NASA’s Dr. James Hansen once again goes over the top. See his most recent article in the UK Guardian. Some excerpts:
“The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death.”
And this:
Clearly, if we burn all fossil fuels, we will destroy the planet we know. Carbon dioxide would increase to 500 ppm or more.
Only one problem there Jimbo, CO2 has been a lot higher in the past. Like 10 times higher.
From JS on June 21, 2005:
One point apparently causing confusion among our readers is the relative abundance of CO2 in the atmosphere today as compared with Earth’s historical levels. Most people seem surprised when we say current levels are relatively low, at least from a long-term perspective – understandable considering the constant media/activist bleat about current levels being allegedly “catastrophically high.” Even more express surprise that Earth is currently suffering one of its chilliest episodes in about six hundred million (600,000,000) years.
Given that the late Ordovician suffered an ice age (with associated mass extinction) while atmospheric CO2 levels were more than 4,000ppm higher than those of today (yes, that’s a full order of magnitude higher), levels at which current ‘guesstimations’ of climate sensitivity to atmospheric CO2 suggest every last skerrick of ice should have been melted off the planet, we admit significant scepticism over simplistic claims of small increment in atmospheric CO2 equating to toasted planet. Granted, continental configuration now is nothing like it was then, Sol’s irradiance differs, as do orbits, obliquity, etc., etc. but there is no obvious correlation between atmospheric CO2 and planetary temperature over the last 600 million years, so why would such relatively tiny amounts suddenly become a critical factor now?
Adjacent graphic ‘Global Temperature and Atmospheric CO2 over Geologic Time’ from Climate and the Carboniferous Period (Monte Hieb, with paleomaps by Christopher R. Scotese). Why not drop by and have a look around?
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Mr Lynn: “…turned into a term of opprobrium by the AGW theocracy… deceitful Alarmism…”
And of course you would never resort to such tactics.
Ron de Haan (08:10:17) :
I would like to point out that Britain and the UK are one and the same.
Um, I thought Britain was the island, UK was Scotland and England (with cornish and welsh bits presumed under “England”) and “The United Kingdom of Great Britain and North Ireland” was the whole “U.K. of G.B. & N.I.” enchilada today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain
Seems to make that distinction.
However, people often make this mistake.
They mix up England with Britain.
Great Britain or the United Kingdom = England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Sometimes simple things can be a bit of confusing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British
Also brings up the historical British who were a celtic group living largely in England.
So depending on context, “British” can be the people of England, the biggest island in the UK, the people of that island, the United Kingdom with Scots pulled in too, or the whole UK with N. Ireland pulling in part of the Irish. Then there is the context of Empire, when a ‘whole nother batch’ get pulled in as “British” including some non-UK members of the E.U. (Gibraltar anyone? Malta?)
So it looks to me like using British in addition to UK gives many possible added meanings, one of which would be “citizen of a non-UK &N.I. area that is still granted an EU passport, and was part of the empire or a trust territory today”. While I doubt this was the original article’s intent, the grammar was not strictly wrong.
With all those nits harvested: I have to point out yet one more meaning of British. I am one. I am of British extraction. I hold no UK nor EU passport, yet in discussions of heritage when my (California native) friends says they are German or Mexican, I legitimately answer that I’m “part British” (about 1/2 to 3/4 depending on which part of the history of the empire you use for allotment of my Celtic ancestors between ‘UK of GB’ and Ireland…)
So maybe it isn’t quite so simple 😉
tallbloke (11:07:11) :
That’s excellent tallbloke!
However in the real world a “skeptic” would not embrace analyses that are knowingly fallacious. Bill Illis’s sketch of the equilibrium temperature within a particular climate sensitivity plotted against the transient measured response doesn’t actually tell us very much about the real climate sensitivity (perhaps it defines a lower limit in the imaginary situation that the Earth’s temperature response to forcings has zero inertia). Likewise his misunderstanding of the Pangani data (Bill mistook a control data set for local temperature for a global temperature set) yields a demonstrably false interpretation of the data.
