global warming again

[big soft moose]

In the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter a monkeys what we do or don't do. Humans will either adapt or won't - either way mother Earth doesn't really care.
Humans do believe that they have the ability to change the outcome - whether we do or not I don't know, but if we don't try we'll never know. I'm just not convinced that we should even try.

from, the point of view of the welfare of the planet as a whole you are right - and the demise of humankind might not be a bad thing in that context

but from the point of view of the welfare of our children and grand children it makes sense to take action now. If you are right then they wont be any worse off, if the deniers are right they wont be any worse off but if both the deniers and people who believe it is "all natural" are wrong then future generations will be significantly worse off if we dont act now.

You are irrefutably right on one point though - it isnt all about CO2 - there is also Methane (CH4) which is 20 times as potent a climate change gas as co2 - there is loads of CH4 locked up in tundra permafrost and if the climate warms it will be released creating a runaway positive feedback effect - which is why we need to act before we get to that point.

 

[MikeG.]

Show me a single post where I have denied global climate change as a personal belief!Roy.

Whilst you may never have said that there is no such thing as climate change, you poo-poo anyone who ever suggests that there is a link between the burning of fossil fuels and the changing climate.

Could all you skeptics please watch the following to prevent me having to repeat everything in it ad infinitum.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5hs4KVeiAU

But I still doubt that we can blame it on just CO2.

You are right Roy!! Hooray, something we can agree on!
Global temperature depends on two main factors.........the amount of energy we receive from the sun, and greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. If insolation levels were increasing rapidly we could blame climate change on that........but whilst the insolation trend is upwards over millenia it is relatively stable and predictable now. When the solar contribution to our global temperature is stable, the global temperature will be entirely dependant on variations in the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which is the circumstance we are now in, and why it is so important to get a grip of our emissions.

Mike

 

[jlawrence]

I'm not convinced that 'in the long term' they will be worse off.
Populations are growing at an unsustainable rate. In the past populations (not by design) were pretty well controlled by wars and diseases, nowadays major wars are unthinkable and there aren't that many disease wiping out masses of people. Perhaps this is mother Earth's way of saying if you won't control your population then I will.
Whether it is good for the planet or not, we should be doing something about the rate that we are using up fossil fuels - it is unsustainable and that in itself is reason enough to do something.

I don't really think that humankind will become extinct. We have (more than any other species) the ability to adapt to our environment and that alone could see us through whatever comes along.

As I read more and more information about climate change, I find myself having more questions than answers which at times makes me think why am I reading about this, why not just sit back in blissful ignorance and believe whatever I'm told ? - I put it down to the fact that I believe less than half of what I read in the papers (or hear on TV) is actually true.
I still find it amazing how little we actually understand about the world we live on - how much we 'think' we know and how much we don't know.

 

[Digit]

Mike. I have repeatedly stated that for every pro I could offer a con, and vice versa, as the majority of posts have been pro I have, in line with that statement, offerred the con.
If you care to argue con I will offer pro! simply to demonstrate that there is no consencus, if there were I would not be able to quote 'experts' putting that view.
I have repeatedly stated, have I not, that I do not know the answers. neither do I claim know them?
I will repeat again, my data base contains elements of both views so that I can getter a better idea as to the arguments.
Do you read anti views BTW?

Roy.

 

[MikeG.]

I don't read "views", Roy.

I studied this at University 35 years ago, and have continued to do so ever since mainly by reading science-based journals & magazines. The raw science is now too complicated for even someone educated in the science, like me, so I follow the latest research and findings in journals such as Nature and the New Scientist, amongst others. Here the raw science is explained.

What I am sick and tired of is the rehashing of the idea that there is no scientific concensus on this subject, when there clearly is. Show me articles in peer reviewed journals that say man-made climate change is not occurring. You can't find more than the occasional paper questioning a small corner of the evidence, because the evidence is overwhelming. Utterly overwhelming. But some people deny the holocaust ever happened even when shown Nazi records of the gassings and photos of the bodies.

Mike

 

[MikeG.]

Why are we even discussing this ????????
To my mind there is only one reason that this is even up for discussion. That is that the majority of climate scientists are government funded and many people have a great mistrust in anything the governments do - quite rightly imho - so they dubt what is being said by bodies they are funding.

