warming is occurring there are actions that can be taken regardless of cause, but they don't appear to be happening.
Instead we have actions that assume only that the warming is man made and deals only with the items related to this hypothisis.
So if it isn't clear what the cause is, better to concentrate on the actions that are valid, regardless of whether it's solar or man made.
So protect resources and reduce pollution, and for crying out loud do something about sea defences, which are actively being ignored currently.
I'm only 18 so no I'm not a qualified scientist (I've got an a-level in chemistry if that helps) but nor am I parroting any gospel. Climate change is at best harmful and at worst apocalyptic so I think it's absurd to chance it. It's near certain CO2 causes warming and we've raised CO2 to 387ppm, I think that in itself separates it from any "chicken licken" scare.
You're right about the cynicism, people have got every right to be. But don't you think this is beyond any "government lie"?
Also, I'm think this got mentioned on another blog I did, on Heathrow I agree with you entirely - it's totally hypocritical and goes against the strides Labour have made and I assume the expansion is racked in special interest.
P.S. Glad you like the title Ralph!
When I was 18 global 'nuclear winter' was often invoked, but the main environmental fear was over population.
On the global cooling issue, there's quite a good refutation of both our failing memories on Wikipedia Charley
Q: Weren't scientists telling us in the 1970s that we were cooling instead of warming?
A: They weren't – see the article on global cooling. An article in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society has reviewed the scientific literature at that time, and found that even during the 1970s the prevailing scientific concern was over warming.[19] The common misperception that cooling was the main concern during the 1970s arose from a few studies that were sensationalized in the popular press. (Newsweek eventually apologized for having misrepresented the state of the science in the 1970s.)
@ Kieran
Keep up the good work. And don't let all us oldies drag you down.
I think we accept that the climate changes, but we do not accept that AGW has been proven. Therefore, before we impoverish the world we better look for proof of the assumption. I tell you from experience that a mathematical model cannot be used as a basis for such proof, as it is possible to tune the algorithms to give you any solution you like. Thus far those arguing for AGW have done their cause no good at all, in fact they have damaged it. As for your claim that the vast majority of scientists acknowledge climate change, I think you mean AGW, this is patently untrue. I recommend that you do a bit of googling. Try Manhattan Declaration for a start.
Whilst I am not an expert in climate change and can accept that AGW is a possibility, I think that great boiler in the Solar System is probably to blame for most variations.
Of course Nero fiddled while Rome burnt, but I can't help hearing slippers, pipe, and a fat wad of Daily Mail complacency in this line:
Whilst I am not an expert in climate change and can accept that AGW is a possibility, I think that great boiler in the Solar System is probably to blame for most variations.
This is on a par with something you hear in the back of a cab. No scientific theory is ever complete - yet we mapped out the solar system on send rockets to planets on the basis of Newtonian physics, though it only partially explains astral physics. Are we to wait till you've finished your pipe, or until every single scientist agrees without dissension? If so, we'll be waiting for ever. It's simple. AGW through man made carbon emissions is the most likely explanation for the empirically proven rise of global temperatures.
Apologies for others who've heard this before, but on those probabilities I'm going to repeat myself:
Let's imagine (and it's actually far from the truth) that scientific opinion was split 50 50 in terms of man made carbon emissions creating global warming. Calculate the risks.
1. If the sceptics are right: the downsides or reducing carbon outputs are pretty minimal - higher energy costs for sure, but less dependence on peak oil. They are also reversible
2. If the sceptics are wrong: the downsides of not reducing carbon emissions are catastrophic: desertification, loss of species, rise of sea level, and countless positive feedback loops in the oceans and tundra which make warming irreversible.
It's pretty simple; the risks of doing something are lower than the risks of doing nothing. And that's on a implausible 50/50 split in scientific opinion - the reality is more like 95/5
Now I know the new response to this from the cocoons where climate sceptics gather. I'm now using Pascal's wager as an argument for reducing emissions, and that somehow shows desperation. In fact the analogy show's the desperation of the deniers.
Pascal's wager was a gamble about personal survival in the next world.
