I've long thought that the current fad for reducing "carbon footprints" and taxing everything that isn't "green" was abit of a scam. Having watched the C4 programme last night "The Great Global Warming Swindle", my cynicism has been confirmed.
The planet's temperature has often changed over the last billion years without our intervention (we weren't here for most of it) and CO2 content of the atmosphere has little or no effect on temperature. Even if it did, the oceans produce far more than we do and there isn't anything we can do to change that!
Average temperatures were far warmer than now for about 400 years during the Middle Ages. So unless Henry VIII (et al) was operating coal-fired power stations and knocking out petrol-driven carts for all the peasants then we didn't have anything to do with that particular temperature change.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for reducing the use of resources that will run out at the current rate we use them. But that is an entirely different argument than this scaremongering bandwagon which seems to have been adopted as the latest political "must-have-policy" (and a way to "morally" tax us more).
Global "warming"
I think the who thing is a combination - yes the planets weather has been changing without any imput from humans however I also beleve we have had an effect - if only to spead up a natural change in the planets system.
I think its worth trying to save energy. Even if its only to stop having to pay bloody British Gas for my electricity until they alow me to leave - Bast*rds!
(thats another story)
We were looking at getting one of those win turbines as I think they are a great idea - I live in the city but on the edge of a park.
I think its worth trying to save energy. Even if its only to stop having to pay bloody British Gas for my electricity until they alow me to leave - Bast*rds!
(thats another story)
We were looking at getting one of those win turbines as I think they are a great idea - I live in the city but on the edge of a park.
Yep, that's something I've felt for ages, that there is a natural process at work (but we're not helping matters - and for that and other reasons, there's no harm in looking for alternate fuels, conservation, etc).
It's only in the past few years that we've really begun to study the long term cycles of climate and weather on our planet, much less understand them. To just come out and say "Oh, it's all down to us" is wrong - and smacks of behind the scenes manipulation. And it's frankly as arrogant as assuming everything should remain 'just-so'.
The Earth is not a static model as it were - it doesn't even orbit the sun or spin on its axis perfectly, both of which are things that can affect climate, as they change our distance to the sun. Major volcanic eruptions can play havoc with global climate. One day we'll get a big asteroid or comet slamming into the planet again. How do those things fit in with those nice little global warming projections?
What happened to that projection in the 1970s that said we should be plunging into an ice age any time now? Whilst I have a great love for science and what it can reveal about the universe, it doesn't explain everything and it can be wrong.
As the saying goes, "Don't act as if the world owes you something. It was here first". And it will be here long after we've all gone to Hell, whether that's down to global warming, nuclear holocaust, the apocalypse or bird flu.
It's only in the past few years that we've really begun to study the long term cycles of climate and weather on our planet, much less understand them. To just come out and say "Oh, it's all down to us" is wrong - and smacks of behind the scenes manipulation. And it's frankly as arrogant as assuming everything should remain 'just-so'.
The Earth is not a static model as it were - it doesn't even orbit the sun or spin on its axis perfectly, both of which are things that can affect climate, as they change our distance to the sun. Major volcanic eruptions can play havoc with global climate. One day we'll get a big asteroid or comet slamming into the planet again. How do those things fit in with those nice little global warming projections?
What happened to that projection in the 1970s that said we should be plunging into an ice age any time now? Whilst I have a great love for science and what it can reveal about the universe, it doesn't explain everything and it can be wrong.
As the saying goes, "Don't act as if the world owes you something. It was here first". And it will be here long after we've all gone to Hell, whether that's down to global warming, nuclear holocaust, the apocalypse or bird flu.
The thing to be looking at is not average temperatures, which have fluctuated over the millenia, but rate of change, which is now massively more than it has ever been before.
The science may not be completely in agreement, although 99% of scientists now agree there is a problem. The real issue is whether it's worth risking the entire future of the planet. You have to be very very sure that Global Warming is nonsense before you take that kind of risk
The science may not be completely in agreement, although 99% of scientists now agree there is a problem. The real issue is whether it's worth risking the entire future of the planet. You have to be very very sure that Global Warming is nonsense before you take that kind of risk
Well all, I can tell you've been waiting for my thoughts. I watched part of it, and the only thing that was remotely close to the truth was that to gain funding you have to tell research councils what they want to hear. That's just life. The rest of it had cherry-picked data and then made sweeping statements (The sun, not co2, controls climate change) which simply *cannot* be backed up credibly and talked about things that haven't been figured out one way or the other - such as cosmic rays creating water. Firstly, that just doesn't happen, although cosmic rays can to some degree help cloud droplets to condense, but at any rate just how much impact they have on cloud formation is nowhere near clear. The sun's influence has also been disregarded. The over-elaborate graphs from the show last night don't have any context, and show fluctuations which look suspiciously small over several centuries.
