The Great Global Warming Swindle

[muikabochi 208]

Hey I have given that a look in and enjoyed watching it cheers. I recommend it to anyone whatever your thoughts on the issue.

[Rag-Doll 0]

The doco is on TV in HK soon - I'm keen to have a look.

 

I’m all for a cleaner environment and totally prepared to accept the idea that CO2 emissions from humans are buggering up the climate. Looking at the state of the atmosphere in most cities these days it seems almost inevitable. I just have a problem with the hysteria and unquestioning absolutism of the GW view. From what I’ve read, headline claims of dramatic changes often gloss over the fact that they’re based on the uppermost levels (and therefore less probable) of possible changes. It seems that unless it’s dramatic it doesn’t warrant reporting and so we end up having the worst case scenario being presented as being inevitable.

 

There was a report recently on the ABC news of a small island community in the Pacific being inundated by rising sea levels. When throwing to the story, I think the presenter did say that the report was prepared by the GW activist, but the report was completely OTT. The viewer was shown images of flooded gardens and sea water lapping at lawns and was told that the high water levels were due to GW. The island’s inhabitants were presented as the world’s first GW climate refugees! Because it’s not as if sea levels fluctuate or that land subsides or that coastal erosion is a completely natural phenomenon. None of that stuff was mentioned nor did the report give any indication of exactly the extent in the rise of the local sea levels – it was simply stated as fact that GW had caused the sea to rise and flood the island.

 

Like it or not there is a lot of money and self interest tied up in supporting GW. If it could be demonstrated that GW is not actually caused by humans, realistically, how long would it take for the global scientific community to accept this? It has taken a long time for the world to get this GW savvy and a lot of people have built careers and reputations (or enhanced their reputations in Al Gore’s case) on it. Is it too far fetched to suspect that there may be some self interest in presenting GW in a light more certain than the science justifies? I can recall a few instances where scientists in specific climate related fields have been at pains to explain that the dramatic weather patterns in question (the recent Aust drought for one) can largely be attributed to reasonably well understood, natural phenomenon. GW is not the answer to every uncommon weather pattern. Conflicts of interest and self interest are not something that only right wing capitalists are susceptible to. A report prepared by the UN panel for climate change is, frankly, extremely unlikely to produce anything other than a continuation of the GW theme – talk about a conflict of interest! Does anyone seriously expect those scientists to stand up and say – "well folks we were wrong, humans aren’t responsible for GW after all. The climate change panel will disperse and we’ll have our desks cleaned out by the weekend"?

 

As I say, I’m totally prepared to accept the idea that GW is caused by humans – it kind of makes sense really – and even if it isn’t, let’s clean up the planet’s atmosphere anyway. That should be motivation enough. I just wish we could be presented with the GW detail and have any inconsistencies and uncertainties explained instead of the histrionics that so often prevails in this area.

[soubriquet 0]

Very nicely put, Rag-doll.

 

I've been looking at the science since the early 1980s. Fairly recently, I've decided that the balance of probabilities is that part of the post-WWII warming we have seen is man's input to a naturally rising event.

 

The key to being a successful scientist is to get money to do research. That means selling to people with power. Anyone who thinks science is not political has their head up their bum. The results must stand up to peer scrutiny, but the reason why the work was done is up to the ability of someone to sell it, not just the beauty of the idea. The UN is the ULTIMATE gravy train when it comes to voting yourself funds. There is no danger of the IPCC voting itself out of existance anytime soon.

 

The greens are a much worse bunch of charlatons. In Australia the absolute and total No1 environmental issue is the destruction of the Murray Darling basin by irrigators, and the clearance of millions of hectares of semi arid desert to grow wheat. Australians are poisoning their continent with salt, but the Green Industry is focused on 10 whales.

[grungy-gonads 54]

Yes nicely put Rag Doll.

 

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and even if it isn’t, let’s clean up the planet’s atmosphere anyway. That should be motivation enough

I applaud the way things like this film are bringing other views to light. It seems that particular film was turned down from both the BBC and main ITV channels in the UK.

[soubriquet 0]

There's a relevant piece in the Torygraph.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/18/ngreen18.xml

 

"The climate debate has been captured by people who have at heart an interest in exerting control over people's lives rather than letting them live better lives," said Julian Morris, from IPN. "It is extremely sad to see Britain's political parties trying to capitalise on this."

