- Status
Joe Public
Striker
Piss off eh? A man of your age should know better to use abuse like that in a thread like this, isn't it about time you grew up a bit? Are you planning on entering this debate with any credible points soon?
I'm not on about singer's consultancy work many moons ago, you know that, and i've already posted it. I'm on about the organisations he currently works for being funded by Exxon (Frontiers of Freedom, ACSH, NCPA, etc.)
Do you really go in to a debate believing you are wrong then? It shows I suppose.
Can we accept that it's plain as day that both sides have agendas and knock all this ad hominem bitching on the head?
Regarding the graphs that purport to show the link between CO2 and warming, the scale is such that I'm unable to determine what drives what.
What comes first? Again the scale isn't clear enough to distinguish, or maybe it's my eyesight.
Is this lad worthy of respect? Certainly from what I've read from the IPCC report thus far it's a reasonable comment.
I enjoyed the debate under this blog.
Here.
Cut and paste jobby:
A close examination of the CH4, CO2 and temperature fluctuations recorded in the Antarctic ice core records does in fact reveal that yes, the temperature moved first in what is, when viewed coarsely, a very tight correlation. But what it is not correct, is to say the temperature rose and then 800 years later the CO2 rose. These warming periods lasted for 5000 to 10000 years (the coolings lasted ~100kyrs) so for the majority of that time (~90%) temperature and CO2 rose together. This means that this wonderful archive of climatological evidence clearly allows for CO2 acting as a cause while also revealing it can be an effect.
The current understanding of those cycles is that changes in orbital parameters (Milankovich and other cycles) caused greater amounts of summer sunlight in the northern hemisphere. This is a very small forcing. But it caused ice to retreat in the north which changed the albedo increasing the warmth in a feedback effect. Some ~800 years after this process started, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere began to rise and this also amplified the warming trend even further as another feedback mechanism.
You can also go here ( http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=13 ) for a discussion by climate scientists of exactly this question but with greater technical detail and full references to the scientific literature.
So, CO2 did not trigger the warmings, but it did contribute to them, and according to climate theory and model experiments, Greenhouse Gas forcing was the largest factor in the ultimate change.
One thing that this says for the future is that we may well see additional natural CO2 come out of the woodwork as whatever process that took place repeatedly over the last 650K yrs begins to play out again. The likely candidates are outgassing from warming ocean waters, carbon from warming soils and methane from melting permafrost.
---Nemo---
Striker
Well that certainly muddied the waters.
I was already on to the Realclimate site Joe but apparently there are doubts about the credibility of that site as well. No doubt over time the evidence and methodologies will be studied and analysed by an increasing number of independents and a less partisan picture will emerge.
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Medulla
Striker
One side is supported by reams and reams of hard facts from decades of measurements that are drawn from numerous sources and disciplines, the other side is not. I mean, not even close.
To be honest I think this is by far and away the most salient detail
Well Vincent Gray - pretty much out on his own here, even amongst deniers - believe that the globe isn't even warming, that there is no temperature rise to speak of.
I don't even think Tony believes this.
Regarding his comments about climate modelling, it might first be wise to point out that he is a coal chemist and so speaking on modelling is certainly stepping outside his field, as if an oceanographer was implied to be an expert on physical geography or a psychologist on biology.
His point about 'validation' is technically correct but misleading. Climate models are 'validated' in the continuous sense, in other words that their credibility depends on the extent to which their predictions are borne out by - for example - temperature or sea-level rises in the years after they are created. The 'validity' of the model increases with every year of successful predicitons. Self-interested judgements that Gray implies determine their success is nothing of the sort; the margin of error of the models can be, and is, quantified and the pool of IPCC climate scientists judge them on such a basis. As with all peer-reviewed science, standards dictate that such predictive power of the model is reported for criticism from the 'climate modelling community' prior to even publication, never mind collation by the IPCC in the relevant body of evidence.
An example of their success is seen in a model from 1988 which predicted temperature would climb over the following 12 years, with a possible brief episode of cooling in the event of a large volcanic eruption. This was proven remarkably correct, requiring adjustment only for the timing difference between the simulated future volcanic eruption and the actual eruption of Mount Pinatubo.
