Climate change

[CliveH]

Meant to add this about the "warming" - as well as some doubt about the US data - European data indicates a very diferent set of data -

 

"The planet's temperature curve rose sharply for almost 30 years, as global temperatures increased by an average of 0.7 degrees Celsius (1.25 degrees Fahrenheit) from the 1970s to the late 1990s. "At present, however, the warming is taking a break," confirms meteorologist Mojib Latif of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in the northern German city of Kiel. Latif, one of Germany's best-known climatologists, says that the temperature curve has reached a plateau. "There can be no argument about that," he says. "We have to face that fact."

 

Full data/article from the German magazine "De Spiegel"

 

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,662092,00.html

[Brian Kirby]

Whatever the cause, the climate has been getting progressively warmer for a considerable period of time, mainly over the two past centuries.  I think that is established?

There is a corresponding increase in atmospheric CO2 over (roughly) the same period.  There is a presumed linkage: whether of cause or effect is open to debate in some quarters.

The period in question relates fairly closely to the use of carbon fuels since the beginning of the industrial revolution.  I'm not arguing "Savile Row" fits, just approximations.  So, given the detailed arguments of those better equipped than I am, I'll buy the argument that these close relationships are rather more than mere coincidence.

There seems to be fairly widespread acceptance that even if CO2 may not be the problem, or maybe not the whole of the problem, part of the change is due to human activity.  So far, maybe, so good - but.  There's always a "but", isn't there?

What is of greater concern to me, is a lack, so far as I can see, of serious attempts at apportioning the natural, and the man made, elements of the warming.  I think this is a serious omission from the debate because if the natural warming is in any case likely to progress unabated, the feared danger point in terms of climate change, the point of no return, may well still be reached, but merely at a later date.

So, are we being invited to put our resources into delaying the inevitable, or should we instead accept that the critical change is, sooner or later, inevitable, and invest in strategies to reduce its impact on humanity as a whole?  I have to say that, looking at the outcome of Copenhagen, and even allowing that the organisation seems to have been poor, I wonder whether it would be possible to negotiate international agreements that would assist in either case.

Maybe we should instead just withdraw from the whole issue, and plough our own furrow.  That will be, I think, much harder than is required to reduce our CO2 output by the desired amount, because it will mean reducing our level of economic activity to what the UK alone can truly sustain, and our population as necessary to make that level of activity possible. 

To be clear, what we shall have to do is become completely self-sufficient, for the foreseeable future, in all the food, energy, and raw materials we shall need to sustain whatever size of population, at whatever degree of economic activity, we consider feasible.  We shall be unable to rely upon imports of energy, raw materials, or food, because the effects of the changing climate will make these unreliable.  For the same reason, we shall be unable to rely upon exports to enhance our economic activities: an unstable world will not provide reliable markets.  I do not mean we can neither export nor import in total, just that anything that goes out must be balanced by other stuff coming in.

If we succeed, which, given the amount of prevarication over climate change measures I doubt, we shall become a natural magnet for the millions displaced by desertification, floods, and rising sea levels, so may have to resort to some fairly draconian measures around our coasts and ports.  If, as I am beginning to suspect, this latter outcome is where we are inevitably heading, our little conflicts over the cause of the warming will be as nothing compared to what is to come.  As ever, we have choices, but shall we ever gain the wisdom to make the right choices before the event? 

The whole problem with the "global warming" debate is that it is empirically based, and relies on forecasts.  Those who are temperamentally inclined to distrust forecasts, and who are reluctant to commit to any course of action where there is uncertainty, in other words life's confirmed conservatives (note the small "c"), will always argue against making changes until they can see for themselves the need, and will always struggle to understand the wisdom of proceeding on "a best current forecast".  Something, they will always argue, is bound to turn up.

Others will wait to see where the majority goes and then follow.  Others again will do as I do, and accept that the best way forward is along the lines established by imperfect experts, because I lack the resources to fault their logic, and because their argument appear to me be the best ones in town.