[oblivion 5]

I'm going to watch this documentary and An Inconvenient Truth one after the other sometime this week and really looking forward to comparing them.

[Rag-Doll 0]

Here is an interesting paper on GW. The author is at times a little indulgent but it still makes interesting reading. There is also no disclosure of his interests - if he has any. Of course I can't say that I understand completely the science as it is discussed or that it is any more valid than the material offered up by GW supporters but it is persuasive. What I particularly like about it though is that it supports my suspicions that there is an environmental popularity to the GW movement wholly inconsistent with the certainty its science.

 

http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/articles/longversionfinal.pdf

[spacefrog 0]

Thank god people are waking up to this panic mongering.

 

Funny that in 1973 Henry Kissinger proposed in a paper about world population control that global warming should be used as a tool in population reduction as well as war and the lack of oil. I have to say that it was a proposal for 3rd world population reduction.

 

I am not sure if soub was being sarcastic about post wwII warming but he`s right, the temp steadily decreased until 1975 and started rising again since then.

 

I am really shocked that most people believe CO2 is a pollutant, it`s hysterical. Water vapour is the biggest green house gas and soon we will think this is pollutant.

 

And really Oyuki as honourable as your intentions might be, where do you get the information that most of the worlds scientist support the global warming theory? I suppose the IPCC and thus the UN. If you were actually to check the validity of it, you would find that most of the people named are there to make up numbers. They include some scientists who did do valid research and have later denounced their results being twisted, other UN people who are not even scientists.

 

The UN is an inherently evil organisation one has but to go to their website and read about the Codex Alimentarius committee. Giving all the big pharmacology companies the right to distribute GMO crops all over the world to control the world`s food population. Ooops did I forget to mention that in the same paper Kissinger listed this as one of tools to decrease population.

 

Basically people like Gore backed by Rothschild are banking on people`s stupidity to swallow this anti-science. The argument that is is the sun shrinking the Martian polar caps and the ice on the moons of Jupiter was debunked by Rothschild claiming that they were closer to the Sun than the Earth is. Saddly there will be people that believe that.

 

And this is all part of a bigger more sinister picture for our Socially conditioned future. Huxley will be laughing in his grave, please people listen to his famous speech at UC Berkeley.

http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/VideoTest/hux1.ram

 

Just to recap, yes the temperature is rising slightly. Yes it is the Sun of course. No CO2 levels are nothing to be alarmed about nor is the temperature. Other debates about being wasteful and human impact are a separate issue. Yes I agree that it`s good to be careful with resources you use and we might have a small impact on our direct environment. I would be more concerned about the things you put in your mouth coming from Doctors, Pharma-agro companies ,etc etc.

 

And lastly the most shocking thing really is that people who consider themselves educated,well informed and have had the benefit of attending higher education so readily swallow the propaganda without trying to verify it. I admit it so cleverly and completely packaged that one would not even dream about researching the facts however I would expect those very people to have the analytical skills to be able to see right through it all.

[soubriquet 0]

Humm.

 

Global warming is a fact, as is climate change. The IPCC is stuffed with political tossers with an eye on the main chance, and lots of government money. Their reports are classic "how to lie with stats" 101

 

Preventing change is so 20'th Century. Managing change is the challenge.

[Go Native 70]

 Originally Posted By: spacefrog

Just to recap, yes the temperature is rising slightly. Yes it is the Sun of course. No CO2 levels are nothing to be alarmed about nor is the temperature. Other debates about being wasteful and human impact are a separate issue. Yes I agree that it`s good to be careful with resources you use and we might have a small impact on our direct environment. I would be more concerned about the things you put in your mouth coming from Doctors, Pharma-agro companies ,etc etc.

And lastly the most shocking thing really is that people who consider themselves educated,well informed and have had the benefit of attending higher education so readily swallow the propaganda without trying to verify it. I admit it so cleverly and completely packaged that one would not even dream about researching the facts however I would expect those very people to have the analytical skills to be able to see right through it all.

Gee spacefrog aren't we all so lucky you've dedicated a lifetime of inspired research on this subject and after all those years of toil we can now breath a sigh of relief as you have definitively determined that CO2 has nothing to do with global climate change!! Phew we can all sleep well tonight.