What this ignores, Jon, is that governments are latecomers to the party. It took two decades of pleading from scientists and pressure groups before they would even start talking about climate change. Two decades. Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, amongst others, were talking of climate change in the 70's............only to be constantly derided by governments. This is not, not, not a government conspiracy. The tardy response of these leaden footed latecomers is the reason that this situation has actually now become an emergency.

I doubt that most of the climate scientists are directly funded by government. Do you know any figures on this? I do know that most of the scientists trying (successfully) to hold up climate negotiations over the last decade have been financed by oil companies.

Mike

 

[MikeG.]

If you care to argue con I will offer pro! simply to demonstrate that there is no consencus, if there were I would not be able to quote 'experts' putting that view. Roy.

Roy,

please show me where you have quoted experts. I don't believe that in any of your postings on this subject over the years you have ever posted anything quoting from an article in a peer reviewed journal......but do please feel free to prove me wrong.

Mike

 

[Smudger]

It is a fundamental misunderstanding of science (of any flavour) that because there are pro- and anti- views ther is not a consensus, or that in some way the debate is between two equally valid arguments. It just isn't so.
Science does not proceed like that. The best available position (usually called a 'theory' although that term has been bastardised by nay sayers to apparently indicate uncertainty) is based upon the quality and quantity of evidence. In the case of apg both are in favour of climate change being due, in large part, to human action. That is the best evidence and the bulk of the evidence supports that position.

But we see doubt sown by a few people who claim that the evidence is weaker than it really is. See the Daily Express last week - or the Daily Mail, which actually claimed that 'global warming' (it doesn't call it climate change) can't possibly be happening because we are having a 2-week cold spell.

You can't formulate an opinion on this based on 'my view' or 'I think' unless you have reached your view by a close and careful study of the evidence, as Mike says. Intuition doesn't help here. It's complex and not easy, it requires study, not the Daily Mail.

 

[Digit]

Fair comment Mike, but I would point out that Einstein was turned down by the peer reviewing set up, didn't make him wrong though.
Not being able to afford those papers any longer I have to rely on second hand accounts. Is it your view that all such accounts are wrong?

Roy.

 

[Smudger]

Giles Coren (from today's Times):

"Nobody who understands the science is claiming that global warming (if it happens) is going to make Britain hotter in the long run. You hear me? Nobody is saying that, not the bleeding-heartedest, most climate-credulous ladyboy Yakult drinker in Islington. It will do the opposite. Global warming will in the end interfere with the ocean currents, knock out the Gulf Stream and remove the protection we have from the icy Nordic weather that is our due, as sharers of the same latitude as Siberia. Britain will get colder. So the joke about the weather just isn't there.

He goes on...

Every bloody spring it's the same. As soon as there's a nice sunny day the climate-sceptic jokemeisters say "If this is global warming, then bring it on!" Ha ha ha. Idiots! Don't you get it? Those sunny days are because Britain is protected by the Gulf Stream, thanks to a finely balanced climatic status quo that will change if, as some people believe will happen, world temperatures rise by a couple of degrees over the next few years. Can you get it into your thick skulls? If global warming turns out to be true, Britain's weather will go bonkers.....Weather might be like this more often; not less. Those unseasonably sunny early springs are exactly what there will be fewer of, not more. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

Nicely done, Giles. And his sister's doing OK in the poker in the Caribbean.

 

[jlawrence]

So what would we have been doing way back in the 70's then had the government got involved. Would we have been trying to warm the planet ? since the consensus then was supposedly global cooling.

I'm sure I'm not the only one around who simply doesn't trust the people giving us the information.
I also don't trust the peer review process one iota. It is a flawed process which is way too easily manipulated.

So what is a layman like me supposed to do.
1) I don't trust the people giving out the information. If it were an open and shut case then it would be placed in the public domain - it ain't, likely because whoever is paying for the research doesn't want it in the public domain for whatever reason. I can actually think of very good reasons why it should be public - people simply won't understand and would easily misinterpret what it means. I can easily draw other conclusions as other probably do.
2) I don't trust the scientists preparing the information - they are relying on a flawed system to review the actual data and conclusions.
3) I don't have the wit to actually understand the data and draw my own conclusions (even if I could get access to the data) - as you've already said Mike the science is now beyond someone who initially studied this area.

So at the end of the day I'll do my little bit for the reasons I can understand and if that's not enough then tough.

 

[MikeG.]

Fair comment Mike, but I would point out that Einstein was turned down by the peer reviewing set up

Really? Source for this, please?

