Global warming or just nature?

[table38]

Rather than just trotting out the usual half-truths, smears and insults that the anti-climate change lobby seem to favour as "argument", why not produce some actual critiques of the seminal literature supporting the global warming theory?

Or is that too difficult?

I'd assume that was aimed at me, but I'm not anti climate change. (or even anti-climate )

 

[ralphchadkirk]

I'd assume that was aimed at me, but I'm not anti climate change. (or even anti-climate )

It wasn't particularly aimed at anyone, just that the debate generally becomes regurgitation of newspaper articles rather than proper science.

 

[table38]

It wasn't particularly aimed at anyone, just that the debate generally becomes regurgitation of newspaper articles rather than proper science.

Agreed! What we need is a proper debate. Unfortunately, especially now that the politicians have got involved, I can't see that happening. There are too many vested interests and the whole thing has become too entrenched.

In fact, (and here's a conspiracy theory for you!) I suspect it won't be long before someone suggests it become illegal for anyone to deny global warming!

 

[21C101]

Rather than just trotting out the usual half-truths, smears and insults that the anti-climate change lobby seem to favour as "argument", why not produce some actual critiques of the seminal literature supporting the global warming theory?

Or is that too difficult?

Will this do?

These two have produced enough material to fill the encyclopedia brittanica

http://wattsupwiththat.com/

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

But I do believe we have a responsibility to at least try and minimise the chances of human actions being responsible for accelerating what happens naturally. I don't believe that commenting on such matter sis enough to label anyone as a panic merchant.


Of course, climate change is not the only thing that can ruin the planet. But it is a concern, along with the other things you mention, Blamethrower. It is real, though, regardless of whether it is caused by, assisted by, or unaffected by our actions. It should be acknowledged as a threat, albeit one of many.

If reasonable proportionate measures were being proposed. ie Assessing the risk and taking preventative measures e.g. a national programme of sea wall strengthening, protection of national infrastructure such as railway catenaries against increased storm winds by and provision of alternative infrastructure (e.g. reopening the Okehampton route to Plymouth as a diversionary route), I don't think anyone would complain.

However the whole thing has been taken over hairshirt fanatics who want all sorts of ever more restrictive hair shirt measures that cost a fortune and make our industry more expensive and uncompetitive. Meanwhile Germany and China are churning out new coal fired power stations by the dozen. The hairshirt fanatics are of course quite happy to jet out to regular global warming junkets rather than cancel the junket and have a much more environmentally friendly video conference.

Climate change is a fact. It is about the only thing that is predictable about the climate, that it will change.

What is much more open to question is the extent to which carbon dioxide influences the climate and is the effect of it being exaggerated in relation to other variables, known and as yet unknown.

Unfortunately people questioning it are treated with great hostility and in some cases as if they had uttered heresy (even career destroying hostility)

Notably a lot of physicists and geologists are sceptical about climate change. In my book Physics and Geology are evidence based real sciences. Climatology is, like sociology, a new humanities pseudo science, that seems to rely disproportionately on computer models that will, like any computer programme, feed out a result that depends wholly on the variables entered in to it. Models that are now known to be wrong as they did not forecast that world air temperatures would stop rising 18 years ago despite 1/3 of all the C02 that has ever been emitted by man related activities being released in that period.

On this foundation, Parliament has passed the Climate Change act. This will cost the country £1.36 Trillion over the next 36 years

To put it into context that is £22,667 for each and every one of the sixty million people in the UK.

 

[meridian2]

Rather than just trotting out the usual half-truths, smears and insults that the anti-climate change lobby seem to favour as "argument", why not produce some actual critiques of the seminal literature supporting the global warming theory?

Or is that too difficult?

No more difficult than those pro-MMGW trying to provide peer-reviewed, unbiased,impartial evidence with the scientific processes explained and then duly reviewed by third-party scientists included with the 'seminal literature'. I want to see diagrams, quotations, solutions, proposals for change, and with such a profound theory it requires profound methodology for us, as humans, to change our individual lifestyles.