They may be wrong, either in their identified cause of the problem, or even that the problem exists, but the changes that they urge to negate its worst effects, are in any case changes we need to make for entirely different reasons: for our own future security and maybe, if we are lucky and far sighted enough, our future prosperity.  So, on balance, I don't much care if this or that graph is 100% correct, because what it is telling us in general terms is to change our ways, and that those changes will come, one way or another, sooner or later, so I say "bring it on, and lets have done with it".

[CliveH]

Problem is Brian - that the scam scientists that have now been shown by the CRU emails and files leaked that the models they use are wrong and that they fiddle the data to fit a preconceived notion.

 

The Opportunity cost of just accepting what they say as truth as you seem to be suggesting is going to cause real hardship.

 

Lomborg has stated that the money would be far better spent on ridding the world of disease rather than trying to lower a trace gas whose current percentage in the atmosphere is just 0.0385% and of this 0.0385% man is responsible for circa 14% and the natural world 86%.

 

Plus it is an accepted fact that the Ice cores actually show warming first and THEN high CO2 levels. So in the past warming is far more likely to have caused raised CO2 levels rather than vice versa.

 

Solar Scientists apparently have a chuckle at the scam science of the climatologists who use a computer model(s) to predict doom and gloom. In the 1970's there was a prediction that the world was going to end from Global cooling.

 

That was due to the sun going into a dormant phase say the Solar Scientists - as the sun goes through 22 year cycles with an 11 year "cycle" within that 22 years - (google this Brian if you want more info) In the late 1990's the sun went into a dormant phase with fewer and fewer sunspots and that is why we have a cooling period that is so frustrating for the climate alarmists.

 

CO2 is rising a tad but the earth does not play ball with the models and so temperatures plateau.

 

Loads of interesting people have come out on the sceptical "real science" side and have been having a pop at the gravy train for some time.

 

Our own House of Lords reviewed how the IPCC works and gave it a blast it has never managed to recover from.

 

The full report is available here and I would urge you to have a look at the conclusions and in particular Prof Reiters analysis on how his report to the IPCC was hyped up by activists - non of which had any qualifications in his area of expertise - such that he resigned from the IPCC in protest and then had to threaten court action to get his name removed from the "consensus" list.

 

Great way of building a consensus - just add names even if they disagree!!!

 

Here is just one para from the House of Lords report into the workings of the IPCC:-

 

"111. We can see no justification for this procedure. Indeed, it strikes us as opening the way for climate science and economics to be determined, at least in part, by political requirements rather than by the evidence. Sound science cannot emerge from an unsound process. "

 

This "unsound process" is what has been exposed in the leaked CRU emails.

 

It goes on to say this about the level of Scientific expertise within the IPCC:-

 

"IPCC and scientific expertise

 

115. Given the global scale of the IPCC process, it should be expected that it will attract the best experts. In his evidence to us, Professor Paul Reiter raised doubts about the extent to which this is the case[91]. He refers to the Second Assessment Report of Working Group II in 1995, Chapter 18 of which is concerned with human health impacts of warming. A significant part of this chapter discussed malaria. Yet, according to Professor Reiter, none of the lead authors had ever written a paper on malaria, the chapter contained serious errors of fact, and at least one of the chapter's authors continues to make claims about warming and malaria that cannot be substantiated. Professor Reiter's concerns extend to the same chapter in the Third Assessment Report of 2001, where he was initially a contributory author. While he expresses far more confidence in this chapter than the equivalent one in the Second Assessment Report, Professor Reiter notes that "the dominant message was that climate change will result in a marked increase in vector-borne disease, and that this may already be happening". In Professor Reiter's view, no such conclusion is warranted by the evidence, and he speaks as a malaria specialist of more than thirty years' experience. While nominated by the US Government to serve on the comparable group for the Fourth Assessment Report, the next one that will appear from IPCC, Professor Reiter learned that his nomination had not been accepted by IPCC. Yet Professor Reiter tells us that of the two lead authors for that chapter, one had no publications at all and the other only five articles."