These are pretty straightforward conclusions. Pointing out straightforward facts isn’t being “superior” I hope (perhaps it is a bit tedious from one point of view) But one doesn’t need a degree in History and Philosophy of Science to recognise that skepticism doesn’t constitute embracing analyses that are knowingly incorrect.
Morgan Porter (12:04:56) : Maybe it’s time for a push instead of pull strategy…IF AGW is to be taken at face value and the IPCC is credible then Beef and Dairy industries should be the #1 due to methane which is 23 times as potent of a greenhouse gas as CO2!
Well IFF you’re going to head that way….
DRAIN THE SWAMPS! SWAMP GAS the KILLER OF Gaia!
I’m sure the green agenda will be happy with wetland destruction if it’s for the purpose of saving the planet…
Joel Shore (07:59:51):
I don’t know whether the opponents of the AGW hypothesis/es first used the term ‘skeptic’ of themselves, or found it used against them by the proponents. It’s a bit of historiography that is probably not worth the time to pursue (although someone probably will, this being the Internet). But in any case it has become a term of disrespect by the AGW proponents, who claim to represent a ‘consensus’ of ‘real’ scientists; it is a term that effectively marginalizes and isolates the opposition, and as I said, these days is scarcely removed from ‘heretic’, not just in connotation but denotation: didn’t Hansen or one of his minions suggest punishment for the naysayers?
It is probably true that some on the Realist side of the fence are not truly skeptical, or critical enough of their side’s own arguments, but there is nothing like being put on the defensive to sharpen one’s partisanship, and thereby dull one’s zeal to criticize one’s comrades-in-arms. Because the sad fact is that the AGW proponents, by prematurely answering what should have been a scientific, technical question (does our burning fossil fuels have any significant effect on the Earth’s climate?), have turned it into a political and ideological movement that has become little short of a religion for millions, one that has already led national governments into spending billions building pyramids to placate the gods of ‘climate change’.
Skepticism is the proper attitude of science; the AGW proponents have long since abandoned it in favor of proselytization and mass conversion. It will take more than skeptics to counter them; it will take a counter movement, whose flag should be Realism. The Realist will argue that the AGW hypotheses should be returned to science, but further, for policy makers, that there is no impending ‘climate crisis’, and that children should not be told there is one. The Realist will also argue that for this century at least, economic growth and progress will depend on increasing use of fossil fuels, and that there is no harm in doing so.
Brendan H (15:21:05):
Obviously I did, because the AGW theocracy has turned what should have been a scientific debate into an ideological one, calling for draconian policies that will affect the lives of every human being on Earth. One cannot fight such fire with a squirt bottle of skepticism: it will require a wall of cold water.
/Mr Lynn
MikeE (15:52:48) : Dave Wendt (14:52:10) Yea, it takes about two too three weeks to acclimatise, ive gone from zero-low single digits C(winter in new zealand) to high 40s low 50s, back in the day with a tour o east timor(suai valley is very hot!)… those first few weeks a few guys drop,
Never did it with a pack on, but had to transition from 100+F to 40F many times. Do a summer plunge into the Pacific ocean… Worst I ever did was a camping trip to the Sierra Nevada. Beautiful creek, hot day, plunge shot out of water onto rock in the middle. It was 32F snow melt (snow around the corner in the shade…). I figure it was about an instant 60F transition to freezing. Had an instant headache for about an hour… and yes, I had to ‘get back’ to the bank…
Ending a spring skiing outing can take you from about 0C to about 35-40C as you drop out of the mountains into the hot valley. (Also from 8600 feet to 30 feet in about 4 hours…)
Folks and critters can take far more in temperature transition far faster than the AGW folks are considering. Take my garden: It’s be getting about 40F swings week to week this winter. Depending on which side of the jet stream I’m on. Year to year the summer high can range up to 108F (about 15 years ago) or as low as about 88F (this last summer). Winter lows? Sometimes barely freezing, others it’s been down to 26F a few times I’ve seen. So given the year to year variation of 10F+ in peaks in both directions, I’m not worried about fractional degrees. Nor are my plants and critters.