Or is that too difficult?

 

[Kingsbury Jn.]

On this foundation, Parliament has passed the Climate Change act. This will cost the country £1.36 Trillion over the next 36 years

To put it into context that is £22,667 for each and every one of the sixty million people in the UK.

Where will all this money be heading to? When you discover that, you will find out exactly who is driving the CAGW agenda.

 

[Harbon 1]

The earth is naturally warming up because we are actually still in an ice age, but it's warming up into the next cycle, we as humans are just helping it along a little too much. Hasn't the ozone layer actually repaired itself recently over Antarctica was it?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

(Not responding to everything due to lack of time, but a couple of points...)

Notably a lot of physicists and geologists are sceptical about climate change.

That's not really a lot. I don't have figures for how many physicists and geologists are employed in the world, but http://www.studentscholarships.org/professions/481/employed/physicists_and_astronomers.php quotes 17100 physicists and astronomers in the USA alone. A reasonable guess would be around the 100K mark across the world. The page you linked to gives around 50 names (not all physicsts and geologists). Even allowing for that not all scientists are inclined to make public statements of their views outside their own fields, and some people who have commented will be missing from that list, that's a tiny proportion. The page further includes the statement fewer than 10 of the statements in the references for this list are part of the peer-reviewed scientific literature. That's certainly not enough to call into question the idea that there's an overwhelming consensus in the scientific community that human-induced global warming/climate change is a reality - especially when most of the people in that list do not work in fields directly related to climate change. (Clearly in any group containing so many people there will always be a few outlying views).

In my book Physics and Geology are evidence based real sciences. Climatology is, like sociology, a new humanities pseudo science,

Why? The techniques and methodologies used in climate science are broadly similar to those used in other branches of science. The philosophical underpinning is the same - in particular, the way you test theories against observational data and use that to improve the theories. The way that research is peer reviewed and published is the same. The way that research topics are selected and funding is secured is broadly the same. The training required is similar in its level of depth. There's the usual small amount of crossover with other sciences at a human level, due to researchers moving between disciplines (which would immediately highlight if there was some significant cultural difference in climate science, as those researchers would notice). You appear to be making a sweeping (and somewhat ridiculous) claim without giving any reason to believe it.

that seems to rely disproportionately on computer models that will, like any computer programme, feed out a result that depends wholly on the variables entered in to it.

You say that as if it's a problem, but computer modelling is widely used in many branches of science - including physics. My physics phd was almost entirely spent doing computer modelling. It's a perfectly standard technique used to solve theoretical problems that are too complex to be amenable to analytic solutions. The fact that a branch of science extensively uses computer modelling is not a reason to dismiss that branch of science.

Models that are now known to be wrong as they did not forecast that world air temperatures would stop rising 18 years ago despite 1/3 of all the C02 that has ever been emitted by man related activities being released in that period.

Oh come on! Every branch of science has models now known to be wrong! It's how science progresses! You try a model, see if it fits the observational data, and if it doesn't, you discard or improve the model. That happens a lot in any scientific discipline, precisely because researchers are always working at the boundaries of what's known. I bet you wouldn't argue that invalidates physics or molecular biology or any other branch of science!

As for your comment about global warming having stopped that's a spurious claim often made by climate skeptics based on a sample of data that's too small to be statistically significant. Check for example this link for an explanation and further links. http://www.carbonbrief.org/profiles/has-global-warming-stopped/

 

[Wyvern]

I haven't read all through this thread but there is a new metastudy of some 12000 published papers on the subject.

John Cook1,2,3, Dana Nuccitelli2,4, Sarah A Green5, Mark Richardson6, Bärbel Winkler2, Rob Painting2, Robert Way7, Peter Jacobs8 and Andrew Skuce2,9 Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature
OPEN ACCESS Environmental Research Letters Volume 8 Number 2

There is a discussion in the Washington Post with the misleading title 97 percent of scientific studies agree on manmade global since not all the papers studied actually took a position on it.

However the graph that they publish shows very little support for the idea that human activities have not affected global warming.