 

Again - clear evidence that the politicisation within the IPCC enables the Alarmists within the IPCC to select yet more like minded alarmists and select out anyone who challenges the mantra.

 

Full details available here:-

 

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldselect/ldeconaf/12/1210.htm#a56

 

And as I say - more and more people are questioning the dogma of what the alarmists say.

 

here are just some

 

 

 

"Governments will lose elections over this issue. From a policy perspective it is a situation where you can only lose because any government will be faced with the reality that their policies don't match the rhetoric. Where does that leave policy-makers?

 

It leaves them looking very exposed. But that's the price you pay for exaggerating a risk that you actually cannot address. Politicians have cornered themselves. They have dug themselves into such a hole that there is no way out."

Dr Benny Peiser, Faculty of Science, Liverpool John Moores University, November 2006

 

 

"The (global warming) alarmists have confused cause and effect. As solar radiation warms the earth, CO2 is released into the atmosphere from the world's oceans."

 

Dr Habibullo Abdussamatov, Head of Space Research, Pulkovo Observatory, St Petersburg, January 2007.

 

"We have the highest solar activity we have had in 1,000 years. Evidence from ice cores show this happening long in the past."

Professor Henrik Svensmark, climate scientist, The Danish National Space Centre and author, The Chilling Stars: A new theory of climate change.

 

 

"Sun spot activity has reached a 1,000 year high."

Climate scientists affiliated to the Max Planck Institute, Gottingen, Germany.

 

"Unless we announce disasters no one will listen"

Sir John Houghton, first chairman of IPCC

 

"Sea levels have been rising steadily since the peak of the last Ice Age about 18,000 years ago. The total rise since then has been four hundred feet...For the last 5,000 years or so, the rate of rise has been about seven inches per century."

 

"The Medieval and Roman warmings, with their intervening cold periods, present a huge problem for the advocates of man-made global warming. If the Medieval and Roman occurred warmer than today - without greenhouse gases, what would be so unusual about modern times being warm as well?"

 

"The temperatures at the North and South Poles are lower now than they were in 1930. The Antarctic Peninsula, the finger of land pointing north towards Argentina (and the equator) has been getting warmer...The other 97 percent of Antarctic has been cooling since the mid-1960s."

S. Fred Singer, Distinguished Research Professor, George Mason University and Dennis Avery, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute and co-authors Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years.

 

 

 

"Climate prediction is complex, with many uncertainties. The AASC recognizes climate prediction is an extremely difficult undertaking. For time scales of a decade or more, understanding the empirical accuracy of such prediction - called 'verification' - is simply impossible, since we have to wait a decade or more to assess the accuracy of the forecasts."

The American Association of State Climatologists.

 

 

 

"There is not such thing as consensus science. If it's a consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't a consensus. Period. The greatest scientists in the world are great precisely because they broke with the consensus."

 

Environmentalism has already killed somewhere between 10-30 million people since the 1970s."

Michael Crichton, Science writer and author 'State of Fear'.

 

 

 

"The positive aspects of global warming appear to have been downplayed."

A UK House of Lords report on the science of Kyoto

 

 

 

The European Union has established as "fact" that a two-degree rise in global temperatures would be quite dangerous. However, this data is not scientifically sound."

Yuri Izrael, Vice President of the International Panel on Climate Change, the body responsible for the Kyoto Protocol.

 

 

 

Q. "Don't you believe that we're ruining our planet?"

 

 

A. "Perhaps only Mr Al Gore may be saying something along these lines: a sane person can't"

Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic.

 

 

............................

 

And a couple of quotes not specific to the Global Warming Alarmism - but they fit the bill very well indeed:-

 

"There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact."

 

Mark Twain.

 

 

“On principle it is quite wrong to try founding a theory on observable magnitudes alone. In reality the very opposite happens. It is theory which decides what we can observe.”

 

Albert Einstein.

 

.................................

 

So my problem Brian is that from an economic viewpoint - if we let the Alarmist lunatics run the asylum - then the opportunity cost will be high and the resulting cost in human misery will be higher still.