Some other significant model predictions made and confirmed:
* that surface warming should be accompanied by cooling of the stratosphere, and this has indeed been observed;
* models have long predicted warming of the lower, mid, and upper troposphere, even while satellite readings seemed to disagree -- but it turns out the satellite analysis was full of errors and on correction, this warming has been observed;
* models predict warming of ocean surface waters, as is now observed;
* models predict sharp and short-lived cooling of a few tenths of a degree in the event of large volcanic eruptions, and Mount Pinatubo confirmed this;
* models predict an amplification of warming trends in the Arctic region, and this is indeed happening;
Link
A
Annie Dapp Who?
Guest
Anything which says over 5000, 10000 and 100000 years is a bit iffy. How do they know anything about before records began? Educated guesswork is still guesswork.
S
stephen cartwright
Guest
Surely if you're going to use spurious claims of bias against the Chairman as a means of discrediting the IPCC process as a whole, you should be aware of and understand his role?
This is quite a good leaflet on the basic scientific case from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. It contains references to the peer-reviewed studies in scientific journals on which its facts are founded: Link
This is another good website covering all of the main scientific issues at a basic level as well as explaining what the IPCC is and does, and the importance of studies being published in peer-reviewed journals: Link
thanks will look into this
Joe Public
Striker
Do you really want to enter this discussion, with that post, after everything that has been posted already? Have you read any of it?
Thats what gets me about this topic, most people will ask the questions but never read the answers, they prefer to believe some polemic article written by an unqualified economist or journalist making soundbite remarks about something they have done very little research in, or believing some incredibly poor pseudo documentary like global warming swindle, without ever looking in to the evidence that resulted in the scientific consensus being reached.
---Nemo---
Striker
Admittedly I've barely scratched the surface but all that is readily apparent to me so far is that there is convincing evidence that the World undergoes dramatic changes of climate. At this stage in my own personal education the jury is still out regarding our part in the current trend.
I've E mailed Vince and asked for his comments on this thread.
That's a tad harsh Joe, you've had the benefit of a lot of reading around the subject while many of us are in almost complete ignorance.
A
Annie Dapp Who?
Guest
I'm not denying global warming or owt like that, just saying that even if it's educated, it's still guesswork. Something may be suspected to have lasted 5000 years but it's suspicion rather than fact as studies haven't been conducted for that long.
People need to chill out.
Idlewild Mackem
Striker
Admittedly I've barely scratched the surface but all that is readily apparent to me so far is that there is convincing evidence that the World undergoes dramatic changes of climate. At this stage in my own personal education the jury is still out regarding our part in the current trend.
I've E mailed Vince and asked for his comments on this thread.
That's a tad harsh Joe, you've had the benefit of a lot of reading around the subject while many of us are in almost complete ignorance.
It's not harsh at all Nemo mate, It's actually what is going on. It's the reason that people continually bury their heads in the sand over this.
Joe Public
Striker
Thats my point, if people are prepared to read the responses, great. Too many people ask the same questions over and over without ever reading the answers they are given or taking the time to do their own research. It doesnt apply to you, you seem to want to learn more and i'm more than happy to spend time answering them. i'm applying it to those who come ijn at this stage in the thread, having not read a bit of it, asking the same old tired questions that have already been answered, i'm applying it to the likes of those who ripped in to me saying i was proved wrong on the night that swindle documentary was aired.
"Are you seriously still arguing the case for global warming after that?" was one question. The documentary has since been shot down in flames and torn apart piece by piece, but that didnt make many headlines. It can be a bit frustrating, when the debate should have moved forward a long time ago, but we still fiddle while Rome burns. We are the modern day Hamlet, we know we have to act, but havent got the balls to do it until its too late.
---Nemo---
Striker
Fair comment, but in mitigation if it's the lad's first appearance there's an awful lot of stuff to take in. My poor owld heed's battered and I'm accustomed to wading through crap. :-D
Y
youmademerealise
Guest
It's guesswork that the sun will come up in the morning. Depends how good the guess is.
Unfortunately we're all culpable. Governments in democracies like ours won't want to push things too far for risk of upsetting the electorate. They'll also put it off for the next government to deal with. When Norfolk and Humberside get washed away we'll have to bite the bullet. The public will accept the bill then, but not before
It all depends on the tenor of the post. I can fully understand frustration developing when the likes of, and I'm not brown-nosing here, Joe Public take the time to explain their position in great detail, providing links and references, only to be dismissed by certain individuals who have obviously dipped into this thread and patently haven't read or understood a blind word.