 

[table38]

Oh come on! Every branch of science has models now known to be wrong! It's how science progresses! You try a model, see if it fits the observational data, and if it doesn't, you discard or improve the model. That happens a lot in any scientific discipline, precisely because researchers are always working at the boundaries of what's known. I bet you wouldn't argue that invalidates physics or molecular biology or any other branch of science!

But that is exactly the problem. The wamists have been wrong so often, they have lost any credibility. Plus you are cleverly obfuscating the legitimate use of computer models in science with this crazy unscientific idea that they can also somehow be used to look into the future and predict something that might be happening in 100 or 1000 years time.

There is no reason to believe they are any more right now than they were 15 years ago when they were confidently predicting massive temperature rises.

Ordinary people, paying regressive green taxes on their energy, don't need an expensive taxpayer-funded computer model to look out of the window and realise for themselves that it hasn't actually got any warmer for the last 18 or 19 years, and start wonder why they are being lied to by a climate change industry that receives billions in funding world-wide yet seems to be completely out of touch with reality.

The best laugh was last year I think when a load of warmists got on a boat and went on an expedition to the Antarctic to see where all the ice had gone, and got trapped in the ice that they confidently predicted had disappeared and had to be rescued. Then they put out a press release that declared that the unexpected ice was also a result of global warming, so somehow they were right all along!

 

[Greenback]

The simple fact is that noting about climate change and human effect on it can be proven, one way or the other. That's why there is so much discussion about. But neither side can prove they are right.

The consensus amongst the scientists that I referred to earlier, is that it is more likely than not that we have had some effect on nature. I agree with this view, the difficulty comes in absolutely proving it to be correct, and, of course, how much or little of an effect we have had on the planet's natural cycles.

As I said earlier, I'd prefer to err on the side of caution and do whatever we can to minimise any risk of exacerbating climate change by our actions.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

At the meeting in Beijing today, the Chinese spokesman spoke of the benefits of reducing certain emissions, but ONLY with the proviso that the upward usage in China would continue until it plateaued than around 2030 (16 years into the future) then a reduction may then apply.

Isn't that awfully nice of them....

 

[21C101]

The simple fact is that noting about climate change and human effect on it can be proven, one way or the other. That's why there is so much discussion about. But neither side can prove they are right.

The consensus amongst the scientists that I referred to earlier, is that it is more likely than not that we have had some effect on nature. I agree with this view, the difficulty comes in absolutely proving it to be correct, and, of course, how much or little of an effect we have had on the planet's natural cycles.

As I said earlier, I'd prefer to err on the side of caution and do whatever we can to minimise any risk of exacerbating climate change by our actions.

It is "whatever we can" where the problem arises.

Surely "whatever we reasonably can"

I woulds argue that what the greenistas want is a lot more than "whatever we reasonably can". That climate act which will cost £1.36Trillion for the next 36 years. Thats an awful lot of money that won't go into the NHS, rail infrastructure upgrades etc., for something that in this country, even if the warmistas are right will generally be an inconvenience with a extra few deaths from storms and some housing in low lying coastal areas become unhabitable a few years before it otherwise would be from the south east gradually sinking as the north west contuines to rise due to the melting of ice age glaciers at the end of the last ice age.

To my mind the sensible thing to do is to assume that it will happen, whether man made or natural and fund contingency infrastructure planning for sea defences, more robust wind resistance from key infrastructure etc. and stop worrying about C02, which if it continues to rise will mean more productive crops for farmers.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Oh come on! Every branch of science has models now known to be wrong! It's how science progresses! You try a model, see if it fits the observational data, and if it doesn't, you discard or improve the model. That happens a lot in any scientific discipline, precisely because researchers are always working at the boundaries of what's known. I bet you wouldn't argue that invalidates physics or molecular biology or any other branch of science!

Using a model as a tool to make a prediction then observing and gathering evidence afterwards as to whether the model is accurate and refining the model, then further observations until the model is robust; then go public. That is evidence backed science.