Not being able to afford those papers any longer I have to rely on second hand accounts. Is it your view that all such accounts are wrong?

No

Mike

 

[Digit]

So what is a layman like me supposed to do.

See my post above. The vast majority of us, if we are honest, are in that boat.

Roy.

 

[Smudger]

I also don't trust the peer review process one iota. It is a flawed process which is way too easily manipulated.

How? And any evidence?

 

[Digit]

There's quite a few reports on it if you Google Mike. So which second hand reports would you suggest. Pro I already read Moonbat and anti I read Booker amongst others, and two more opposing views you would have difficulty finding I think.
Plus BBC Science and anything else, pro and anti that I can find.

Roy.

 

[MikeG.]

So what would we have been doing way back in the 70's then had the government got involved. Would we have been trying to warm the planet ? since the consensus then was supposedly global cooling.

I'm sure I'm not the only one around who simply doesn't trust the people giving us the information.
I also don't trust the peer review process one iota. It is a flawed process which is way too easily manipulated..

There was no concensus on cooling in the 70's...........see Smudgers/ Giles Coren above. Climate change was first recognised on any sort of scale in the 70's, and, before any real work on it was done, various ideas as to what it might lead to were put forward.......including the idea of a new ice age, and of diversion or destruction of the Gulf Stream. Scientists have now had 30 or 40 years to put some flesh on those bones.

Can you justify claiming that the manipulating peer review system is easy? You know that they (the reviewers) check that the experimental methodologies are correct, and that the conclusions reached as a result of the research are compatible with what is in the research.........they don't manipulate anything. What is wrong with that?

If you don't trust what anybody at all says, but only rely on what you can see for yourself, are you sure that whales exist, or that Papua New Guinea exists?

Mike

 

[Digit]

I've got a bloody virus, Mike is that you sabotaging me? :lol:
Everything I Google is coming up as an ad for primark!

Roy.

 

[Peter T]

Why do eco-mentalists insist on comparing the sensible majority of people who don't believe in man-made climate change to Holocaust deniers?

Are they so insecure that they have to use these riduculous sledge-hammer tactics whenever anyone sugests that they may be wrong and that the blessed MMCC mantra is nothing more than hysteria and the wet dreams of schyster politicians and the IPCC et al?

 

[Kalimna]

Possibly the comparison is made because there is a considerable similarity between the two groups of climate change deniers and holocaust deniers. Something along the lines of disagreeing with a wealth of independently verifiable *evidence* (i.e. not mere supposition or gut feeling or personal experience) that supports a view contrary to their own.

Notwithstanding the comparison between this discussion and that of scientology, I offer up a further analogy to that between the creationists and those who understand the significance of evidence and consider Darwins theory of evolution an accurate explanation. There are pro/con arguments for both sides, however one 'pro' argument does not necessarily have the same weight as one 'con' argument. This is a basic misunderstanding of scientific process, as to the layman, all points of argument may be considered equal. This is patently not the case, and several authors more eloquent and knowledgeable than I have argued this point clearly and easily.

To all those who accept a mass of evidence (and I include mathematical models, which though less than 100% accurate is still good evidence, and a discussion of modelling physical processes is a whole different discussion), then accelerated climatic warming is happening. It is not a result of solar flares, coming out of an ice age or planetary shift towards Venus. It is, in fact linked to the recent rise in CO2, this rise being caused primarily by increased CO2 output and reduced absorption. I am not a geophysicist or climatologist, so cannot present the exact theory behind this. I do, however, pay attention to those who are.

As a parting shot, not accepting that the peer review process is a generally sound means of deriving the truth to the best of our (i.e. human) knowledge is rather dumb. It is akin to saying that you (or the particular bit of the conspiracy theory prone/alarmist/reactionary etc media you pay attention to) know more about a topic than a bunch of experts who attain their position by collecting evidence, analysing it and reaching a conclusion through experience and learning.


You might as well try and argue on this forum that end grain glues well with a PrittStick, because you read it in The Daily Mail.

Thats all I have to say, and my brain hurts.

Adam

 

[MikeG.]

sensible majority of people who don't believe in man-made climate change

Not worth commenting on the rest of your drivel, but you have put "belief" and "sensible" in the same sentence. It is clearly not sensisible to believe, because belief is about holding a position without supporting evidence.

There is an overwhelming body of evidence now. The science is clear and well established........you don't like the message, (or the messengers, more likely), so you just say "I don't believe you".

Mike