One of the very first global warming films: 'The Greenhouse Conspiracy'

In case anyone wonders, I don’t think the presenter/director of this documentary has any connection with Lord Nigel Lawson.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilary_Lawson

43:56 Body language reveals the decision to be less than forthcoming Prof Wigley.
Great flick btw …. thanks for sharing.
It’s a fine summary of the four pillars and how they crumble under fairly simple review.

The song remains the same…to quote a well known rock group.
Some things change and some things remain the same…. I know cagw proponents
will say these ‘skeptic’ arguments have been debunked, But actually have they?…..From my reading they are still unknown issues and can still be argued now….. 25 years (and a lot of funding) later.
This is a pretty interesting documentary….and if it was run now would still be pretty accurate and timely.
The funding question to Wigley at CRU and the global cooling question to Schnieder and their answers are really pretty revealing I think.

Sorry!
https://youtu.be/Z9j54rWnmeo?t=2557

A paragliding pilot’s simple explanation of increasing CO2 as a negative feedback on global warming
In The Greenhouse Conspiracy I observed that a negative feedback theory is well known to meteorologists and other scientists including Dr. Hugh Ellsaesser, an American Meteorologist associated with the Lawrence Livermore Laboratories for 23 years, and the Air Weather Officer for the U.S. Air Force for 20 years, who was referenced in the video with a publication on this concept. The following is a simple explanation for the layman from a paragliding pilot’s perspective.
The study of local weather effects as a paragliding pilot has led me to the conclusion that with a substantial lag of, perhaps several decades, an increase of CO2 in the atmosphere may have a net cooling effect globally through a series of local weather related mechanisms.
As a cross-country paraglider pilot I’m always looking for lift in the form of atmospheric thermals to keep me airborne. And lift is all about local weather. The sun heats some types of terrain faster than others, the heated air rises and the Paraglider goes up in these thermals. We can actually fly many miles cross-country this way without landing and without motorized power.
Consider what happens to local weather with increasing CO2 in the atmosphere. We’re already seeing it. Vegetation explodes everywhere even into former desert areas. As plant life flourishes the local terrain is modified. (1) Plant debris accumulates becoming peat and topsoil. (2) This plant debris, peat and topsoil absorb rainwater, which would otherwise have been lost through drainage. (3) Water that is transpired during photosynthesis, possibly together with some of the water that has previously been absorbed by the peat and topsoil during dryer periods, evaporates into the atmosphere. (4) This vaporization of liquid water requires 586 calories of heat energy per gram of liquid water and makes undergrowth below the forest canopy even cooler during the heat of the day than the canopy shading alone.
So far there’s nothing new here. Nor is what happens next, although the specifics are less well understood by the layman. Water vapor added to air decreases the density of the air into which it is mixed—as molecules of H2O are lighter than O2 and N2, but the loss of 586 cal/gram to vaporization simultaneously decreases the temperature of this mixed vapor/air. The net result is that this moister forest air after further heating will rise in thermals later in the day. But it’s very important to note exactly how and where these thermals rise.
In more barren local landscapes, on the outskirts of a forest for example, the air near to more exposed ground is warmed faster and to a higher temperature by the sun than the nearby forest, thus reducing the air density in barren terrain through rapid heating. This exposed, hotter, less-dense air is easily triggered to rise as thermals, and is immediately replaced by humid air drawn out of the nearby forest, which is in turn heated and rises too creating a circulation that takes forest moisture to higher elevations to form clouds. (Note that the return circulation typically drops the same air, now dryer and cooler, directly onto the forest.)
Paragliding pilots have long known to avoid the areas directly above forested regions when looking for lift. But the tree line at the edge of a field is a good trigger point for thermals. Paragliding pilots will seek to find these thermals to take advantage of the lift they provide.
Once rising air has cooled—through expansion at higher elevations—to the local dew point, clouds are formed as the moisture in the air condenses. Much of this moisture will be the moisture that was transpired by the forest plant life and from water that was stored in accumulated plant debris, peat and topsoil in the nearby forests. In fact paragliding pilots use these clouds to find the lift that’s feeding them.
But as these clouds develop they block sunlight from reaching the ground. When more moisture is available from the forests to form clouds, more clouds are formed to block the sunlight from reaching the ground. The areas shaded by newly formed clouds will cool very quickly, cutting off thermal production in the shaded regions. The clouds have absorbed or reflected the sunlight back into space.
So what does this mean for Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming?
We already know that the Earth is greening as a result of increasing CO2. And this growth in plant life is global including encroachment into formerly more arid regions. (I’ll note here that an increased level of CO2 in the atmosphere makes photosynthetic plants more tolerant of dryer air. This is because the stomata, or holes, on the underside of leaves through which CO2 is absorbed and water is lost do not need to open as wide—or to stay open as long—to take in the CO2 needed for the photosynthetic process. As a direct result less water is lost through the stomata making these plants more drought tolerant.)
So this global increase in plant life, resulting from an increase in CO2 in the atmosphere, may add up to a truly global effect in the following manner. Increased plant life slowly modifies the local terrain by adding carbon debris, which accumulates as peat and topsoil. This results in storage of more water, which when evaporated increases the moisture content in the atmosphere, and ultimately, increases the quantity of clouds in the troposphere. This may add up to a significant effect globally by reducing the reflectivity, or albedo, of the planet.

One interesting visual tidbit: interviews are often conducted at outdoor sites with large-scale views in the background, or in cars in cities, and more often than not, heavy, thick air pollution (ground level ozone) is clearly visible. This lines up well with my memories of that era and stands in stark contrast with the cleaner skies of today.

Great discussion. It seems like a Perfect Storm: govt is not going to kill a great tax; since Chernobyl and Fukushima, nuclear power got black crosses but now comes the green tick; the CAGW meme is research grant heaven; and as Michael Crichton’s book State of Fear so well hypothesizes, fear (via climate) continues to be the management tool of choice.