A little truth for a change.

[SammyQ]

They carry out serious, impartial and unbiased research which is reviewed by international groups of their peers.

If their research was skewed to agree with a consensus just to get funding, they would be laughed at.

I was 'raised' at university by some eminent ecologists and physiologists. This latest sentence resonates strongly with their modus operandi. I witnessed a "Vivo" for a PhD, and had to justify my own work throughout my time with reference to statistics with confidence limits etc throughout; believe me, there is nowhere to hide when under scrutiny.
To say there are expected outcomes attached to monies awarded to research facilities is just bunkum. What you may be conflating here is where a firm pays for research, then 'buries' it. The tobacco industry did it, the pesticide industry did it and the oil industry is, today, grudgingly admitting it's known for decades about the plastics problem.

 

[Fitzroy]

Phil,
I see you're in Cornwall, I am too - I grew up here and if you did too, you will remember as a child, waiting for the school bus in the cold, frosty weather of winter. If your bus was anything like mine, you spent most of your time on it of a morning, breathing on the window next to you to thaw a small circle out of which to watch the world go by. That weather would last for weeks most winters, but when was the last time we had more than a couple of nights of frost? If you cannot see for yourself the change in the climate over your own lifespan, then you must be one of the most unobservant people out there.

Wake up man and stop peddling lies that suit someone else's agenda, it ill becomes you, unless of course you just like being controversial and get some weird buzz from it.

Unfortunately this is also part of the problem, your experience on its own is irrelevant. This is the world flat earthers live in; I personally see/observe/experience this so it must be true. Whilst your one data point is hugely important to you it needs to be mixed with thousands of others such that statistical significance can be understood.

Then there is the issue that are so many unconscious biases, and eye witnesses evidence so unreliable, that data from human response surveys is one of the lowest value forms of scientific data.

‘Science’ worries about all these factors and aims to design experiments and research to try and negate them, in some branches of science, ie sociology, it is one of the main issues to manage.

High quality scientific research is really complicated to get right, and getting a paper through a decent peer review process often fails as someone else sees and calls out the errors.

Fit

 

[Fitzroy]

I also remember long warm summers, also a thing we don't get anymore.

I don't care which religious denomination you belong to, either climate warming or not, and that is basically what it comes down to, do governments lie, does big business want to sell us more stuff, are there things we don't understand.
Be sceptical, question everything.
name calling and questioning the mental capacity of someone who disagrees or questions the narrative is hardly the best way to convince anyone.

The main climate change expectation for the uk is more rain and storms. Long calm, and therefor hot, summers will become less frequent. The catastrophe scenario for the UK is disruption to the Gulf Stream, which keeps our climate more mild than others at our latitude, however I’ve not seen this seriously discussed for many years.

Being sceptical and questioning everything is central to the scientific method, so many breakthroughs have occurred when someone saw something unexpected in the results and asked why? Conflicting evidence, whilst very annoying, is welcomed by researchers. If you’re the researcher how disproves gravity/quantum mechanics/lens law etc etc you likely have a Nobel prize on the way.

Agree we should never attack each other personally just because we have different opinions.

 

[Cooper]

Pascal’s wager for the existence or not of a god comes to mind. I think it was summed up as not a risk worth taking. I don’t happen to agree with him on a god but I apply it to actions to avert a climate disaster.

The funny thing is that a lot of the climate emergency deniers are also those who most object to refugees, here and in the USA. There is a global refugee emergency caused by wars, environmental exploitation and despots. If the predictions of the consequences of the climate disaster are only half true (though recent climate statistics suggest they are an understatement) mass migration will happen on a scale that makes the boats in the Channel and Mediterranean insignificant.

Noah was considered mad for building the Ark but he and his family survived the rest perished.

 

[Cobbs]

I also remember long warm summers, also a thing we don't get anymore.

I don't care which religious denomination you belong to, either climate warming or not, and that is basically what it comes down to, do governments lie, does big business want to sell us more stuff, are there things we don't understand.
Be sceptical, question everything.
name calling and questioning the mental capacity of someone who disagrees or questions the narrative is hardly the best way to convince anyone.

Phil's original post mentioned "getting the popcorn out" - how are we to interpret that, if not as posting something controversial just to get an argument going?

