Climate Change, real or codswallop?

Christophe3967

lost_in_thought wrote:

A site called 'realclimate.org' is bound to give a balanced, unbiased view...

+1

This is a blog run by Dr. Gavin Schmidt of NASA GISS who might have a vested interest in the ongoing funding of his unit perhaps? Funding for the website comes from Fenton Communications. "Fenton is the nation's leading strategic communications firm on the environment. For more than 27 years, we have helped pioneer and shape the debate on green issues, from the dangers of pesticides to global warming."

An unbiased website? Reliable source of balanced information? Hmmm.

The site is primarily an index "for debunking of various popular media occurrences of climate-related nonsense. Articles are sorted by where they appear (outlet and country), or alphabetically by author. Under each article you will find links to rebuttals of specific arguments and overall critiques of the pieces. This is by no means comprehensive, but should provide a starting point for those interested in seeing why these pieces are wrong."

Helpfully, Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick are missing, presumably because RC haven't yet worked out a rebuttal strategy for these scientists, and prefer not to focus on the altered data, and statistical failures.

Climate science process appears to have been abused by a few people with influence, of whom Schmidt may be one, and RC appears to be a mouthpiece - showcasing the consensus of that deception.

always_tyred

Christophe3967 wrote:

lost_in_thought wrote:

A site called 'realclimate.org' is bound to give a balanced, unbiased view...

Its better than cyclehelmets.org, though.

Mine are green today.

jimmypippa

This is getting more like the badscience forum ( www.badscience.net ) where favourite topics are global warming, economics, and cycle helmets...

Porgy

Always Tyred wrote:

Its become impossible to dissent without being rounded on. That's not healthy.

To be fair - this seems to be the case for supporters too - few times that I've voiced my views on climate change i've recieved some pretty nasty abuse from dissenters.

Hopefully that won't happen on this thread.

Christophe3967

What? Don't they have a "shimano is rubbish" thread?

Christophe3967

Porgy wrote:

Always Tyred wrote:

Its become impossible to dissent without being rounded on. That's not healthy.

To be fair - this seems to be the case for supporters too - few times that I've voiced my views on climate change i've recieved some pretty nasty abuse from dissenters.

Hopefully that won't happen on this thread.

I've read the cake stop thread and thought that the comments / rebuttals put forward by the AGW cardinals were slightly more vitriolic than those from the militant heretics. I'm sure this thread will retain its usual decorum.

Porgy

Always Tyred wrote:

as for getting weather forecasts mixed up with climate predictions...I would have expected better from you, really!

Why? They are both efforts at predicting highly entropic phenomena forward in time.

One is predicting changes over a very short timescale and the other is about broader predictions over a longer period.

Unfortunately I didn;t pay much attention when I did chaos theory and thermo dynamics at Poly - but I remember that general statements about the way a liquid or gas behaves arrived at empirically, expressed in statistical terms, allows engineers to design functioning thermo dynamic systems, however ask them to predict specific movements of a liquid in a system - can't be done. Same principle applies to climate models but with more complexity.

Porgy

Christophe3967 wrote:

Porgy wrote:

Always Tyred wrote:

Its become impossible to dissent without being rounded on. That's not healthy.

To be fair - this seems to be the case for supporters too - few times that I've voiced my views on climate change i've recieved some pretty nasty abuse from dissenters.

Hopefully that won't happen on this thread.

I've read the cake stop thread and thought that the comments / rebuttals put forward by the AGW cardinals were slightly more vitriolic than those from the militant heretics. I'm sure this thread will retain its usual decorum.

Unfortunately you are not able to see the ones I asked to be deleted.

greg66_tri_v2.0

Porgy wrote:

Christophe3967 wrote:

Porgy wrote:

Always Tyred wrote:

Its become impossible to dissent without being rounded on. That's not healthy.

To be fair - this seems to be the case for supporters too - few times that I've voiced my views on climate change i've recieved some pretty nasty abuse from dissenters.