By analogy, I could argue with someone who's never looked out of a window and tell them that the sky is ALWAYS red based upon photographs that were only taken at sunset, with photoshop filtering out the blue and green because it's "irrelevant".
There's a hell of a lot I can say about this stuff, but I'm going to concentrate on the things said in this thread...
Stu: Billions of years ago, the atmosphere wouldn't have been breathable. Of course it's changed. See later in this post for more on natural variation. 400 years of data might well show part of a larger variation, not be global or have a massive margin of error, I'm not sure off the top of my head. Then again, if you're feeling skeptical about something and then watch a show with the specific intention of rubbishing it, you're probably going to feel vindicated.
Grindon:
Climate is actually defined over a much shorter time span - 50 to 100 years. the reason CO2 is considered is twofold. Firstly it sticks around in the atmosphere for 10 times longer than methane, allowing it to accumulate. Secondly, water is also more potent than either of those two gases, but in pushing up CO2, hence temperature, more water would evaporate into the atmopshere. So trying to reduce CO2 is probably indirectly a more effective approach. It's certainly more practical than banning farts. You're right about the shouty people every ten years though. By a large, activists undermine good science with their own idiocy and emotion.
Katnap:
No-one *ever* said it was all from humans - at least not in the scientific community. In fact, the entire basis for climate change's study was because of events like Mount Krakatoa going off and causing a cooling in the northern hemisphere for several years afterwards. You also mention Milankovitch cycles, which occur around every 40,000 years. As Marcus alludes to, their effect on temperature is well-understood and catalogued based on ice-core samples (I think, I might be wrong on the data source). I can't fathom why you mention asteriods though. Broadly speaking it's a statistically predictable event (on geological timescales) but has nothing to do with greenhouse gases. It's like saying "why worry about this STD when the Bomb could be dropped on my patio tomorrow?". Compared to even the 40,000 year cycle these events are way too rare to be relevant.
Ok, that WAS a hell of a lot. I hope i've been reasonably coherent.
If I could find the graph of all past temperature variations, then plot where we are now on it, it'd be hugely off the scale.
Marcus and dave win the thread so far
By analogy, I could argue with someone who's never looked out of a window and tell them that the sky is ALWAYS red based upon photographs that were only taken at sunset, with photoshop filtering out the blue and green because it's "irrelevant".
There's a hell of a lot I can say about this stuff, but I'm going to concentrate on the things said in this thread...
Stu: Billions of years ago, the atmosphere wouldn't have been breathable. Of course it's changed. See later in this post for more on natural variation. 400 years of data might well show part of a larger variation, not be global or have a massive margin of error, I'm not sure off the top of my head. Then again, if you're feeling skeptical about something and then watch a show with the specific intention of rubbishing it, you're probably going to feel vindicated.
Grindon:
Climate is actually defined over a much shorter time span - 50 to 100 years. the reason CO2 is considered is twofold. Firstly it sticks around in the atmosphere for 10 times longer than methane, allowing it to accumulate. Secondly, water is also more potent than either of those two gases, but in pushing up CO2, hence temperature, more water would evaporate into the atmopshere. So trying to reduce CO2 is probably indirectly a more effective approach. It's certainly more practical than banning farts. You're right about the shouty people every ten years though. By a large, activists undermine good science with their own idiocy and emotion.
Katnap:
No-one *ever* said it was all from humans - at least not in the scientific community. In fact, the entire basis for climate change's study was because of events like Mount Krakatoa going off and causing a cooling in the northern hemisphere for several years afterwards. You also mention Milankovitch cycles, which occur around every 40,000 years. As Marcus alludes to, their effect on temperature is well-understood and catalogued based on ice-core samples (I think, I might be wrong on the data source). I can't fathom why you mention asteriods though. Broadly speaking it's a statistically predictable event (on geological timescales) but has nothing to do with greenhouse gases. It's like saying "why worry about this STD when the Bomb could be dropped on my patio tomorrow?". Compared to even the 40,000 year cycle these events are way too rare to be relevant.
Ok, that WAS a hell of a lot. I hope i've been reasonably coherent.
If I could find the graph of all past temperature variations, then plot where we are now on it, it'd be hugely off the scale.