Climate change is a gamble about collective survival in this world.
Luckily for all of us (except those with vested interests in the Climate Change Industries), the myth of AGW has been punctured and is loosing credibility and support day by day.
If the climate does change (and it probably will over time) - we'll adapt. We always have done.
"If the climate does change (and it probably will over time) - we'll adapt. We always have done."
So how will "we adapt" - 500 million people living in Europe - to an Ice Age (from natural sources) comparable to the one of twenty or thirty thousand years ago, when glaciers, snow and ice covered most of Europe?
Sounds like a pretty tall order to me.
If nature were to take its course - as it may well do - it would not be a question of "adapting" : it would be chaos, big-time.
Climate Change takes generations.
(And where did the 'Ice Age' come from? That's so 1970s.... I thought we were all going to burn, or drown in floods, or whatever...
Thanks for the reply.
I do appreciate that extreme climate conditions take a long time to develop, but I still think to say "we will adapt, as we always have done" is a bit too casual when 500 million people will have to do the adapting.
Nor do I deny that extreme climate conditions will probably occur again, on a geological time scale - it must have been bl**dy warm for cold-blooded dinosaurs to roam all over the earth millions of years ago - in fact, I'd say they (extreme climate conditions, that is, not dinosaurs) are a certainty on a geological time-scale.
Personally, I think that the "tilt" of the earth (23 and a half degrees at present) has a lot to do with climate conditions, planet-wide. How and why the tilt changes, I haven't much of an idea - asteroid, perhaps, or a change in the ratio heavy land masses : oceans?
From wikpedia (as I am putting on my shoes to go out!) and of interest:
Climate
The Berriasian epoch showed a cooling trend that had been seen in the last epoch of the Jurassic. There is evidence that snowfalls were common in the higher latitudes and the tropics became wetter than during the Triassic and Jurassic.[7] Glaciation was however restricted to alpine glaciers on some high-latitude mountains, though seasonal snow may have existed farther south.
After the end of the Berriasian, however, temperatures increased again, and these conditions were almost constant until the end of the period.[8] This trend was due to intense volcanic activity which produced large quantities of carbon dioxide. The development of a number of mantle plumes across the widening mid-ocean ridges further pushed sea levels up, so that large areas of the continental crust were covered with shallow seas. The Tethys Sea connecting the tropical oceans east to west also helped in warming the global climate. Warm-adapted plant fossils are known from localities as far north as Alaska and Greenland, while dinosaur fossils have been found within 15 degrees of the Cretaceous south pole.[9]
A very gentle temperature gradient from the equator to the poles meant weaker global winds, contributing to less upwelling and more stagnant oceans than today. This is evidenced by widespread black shale deposition and frequent anoxic events.[10] Sediment cores show that tropical sea surface temperatures may have briefly been as warm as 42 °C (107 °F), 17 °C (31 °F) warmer than at present, and that they averaged around 37 °C (99 °F). Meanwhile deep ocean temperatures were as much as 15 to 20 °C (27 to 36 °F) higher than today'
Thanks for that: this also from wikipedia;
Temperature is believed to have been relatively stable over the one or two thousand years before 1850, with regionally-varying fluctuations such as the Medieval Warm Period or the Little Ice Age.[10]
Based on estimates by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, 2005 was the warmest year since reliable, widespread instrumental measurements became available in the late 1800s, exceeding the previous record set in 1998 by a few hundredths of a degree.[11] Estimates prepared by the World Meteorological Organization and the Climatic Research Unit show 2005 as the second warmest year, behind 1998.[12]
No we didn't. Newtonian physics leads us to the conclusion that there is another planet inside the orbit of Mercury (provisionally called Vulcan) leading to the precession of it's perihelion. General relativity explains that the extra gravity arises from the energy of the sun. This is a standard proof of relativity theory taught to physics students. We couldn't use GPS or any other satellite if we relied on Newtonian physics.
That's what Charlie was complaining about when he said "What we do get is non-scientists just telling us we're stupid if we don't believe what they are parroting."
You don't help things if you make it easy for people to point out where you're wrong on other points of science.