Hopefully that won't happen on this thread.

I've read the cake stop thread and thought that the comments / rebuttals put forward by the AGW cardinals were slightly more vitriolic than those from the militant heretics. I'm sure this thread will retain its usual decorum.

Unfortunately you are not able to see the ones I asked to be deleted.

Censorship is such an ugly word.

Porgy

Greg66 wrote:

Censorship is such an ugly word.

The posts deleted contained nothing about climate change; just abuse aimed at me.

I asked for them to be removed for the sake of the thread. The moderator agreed - so don't level cnsorship charges at me, thankyou.

greg66_tri_v2.0

Porgy wrote:

Greg66 wrote:

Censorship is such an ugly word.

The posts deleted contained nothing about climate change; just abuse aimed at me.

I asked for them to be removed for the sake of the thread. The moderator agreed - so don't level cnsorship charges at me, thankyou.

Censorship always has a reason. Always.

Porgy

Greg66 wrote:

Porgy wrote:

Greg66 wrote:

Censorship is such an ugly word.

The posts deleted contained nothing about climate change; just abuse aimed at me.

I asked for them to be removed for the sake of the thread. The moderator agreed - so don't level cnsorship charges at me, thankyou.

Censorship always has a reason. Always.

oh dear - it's started....I think I'm going to stear clear of this thread.

Go ahead - it's all yours.

greg66_tri_v2.0

Porgy wrote:

Greg66 wrote:

Porgy wrote:

Greg66 wrote:

Censorship is such an ugly word.

The posts deleted contained nothing about climate change; just abuse aimed at me.

I asked for them to be removed for the sake of the thread. The moderator agreed - so don't level cnsorship charges at me, thankyou.

Censorship always has a reason. Always.

oh dear - it's started....I think I'm going to stear clear of this thread.

Go ahead - it's all yours.

Blimey.

No one can say you lot don't take your yourselves a bit too seriously

Christophe3967

Cardinals 0 Heretics 1

Now, back to the studio.

always_tyred

Porgy wrote:

Always Tyred wrote:

Its become impossible to dissent without being rounded on. That's not healthy.

To be fair - this seems to be the case for supporters too - few times that I've voiced my views on climate change i've recieved some pretty nasty abuse from dissenters.

Hopefully that won't happen on this thread.

True. There are fewer of them, but they have more venom. And are mostly Republican.

il_principe

jimmypippa wrote:

I have been pretty active in the other thread over on cake stop, so I'll try to not post all my evidence here as well.

I find the evidence that the world is warming to be pretty convincing. Not just the thermometer readings but the archaeological results implying that glacial coverage in Europe is sparser than at any time for 5,000 years

So what? All this talk of '5000 years' and 'since the 70's' is utterly irrelevant, we're dealing in gelogical timescales. The Earth has always warmed and cooled naturally. Is it our fault it's warming now? I'm yet to be convinced. Will preventing the not so well off from flying to Magaluf every summer make any difference? No. Will the ingenuity of man find some solutions to problems caused by climate change? Absolutely. Meanwhile I shall keep trapping all the carbon I can afford, in bike form.

cjcp

I'm not very up on the CC/GW arguments, I'm afraid :oops: , but could someone explain to me:

1. whether the increase in the world's population is a bigger problem, or a big part of it? If you put more and more people in a pub during an evening (more festive than saying "a room" ), the temperature inside the room goes up, doesn't it? If so, why doesn't the same apply to the world because there's more people breathing out CO2? Or is the activites which the increased number of people are engaging in e.g. factories etc?