Truly the arrogance of your ignorance is mind boggling. Please enlighten us with what scientific credentials you have that enable you to make a considered opinion on this subject. I majored in meteorology for my science degree at The University of Melbourne and can find nothing in your argument that doesn't seem to come straight out of the conspiracy theorists handbook.

To be so certain in your beliefs must be very comforting. The thing is you sound little different to a born again Christian. I guess as the saying goes 'ignorance is bliss'.

[Oyuki kigan 0]

Fer the sake of Lil' Baby Jezus!

 

Read some books people! Docs are good, but just as many of you don't take Micheal Moores 'facts' ast face value, neither should you watch that unbalanced "Global Warming Swindle" uncritically either.

 

Especially since the producers of the movie twisted the statements of one of the leading scientists featured to sell their point.

 

Ladies and Germs, i give you...

 

Carl Wunsch

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment...-c4-439773.html

 

 

"Partial Response to the London Channel 4 Film "The Global Warming Swindle"

Carl Wunsch 11 March 2007

 

I believe that climate change is real, a major threat, and almost surely has a major human-induced component. But I have tried to stay out of the `climate wars' because all nuance tends to be lost, and the distinction between what we know firmly, as scientists, and what we suspect is happening, is so difficult to maintain in the presence of rhetorical excess. In the long run, our credibility as scientists rests on being very careful of, and protective of, our authority and expertise.

 

 

The science of climate change remains incomplete. Some elements are so firmly based on well-understood principles, or for which the observational record is so clear, that most scientists would agree that they are almost surely true (adding CO2 to the atmosphere is dangerous; sea level will continue to rise,…). Other elements remain more uncertain, but we as scientists in our roles as informed citizens believe society should be deeply concerned about their possibility: failure of US midwestern precipitation in 100 years in a mega-drought; melting of a large part of the Greenland ice sheet, among many other examples.

 

I am on record in a number of places complaining about the over-dramatization and unwarranted extrapolation of scientific facts. Thus the notion that the Gulf Stream would or could "shut off" or that with global warming Britain would go into a "new ice age" are either scientifically impossible or so unlikely as to threaten our credibility as a scientific discipline if we proclaim their reality [i.e. see this previous RC post]. They also are huge distractions from more immediate and realistic threats. I've paid more attention to the extreme claims in the literature warning of coming catastrophe, both because I regard the scientists there as more serious, and because I am very sympathetic to the goals of my colleagues who sometimes seem, however, to be confusing their specific scientific knowledge with their worries about the future.

 

When approached by WAGTV, on behalf of Channel 4, known to me as one of the main UK independent broadcasters, I was led to believe that I would be given an opportunity to explain why I, like some others, find the statements at both extremes of the global change debate distasteful. I am, after all a teacher, and this seemed like a good opportunity to explain why, for example, I thought more attention should be paid to sea level rise, which is ongoing and unstoppable and carries a real threat of acceleration, than to the unsupportable claims that the ocean circulation was undergoing shutdown (Nature, December 2005).

 

I wanted to explain why observing the ocean was so difficult, and why it is so tricky to predict with any degree of confidence such important climate elements as its heat and carbon storage and transports in 10 or 100 years. I am distrustful of prediction scenarios for details of the ocean circulation that rely on extremely complicated coupled models that run out for decades to thousands of years. The science is not sufficiently mature to say which of the many complex elements of such forecasts are skillful. Nonetheless, and contrary to the impression given in the film, I firmly believe there is a great deal to be learned from models. With effort, all of this is explicable in terms the public can understand.

 

In the part of the "Swindle" film where I am describing the fact that the ocean tends to expel carbon dioxide where it is warm, and to absorb it where it is cold, my intent was to explain that warming the ocean could be dangerous—because it is such a gigantic reservoir of carbon. By its placement in the film, it appears that I am saying that since carbon dioxide exists in the ocean in such large quantities, human influence must not be very important — diametrically opposite to the point I was making — which is that global warming is both real and threatening in many different ways, some unexpected.

 

Many of us feel an obligation to talk to the media—it's part of our role as scientists, citizens, and educators. The subjects are complicated, and it is easy to be misquoted or quoted out context. My experience in the past is that these things do happen, but usually inadvertently — most reporters really do want to get it right.

 

Channel 4 now says they were making a film in a series of "polemics". There is nothing in the communication we had (much of it on the telephone or with the film crew on the day they were in Boston) that suggested they were making a film that was one-sided, anti-educational, and misleading. I took them at face value—clearly a great error. I knew I had no control over the actual content, but it never occurred to me that I was dealing with people who already had a reputation for distortion and exaggeration.