I do like having my AC and heater working, though, and my spouse would either up and die, or kill me, if her heater were cut off in winter 😉 She likes 72F +/- about 1 F year round…
Hmmm….. I think I see how to use the ‘push’ strategy: Mandate a winter thermostat of 60F in the schools due to CO2. Real Fast they will be teaching that CO2 is good and warmer is better!
Somebody hit a nerve with Joel Shore (14:22:39).
Joel was responding to a comment a couple of posts above his that explained a skeptic’s position, which Joel seems to have a great deal of trouble accepting. He explains:
Joel has expressed his position quite accurately, as he understands it. The “reputable” scientific “authorities” have spoken. The scientific community has made up its mind. The science is settled. Case closed.
Joel knows he has won the debate with that irrefutable argument. So I guess we should pack up our bags and leave…
.
…NOT.
Sorry, Joel. Look up the “Appeal to Authority” argument.
Then, please, come back and falsify the generally accepted hypothesis that the observed temperature changes are a consequence of natural variability.
For a physicist like you, that should be a piece of cake.
Bill D (22:58:49) : This suggests that the car used more than 100 times more fossil fuel compared to the cyclist’s renewable fuel to go a comparable distance.
Your analysis ignores such things at the 10:1 ratio of feed : beef so it takes 10 lbs of corn to make 1 lb of beef. That corn takes a fair amount of nitrogen fertilizer (made with natural gas) and is hauled in trucks (using Diesel). The Tractor uses Diesel. The plastic your beef was packed in was made with either natural gas or petroleum. etc. etc.
When you wrap it all up, the car is ‘closer to the well’ than you are. The “Well to wheels” total carbon for a (modest) car is less than the “Well to wheels” for a bike rider. The actual carbon in the food is not very important, it’s all the other carbon that got that Big Mac to your in basket…
Bill D (22:58:49) : One conversion for power is 1 horsepower = 746 watts. Lance Armstrong put out 400 watts when leaving other cyclists in the dust going up a mountain. Well trained sport cyclists may sustain 250 watts, whereas someone riding at a confortable pace to the local store might be 40-100 watts, or about 0.1 horsepower.
Oh, and FWIW, car engines rated in kW run about 10 kW to 40 kW, but the duty cycle is rather low (not floored on the freeway all the time!). I’d put it at less than 25% almost all the time and probably on the order of 10% average. So call it 1kW average for a typical ‘small car’. That means that even just the 10:1 of feed ratio (forget the losses in making the feed) gets you to a car beating the person…
Now have that person take a hot shower and change of clothes on arrival at each end of the trip…
BTW, I’m not anti-bike – it’s just better to put an electric motor on it and plug it in! (And an ultralight 3 wheel electric with lower air drag from fairings is even better efficiency – just don’t argue with a Dodge…) And yes, this would mean the bike was using coal to power it, indirectly, but not very much coal at all…
David Ball (07:00:03) : I have spent a great deal of my life in the forest, and am humbled at every turn by her power and majesty. I never forget when I am there that I am likely being tracked by a cougar for the last mile or so. Would you be able to survive if civilization were to collapse? Careful what you wish for.
Speaking of getting what you ask for: folks in California and the newbies in Colorado wanted the nice cougar kitties protected from the evil people. Laws were passed, no hurting the kitty cats!
Notice the rising trend from ’70s to the ’90s?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_cougar_attacks_in_North_America_by_decade#2000s
The 2000s have fewer than in the 1990’s, but we’re not done yet…
It has been interesting to watch folks learn that the fluffy kitty want’s to eat them … We had a news program about a year ago that one of the semi-ag suburbs was losing ‘many small animals’ and a cougar was suspected (some folks claimed to have seen it). Children were advised to stay indoors. Goats, sheep, dogs, and some other outdoor pets were classed as ‘buffet’ …
And no, you can not carry a fire arm with you. If you go outdoors and get eaten, well, the kitty was just being natural and you are now part of nature too! Isn’t that swell! ? /sarcoff>
Me? I’ll take the coal, the home, the Safeway, and the lack of kitty cats bigger than I am in my neighborhood!