I honestly don't know where Joe and Medulla, to give just two examples, get their patience from. I've stopped responding to Tony because basically it's a waste of time. He counters masses of entirely credible peer-reviewed articles with random sound bites seemingly written by characters even more batty than himself.
I did compose a longish reply to Tony, which I saved in Word, but I didn't finish it, because as the thread 'progressed' he descended as usual into personal abuse of posters far better informed than me.
For what it is worth, I would love to be a sceptic, but from what I've read over the years, the weight of evidence that human activity is contributing significantly to climate change is overwhelming. I have a number of colleagues, relations and friends who have informed my opinions on this subject, including one very, very clever bloke, now a PhD, who first enlightened me to the effects of human activity on the environment, including our climate, way back in the late 60's when this wasn't popular opinion.
To me, the main weakness in the deniers' argument is that there is some sort of mass delusion or conspiracy amongst the majority of the world's experts who are proponents of human accellerated climate change and thus, the deniers would have us believe, AGW is a complete myth.
Can anyone recall any significant situation in recent times where virtually the whole of the global scientific community demonstrated similar mass delusion, or decended into loss-of-funding-fuelled mendacity, or were just plain wrong?
T
Tony
Guest
Some random sound bites:
Taxation is not the real issue but I concede that it's important. The real issue is whether our governments are going to buy into this malarkey and sacrifice our countries economies for an unproven theory and destroying our power generating capacity through the severe curtailiment or elimination the use of our prodigous sources of coal and wasting our equally prodigous sources of natural gas in the process.
Think about what will have been achieved when the process is complete and ask yourself if it will have been worth it.
Better brains than mine or yours claim that if Global Warming is taking place then none of the really puny efforts by mankind can do a blind bloody thing to prevent it. For the money that the world will spend on this futile attempt every person in the world (EVERY PErSON IN THE WORLD) can be provided with access to clean drinking water.
A degree warmer in hot climates will be accompanied by a degree warmer in all climates even the most frigid. Is this going to be a disaster?
The most vocal of the proponents of the need to take measures to reverse "global warming" are people who stand to profit most from the adoption of the policies they advocate. The biggest villain in this scenario is Al Gore who has partnerships in Cap and Pay schemes and who continues his crusade of lies and exaggerations to further his efforts including his allegations that sea levels will rise 20 feet and drown Manhattan and that the snows at the peak of Kilinmajaro are being denuded by global warming.
Think!
**
This article by a meteorologist puts a whole new perspective on the climate "debate." I use quotes (inverted commas to Brits) because up until now the warmers have refused to debate anything. They blithely, blindly and without challenge continue to base their beliefs on a set of flawed UN documents that were supposedly produced by scientists but were in fact written by politicians with a very serious agenda. The theories have gone largely unchallenged in the media and politicians of all stripes have jumped wholeheartedly on to the bandwagon because they smell a political opportunity or are so afraid of public opinion they choose not to jeopardise their various sinecures by expressing reasonable doubt.
Would you agree with the thought that with vast reserves of coal we should use it for power generation and utilise our also vast natural gas resources as transportation fuels, thus reducing our dependence on Middle-East, Venezuelan and Russian oil?
*
Total objectivity demands that all sides of any story or dispute are given exposure. How much exposure has the New Scientist given to the views of scientists who have expressed serious reservations about the IPCC reports, including some of the very scientists who supposedly contributed to the data from which the reports were compiled?
Open your eyes and open your mind man! Don't you ever wonder why there is so much REAL scientific concern about the validity of the IPCC reports. Are you not concerned by the proven exaggerations by the proponents of the AGW theories (eg., Gore and Hansen) and the almost total disregard of these concerns by the world's popular media? Has the New Scientist ever reported that the Antarctic ice is thickening or that the snows on the summit of Mount Kilinmanjaro exist at altitudes where the teperatures are so far below freezing that any atmospheric warming cannot possible be contributing to their melting?
has the New Scientist or any other publication that you read ever commented on the fact that the Chairman of the IPCC has a conflict of interest and that he has major finacial interests in the fostering of ideas that would prosper with the universal adoption of the IPCC reports?