Using a model as a tool to make a prediction; then going public with it straight away with all sorts of dreadful doomful predictions, which mean that the world has to switch to a command economy with rationing on the back of it; based on the model but before time has passed to assess and gather evidence as to whether the model is accurate. That is snake oil witchcraft.

For heavens sake we only have accurate land temperature measurements going back 100 years (with large chunks of the world still unmeasured and estimated and satellite measurements for about 30 years). That out of 6 billion years of climate.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

It is "whatever we can" where the problem arises.

Surely "whatever we reasonably can"

I would agree with that.

I woulds argue that what the greenistas want is a lot more than "whatever we reasonably can". That climate act which will cost £1.36Trillion for the next 36 years.

You've quoted this figure from the Repeal the Act campaign group twice now. However there's no information about how it's been calculated. So I did a bit of digging. I haven't unfortunately been able to find much, but applying a little logic to what I have found suggests that figure is probably - to put it bluntly - garbage.

If this (rather biased) article on the Telegraph is to be believed., the figure has been worked out by taking the Department of Energy and Climate Change's maximum estimated cost for each year. In other words, it's a maximum possible worst-case-scenario cost, not a likely cost. Further, it rather looks from that article like the figure includes revenue from additional taxes. While you might not like the taxes, they are hardly a cost to the country, since they give additional revenue to the Government (or, equivalently, allow other taxes to be reduced). Further digging indicates that figure makes no allowance for inflation, so it's not at today's prices. (Over 40 years that will make a huge difference).

Those figures have also not been offset against the cost to the economy of not doing anything about climate change. The Stern review for example estimated around 5% of GDP over a similar timescale (obviously that's only an estimate, it's a bit out of date, and we could probably question the details of the assumptions in that review, and it puts the figure you quoted into context somewhat).

There's also the question of how improvements in technology over 40 years might reduce the cost of 'green' technologies. On that timescale it's likely to be huge, but it's impossible to quantify, which probably (and I know I am speculating here) means it's not in the figures for the supposed cost of the Climate Change Act either.

Might I suggest this rather shows up the dangers of getting your information from campaign groups instead of from more impartial sources!

and stop worrying about C02, which if it continues to rise will mean more productive crops for farmers.

In some countries at high latitudes. Not across the world.

Using a model as a tool to make a prediction then observing and gathering evidence afterwards as to whether the model is accurate and refining the model, then further observations until the model is robust; then go public. That is evidence backed science.

Ummm, no. In science, you go public, by publishing in a scientific journal as soon as an item of research has been peer reviewed. If you didn't, then no one would be able to examine your research to check its accuracy and improve the model! Usually that doesn't affect the wider public though because, although anyone can read the journals, mostly the only people who choose to do so other scientists. (Although that's less true in climate change because of all the campaigning over the issue, resulting in activists on both sides wanting to see the research. )

Using a model as a tool to make a prediction; then going public with it straight away with all sorts of dreadful doomful predictions, which mean that the world has to switch to a command economy with rationing on the back of it; based on the model but before time has passed to assess and gather evidence as to whether the model is accurate. That is snake oil witchcraft.

No it's not. If, as part of your research, you uncover a significant possibility of something very bad happening if Governments don't take some action, then it would be completely irresponsible not to alert those Governments to the possibility (while obviously making it clear what the status of your research is).

For heavens sake we only have accurate land temperature measurements going back 100 years (with large chunks of the world still unmeasured and estimated and satellite measurements for about 30 years). That out of 6 billion years of climate.

This is a complete red herring. The fact that we don't have accurate land temperature measurements for the UK in - say - the year -3 454 322 444 BC is completely irrelevant. What matters is - broadly speaking - whether you have sufficient data to cover the period you're examining and to sufficiently reduce sources of bias or random noise. I rather fear that this comment shows up once again that you are probably getting your information from biased sources that don't actually understand the science (or the maths and statistics required to interpret this kind of data properly).

 

[table38]

Might I suggest this rather shows up the dangers of getting your information from campaign groups instead of from more impartial sources!

Well, I'm all for that! Can you tell us who these impartial sources are?