2. as Wallace says, we're perfectly capable of destroying ourselves. Noam Chomsky pointed out that each of the dominant species on this planet has had a particular life span. While there are no set time-frames, he thought that we were pretty much at the end of ours and that this had to do with the foreign policy of certain govts (ok, the US), than GW/CC. If this is right, aren't there bigger issues than CC/GW to deal with and whether we drive around in SUVs, and that CC/GW is just a sideshow for governments' failings to deal with bigger problems e.g. nuclear bombs? *

3. finally, a bit OT, but why do we need summits? Am I right in thinking that resource consumption can probably be reduced significantly by national legislation; it doesn't need everyone and his dog to gather for a summit and look as if they're doing something (see the "sideshow" point above).

*This is not to detract from the argument that we can all resources more economically.

UndercoverElephant

DDD- Am I the first to congratulate you on your use of the word, "Codswallop". Top hole!

Slightly dubious as I am about CO2 being the be-all and (particularly the) end-all with global warming, I do believe it's a useful, albiet blunt instrument to get people to use less fossil fuels. "We'll run out someday", just doesn't work worldwide.

Also, given the enormous inventive talent of the UK, I think the main problem with climate change is that we named it, "Global Warming". Round these parts, we heard that and though, "Excellent, we could do with some of that". If they'd mentioned at the start it would rain even more during summer, I reckon we'd have had it fixed by now.

Wallace1492

Nice one cjcp. Not only do I think we are perfectly capable of destroying ourselves, I do think we will, and within a couple of hundred years, might be longer.....

However, that said, I do think we have been the most adaptable species ever to have existed, and have the capability of some surviving the destruction and evolving into the next dominant species.

However, that would have to be without the tribal/nationalistic boundaries that we have at the moment. These splits that we currently have are what has held us back for hundreds of years, been responsible for death and destruction on an industrial scale, and helps use up the natural resources at an alarming scale.

it is the nationalistic/tribal splits and lack of global coherence that will be the end of us.

UndercoverElephant

Il Principe wrote:

Meanwhile I shall keep trapping all the carbon I can afford, in bike form.

You're one of the true, unsung heroes of the environmental movement.

cjcp

UndercoverElephant wrote:

Il Principe wrote:

Meanwhile I shall keep trapping all the carbon I can afford, in bike form.

You're one of the true, unsung heroes of the environmental movement.

He's also one of the unsung heroes of the sustaining of international trade.

cjcp

UndercoverElephant wrote:

Slightly dubious as I am about CO2 being the be-all and (particularly the) end-all with global warming, I do believe it's a useful, albiet blunt instrument to get people to use less fossil fuels. "We'll run out someday", just doesn't work worldwide.

Actually, following on my point 1 above, and UE's point, I don't see how putting plants in the pub keeps the temp down if more and more people enter the room. I know that sounds flippant, but I was no scientist at school and een less of one now, so if someone could explain the CO2 point, or how I've misunderstood it, that would also be good.

hamstrich

Il Principe wrote:

I'm yet to be convinced.

But what will convince people? While I find current body of evidence is strongly persuasive, I would not be completely surprised if the general scientific opinion were to shift in the opposite direction in several decades' time. So while I certainly believe that anthropogenic global warming is real, I couln't claim to be convinced in the same way that I am about gravity, or evolution by natural selection.

I think it would be massively naive to sit and wait until the evidence becomes completely compelling (in whichever direction), since by the time we get to that stage, if we are to blame for climate change then it will probably be too late to do anything about it.

Consider two hypothetical situations: one where AGW isn't real/significant and we do all we can to reduce emissions anyway, and another where AGW is real and significant and we do nothing to stop it. We lose in both these situations, but in which do we lose more?

Rich158

Co2 is just one of many greenhouse gasses. The effect is like feathers in a duvet, they trap and hold heat in the atmosphere, which in turn leads to a rise in the temperature of the global atmosphere. Too great a rise in the global atmosphere puts the system out of balance and leads to the phenomena we term as climate change. CO2 whilst being a relatively mild greenhouse gas is the most prevalent, and is set to rise at a faster and faster rate over the next 100 years or so.

cjcp

Is global warming/cooling cyclical in some way? Why is the global warming now different to that which presumably occurred after the last Ice Age?