 

I am not saying do nothing.

 

I am saying lets do the right thing - not run off on a tangential path because some scam scientists have found a gravy train and cannot get off.

 

Yes I do feel passionately about this as I can see the damage that restricting development will do to the world and humanity. The alarmist’s response is that there won't be a world unless we do as they say.

 

And to make us believe the order of magnitude of "the problem" the bend the normal rules of science and manipulate the data.

 

And they do it and get away with it because normally intelligent people stick their head in the sand and say that they:-

 

“…accept that the best way forward is along the lines established by imperfect experts, because I lack the resources to fault their logic, and because their argument appear to me be the best ones in town”

 

I really do hope that rather than accept the dodgy dossier science of those “on a mission”, the stuff that I have repeated here, that was pointed out to me by some real scientists a couple of years ago, that shook my complacency to the core, makes others question the route that these politicised scam scientists would have us take.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Syd]

Speaking as one of the great unwashed with little or no education I have to say that I greatly resent being mugged off by a government funded body that is supposed to be totally unbiased, who is supposed to be simply devoted to finding out the truth.

 

Why, in the name of common decency, are they STILL in their jobs.

 

Further, I do believe that mankind IS making some contribution to the problem but I also believe that mother nature is making a much greater contribution and I further believe that mother nature WILL compensate.

 

Everything for and against has been said by both Brian and Clive and I can totally agree with both views but what is making me lean more towards my original thoughts about mother nature is, rightly or wrongly, the lies and cheating of the CRU.

Until there are changes at the top there, they will not get my vote.

[nightrider]

Syd - 2009-12-23 11:37 AM

 

Speaking as one of the great unwashed with little or no education I have to say that I greatly resent being mugged off by a government funded body that is supposed to be totally unbiased, who is supposed to be simply devoted to finding out the truth.

 

Why, in the name of common decency, are they STILL in their jobs.

 

Further, I do believe that mankind IS making some contribution to the problem but I also believe that mother nature is making a much greater contribution and I further believe that mother nature WILL compensate.

 

Everything for and against has been said by both Brian and Clive and I can totally agree with both views but what is making me lean more towards my original thoughts about mother nature is, rightly or wrongly, the lies and cheating of the CRU.

Until there are changes at the top there, they will not get my vote.

 

Syd,

Dont get your knickers in a twist, let the experts waffle on to themselves, stick to taking bricks out of your gable end to check on your wall ties ha ha.

[nightrider]

All these experts and scientists writing all these long winded reports, load of rubbish.

Why dont they get a proper job like working on a building site or working for B&Q.

[Guest Tracker]

knight of the road - 2009-12-23 1:23 PM

All these experts and scientists writing all these long winded reports, load of rubbish.

Why don't they get a proper job like working on a building site or working for B&Q.

 

That's easy to answer Malc - they are not qualified! Simples!

[CliveH]

The Gravy Train is now wobbly on its rails - the main media is beginning to look deeper into what is going on.

 

This gravy train goes right to the top. Now there is news that the head of the IPCC is to benefit substantially by the flawed “Carbon Trading Scheme”

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/6847227/Questions-over-business-deals-of-UN-climate-change-guru-Dr-Rajendra-Pachauri.html

 

We all knew Al Gore has his fingers in the Carbon Trading scam pie – but the revelation that Dr Pachauri is to make £millions at our expense really, really, really should wake people up to what is going on.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/6491195/Al-Gore-could-become-worlds-first-carbon-billionaire.html

 

 

[Basil]

Brian Kirby - 2009-12-22 7:03 PM

Whatever the cause, the climate has been getting progressively warmer for a considerable period of time, mainly over the two past centuries.  I think that is established?