I agree, so what's to be done? We are expanding airports, SUVs are getting ever more popular rather than banned, we are not investing enough in alternative sources of energy (forget the govt and its silly windmills), we have no control over the USA/China/India who produce most of the polution, me stroking my chin and changing a light builb is not going to save the planet.
Scepticism IS science. Its only recently with the government's favourite trick of changing the meaning of words that it is now seen as a bad thing. You convince people with science, not name-calling.
A lot of the science seems very weak, the original data that UEA used seems poor, only no-one can check because 'they threw it out when they moved office'. Ignoring FOI requests hardly warms me to them either. Neither does the 'scientific' method of 'making the data fit'.
For every bought up member of the oil industry there's a scientist paying his mortgage with a government grant that expects him/her to toe the line.
We have had dozens of chicken licken scares before - SARS, bird flu, millennium bug, the coming ice-age, ozone layer disappearing, WMDs etc etc - they just never happen.
The climate can, over a long period of perhaps a thousand years, do one (or more) of three things; it can get hotter, colder or stay exactly the same, I don't know if its doing either of the first two but I would bet my house on the fact that its not staying the same.
People are very cynical of politicians who clearly don't understand what they are talking about and themselves don't understand the issues - are you a scientist Kieran or just a right-on believer that parrots the gospel? How deeply have you considered this yourself?
People are very cynical when the answer (to everything) is, coincidentally,
give us more money .
We don't live in China, people are allowed to think what they like however wrong they are. I know the government are keen on thought-crime but even so.
This government have been caught lying and spinning so many times that the logical default position is one of disbelief and if climate change were that serious the government wouldn't be building another runway at Heathrow would they? That would be absolutely bonkers.
But those who consistently and repeatedly ignore the majority of scientific findings are being 'sceptical', they're being credulous. They believe the majority of the world's scientists are lying to us. They believe that they understand climatology better than anyone else. They believe in a multi-agency, multi-media and almost global conspiracy to hide the truth and twist the facts. They ignore data that doesn't suit them, or in the case of Mike Thomas of this blog, cite data on the ice caps which actually repudiates them without seeing it.
It's a conspiracy theory, like 911 truthers who believed Bush was behind the Twin Trade Towers, or those who still believe the Moon Landings were staged. Like all conspiracy theories, it's impervious to evidence because - a priori - anyone who disagrees with them is in cahoots with the conspiracy. So it goes round and round, becoming more extreme, paranoid - and increasingly irrelevant.
You couldn't get further away from the scientific principle of empirical doubt.
Let's also just state the obvious. The extreme form of climate change scepticism prevalent here is also a form of wish fulfilment, because the belief that carbon emissions are not warming the atmosphere, allows true believers to carry driving their fast cars of SUVs with impunity. Jeremy Clarkson is the petrolhead figurehead of this movement. And is the possession of a sharp tongue and big mouth gives him special insight into the complexities of global climate.
No, Charlie. I'm as sceptical as the next guy, and would dearly love not to believe any of this, and carry on oblivious. But the climate change sceptics are not sceptics at all - they are zealous missionaries, an online elect who feel they are in possession of some special insight, and feel impelled to remind the blind and ignorant how everything coheres in a simple flash of demonic conspiracy. Like zealots, like Phil Mill who keeps returning to an article about this 10 days ago, they buttonhole you for hours on end, with that swivel eyed determination to prove they're right and the whole world is wrong. And they band togethers, sharing stories of infinite treachery and data manipulation, so that they can fire themselves up with more outrage and internet links, to prowl the blogosphere and pounce on anyone who doesn't follow their lurid line.
It won't be long till they arrive here, and post up endless unsustantiated links. As Gandalf says, fearfull, in the Mines of Moria, as the Orcs advance: "They're coming..."
P.S. Phil Mill; you asked for it. Here's a link on how Exxon Mobil has founded sceptic think tanks and groups.
For a start, look at any serious peer-reviewed piece on the Antarctic ice volumes... it is increasing because temperatures below 20 Latitude are falling, the volumes have been increasing for decades.