 

The letter I sent them as soon as I heard about the actual program is below. [available here]

 

As a society, we need to take out insurance against catastrophe in the same way we take out homeowner's protection against fire. I buy fire insurance, but I also take the precaution of having the wiring in the house checked, keeping the heating system up to date, etc., all the while hoping that I won't need the insurance. Will any of these precautions work? Unexpected things still happen (lightning strike? plumber's torch igniting the woodwork?). How large a fire insurance premium is it worth paying? How much is it worth paying for rewiring the house? $10,000 but perhaps not $100,000? There are no simple answers even at this mundane level.

 

How much is it worth to society to restrain CO2 emissions — will that guarantee protection against global warming? Is it sensible to subsidize insurance for people who wish to build in regions strongly susceptible to coastal flooding? These and others are truly complicated questions where often the science is not mature enough give definitive answers, much as we would like to be able to provide them. Scientifically, we can recognize the reality of the threat, and much of what society needs to insure against. Statements of concern do not need to imply that we have all the answers. Channel 4 had an opportunity to elucidate some of this. The outcome is sad."

[Oyuki kigan 0]

Now before class is dismissed, your homework for the spring and summer is to read Tim Flannery's "The Weather Makers", "A Green History of the World" by Clive Ponting, "Collapse" by Jared Diamond, and check realclimate.org and Grist.com weekly for updates.

 

I have a copy of "The Weather Makers" and "Collapse" i am willing to lend (and pay for shipping)if anyone is interested.

[Oyuki kigan 0]

 Originally Posted By: spacefrog

Thank god people are waking up to this panic mongering.

Thats right, nothing is wrong. Its just like the "fake" ozone hole crisis of the 90's.

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I am really shocked that most people believe CO2 is a pollutant, it`s hysterical. Water vapour is the biggest green house gas and soon we will think this is pollutant.

CO2 has always been with us, yes. In that sense it is not a pollutant. But it IS a greenhouse gas, a fact which is not up for debate, unless you are also willing to argue that the earth is flat.

C02, as well as other greenhouse gases, keep this planet in an equilibrium warm enough to support life. Changes in these gases and particulate matter can cause big disruptions in the way the atmosphere traps heat. Like when large volcanos throw up lots gases and particles (which can have a cooling effect, as they reflect incoming light back into space)

But geez, we have been adding CO2 to the atmoshphere that has been locked under rock and out of the natural cycle for millions of years. LOTS of it, and we are throwing this finely tuned cycle way out of wack. Thus, excess CO2 is dangerous (as are other greenhouse gases, like methane)

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And really Oyuki as honourable as your intentions might be, where do you get the information that most of the worlds scientist support the global warming theory? I suppose the IPCC and thus the UN. If you were actually to check the validity of it, you would find that most of the people named are there to make up numbers. They include some scientists who did do valid research and have later denounced their results being twisted, other UN people who are not even scientists.

The IPCC is plauged with non-scientists, i definately concede that. But from what i have read, i have come to a VERY different conclusion. The majority of scientists, while perhaps disagreeing on the future effects of GW, are pretty much in agreement about the causes. The original reports and reccommendations were originally much more strongly worded (even coming from scientists, who try to avoid inceniary language), but government and corporate interests in the IPCC has watered it down significantly. Chances are, things are worse that what the reports were allowed to divulge.

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The UN is an inherently evil organisation one has but to go to their website and read about the Codex Alimentarius committee. Giving all the big pharmacology companies the right to distribute GMO crops all over the world to control the world`s food population. Ooops did I forget to mention that in the same paper Kissinger listed this as one of tools to decrease population.

Well, i don't know about the UN being 'inherently evil'. If you use one instance of the UNs policy to attack another, that is bad science on your part as well.
I am not a fan of Kissenger not GMOs, but the UN also sponsors other 'evil' programs like the Millennium Project, designed to provide basic eduacation to all people on the planet. And lets not forget that bastion of evilness "UNICEF".

Sure, the UN is toothless, and has been coopted by corporate interests in some ways. But make sure which way this issue is being played by corporations. They have hardly endorsed GW science (and have tried to fight it, just as with the Ozone problem)

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Basically people like Gore backed by Rothschild are banking on people`s stupidity to swallow this anti-science.