 

Whilst your first point is true and correct it is exactly what would be expected coming out of the last Ice Age that the Earth experienced, exactly as it has done since time began and certainly before man could have had any effect on it, it is nothing new or unusual.However it is also a fact that the temperature has not increased over the last decade in fact not since 1998. This is why the IPCC had to doctor their report that was embargoed re-written and then re-released to suit their cause and also the cause of the 'manipulation' of data carried out by the East Anglia University 'scientists'.If you get the opportunity try and get a read of Ian Plimer's book as it takes a genuine scientific approach and may lead you to re think differently though maybe arriving at your same conclusions, but for different reasons.Bas

[Brian Kirby]

donna miller - 2009-12-21 2:16 PM Brian I understand your points on the CO2 problem, but we do not really have a choice, landfill creates far more emissions due to the rotting and decomposing waste that is laid there, along side that you have the potential for explosive dangers.

If the organic is separated out, it can be composted, and the methane gas captured and used as fuel.  This has been done on a small scale, but seems capable of scaling up so that, for example, electricity can be generated.  If the plastics are 1) reduced, and 2) recycled there is a residue of material that can mostly be incinerated.  There is, I accept, a problem with gathering the waste but even if that is not economic for rural areas, maybe it would be in cities where the problem is, in any case, more acute.  Incinerating the plastics is not good, if you accept the global warming thesis, because they are "old" carbon whereas the non compostable, non plastics residue could be incinerated and represents only "current" carbon.  Non-plastics inorganics that cannot be incinerated, demolition waste etc, if it can't be recycled as hardcore or road base material, would I think, have to go to landfill.  However, I also think we need to try, so far as possible, to move away from cement, concrete, and clay based building materials toward timber, or sometimes steel, because clay pits, chalk quarries and stone quarrying also need to be reduced in scale for conservation purposes.

Yes, we have an abundance of packaging in the modern world, but what are the alternatives, loose food back on the supermarket shelves, all and sundry picking up and examining goods before putting them back. The general public demand a more environmentally friendly society, and yet they are the root of the problem. A large part of our operations involve the processing of industrial waste plastics, what you see in your local bin is a fraction of the equation. Unfortunately, post consumer waste is the most difficult to process simply because of the diverse range of materials involved. How many people actually know how many different types of plastics there are, or how (un) suitable each one is for differing purposes. Your idea about multi use of plastic containers is one that the industry has been in turmoil over for years, and as sensible as it may appear, practically it is impossible. Bottles can only be extruded from certain polymers, and each has it's own properties, if you have ever tried to transport petrol in a milk bottle you will see my point.

Agreed, but much of the packaging is superfluous.  Much of what is shrink wrapped on in plastic containers could be in paper bags, and much of what is in plastic bottles could be in Tetra Packs.  Won't eliminate it totally, of course, but it would make a quite substantial reduction.

The other consideration that has to be thought through is the knock on effect in the industry. It is fine that the supermarkets no longer want certain goods packaged in plastic, but those containers were made in a factory near to you and me, workers will lose their jobs and companies will fold because their product is no longer needed. This has happened to various customers of mine, one invested £2.5 million pound on an extrusion line, this year, that line was cut up and scrapped because it couldn't be adapted to run any other product.At least 45 people lost their jobs and the company was wound up, so damage to the environment is not the only issue.

Sadly for those involved, such change is inevitable as economies develop.  There are so many skills that have been lost, or nearly so, because the economy has just moved on.  Think of hot riveting, horse ploughing, cattle droving, scything, hedge laying, wheel righting, typewriter manufacture: it goes on and on, and will, presumably, continue doing so indefinitely.  It causes great hardship and upheaval, but for the most part that is far less traumatic now than it used to for those affected, they no longer have to tramp the roads to find alternative work, or pretty much face starvation.

[Brian Kirby]

Basil - 2009-12-23 5:10 PM

Brian Kirby - 2009-12-22 7:03 PM

Whatever the cause, the climate has been getting progressively warmer for a considerable period of time, mainly over the two past centuries.  I think that is established?