Arctic ice flows have been in decline, I haven't disputed that. What I did say is after the 2007 record seasonal decline, the volumes are now increasing again.
I hope that is cleared up.
Please don't equate me with Jeremy Clarkson although he is entitled to his views as much as anyone else. In so far as 'petrolheads' are responsible for the ills of man, please consider that 25% (over double that of car use) of anthropogenic CO2 production comes from residential properties. You are as much of the problem as I or anyone else.
Lastly, there are many, many examples of scientists that are right and not in the majority.
Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, Bohr, Einstein & Hawking all spring to mind.
The idea that science is somehow a democratic effort is frankly laughable and simply exposes your utter naivety.
Once again, I note the tactic. You ask for rebuttals of specific points. I provide them and you come up with completely different points.
1. Because of the landmass, permafrost, seasonal ice coverage etc. the theory of Global Warming posits temperature increases in the Northern Hemisphere.
2. On Ice Coverage: once again you're confusing weather with climate. Climate effects are measured in decades not years. The 2007 increase in ice coverage was against a thirty year decline. It does not constitute a trend.
3. Actually the biggest polluter is coal, mainly for electricity generation. I didn't actually specifically compare you to Jeremy Clarkson, but if the racing cap fits...
4. The salient connection between Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, Bohr, Einstein & Hawking is that they rapidly gained recognition from fellow scientists. Your persistent manipulation of evidence and willing ignorance of the overall picture does not win you any scientific recognition. And I'm sure the scientists in question would have little time for this consistent mixture of conspiracy theory, wish fulfilment and poltically motivated misinformation.
Any other points you want me to rebut?
I believe all government sponsored adverts which is why I have doubled the amount I smoke, I drive the long way round when I go out to the shops and I've replaced my children's bed time story with something less believable than the fairy tales - New Labour's 2005 manifesto.
I really don;'t have a big investment in Labour's particular energy policies. My main concern here is to show that much of the so called scepticism is credulous and misinformed. But the seven sources of CO2 from fossil fuel combustion(percentage contributions for 2000–2004)
1. Solid fuels (e.g., coal): 35%
2. Liquid fuels (e.g., gasoline, fuel oil): 36%
3. Gaseous fuels (e.g., natural gas): 20%
4. Flaring gas industrially and at wells: less than 1%
5. Cement production: 3%
6. Non-fuel hydrocarbons: less than 1%
7. The "international bunkers" of shipping and air transport not included in national inventories: 4%
You have to admit, there is a lot of rubbish spoken about man-made climate change and a lot of things are clubbed in together to put forward an argument. Like that glacier that will disappear by 2035, why is it necessary to say things like that to make a case for man made climate change if the theory is correct and the evidence so strong?
Why does Ed try to link in the floods around the UK to man-made climate change? Do I really have to provide the links all over again for the environmental agencies that state categorically that the floods had nothing to do with man-made climate change? How about the desertification of certain regions of China? They get clubbed in as well, but why? Are they evidence of climate change? Yes, just as the cave formations in Yorkshire are, but they are not evidence of man made climate change and that is why it annoys me so much.
Re-branding the man made global warming as climate change was done purely so Ed can make wild claims and at the end of it he has a get out, because he just drops the man made bit from his sentence and blames it on climate change. The climate by its very nature will always change, so Ed can announce a tax based on a climate event that has nothing to do with man's intervention and get away with it on a technicality.
So you'll hang the man without the evidence, okay. But I don't want the man hanged until I know for certain he did it. Does that mean I should be ridiculed and called a denier? Does it mean I don't understand what I'm being told, so it needs to be repackaged and blasted at me again until I agree? And there lies the biggest problem for this government or any other that tries to push forward with man made climate change - you can't change people's minds, you can't control what people think and you certainly can't pressure adults by putting pathetic advertisements on the television that are based on scientific theories rather than facts.
I'd say if you had to define one key area where Labour has got it wrong, its the whole 'We know best' attitude. The claim that the message isn't getting across, but as it was pointed out here the other day, the message is coming across loud and clear, but the British people do not believe it. They believe it is an attempt to raise taxes.