This is a complete red herring. The fact that we don't have accurate land temperature measurements for the UK in - say - the year -3 454 322 444 BC is completely irrelevant. What matters is - broadly speaking - whether you have sufficient data to cover the period you're examining and to sufficiently reduce sources of bias or random noise. I rather fear that this comment shows up once again that you are probably getting your information from biased sources that don't actually understand the science (or the maths and statistics required to interpret this kind of data properly).

Sorry, this is just the typical "attack" response from the warmists:

• misrepresent and exaggerate your opponent's position (who said anything about 3 454 322 444 BC?)
• accuse anyone who disagrees with you of bias
• accuse your opponent of not understanding the science (conveniently ignoring the fact that the warmists have been getting the science wrong for the last 15 years)

People are getting tired of the lame "we are right and everyone else is wrong" approach.

 

[Greenback]

It is "whatever we can" where the problem arises.

Surely "whatever we reasonably can"

Yes, that's fair enough.

I woulds argue that what the greenistas want is a lot more than "whatever we reasonably can". That climate act which will cost £1.36Trillion for the next 36 years. Thats an awful lot of money that won't go into the NHS, rail infrastructure upgrades etc., for something that in this country, even if the warmistas are right will generally be an inconvenience with a extra few deaths from storms and some housing in low lying coastal areas become unhabitable a few years before it otherwise would be from the south east gradually sinking as the north west contuines to rise due to the melting of ice age glaciers at the end of the last ice age.

I have got a couple of points following on from that. How much will it cost to deal with what might happen (it's a rhetorical question, as no one can know what is going to happen and when!)

And, we also need to try and conserve our natural resources more than we have been and increase the use of sustainable sources of energy. That's not based on CO2 worries, that's based on their being a finite supply of things like gas and oil.

To my mind the sensible thing to do is to assume that it will happen, whether man made or natural and fund contingency infrastructure planning for sea defences, more robust wind resistance from key infrastructure etc. and stop worrying about C02, which if it continues to rise will mean more productive crops for farmers.

I can't argue with that. Regardless of whether human involvement is a factor, it looks as though climate change is here to stay.

For heavens sake we only have accurate land temperature measurements going back 100 years (with large chunks of the world still unmeasured and estimated and satellite measurements for about 30 years). That out of 6 billion years of climate.

Yes, that's exactly why we can't know with certainty what effect we have had/are having on the planet.

 

[meridian2]

But surely with such a profound claim as 'man is harming the climate through CO2 emissions', we should, at least, have contingency plans drawn up for each and everyone and how we can all contribute. And before anyone remarks 'common sense', I must remind you that there is nothing 'common' about MMGW and we are very much dealing with an unknown quantity.
I'd very much like to help if I'm can, but I won't be fobbed off with 'we are right , you are wrong' mentality.

 

[21C101]

Yes,

And, we also need to try and conserve our natural resources more than we have been and increase the use of sustainable sources of energy. That's not based on CO2 worries, that's based on their being a finite supply of things like gas and oil.

don't disagree, where the proble is is piling subsidies into things like wind which is where steam engines were in 1820s. in particular the lack of any technology to store electricity en masse cheaply without which solar and wind are of limited use and require conventional sources as backup which are run intermittently very inefficiently. Government subsidies should have been limited to r and d only.

Do you not think it odd that the same people who closed the coal mines because it was wrong to distort the energy market with subsidies now are the biggest enthusiast for renewables subsidies which involve paying huge sums of money to rich landowners to plant hideous eagle slicers on their land?

 

[Greenback]

don't disagree, where the proble is is piling subsidies into things like wind which is where steam engines were in 1820s. in particular the lack of any technology to store electricity en masse cheaply without which solar and wind are of limited use and require conventional sources as backup which are run intermittently very inefficiently. Government subsidies should have been limited to r and d only.

Do you not think it odd that the same people who closed the coal mines because it was wrong to distort the energy market with subsidies now are the biggest enthusiast for renewables subsidies which involve paying huge sums of money to rich landowners to plant hideous eagle slicers on their land?