Smokey says:
Yes, Smokey, you definitely have hit a nerve with me. I have to admit that I frankly have trouble dealing with someone who takes no responsibility for himself and his own actions but prefers to throw the responsibility on someone else. “You have to convince me,” you say, which is frankly is an impossible task. How am I to convince someone whose mind is already made up, who posts up deceitful graphs again and again after I take the time to explain what is wrong with them and takes no responsibility for actually looking critically at anything that supports his point-of-view? I have no illusions whatsoever of ever convincing you. You are unconvinceable…You have made it abundantly clear that your whole conspiratorial worldview makes it impossible for you to ever accept that AGW might be true. I only hope to point out to some of the more rational posters here that most of what you link to is nonsense and the arguments that you make are the usual stuff that has been refuted time and time again.
That is sort of rich coming from someone who loves to post up links to garbage all the time. You appeal to authorities too. The only difference is your authorities are all stuff on blatantly partisan websites, while my authorities are actual scientific authorities like the National Academy of Sciences. [You might want to read the whole discussion of appeals to authority on Wikipedia, by the way, including the part that notes that “arguments from authority are an important part of informal logic. Since we cannot have detailed knowledge of a great many topics, we must often rely on the judgments of those who do. There is no fallacy involved in simply arguing that the assertion made by an authority is true, in contrast to claiming that the authority is infallible in principle and can hence be exempted from criticism…” ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority )] And, in fact I spend a lot of time pointing out the problems with the garbage that you link to but it just comes back anyway. So, at some point, it is just easier to let you wallow in it.
Benjamin P. (12:49:56) :
@ur momisugly E.M.Smith (16:45:32) paranoid much?
Nope. Only a little. The amount required by having been a professional in the field of computer security for a decade or two. It comes with the turf and is a necessary skill (as I stated above). Hang out with cops, it’s the same thing; (yes, I hung out with cops… Law Enforcement Eagle Scout… I started young 😉 After 9-11 applied to the NSA & CIA but they were swamped and didn’t need any more volunteers. Now I’m too old. Oh well.)
“My conclusion? Either we have AGW trolls, or they are just not willing to use their real names. (Why? Don’t ask why…)”
There are a million reasons why folks don’t use their real names.
I never said it was a bad thing to post under a private identity. (In fact, I specifically said “don’t ask why”…) I just find it informative to look for patterns in things and in human behaviours. I’ve seen at least one set of poster id’s that seem to be a single person doing their own ‘set ups’. Doesn’t mean they are invalid. Are they evil? No. It’s an interesting (if somewhat pointless) technique. It tells me something about the person.
We have “DJ”. I’m fine with that. By that usage clearly stating “I’m not going public with my name.” That is more honest than a complete pseudo identity. You’re approach (and mine, BTW, “smith” is already ‘anon’…) is similarly straight forward. Yeah, it rattles the tripwire (and you’ve demonstrated some personality in response – nice to meet you! I have taught computer stuff at the C.C. level. Rather liked it.) but so what. The tripwire gets ignored most of the time anyway.
I suppose I could start posting with the moniker “Emmet Martin Smith” would that make my posts more valid in your eyes?
It’s not about ‘validity’ it is just about knowing with whom you are speaking. Are they a real person? Do they have particular expertise? Are they deliberately posing, as what they are not, when they are really some other person, but laying traps (via softball ‘set ups’ for themselves) or ??? That’s a different kind of critter and you want to watch them more closely for deception.