*
If you have both the time and the inclination you can become a much better critic by reading this. http://icecap.us/
**
Pancho, when you reach my age you'll have the same problem keeping up with all those young whippersnappers that I have. I wasn't trying to introduce new and irrelevant data into the argument but responding to what I thought was genuine question of opinion. The question does pose to us what a straitjacket the world is getting into by the rejection of coal as a fuel for power generation because "it is dirty." The correct use of coal and natural gas will enable us to get out from under our (almost) total dependence on oil from belligerent nations. Belligerent in the sense that they are totally opposed to our standards and are prepared to adopt any measures on the basis of their religions or politics to bring us to our knees.
In the meantime we are getting ready to bankrupt ourselves and render our governments helpless by our abdication to the myth of AGW.
South Africa no longer has the power resources to enable the gold mines to operate safely. they cannot guarantee that the elevators (cages in our language) can be continuously supplied with the power necessary to get the miners in and out of their mines. Environmentalists have stopped the building of power stations in South Africa. They are making incredible inroads into the thinking in the USA. banks are no longer willing to finance
coal-powered generating stations in spite of the exponential demands for electricty that are forecast for the next few years.
Its up to the likes of you to start speaking out about the dangers we confront. If you believe that polar bears and the spotted owl and the snail darter are more important than human beings then stay with the crowd.
Getting world agreement to the suppression of fossil fuels is the objective of the environmental community and they couldn't care less if they destroy our living standards in the process.
Wake up. Read. Ask questions. separate yourself from the herd mental;ity.
*
For Joe Publ;ic's attention:Ridicule is no argument. And your refusal to seriously consider the other side of what you believe about an unproved science makes anything that YOU consider to be an argument irrelevant as far as I am concerned
As for name calling. You will certainly remember and a few others may recall it too, that when you first appeared on these forums you chose to describe me as a dribbling old man in terms that inmplied that at my age I should be more concerned with controlling my bladder that having the temerity to question your outpourings. Any rudeness you have experienced at my hands on here is in response to your big headed supercillious and oafish conduct and to your own outright rudeness to me.
For HBT: February this year has been devastatingly cold in China in case you haven't heard. But if you are referring only to UK temperatures then what was the point in the post? And since we have another 14.5 days to go till the end of February your post seems utterly irrelevant to me.
BTW the original ":snigger:
" was posted by you in response to piece of garbage humour by our resident "Sexual Intellectual" that was directed at me. [GK please note!]Doubts about the IPCC reports and the subsequent conclusions have been voiced by many many qualified scientists including some who were involved in the data collection on which ( supposedly) the IPCC reports were based.
Its not the conclusions of the "thousands of scientists that are being questioned its the politicians from the 170 countries who wrote the reports based on THEIR consensus of the information at their disposal.
**
Ask him how he managed to wangle himself a job as Chairman of a group sponsored by one of the most powerful organisations on earth, was able to publish four reports in the name of that body that recommends the biggest boondoggle in history based on the manipulation of true scientific input and continues to hold a job in the third world with no competition where he advises companies, goverrnments and people on how to comply withe the recommendations of the very panel that he chairs.
I and a lot of other people will be interested in his answer
*
Those are excerpts from what I've said on THIS thread. In this and all the other discussions Joe P and Medullah and others have either produced reams of scientific jargon including pretty but meaningless graphs as their answers to MY questions. Or they have chiosen (JP in particular) not to answer.
THe crux of this matter isn't the graphs and the jargon its the questions that have been raised by emminent scientists about the foundations and reliability on which the warmists base their case namely the IPCC reports
and the insanities spouted by ALGORE and his followers.
If the world is warming there is not enough evidence to blame fossil fuels for the problem. And if the world is warming why is it such a bad thing anyway?
I've run over my 10,000 characters
.
A
Annie Dapp Who?
Guest
And some of your soundbites may be construed as random.
T
Tony
Guest
They were! I posted them in response to a comment from Pancho who has sworn off speaking to me.
H
Hetzkes Ballet Teacher
Guest
Even if it can't be prevented, isn't it worth doing everything possible to contain it?