 

[Terry - Somerset]

I would describe myself as 90%+ confident climate change is real, and that it has the capacity to very materially impact on the lives people currently live. However communication is almost wholly negative and lacks balance - eg:

• oceans are warming impacting fish populations, yet little attention is paid to the complete lack of physical barriers preventing movement (over decades) to other cooler locations
• agriculture is weather dependant - yet the capacity (over decades) of the farming community to adapt crops and livestock to match climate changes is largely ignored
• the Amazon may become more arid, but that vast swathes of Canada and Russia may become more productive is again ill referenced or researched

A fundamental denial of reality - the potential demand of the global population is far in excess of that environmentally sustainable long term without radical changes to the lifestyles enjoyed by most in developed economies.

Insisting climate change is some sort of conspiracy distracts from efforts actually and urgently needed in mitigation and adaptation. That many are too old to experience material climate change impacts does not diminish the urgency of action to secure future generations.

Despite being amongst the "older" I am willing to support current "green" initiatives - heat pumps, wind and solar, ban gas boilers, mandate EVs. IMHO these go nowhere near far or fast enough.

Obvious new candidates may include home insulation, taxing food miles, 15 minute cities, free global contraception, more taxes on energy and material consumption. These need not impact overall tax take as other taxes (eg: income tax) can be reduced to compensate.

 

[Jake]

Quite right about the scientific method.
Peer reviewed science should be the gold standard, unfortunately studies must be funded and those who pay for such studies have certain agendas they "prefer". Even highly principled and legitimate thinkers and researchers need to eat.

You have a point in that the fossil fuel industry does spend a fortune on bad science and propaganda to protect the huge profits they make. A bit like the cigarette manufacturers before them. But they have more impact on opinions in the general public because of the evidence-based and sceptical way science works.

 

[artie]

Phil's original post mentioned "getting the popcorn out" - how are we to interpret that, if not as posting something controversial just to get an argument going?

I see no harm in that. It's a hot topic which needs discussion. Big problem most people don't discuss, they get behind their barrier and throw verbal stones.

I go to family gatherings a few times a year, they sit around eating sugar and talking the same nonsense but I still go.

Nobody forces me but I still go.

 

[Adam W.]

I was 'raised' at university by some eminent ecologists and physiologists. This latest sentence resonates strongly with their modus operandi. I witnessed a "Vivo" for a PhD, and had to justify my own work throughout my time with reference to statistics with confidence limits etc throughout; believe me, there is nowhere to hide when under scrutiny.
To say there are expected outcomes attached to monies awarded to research facilities is just bunkum. What you may be conflating here is where a firm pays for research, then 'buries' it. The tobacco industry did it, the pesticide industry did it and the oil industry is, today, grudgingly admitting it's known for decades about the plastics problem.

I was talking about the scientists from Bergen , not scientists employed by companies. I can only reference what I know and to selectively quote me out of context is misleading.

 

[Cobbs]

I see no harm in that. It's a hot topic which needs discussion. Big problem most people don't discuss, they get behind their barrier and throw verbal stones.

I go to family gatherings a few times a year, they sit around eating sugar and talking the same nonsense but I still go.

Nobody forces me but I still go.

Well then you'll just have to excuse me for thinking so, but if people start an argument just for the sake of it, no-one should be surprised if they get a rise.

Anyone is free to think what they like about climate change, but as others have said better than me, if there's any chance that it is real, then it makes sense to try to avoid it and saying otherwise is just plain daft. It's not the denial that winds me up so much as the complete unwillingness to do anything to mitigate things, if they turn out to be wrong. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst is a pretty good way to go...

 

[John Brown]

I see no harm in that. It's a hot topic which needs discussion. Big problem most people don't discuss, they get behind their barrier and throw verbal stones.

I go to family gatherings a few times a year, they sit around eating sugar and talking the same nonsense but I still go.

Nobody forces me but I still go.

It's hard to see what the average man in the street can add to the discussion of climate change. They don't have access to their own research data, and a lot are simply parroting something they saw on Facebook or similar.
Interesting how it used to be referred to as Global Warming. I guess that didn't go down too well with the burgeoning flat earth silly people.

 

[MikeJhn]

You must never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

 

[Spectric]

You can debate the cause but the change is evident, our weather patterns and average rainful are changing, the glaciers are melting and the planet is warming up which is all factual. To dismiss climate change is a dangerous move, we are probably already to late to put the brakes on it but we should at least be trying to minimise the impact rather than debating why, who and how. To dismiss any changes in our climate is the same as saying that the population growth from around 700 million in 1700 to about 8 billion now along with industrialisation and the number of vehicles has had no impact which is total nonsense. Just the extra 7 billion turds each day must be causing sea levels to rise !