Marcus and dave win the thread so far
Knight knight
I actually said a billion years ago - I believe there were living organisms on the planet then and up to the time until we appeared.Sput wrote:Stu: Billions of years ago, the atmosphere wouldn't have been breathable........
I had no motivation of self-satisfaction, I was just pleased to realise that other people seemed to feel the same way and many were from the scientific community. I watch many programmes of the same ilk. I believe I have more than a modest amount of information from what I've read to make an informed judgement.Sput wrote:Then again, if you're feeling skeptical about something and then watch a show with the specific intention of rubbishing it, you're probably going to feel vindicated.
I looked for them on the C4 website but couldn't find them. We are far from "hugely off the scale", we haven't even reached the temperature of the years 1450-1500 again yet; and this is all while we are living in what has been termed the "Ice Age". We're not even out of that yet, even with these dips and rises in temperature over the last 20,000 years.Sput wrote:If I could find the graph of all past temperature variations, then plot where we are now on it, it'd be hugely off the scale.
When the Ice Age actually finishes the temperature will rise, whether we are here or not.
Even 6.5 Billion people all in gas-guzzeling 4x4s driving 26,000 miles a year won't change that!
Apparently the drop in temperature between 1940-1970 has only just been reversed, so we are basically back at where we were in 1940 (when everyone was pumping coal fumes out of their chimneys, and continued to do so while world temperatures dropped for 30 years!). They have then risen again, at the same rate as they dropped, for the last 30 years creating a trend seemed as "alarming"Katnap wrote:What happened to that projection in the 1970s that said we should be plunging into an ice age any time now? Whilst I have a great love for science and what it can reveal about the universe, it doesn't explain everything and it can be wrong.
Stu: How do you mean "that" ilk? I didn't say you derived satisfaction, I just stated what's clearly the case - that you were skeptical, watched a show that was skeptical, and felt vindicated. Incidentally, did you buy the programme's claim that Carbon Dioxide is nothing to do with the temperature variations?
In the meantime, have the hockey stick graph to poo-poo your remark about us not getting anywhere near a few hundred years ago. I should also correct myself, because I was thinking of CO2 levels that are off the scale and not global temperatures.
I'm also Reasonably certain we're not in an ice age, as this graph (with far lower time resolution than the one above, so don't try it mister!) shows nicely...
In the meantime, have the hockey stick graph to poo-poo your remark about us not getting anywhere near a few hundred years ago. I should also correct myself, because I was thinking of CO2 levels that are off the scale and not global temperatures.
I'm also Reasonably certain we're not in an ice age, as this graph (with far lower time resolution than the one above, so don't try it mister!) shows nicely...
Knight knight
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Lorns
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You're on a roll tonight Sput. However as i have my head in the clouds more often than you i reckon i'm more qualified to put an end to this arguement. There are also other planets in our solar system that *emitting gasses ( Cheers Sput)* and chemicals too at extreme levels, which effects our atmospheric conditions too. There are greater forces at work out there. ( this is where my mind starts wandering off one ). I'm quite happy to do my bit for our enviroment in general to protect plants, wildlife blah de blah, to make the world a better place blah! blah! blah! because i want to. No disrespect to you sciency people, but for every scientist to prove a theory there is another not far behind to disprove it.
So i'm opting for the. No matter what we do we will always experience extreme weather conditions of one kind or another, it's the natural course of our solar system.
While my head is in the clouds.You ever seen the Northern Lights Sput? I will one day. It's on my list of things to do before i die.
So i'm opting for the. No matter what we do we will always experience extreme weather conditions of one kind or another, it's the natural course of our solar system.
While my head is in the clouds.You ever seen the Northern Lights Sput? I will one day. It's on my list of things to do before i die.
Mental anxiety, Mental breakdowns, Menstrual cramps, Menopause... Did you ever notice how all our problems begin with Men?
Well apart from Einstein, Newton, Pauli, Gauss, Henry, Tesla (crackpot that he was), Darwin, Beer (really!), Wu and Hu (if only they'd gotten married)...
And no I've not seen them myself, Lorns, nor the southern ones!
Oh and incidentally I have no idea what you're on about with planets emitting gases!
And no I've not seen them myself, Lorns, nor the southern ones!
Oh and incidentally I have no idea what you're on about with planets emitting gases!
Knight knight
It didn't claim that. The claim was that CO2 levels rise as a result of temperatures increasing, not that they cause temperatures to increase. You've missed the whole nub of the argument.Sput wrote: Incidentally, did you buy the programme's claim that Carbon Dioxide is nothing to do with the temperature variations?