Isn't it called climate change (not global warming) for a reason, in that some bits of the planet will warm, while others will cool (eg. in response to redirected or disappearing ocean currents like the gulf stream), and there will be increasingly extreme weather all over the place?
See above. It's climate change - record coldness counts. I can't remember another period in my life where every passing season or even month sets a new climatic record in some respect in some major part of the world. And I'm living in the middle of one of them here in Australia, as are those in the UK, as I posted (which was just passing on a fact reported by the BBC).
Not sure what you are saying or why any of that is relevant.BTW the original ":snigger:
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tynevalleyblackcat
Striker
I got to post 87 and have now given up.
I do the same sort of work as Joe Public used to (before he saw sense and left to run his shop), therefore my job involves trying to design more energy efficient buildings and assisting our clients in complying with legislation linked to the governments energy targets. However I do not subscribe blindly to the global warming lobby.
It's not that I disagree that it is happening, it may well be, and I think the 95% certainty level as identified in the latest reports is probably about right. My concern is that we all seem to be completely missing the point.
Climate change is not the real issue and I will explain why;
You can argue about some of the niceties in the above list, it may be 500 years before we run out of fossil fuels for e.g. but that is just pedantry. However, I think we can all agree on the basic premise behind the above list.
Having agreed on this we need to ask ourselves a question, why are we even worrying about global warming?
To prevent it getting worse we would have to STOP burning ANY more fossil fuels today. Energy efficiency just delays the inevitable by an insignificant period.
The real issue is not global warming but how we continue to sustain a growing population when the very lifeblood of what has enabled us to get to where we are runs out. We have no viable alternative source of energy to replace fossil fuels and oil in particular.
There is a further complication, the law of supply and demand. Best estimates (from the oil industry) are that we have roughly consumed half of all the oil we can realistically hope to ever extract. Like all finite resources, oil is cheap and easy to extract at first but becomes ever more expensive and difficult to extract once you have consumed half of it. It is also impossible to extract more on a daily basis (a technique the Saudis have used to stabilise world economies for 30 years or more) once the wells start to empty. We are getting to that point and the pressure of industrialisation in China and India just exacerbates the effect.
Demand for oil will increase year on year and production conversely will begin to decline and the gap between the two diverging lines on the graph will see oil prices escalate hugely. It could be argued we are already seeing this happen. I would note here that currently we only sustain a world population of around 9 billion people by growing foods using oil based fertilisers to boost production. World population is predicted to double by 2030.
Imagine a scenario whereby petrol is £1 a litre today, but £2 a litre in 2 years and £4 a litre in 2012, and then disappears off the scale? It will happen someday, the only debate is when.
We need to forget about global warming and concentrate on developing a real, viable and sustainable alternative for fossil fuels, otherwise we are potentially facing a return to the dark ages.
Their plan seems to have worked if you read some of the posts on this thread Joe
The taxation has nothing to do with climate change, and everything to do with trying to buy some time while we seek the panacea of an alternative fuel source.
Running out of fossil fuel, or more accurately running out of most of our fossil fuels, has the potential to cause economic strife world wide that will make the 1930's look like a minor blip. When oil prices escalate, a few pence on tax will be the least of your worries. Things will rectify themselves in time. The planet will return to a sustainable population level, through the usual methods of rectification, War, Famine, disease etc.
The only way to avoid this doomsday scenario is to find an alternative energy source.
They will if this bloody weather gets any warmer.
I do the same sort of work as Joe Public used to (before he saw sense and left to run his shop
), therefore my job involves trying to design more energy efficient buildings and assisting our clients in complying with legislation linked to the governments energy targets. However I do not subscribe blindly to the global warming lobby.It's not that I disagree that it is happening, it may well be, and I think the 95% certainty level as identified in the latest reports is probably about right. My concern is that we all seem to be completely missing the point.
Climate change is not the real issue and I will explain why;
- We have a finite amount of fossil fuel
- The world population is growing exponentially
- Our consumption of fossil fuel will therefore increase with time
- Energy efficiency will only delay the time period it takes us to burn all the fossil fuel and we will burn it all anyway and do it in a time scale which is insignificant on a global scale
- Global warming effects will take tens of thousands of years to self rectify if you believe the scientists
- Fossil fuels will run out in probably 200 to 300 years at present rates of consumption (oil much sooner)
You can argue about some of the niceties in the above list, it may be 500 years before we run out of fossil fuels for e.g. but that is just pedantry. However, I think we can all agree on the basic premise behind the above list.