How I wish David Miliband had gone ahead with the carbon credit card, I really do. There's still time Ed, you have 90 days left to announce its introduction. Go on, make a 'denier' happy for a day and tell us we'll all have to buy carbon credits for everything we do in our daily lives. Then try your very best to keep a straight face when you're telling us where the taxes go.
It does beg the question really that if, like the ID card, the overwhelming number of people in the population really do believe in global warming, man made climate change or whatever name they want to call it this week, then why hasn't the carbon credit card been introduced? If the government are certain of the evidence and action is necessary right now, why delay? Why not issue a combined ID card and carbon credit card, complete with huge databases and force the British people to purchase them now?
I know the answer, and I suspect quite a few other people here know the answer as well.
I think you completely misunderstand me on this. Man Made Global Warming is not a party political issue (actually neither is it for David Cameron). I'm not actually debating the different methods here for mitigating it - that's a completely different discussion. I'm pushing back against exactly the kind of political reverse engineering you're talking about: I don't like wind farms or Ed Miliband, ergo, anthropogenic global warming must be wrong.
As for the populistic argument - people don't believe it so it can't be right - you know that runs into the sand pretty quickly. Since I'm talking about the science of GW, the most important vote here is the opinion of trained scientists in climatology; 97% of whom calculate that on balance human activity is contributing to climate change, a theory which has been supported by every recognised scientific institution in the developed world.
Don't you get it? Criticise carbon credits all you like. Remind us of the flatulent boosterism around ID cards. I'd probably agree. But let's not confuse party politics with some very profound, extensive global research.
Of course it's a theory: evolution is still a theory, so is Quantum Physics. But they have proven to withstand the accumulation of new data, and are powerful predictive tools.
You have a theory it's all a 'scam'. I categorically state here that your theory is less predictive, less fact based than the one you seek to decry. In that sense it is akin to creationism.
The death sentence analogy is also completely upside down here. We're not talking about doing something irrevocable, hanging a man, before the evidence is in; we're talking about not doing something irrevocable, permanently ramping up global temperatures, before all the evidence is in. Check out my balance of risks argument in my initial comment.
To save you the time and the boredom, let me quote a great cartoon posted during the Copenhagen conference. A group of climate experts are debating reducing reliance on middle east oil, restoring forestation and preventing soil erosion, creating new renewable technologies etc...
A sceptic speaks up from the back of the audience and says.
But what if it's just a hoax. What if we're making the world a better place for no reason at all?
And there I rest my case.
My point wasn't so much the party politics of it, it was more about the government's presentation of the science and by misrepresenting it and the facts, they just turn it all into a farce.
I'd like to debate this further with you, but I have to attend to a few things. I'm not being rude or running away from the debate, its just that if I sit at this computer any longer I think I may be served with divorce papers. I will return later on when the children have settled a bit and I've done my chores.
Thanks for your forebearance while I was banging on about this. I've only recently begun to get up to speed on this because of the unreasoned generalised statements of sceptics.
But I will join you in remaining sceptical of government plans to mitigate the rather powerful theory of global warming. That we can agree on.
Have a great restful day. I always enjoy debating with you guys, and always learn something.
Lol
Always a pleasure.
PS I convinced three Tories to vote Labour today ;)
but Ralph surely you don't expect Tories to keep their promises?
Without going too much off thread, what swung it for them?
The BNP and because I am the only candidate to have ever knocked on their door.
Oh and I genuinly gave a crap about thier views, that helped too.
Where exactly am I wrong on any of the points you raised?
I am not wrong.
It's not my problem Peter if you decide not to understand the nuances and spin some absolutist line to support your argument.
And on that basis..... I really can't be bothered because you have no interest in the science except to make a political point.
No, they might just feel it's one of those cases where the majority are wrong and the minority are right. Or they might have concluded that even if it's happening the present approach to tackling it is the wrong one - that's Nigel Lawson's argument. And I know I've asked this before but can anyone link me to a book or article that gives a rebuttal of Lawson's book?
love the reference to Dale Carnegie.