Rich158

cjcp wrote:

UndercoverElephant wrote:

Il Principe wrote:

Meanwhile I shall keep trapping all the carbon I can afford, in bike form.

You're one of the true, unsung heroes of the environmental movement.

He's also one of the unsung heroes of the sustaining of international trade.

He's certainly cemented Anglo-Italian trade relationships. They're now planning an IP day in Treviso in thanks of his contributions to the local economy

Rich158

cjcp wrote:

Is global warming/cooling cyclical in some way? Why is the global warming now different to that which presumably occurred after the last Ice Age?

Absolutely, it always has been and that fact is at the centre of the heretics arguments. What is known is that there is a direct correlation between the rise in CO2 since the start of the industrial revolution. The global temperature usually fluctuates by something like 1 degree Celsius if records are to be believed. This is projected to rise by something like 2-4 degrees over the next 100 years if the projections are correct. In the same period CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are set to double. Is there a correlation between the two? Most scientists seem to think there is, and in a delicate system like the global atmosphere a 4 degree rise could be disasterous.

jimmypippa

cjcp wrote:

I'm not very up on the CC/GW arguments, I'm afraid :oops: , but could someone explain to me:

1. whether the increase in the world's population is a bigger problem, or a big part of it? If you put more and more people in a pub during an evening (more festive than saying "a room" ), the temperature inside the room goes up, doesn't it? If so, why doesn't the same apply to the world because there's more people breathing out CO2? Or is the activites which the increased number of people are engaging in e.g. factories etc?

Both,

The energy crunch worries me a lot because farming relies on fertilisers, and machinery, together with refrigeration, and they depend on fossil fuels.

There is also a pareto effect in that the vast majority of resources are consumed by a small fraction of the population.

2. as Wallace says, we're perfectly capable of destroying ourselves. Noam Chomsky pointed out that each of the dominant species on this planet has had a particular life span. While there are no set time-frames, he thought that we were pretty much at the end of ours and that this had to do with the foreign policy of certain govts (ok, the US), than GW/CC. If this is right, aren't there bigger issues than CC/GW to deal with and whether we drive around in SUVs, and that CC/GW is just a sideshow for governments' failings to deal with bigger problems e.g. nuclear bombs? *

Climate change will make unrest worse.

3. finally, a bit OT, but why do we need summits? Am I right in thinking that resource consumption can probably be reduced significantly by national legislation; it doesn't need everyone and his dog to gather for a summit and look as if they're doing something (see the "sideshow" point above).

*This is not to detract from the argument that we can all resources more economically.

Because politicians like to be seen to be doing something?

Wallace1492

There is also huge changes when a volcano pops off and changes the climate for decades.

However, what I think cannot be denied, is that human pollution of the environment is real, and our ceasless pumping out of greenhouses gases, deforestation, and farming on an industrialsed global scale has perchance affected the balance of the planet.

This will only get worse as we use more and more of the resources.

The enormous waste that we have spent through countless generations on defence, or should we really call it Offence, has made our species the most destructive ever to have had the fortune to slither, crawl, hop or walk upon the face of this planet.

Let's face it, we do not dererve to survive. We have destroyed each other and the face of the planet in a way that is so unimaginable, it beggars belief.

always_tyred

How can people not understand why global action (by way of international high level squabbles) is necessary, rather than simply the sum of independent, incoherent and inconsistent national-level action?

Let me ask you this - imagine hypothetically that the US, India, China, Canada, Australia and Indonesia all spew out massess of CO2 and are getting wealthier.

The UK prime minister, or even the Eurocrats, raise taxes, cause industry to relocate (what there is of it) and spends vast quantities of money reducing the UK's CO2 emissions. It does no good because of the above, and makes us all poor.

Would you say (a) well done chap, you did the right thing and even though East Anglia no longer exists, we are all on the moral high ground or (b) what on earth were you thinking, there was no point in doing this without international consensus, we are all poor and doomed.