Whilst your first point is true and correct it is exactly what would be expected coming out of the last Ice Age that the Earth experienced, exactly as it has done since time began and certainly before man could have had any effect on it, it is nothing new or unusual. .................. Bas

From memory, the last ice age ended around 250,000 years ago.  Once the glaciation ended (Riss?), as I understand it, the average global temperature plotted as a graph has fluctuated around a roughly flat line, with a dip in the middle ages (the little ice age) from which it recovered roughly back to its previous levels.  The recent "kick" in temperatures seems to have begun around 200 years ago, and to be more pronounced, and to have continued for longer, than any estimated previous change.  It is that observable phenomenon I was referring to in the paragraph you quote, no more and no less.  I was not speculating as to its cause: as I said above, "whatever the cause". 

Whether the apparent recent stall in the increase signals anything significant I have no idea, but I should have thought it is over far too short period statistically to be taken as indicating anything like a plateau or a reversal.

[Basil]

Unfortunately the graph with the 'recent kick' to which you refer is known as 'the hockey stick graph' and was engineered by the IPCC to prove and further their cause, it has now been discredited by more than one source and the true graph does not show this tendancy.

 

Bas

[Brian Kirby]

CliveH - 2009-12-23 5:30 AM Problem is Brian - ............... I am not saying do nothing. I am saying lets do the right thing - not run off on a tangential path because some scam scientists have found a gravy train and cannot get off. Yes I do feel passionately about this as I can see the damage that restricting development will do to the world and humanity. The alarmist’s response is that there won't be a world unless we do as they say. ..................

In Truth, Clive, I'm not altogether sure why you addressed your piece to me, because it seems not to engage with the points I was trying to make. 

My fault, I am sure but, in the first case, what that boils down to is that, if we accept that the climate is changing, we need to radically change the way we do things whether or not the change has a man made component.

In the second case, and always accepting that change is taking place; because of the difficulty in agreeing collective actions, we may be better off just going it alone to put ourselves in a favourable position to deal with the consequences of the change, rather than wasting time arguing with a reluctant world over who gets the biggest bribe to go away quietly.

My third point is that the measures we need to adopt in either event ("man made" climate change versus "natural" climate change) seem to me to be much the same, though probably more onerous for us in the short term in the latter case.

Of course, if we reject the whole thesis (that our climate is changing - whether or not it is to any extent our fault), the answer is clear.

You added "I am saying lets do the right thing".  You never quite got around to setting out what, for you, that might be.  So, what do you consider is the right thing for us, as a country, to do?

[Brian Kirby]

Basil - 2009-12-23 5:32 PM Unfortunately the graph with the 'recent kick' to which you refer is known as 'the hockey stick graph' and was engineered by the IPCC to prove and further their cause, it has now been discredited by more than one source and the true graph does not show this tendency. Bas

I think that is not entirely correct, Basil.  It is the extent of the "kick" that is disputed, but not its presence, is it not?  My understanding is that the observed warming of the past two hundred years is not generally disputed, just why it has arisen, and the base against which it is measured.

[nowtelse2do]

 

From memory, the last ice age ended around 250,000 years ago. 

Brian, No offence but how old are you? 8-)

Dave

[George Collings]

According to my info the glaciers of the last ice age retreated from the UK about 12,000 years ago indicating that I might be a bit younger than Brian.

 

No offence Brian as I suspect the reverse is the case.

 

 

 

[nightrider]

I'd love to know where Brian gets all his facts and figures from? not seen owt like that in the Daily Mail.

[Syd]

knight of the road - 2009-12-23 7:44 PM

 

I'd love to know where Brian gets all his facts and figures from? not seen owt like that in the Daily Mail.

 

 

That's because the Daily Mail probably has yet to make up it's mind which side of the fence it is going to be on

 

Here you are witnessing probably the two sides of the argument being presented in public for debate, as one should be able to expect the CRU to have done.

 

Both sides, in between posts, go onto the internet to dig up more and more information that supports their particular slant on the subject and answers some of the questions put, so they are not actually putting forward anything new simply useing data that is already available

 

And that is the difference between this debate and what the CRU type debate SHOULD have been

 

The scientist studies the subject, does his own experiments, thinks things over in an effort to come up with an explanation then circulates a paper or gets it into print so that the scientific world can openly debate thier findings and either come up with new alternatives, agree or totally disagree with all or any part of the theory and so the debate will continue until some form of concensus emerges that will be nearer to being correct than the original theory.