Please go to realclimate.org ( a climate scince site run by actual climatologists) and debunk them, please.

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And this is all part of a bigger more sinister picture for our Socially conditioned future.

Someone has been watching too much Zeitgeist. I don't disagree with you either about government interest in social control, or even the danger of the movement to deal with Global warming being co-opted into some totalitarian carbon ration scheme.

But there are also way more democratic alternatives being progressed right now, such as the ability to generate your own electricity and get off of government and corporate-controled power.

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Just to recap, yes the temperature is rising slightly.

No shit. The fact that it has happened so quickly, when by all other means it should be riding at one-one hundredth or one-one thosandth of the rate has HUGE implications for all life on this planet, not to mention out ski seasons.

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Yes it is the Sun of course.

Show mw some science please, because everything i have read about sunspot cycles and solar flaring has been debunked.

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No CO2 levels are nothing to be alarmed about nor is the temperature. Other debates about being wasteful and human impact are a separate issue. Yes I agree that it`s good to be careful with resources you use and we might have a small impact on our direct environment.

We MIGHT have an impact on our environment lis like saying America MIGHT have in interest in controlling Middle-eastern oil. I can give you examples of how humans have DRASTICALLY altered the environment, even 2000 years ago without the convenience of gas-powered heavy machinery. To say that we MIGHT have an impact is an understatement in the extreme.

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I would be more concerned about the things you put in your mouth coming from Doctors, Pharma-agro companies ,etc etc.

fine, i think that is all important too. But i also think that the various problem we have from living unsustainably (exhausted fish stock, water shortages, waste disposal, species loss, desertification, war over resources, etc) are pretty high on humanity's collective interest list.

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And lastly the most shocking thing really is that people who consider themselves educated,well informed and have had the benefit of attending higher education so readily swallow the propaganda without trying to verify it. I admit it so cleverly and completely packaged that one would not even dream about researching the facts however I would expect those very people to have the analytical skills to be able to see right through it all.

I might say the same about people who don't explore their relationship to the rest of the world, except that i am so sorely ignorant myself that i should be more humble in talking about it.

[Rag-Doll 0]

>I believe that climate change is real, a major threat, and almost surely has a major human-induced component. But I have tried to stay out of the `climate wars' because all nuance tends to be lost, and the distinction between what we know firmly, as scientists, and what we suspect is happening, is so difficult to maintain in the presence of rhetorical excess. In the long run, our credibility as scientists rests on being very careful of, and protective of, our authority and expertise.

 

 

 

This is the truth of the matter. This is where the Tim Flannerys of the world do themselves an injustice. Even the IPCC has hedged the link between the very small observed "average" temperature increase (some places are going up, some are going down and some aren't changing at all!) and CO2 emissions. But what we get from Flannery and his mates is end of the world stuff.

 

I like how the idea of the gulf stream stopping and cooling Europe is now extremely unlikely because at one stage not very long ago the scientists who study these things reckoned it was imminent. It makes me wonder what other scientific paradigms currently in vogue will prove to be erroneous.

 

This from a well annotated section in Wiki - There is some speculation that global warming could decrease or shutdown thermohaline circulation and therefore reduce the North Atlantic Drift. The timescale that this might happen in is unclear; estimates range from a few decades to a few hundred years[1]. This could trigger localised cooling in the North Atlantic and lead to cooling (or lesser warming) in that region, particularly affecting areas that are warmed by the North Atlantic Drift, such as Scandinavia and Great Britain.[7] The chances of this occurring are unclear.[8]

 

At present, most available data show that Gulf Stream flow was stable over the past 40 years.[9] One report, based on a snapshot survey, suggested that the deep return flow has weakened[10] by 30% since 1957, which would imply a weakening in the North Atlantic Deep Water production.[11] However, this should have caused a temperature drop of several degrees in northwest Europe, but instead temperatures have tended to increase. It was later discovered, using the first cross-Atlantic array of moored current meters, that variations within one year were just as large.[12] It has been reported by several news media[13][14] in late 2006 that in november 2004 the gulf stream stopped entirely for ten days. At least part of the apparent weakening of the Gulf Stream (if real) may be cyclical and connected to recent positive values of North Atlantic Oscillation.[15] Recent research[16] shows that Gulf Stream volume transport during the Little Ice Age was ten percent weaker than today’s, implying that diminished oceanic heat transport may have contributed to the 16th- to the mid-19th-century cooling in the North Atlantic.