Frankly, it’s mostly just a way to ‘tidy up loose ends’… I like to ‘keep a tidy mind’ and the discontinuities when someone is posing mean that I have loose ends to clean up somehow. It’s easier to just identify and catalog them than to ignore them. (Again, that Aspe thing… geeks have more of the trait than many others…)
It’s sort of like the comment about the French in My Fair Lady (“The French don’t care what they do, actually, as long as they pronounce it correctly”): I don’t care what you do as long as I can catalog it accurately 😉
Again: It isn’t about validity, it is about knowing how the other person operates so that it informs your understanding of them. (and tying up lose ends… 😎
Mr Lynn: “…the AGW theocracy has turned what should have been a scientific debate into an ideological one…”
I don’t see that. If the science points to a rapid warming of the atmosphere and resulting undesirable changes, the obvious next step is to consider how to respond.
I don’t see what is “ideological” about that, although AGW proponents are probably more comfortable with government-led action than are sceptics. That’s simply a matter of different approaches to a perceived problem.
foinavon (16:07:07) :
tallbloke (11:07:11) :
I’ll have you know I’m not just a sceptic, I’m a trained sceptic. I don’t need lectures from you, I got plenty of them when I did my degree in the History and Philosophy of science.
Please try to rein in your superior attitude. It’s making the site harder to read.
That’s excellent tallbloke!
However in the real world a “skeptic” would not embrace analyses that are knowingly fallacious.
Flowery words like “embrace” are no use here foinavon. I was quite precise about why I thought Bill’s estimate of co2 sensitivity at 1.62C is nearer the mark than GISS model E’s 3C. It’s the qualified engineer in me preferring empirical data to models which have proved themselves wrong time and again. I am encouraged to see that you think the modern warm period was a ‘transient response’ though. Maybe we are getting through to you after all.
With your emphasis on point scoring you come across like you are playing to an audience rather than engaging with the science in a collaborative way here. We can see through it, and it will only get you ignored once everyone has had their fill of replying to your sneering at the attempts of others to actually do the science, rather than regurgitating paper abstracts in support of fallacious arguments about cause and effect.
Wind your neck in a bit and treat others with more respect. I’ve put my cards on the table and told you what my qualifications are. Now you tell me yours so we can understand a bit better where each other is coming from.
tallbloke says:
The 2-4.5 C likely range for ECS is based on empirical data. The relevant section to read in the IPCC AR4 WG-I report [ http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg1.htm ] is Section 9.6.
I don’t think he is using “transient response” in the sense that you seem to think he is. What the term “transient response” means in this context is that the change in radiative forcing is occurring fast enough that the earth is not able to stay in equilibrium with the current forcing. Hence, even if we stabilized greenhouse concentrations in the atmosphere tomorrow, the temperature would continue to rise. Hence, the transient climate response is expected to be lower than the equilibrium climate sensitivity
The 2-4.5 C likely range for ECS is based on empirical data
And yet the models get reality wrong time after time. Because the fudge factors introduced to massage the empirical data are up the spout perhaps.
I don’t think he is using “transient response” in the sense that you seem to think he is.
I shouldn’t have risked the irony.
Hence, even if we stabilized greenhouse concentrations in the atmosphere tomorrow, the temperature would continue to rise.
It may have escaped your attention, but the temperature stopped rising some six years ago and has been falling for the last four. The past trend, which was well within the bounds of historical natural variation anyway, does not guarantee a future resumption of warming, because atmospheric co2 levels have remarkably little to do with global temperature variation. Unless you think you can show otherwise?
If the enhanced greenhouse effect you believe in is so easily overcome by natural climatic variation as we have seen in the last four years, what are the major parameters the modelers have missed or underestimated? How much longer does the temperature have to keep falling before you stop believing co2 ‘forcing’ (lol) is outstripping the climate’s ability to keep up, and have a rethink about the relative importance given to modelers parameters?
tallbloke says:
What do they get wrong? And, what fudge factors are you talking about? Most of the empirical data that I am talking about constraining climate sensitivity is paleoclimate data or the Mt Pinatubo eruption. The 20th century temperature record can also be used but it is probably the least constraining piece of data mainly because we don’t know the aerosol forcing well enough.
Okay, my bad.