I don't think that wind power is the answer, certainly not on its own. When I think of renewables it's in the form of a mixture of wind power, solar power, water power and, of course, renewable combustibles as well. Well planned and managed forests, biomass, the power of tides, making more use of rivers and waterfalls will al hopefully play a significant part in our future electrical generation.

I certainly don't think the coal mines should have closed. The majority did for economic and ideological reasons. I share your feelings about subsidies, but I am not knowledgeable in this area.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Well, I'm all for that! Can you tell us who these impartial sources are?

You may not like this but... When this thread came up, one of the first things I did was talk to a friend of mine who works as a researcher - not in climate science but in a field related enough to have a lot of contact with the research in that area. His immediate response was to tell me to go check out the IPCC reports because, contrary to how much of the media portrays them, they do very accurately represent the scientific consensus.

Beyond that, I'd say, if you want an accurate perspective on the science, then avoid any website from campaigning groups (on either side of the debate - because those groups have obvious political objectives), and similarly avoid blogs from people not directly involved with the research - because there's no guarantee those people are qualified to understand or to interpret the research. I'm afraid that includes the links that 21C101 gave earlier. Rather, you should focus on what scientific societies etc. are saying - because those are the groups whose primary concern is to understand and present the science.

A couple of examples:

The Royal Society seems to have quite a good overall explanation.

The Australian Academy of Science have also produced a report summarizing the science. And there's a similar but more detailed report from the US National Academy of Sciences (jointly with the Royal Society).

You'll find by the way that some of those reports specifically draw attention to some of the common criticisms of climate science (including some of the claims that people have made on this thread, and in particular the frequent assertion by skeptics that we don't know whether global warming is being caused by man or by 'natural' causes) and explain why (in the view of most scientists) those criticisms are incorrect.

 

[table38]

That's interesting, I will have a proper look.

At least the Australian Society Report does admit that "No scientific conclusion can be absolutely certain" and the Royal Society one says "understanding ... remains incomplete". Now that's science! The usual cherry-picking of facts to suit your argument and "the science is settled" drivel you get from the warmists certainly isn't science, which is what annoys me as a scientist.

But as with any science, the dissenters have a part to play as well. Just ignoring anyone who disagrees, or trying to dismiss them as not "qualified to understand or to interpret the research" really isn't going to be sufficient.

There are certainly still a lot of unanswered questions. I'll see if the reports you cite address them!

 

[21C101]

BBC Reporting warmest ever year prediced for 2014. Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30304611

BBC apparently not thinking to mention that temperature measuring devices are being moved to warmer locations (e.g. next to one of the biggest international airports in the world where obviously there is no local heat effect....)

Hundreds of pensioners and other vulnerable residents could lose out on the government’s cold weather payments when the borough’s temperature gauge is moved to a warmer location near Gatwick.

People on benefits eligible for a helping hand when the temperatures drop below zero, may no longer get their extra money when the station is moved from Redhill - known as a frost hollow - to warmer Charlwood.

The Department of Work and Pensions, which announced the change last week, said the new station will be more representative of how cold residents are.

Source: http://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/428587.print/

So no doubt next year will be even warmer!

The most widely read sceptical blog wattsupwiththat.com originated out of concern about how surface temperature measurements were carried out in recent years.

when I was in college in 1976, charged with setting up a remote weather station for Purdue University as a student assistant to the meteorology department (I was later hired full-time as a staff member). When I assembled the Stevenson Screen shelter, I was shocked to discover that whitewash was coming of in my hands, and even more shocked to discover that was still the standard coating for all U.S. Weather Bureau shelters. Later I learned that about 1979 the standard was switched to latex paint. I’d always wondered what that did to the ambient temperature characteristics, but never investigated it until I started blogging. In spring 2007, I did some paint experiments to test the differences, and while inspecting local NOAA weather stations to see how their paint characteristics were, discovered oddities in station siting in nearby station Chico and Marysville that led me to realize that there was an even bigger issue with station siting, one that eclipsed the paint issues. That led to the surfacestations.org project, which grew to international interest