 

 

 

[Rag-Doll 0]

GN, I reckon the born-again like belief that GW supporters have is more religious in its nature. If the temp goes up - its global warming, if the temp goes down - its global warming. if the temp doesn't change - its global warming. Half understood phenomenon is all claimed to be caused by GW and the unbelievers are condemned to a lifeless, boiling furnace - jeez even the punishment is the same!

 

Read some of the stuff GW supporters come out with and one would think that before industrialisation (and all that nasty capitalism) people lived in a benign world of warm (but not too warm) and sunny (not not too sunny) summers and cool or cold, depending on your preference (but not too cool/cold) winters. It's almost as if droughts, floods and other vagaries of weather didn't happen or if they did, they weren't as bad as those that occur now. The trouble is that bad weather has always happened and always will. Weather changes.

 

El Nino and La Nina are good examples of the weather systems that occur in a observable region over a relatively short time frame and we're STILL struggling to understand how and why they happen. Even when we're half way through one of these events, we don't know for certain how long it will last or how severe it will be. Yet we have the GW storm troopers like Flannery and Gore handing out absurdly extreme predictions as if they're fact - give us a break!

 

It might be happening but I reckon it will only be once the 20th cent. can be viewed in its historical context over a range of centuries before and after this period will we be able to say with any certainty that human based CO2 had a measurable impact on the global weather. I'm not anti-GW I'm just anti ignorant mob rule and suspicious of a movement based on a scientific paradigm that shouts down any dissenting voice. That is more religious in its nature than any contrary view of an extremely complex system. The inability of GW supporters to accept the possibility of valid alternate views should be a concern for everyone.

[Oyuki kigan 0]

being sceptical of scientific soothsaying is not a bad thing. With something as complex as the environment, i am not sure that anyone can forsee what is gonna happen with great certainty.

 

Which may make some people apathetic,a nd take a 'come what may' stance.

 

However, even if you don't put stock in the predicitions, the actual science of why GW is happening (human-produced greenhouse has and human-caused deforistation)is not much of an issue, and seems to be the accepted theory my the vast majority of climate scientists.

 

The fact is that we don't have any similar situations from the past to tell us how the planet will react to this new danger, we can only infer from situations that have only a marginal likeness to now.

 

Which is **** scary. Sorry about the language, but this is affecting every life form on this planet. And if it is indeed our fault, we need to do something about it right now.

 

I read an article that summed up the human response quite nicely.

 

Imagine that you are onboard an jetliner, and there is a big commotion in the cockpit. The pilots are argueing furiously. One says that the plane is gonna crash, and the other says not. I imagine most people would be pretty keen on following the conversation.

So the pilots argue, and talk about the instruments they are reading. Maybe both of them they are reading different instruments right. One could be checking fuel and altitude, the other could be checking the radar and power output.

 

Now imagine that there are about a hundred pilots in the cockpit, and most of them are saying its gonna crash.

[Rag-Doll 0]

Sounds very convincing until you remember that science isn't a process of consensus. What you're describing is simply another version of Pascal's Wager. I can see the merit in where that leads us except that it presupposes that every landing spot is equal. What if they aren't? Landing prematurely may well place us in a more difficult situation. It also suggests that an incorrect failure to act will result in complete destruction, which of course isn't the case with GW, despite what some would have us believe.

[Oyuki kigan 0]

i'm asking for prudence when such matters as the entire world are involved.

 

While i am all for having science and truth come out, even against popular opinion (and i would very much like to believe myself that GW is not happening), too often we use doubts and contrary data to relieve ourselves of the responsibility of change and adaption.

 

In the unlikely event that pouring out millions of tons of land-locked CO2 into an atmoshphere every year will NOT cause an imbalance (and effects that we can't adequately predict), there are still many, many other benefits from acting with prudence, and getting off the sauce.

 

Just in case.

 

Should the human factor of global warming prove false (at some time in the distant future), we can still benefit immensely from reduced pollution, increased energy efficincy, and a worldview that sees all life as interconnected and affecting everything else.