They haven’t necessarily missed anything. It is well known that the rate of rise of ~0.015-0.02 C per year that is expected at the moment from the rise in GHGs is small compared to the sort of year-to-year climate variability that can occur due to natural climate variation like ENSO. This is much like the fact that the seasonal cycle, though very important to our climate in locations such as here in Rochester NY, is still not a very good predictor of what the temperature trend will be over, say, a few days or even a week or two period of time.
And, the models run with a constantly increasing greenhouse gas forcing show the same sort of variability in trends over the time periods that you are talking about as we see.
I’m not talking about seasonal or interannual variability. I’m talking about six (6) years of level and lowering global temperature. That’s S for sierra, I for indigo, X for X-ray. SIX YEARS.
Is such a 6-year trend surprising? I don’t think so: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/what-the-ipcc-models-really-say/langswitch_lang/in
tallbloke, you are exactly right. In the unhinged minds of AGW/CO2 believers, six years of global cooling indicates global warming.
By the same token, of course, six years of global warming could indicate global cooling.
To paraphrase George Orwell, down is up, black is white, evil is good, and years of global cooling = global warming. Amazingly, some folks really believe that nonsense.
And did someone actually suggest going to RC for advice?? Heh… click
“It is well known that the rate of rise of ~0.015-0.02 C per year that is expected at the moment from the rise in GHGs is small compared to the sort of year-to-year climate variability that can occur due to natural climate variation like ENSO.”
I’m not talking about year to year variability, I’m talking about SIX YEARS, of static and lowering temperatures.
SIX YEARS, SIX YEARS, SIX YEARS, SIX YEARS, SIX YEARS, SIX YEARS, SIX YEARS, SIX YEARS, SIX YEARS, SIX YEARS, SIX YEARS, SIX YEARS, SIX YEARS, SIX YEARS, SIX YEARS,
SIX YEARS.
Hello?
SIX YEARS.
Brendan H (22:49:00) :
Well, that’s an innocuous enough position, which sounds perfectly reasonable on its face. The problem is with the phrase, “If the science points to a rapid warming of the atmosphere and resulting undesirable changes . . .” The whole thrust of this blog is that the science doesn’tpoint to any such thing. If there is no agreement on the central issue, then it is scarcely legitimate to claim that “The science points to. . .” it. Some scientists do, but some don’t.
What has happened is that the not-unreasonable-on-its-face hypothesis of CO2-forced global warming has been co-opted by ideologues and politicians as an excuse to push the agendas of the extreme ‘environmental’ and collectivist movements, accumulating along the way a confluence of political, academic, and bureaucratic elites who see the ‘climate crisis’ as a perfect opportunity to expand their power and influence. In the process the science has gotten kicked to the curb.
Where is the reasoned debate among scientists in the peer-reviewed journals? Where are the conferences presenting both—or rather, all—sides of the complex question of what forces drive Earth’s climate? What will happen next month when ‘skeptics’ hold the second annual Non-Governmental Panel on Climate (or whatever it’s called) in NYC? Will it be ignored or disparaged by the politicians, the media, and even by the scientists who have succumbed to the ideological fervor (and vast sums of grant money) attendant upon the ‘climate change’ bandwagon?
One can never expect scientists to be entirely dispassionate about the a controversial issue, but one should expect a constant reevaluation of one’s own position, and a readiness to consider alternative hypotheses and new data that might contravene one’s previous assumptions. And do not scientists have an obligation to back away from popular movements and political agendas—and even a flood of politically-tainted grant money—that can only distort objective inquiry?
Do James Hansen and Al Gore represent ‘the science’?
/Mr Lynn
Mr Lynn: “If there is no agreement on the central issue, then it is scarcely legitimate to claim that “The science points to. . .” it.”
You’re not going to get 100 percent agreement on the science. There will always be people who do not accept the predominant scientific view.