 

[artie]

Interesting how it used to be referred to as Global Warming. I guess that didn't go down too well with the burgeoning flat earth silly people.

It was called global warming until it was pointed out that temperatures over recent centuries had not increased, then "they" started on about climate change.

They are at present harping about increased co2 levels, which will help plant and vegetation growth but no, "they" can find some other downside.

 

[John Brown]

It was called global warming until it was pointed out that temperatures over recent centuries had not increased, then "they" started on about climate change.

They are at present harping about increased co2 levels, which will help plant and vegetation growth but no, "they" can find some other downside.

Pointed out by whom? The other "they"?
I think it's fairly well established that Global temperatures are rising. No

 

[John Brown]

"But temperature change itself isn't the most severe effect of changing climate. Changes to precipitation patterns and sea level are likely to have much greater human impact than the higher temperatures alone. For this reason, scientific research on climate change encompasses far more than surface temperature change. So "global climate change" is the more scientifically accurate term. Like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we've chosen to emphasize global climate change on this website, and not global warming."

That's according to NASA, but they're the ones who faked the moon landing, along with all those pictures that show the curvature of the earth, so probably safe to ignore.

 

[artie]

Pointed out by whom? The other "they"?
I think it's fairly well established that Global temperatures are rising. No

no
That's what Phils post was pointing out.

 

[SammyQ]

to selectively quote me out of context is misleading.

Edit: Just went back and re-read Adam's post.

I was, very clumsily, trying to back exactly what he said, and failed monumentally.

 

[deema]

You haven’t answered my question yet.

What I struggle to understand is that if you put it in woodworking terms, if you were choosing a new drill and looking at reviews on YouTube and forums and of the woodworkers who clearly had huge amounts of experience, knew what they were doing and had proven those skills time and again, 1000 of them recommended a drill made by SanityInc.,
Whereas three randoms who had made a couple of videos saying they were excellent woodworkers including uploading one video that showed a box that someone else had clearly made, recommended a different drill made by TwistedShankCorp and said that by the way all the other 1000 were in the pay of BigDrill, then I’m sure you would be leaning towards buying the first drill (and wondering more if the other three are being paid by TwistedShankCorp)

Wouldn’t you?

I think I can succinctly answer your question. For millennia, we all accepted the scientific fact that there were but two genders / sex’s. We now have a huge number of politicians, scientists and most of the young who believe that there are infinite genders. We now find a small number of people highlighting the foley of the ‘I think so I am’ that has gripped the western world. The analogy to climate change is exactly the same. The Climate change lobby is no different to the hypotheses of infinite genders.

 

[deema]

Firstly, I think there is no doubt that the climate overall is getting warmer. Equally there is only a finite amount of fossil fuel. The largest reserves of fossil fuel are found in lovely countries that are peaceful, decent and love all mankind. So, for the west to move towards sustainable renewable power can only be a good thing, the faster the west detaches itself from reliance on the Middle East the better.

If you can accept those two statements, then the rest becomes irrelevant. I myself am firmly in the camp that after going through all the papers at the time I could get my hands on, and being an engineer reviewing them to make up my own mind I moved from beIieving CO2 was the cause of global warming, and that this was a bad thing, to firmly believing that the climate warming is a good thing and that CO2 levels must increase to ensure we can feed the world and not all die out as plants start to fail……due to a lack of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Now, I firmly believe that governments always tell, the truth, they never cover things up, lie, or mislead the public. They don’t stifle the press, use economic pressure to close down opposing views. So, it’s impossible for all governments to be misleading the public isn’t it? Then I look at the latest Scottish law that is criminalising thought! Who would have thought it, well the SDP did in Germany in the 1940’s as did that very nice man that lead the Bolshevik revolution and his subsequent heirs. George Orwell thought is made rather a good read, but still the Scott’s are heading down along with Canada creating laws that not only restricting free speech but free thought. So is it, I mean could it be possible that there are just two sex’s / genders and that a warmer climate is actually a good thing? Or do we accept the mass hysteria and start slashing paintings, pouring tomato soup over things and making a real nuisance or ourselves and join Just Stop Oil who are substantially backed by…..the oil industries?