This article discusses the urban heat island effect at Gatwick among others. It also mentions that one of the original measurement stations for the worlds longest continous temperature record, the 300 year old Central England Temperature (CET) was a Cheshire hamlet near Manchester called..er Ringway! this continued until 2004

in November 2004, the weather station Stonyhurst replaced Ringway and revised urban warming and bias adjustments have now been applied to the Stonyhurst data after a period of reduced reliability from the station in the summer months.

http://surfacestations.org/odd_sites.htm has some real corkers in the USA with things like air conditioner exhaust blowing over the measurement station.

 

[table38]

After 18 years of nothing, no doubt the warmists will seize on this as evidence that they were right all along (even though they didn't predict the 18 year hiatus, although now with the benefits of 20:20 hindsight have pronounced that it was predictable after all)

Funnily enough, when we had the coldest spring for 50 years in 2013, apparently that was caused by global warming too, although the warmists didn't predict that one either.

Fortunately we scientists know that this is just weather. Climate change takes a lot longer!

 

[LexyBoy]

I genuinely find this thread quite scary.

Climate science is of course very complex. However, the basic science behind climate change is very simple - CO2 absorbs and re-emits in the infrared, radiating it back to earth. This was known and its role predicted long before AGW was a consideration. Secondly, CO2 has risen from a pre-industrial 280 ppm to 400 now. That is, mankind has increased the concentration of this gas by a third in the whole atmosphere - not arrogance, measurement. Finally, ice core data show a very clear correlation between the two over the past few hundred thousand years. To say that the recent increase will not affect the climate because it's man made sounds like arrogance to me.

The cries of "green taxes" crippling the working class don't wash too well when developed Europe will come off much better than Africa and Asia with rising temperatures. Curious too as to how the cost of running a car has been falling in real terms over the last 20 years under such a regime.

The reports generally found in the media are in general massively exaggerated, inaccurate or misreported. You'll find this to be true of any area you know about, but especially science since so few journos have a background in it (Kill or Cure anyone?)

In any case, I lost hope some time ago that we would be able to reduce dependence on fossil fuels - capitalism will ensure that every viable drop is burned. Money would be better invested mitigating the effects.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

All that is needed is for the supervolcano under the Yellowstone National Park to erupt, for seeing how the weather patterns could change for a considerable period of time....so I am informed.

 

[table38]

Shhh... you'll give them ideas to introduce a Volcano tax

 

[21C101]

All that is needed is for the supervolcano under the Yellowstone National Park to erupt, for seeing how the weather patterns could change for a considerable period of time....so I am informed.

That is one place where I think fracking is very unwise indeed. I'm not too keen on living through a Nuclear Winter.

http://beforeitsnews.com/environmen...-rerunsearthquakes-not-being-rep-2505394.html

 

[21C101]

Here's what happens to you if you oppose the Global Warming orthodoxy in a prominent way:

Climate of Hate: His children are urged to kill him, he's compared to Adolf Hitler and labelled a 'denier' – even though he's Jewish. Disturbing article reveals what happens if you dare to doubt the Green prophets of doom

• Journalist David Rose has been labelled a 'climate change denier'
  
• Wrote article about scientists covering up data in 'climategate' scandal
  
• He believes 'renewable' sources such as wind and 'biomass' are futile
  
• One online commenter urged Mr Rose's own children to murder him

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2934540/What-happens-dare-doubt-Green-prophets-doom.html

 

[deltic]

Here's what happens to you if you oppose the Global Warming orthodoxy in a prominent way:




http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2934540/What-happens-dare-doubt-Green-prophets-doom.html

Sadly this happens in virtually every walk of life that is high profile - it does nothing to diminsh the argument that climate change is having a major impact on peoples' lifes around the world. The only issue I can see that is not resolved is the degree to which climate change is being accellerated by human behaviour.

 

[Busaholic]

It is quite possible to 'believe' in climate change and yet to regard windfarms as an expensive, even futile,waste of money, as I do.