“…CO2-forced global warming has been co-opted by ideologues and politicians…”
There will always be people with agendas. You don’t stop doing science because you’re worried about the results falling into the wrong hands. That said, I doubt that many politicians welcome AGW since it requires them to take action that may be unpopular with the electorate.
I think that over the next few years politicians will have a hard row to hoe, both nationally and internationally, in creating policies to deal with climate change. There is no obvious electoral upside to the sorts of actions they may have to take.
“…a readiness to consider alternative hypotheses and new data that might contravene one’s previous assumptions.”
Or at least have a system that enables others to consider different explanations. One hopes that the existing system allows that. However, science cannot proceed in a vacuum. The work of scientists is framed by hypotheses and theories, and once a theory gains hold it can become difficult to shift.
If over the next 5-10 years the climate acts contrary to AGW, I would expect that climate scientists would begin to have second thoughts about the theory. But to date they appear to be convinced that AGW is happening, and some are saying it is happening faster than previously predicted.
Seems I can comment here but not on the CO2 is good for plants thread. Why is that? Is it closed? It doesn’t say so.
Trouble is, reading enough of the posts here to form an opinion, I can see this is where all those who claim carbon is good for us gather to bolster each other’s views, and denigrate those who say otherwise. Interesting reading, some of the posters clearly have science in their background, even if it’s the ‘wrong’ science to make them experts in anything to do with the climate, while others are the yah boo sucks mob who chortle chortle over imagined ‘valid points’ they ‘score’ with, all terribly juvenile, and I must say very American, [snip]
Any ideas [anyone] how many [snip] websites are funded by big oil [who have all their obscene profits to lose if low carbon catches on]? Is this one? Any idea how many so-called statistics are actually invented by the oil industry along with charts and graphs which are utterly meaningless to anyone without the specialist knowledge, but dead impressive to the ignorant with their shiny coloured bars which we are told ‘prove’ whatever factoids are being pushed?
But the question I’d like to ask is how many of you live in cities? And how many actually have experience of the environment, you know, the countryside where plants grow and other species live. I do, and I’ve noticed over forty years [anyone under thirty has no idea what the climate was like before warming really started] that winters have grown warmer and with far less snow [I’m in the UK] than previously [sometimes barely any]. In fact this year’s ‘unprecedented snow storms’ are very small compared to what I remember in the seventies and eighties – every year. Summers are much wetter with so-called records being broken constantly such as most rain in 24 hours etc. The phrase ‘a month’s rain in 24 hours’ has become commonplace. The month in question harks back to previous years when it literally took a month for us to get that much rain, now it comes in one big wallop just like monsoon countries. Think about it.
There are plenty of extreme events occurring round the planet with Australian and Californian forests burning, while other countries are under several metres of flood water. Think about it.
The science of greenhouse warming is well proved and accepted. CO2 is only one greenhouse gas, they all reflect long wave radiation back at Earth while allowing short wave radiation [sunlight] through. Does anyone here seriously challenge that? Much is made by some of the fact that Earth has been hotter and had more CO2 in the atmosphere; yes, that was before complex animals evolved, it took millions of years of tree growth to sequester CO2 away in the Earth’s crust before animals started on the long road to evolving an upright ape without body hair who had a bigger than needed brain and a psychopathic bent, the rest, as they say, is history. Do you really think we could have existed then with little oxygen and a lot of carbon dioxide? Do you think we could continue to survive if it reverted to anything like it? Well, most of the fossil fuel has been dug out and burned and most of the still living forests are gone – the Amazon is decreasing by vast areas every year [an area the size of France has already gone], has already suffered one catastrophic drying when drought came to a rainforest which started to burn, Indonesia regularly experiences massive forest fires which shroud the whole area in smoke for months [anyone remember that?].
Given that all websites are archived and are being stored for future people to mine for information, when the effects really start to kick in and people start to really suffer the effects of not doing anything for far too long, they will know who to blame. Those arguing we can’t give up our advanced standards of living, try telling that to people up to their necks in floods.
Reply:We don’t allow that word here ~ charles the moderator
Mr Lynn (17:11:46) :