Having agreed on this we need to ask ourselves a question, why are we even worrying about global warming?
To prevent it getting worse we would have to STOP burning ANY more fossil fuels today. Energy efficiency just delays the inevitable by an insignificant period.
The real issue is not global warming but how we continue to sustain a growing population when the very lifeblood of what has enabled us to get to where we are runs out. We have no viable alternative source of energy to replace fossil fuels and oil in particular.
There is a further complication, the law of supply and demand. Best estimates (from the oil industry) are that we have roughly consumed half of all the oil we can realistically hope to ever extract. Like all finite resources, oil is cheap and easy to extract at first but becomes ever more expensive and difficult to extract once you have consumed half of it. It is also impossible to extract more on a daily basis (a technique the Saudis have used to stabilise world economies for 30 years or more) once the wells start to empty. We are getting to that point and the pressure of industrialisation in China and India just exacerbates the effect.
Demand for oil will increase year on year and production conversely will begin to decline and the gap between the two diverging lines on the graph will see oil prices escalate hugely. It could be argued we are already seeing this happen. I would note here that currently we only sustain a world population of around 9 billion people by growing foods using oil based fertilisers to boost production. World population is predicted to double by 2030.
Imagine a scenario whereby petrol is £1 a litre today, but £2 a litre in 2 years and £4 a litre in 2012, and then disappears off the scale? It will happen someday, the only debate is when.
We need to forget about global warming and concentrate on developing a real, viable and sustainable alternative for fossil fuels, otherwise we are potentially facing a return to the dark ages.
Singer, an electrical engineer and physicist and leading climate change skeptic, is a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal and other publications.
In a February 2001 letter to the Washington Post, Singer denied receiving funding from the oil industry, except for consulting work some 20 years prior.SEPP, however, received multiple grants from ExxonMobil, including 1998 and 2000. In addition, Singer's current CV on the SEPP website states that he served as a consultant to several oil companies. The organizations Singer has recently been affiliated with - Frontiers of Freedom, ACSH, NCPA, etc. - have received generous grants from Exxon on an annual basis.
Singer wrote the Leipzig Declaration in 1996, arguing that there was no scientific consensus on global warming and therefore no grounds for an international agreement regulating greenhouse gas emissions. Singer claimed the Declaration was signed by "more than 100 European and American climate scientists". In fact, most of the signers were not climate experts, and many were not scientists.
Source: "A Fred of All Trades," Ozone Action, 1999
A 2007 Newsweek cover story on climate change denial reported that: "In April 1998 a dozen people from the denial machine — including the Marshall Institute, Fred Singer's group and Exxon — met at the American Petroleum Institute's Washington headquarters. They proposed a $5 million campaign, according to a leaked eight-page memo, to convince the public that the science of global warming is riddled with controversy and uncertainty." The plan was reportedly aimed at "raising questions about and undercutting the 'prevailing scientific wisdom'" on climate change. According to Newsweek, the plan was leaked to the press and therefore was never implemented.[24]
In 1960, Singer proposed that the Martian Moon, Phobes, was a space station built by martians.
Singer, hired by tabacco and oil companies to muddy the waters of science.
Their plan seems to have worked if you read some of the posts on this thread Joe
The taxation has nothing to do with climate change, and everything to do with trying to buy some time while we seek the panacea of an alternative fuel source.
Running out of fossil fuel, or more accurately running out of most of our fossil fuels, has the potential to cause economic strife world wide that will make the 1930's look like a minor blip. When oil prices escalate, a few pence on tax will be the least of your worries. Things will rectify themselves in time. The planet will return to a sustainable population level, through the usual methods of rectification, War, Famine, disease etc.
The only way to avoid this doomsday scenario is to find an alternative energy source.
They will if this bloody weather gets any warmer.
Archie Blagger
Striker
I stopped reading when i saw the name.....
I actually got to where he spells honour 'honor'. I know this is an 'Americanism' however the second paragraph starts in lower case ..
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