 

Or, we can stand around, argueing about whether the most informed minds on climate ar correct, and continue with buisness as usual. Should GW theory turn out to be right, and we waste our chance to deal with it (meaning limit the damage to a semi-managable level), we will have sacrificed the well being of the planet we live on, as well as our future generations ecolocical stability for the brief respite from responsibilty for our actions.

 

I choose not to play dice with the future of the planet, and try to reduce my potential contribtion to pollution and environmental destruction

 

just in case

[soubriquet 0]

Here are the data. This is the "hockey stick" with which the IPCC beats us. Note that the timescale is 1,000 years, and the Earth is approximately 4.7 billion years old.

 

 

The same data set (as approved by the IPCC). These data are dismissed as "ancient history".

 

Here are the same data, except we have a 20,000 year timescale. It shows a different picture from that given by politicians and their parasites. Note that for the past 8,000 years, the Earth's climate has been cooling.

 

How to lie with statistics 101. Pick the scale which demonstrates your point, then tax the bastards.

 

 

Here are the Vostok data lifted directly from the IPCC report. Watch out climate change conspiracists, Inuit and Canadians are going to be moving south into your home very soon.

 

[Oyuki kigan 0]

Here is a reply to Soubs from someone who knows the science much better than i

 

Objection: Current warming is just part of a natural cycle.

 

Answer: While it is undoubtedly true that there are natural cycles and variations in global climate, those who insist that current warming is purely natural -- or even mostly natural -- have two challenges.

 

First, they need to identify the mechanism behind this alleged natural cycle. Absent a forcing of some sort, there will be no change in global energy balance. The balance is changing, so natural or otherwise, we need to find this mysterious cause.

 

Second, they need to come up with an explanation for why a 35% increase in the second most important greenhouse gas does not affect the global temperature. Theory predicts temperature will rise given an enhanced greenhouse effect, so how or why is it not happening?

 

 

The mainstream climate science community has provided a well-developed, internally consistent theory that accounts for the effects we are now observing. It provides explanations and makes predictions. Where is the skeptic community's model or theory whereby CO2 does not affect the temperature? Where is the evidence of some other natural forcing, like the Milankovich cycles that controlled the ice ages (a fine historical example of a dramatic and regular climate cycle that can be read in the ice core records taken both in Greenland and in the Antarctic)?

 

 

Is this graph a candidate for explaining today's warming? A naive reading of this cycle indicates we should be experiencing a cooling trend now -- and indeed we were gradually cooling over the length of the pre-industrial Holocene, around .5C averaged over 8,000 years.

 

Not only is the direction of the change wrong, but compare the speed of those fluctuations to today's changes. Leaving aside the descents into glaciation, which were much more gradual, the sudden (geologically speaking) jumps up in temperature every ~100,000 years represent a rate of change roughly ten times slower what we are currently witnessing.

 

So could current changes be part of a natural cycle? Well, no natural cause has been identified. There is no climatological theory in which CO2 does not drive temperature. And natural cycle precedents do not exhibit the same extreme changes we're now witnessing.

[soubriquet 0]

No problem. I have no doubt that human emitted CO2 is causing global warming. My first point is that climate change (a different thing) is normal. My second point is that something that can't be stopped has to be managed.

[Oyuki kigan 0]

Well, i agree to a point on that. Even if we stop emitting all CO2 now, the stuff in the air now has a a lifespan of a few decades, and will continue to warm until then (assuming that positive feedback loops like melting permafrost in Russia releasing methane inturn warming up the atmosphere even more don't take hold.

 

In that sense we must adapt and manage what will inevitably happen. Land-use and energy-use patterns will probably have to change.

 

However, to prevent disaterous warming (the "unmanagable" type, the upper limit being currently consitered to start at levels over

450 ppm of CO2 in the atmoshpere) we have to start drastically reducing out output now.

 

So what do you feel we should be doing mor of to manage the problem, Soubs(sorry, question mark button not working)

[gerard 6]

[thursday 1]

 Originally Posted By: Oyuki kigan

So what do you feel we should be doing mor of to manage the problem, Soubs(sorry, question mark button not working)

what problem?

[soubriquet 0]

 Originally Posted By: Oyuki kigan

So what do you feel we should be doing mor of to manage the problem, Soubs(sorry, question mark button not working)

I have absolutely no idea. That's why I'm an unemployed ex-scientist, and not a manager. I think Tony Hancock got it right when he suggested we will have to evolve into a race of giants with big hooters.