 

This debate here is excellent, free and open and a credit to all

Well done chaps, carry on

[CliveH]

Hi Brian

 

Only reason I mentioned you by name is your unusual (for you ;0) willingness to abdicate any sensible thought and to just swallow the Global Warming Scam science hook line and sinker and so advocate following the scare tactics of the crooks at the IPCC and the CRU.

 

In view of the leaked emails and the recent revelations of just how much the likes of Gore and the head of the IPCC are going to make financially I am frankly amazed that anyone with an alert questioning mind could possible come to the conclusion that you did.

 

I have set out several bits of info with the appropriate references that I personally feel sets out the basics of why we sceptics of AGW = Catastrophe feel as we do.

 

As for your entirely reasonable question as to what I, as a sceptic, feel we should be doing? – well I am in full agreement with the views of Bjorn Lomborg. Can I suggest you take a few minutes to listen to what he says on these video links Brian.

 

 

http://www.wikio.co.uk/video/1864602

 

 

We may still have to agree to differ. But for my money – I would rather we help the developing world, cure and treat diseases that afflict so many and improve the economies of other less well of nations by using our technology – rather than running off down a nefarious tangent that is by no means “settled” and that the proponents of which stand to make millions.

 

One point we may have to differ on is that you make the specific point with reference to what we can do as a single country. To which I say we need to look on a broader horizon for two reasons.

 

a) Even if we stopped all of our industry tomorrow such that we produced no man made CO2 at all (apart from that which we produce from respiring that is – but that is another, broader question that the alarmists ignore as they like to focus only on fossil fuel based CO2.) the China would produce in two weeks the same amount of CO2 that the UK produces in a year.

 

So frankly what is the point of crucifying our economy and hand our accrued wealth and experience over to other nations when we as a country produce so little in real terms?

 

b) Our technological infrastructure is often “old hat” – by this I mean the likes of our phone network. All that copper wire strung all over the place and updates to fibre optics, when most developing countries just leapfrog over that tired old stuff and go straight to mobile phone networks. Far cheaper – virtually instantaneous connection as long as you can put up simple line of sight antenna.

 

Lomborg has been on the receiving end of a lot of bullying attacks by the Global Warming Fanatics because of his pragmatic sensible ideas and concepts get nods of agreement by virtually everyone.

 

This latest article from the WSJ is typical

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704517504574589952331068322.html

 

Genuinely hope you find it interesting Brian. I was happy to go along with the “consensus” up until a few years ago then I was introduced to a chap who pointed out the inconsistencies. His views and fears that true science is being prostituted are now confirmed by the CRU leaked emails.

 

I really do not think we should “sleepwalk” into signing up for a hugely expensive notion that is based upon dodgy science.

 

[CliveH]

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=7122

 

The climate varies enormously – and often this is due to the suns activity. During the late 1600’s and early 1700’s we had the Thames frozen over due to the Sun going into quiet phase. The Maunder minimum. Then it warmed again and overall has been warming ever since. The Maunder Minimum was not a true Ice Age because humanity survived it!!! – but it does prove without a doubt that the sun affects our climate.

 

No planet killing 4x4’s or central heating boilers around when the global warming started again after the Maunder Minimum.

 

But say that to a Climate Change Alarmist and you will get told in no uncertain terms that the sun does not affect our climate!

 

http://www.nowpublic.com/sun_does_not_cause_global_warming_uk_study

 

As for the silly Hockey Stick graph so beloved of the IPCC that they had it as their logo – (and how crass is that??!!) – as Baz says – it has been disproved a number of times and the manipulation of the data to squash out the medieval warm period is clear for all to see from the CRU emails.

 

I do agree that we humans do affect our planet – climate included – you cannot go on ripping up the Rain Forests to plant palm oil trees so that we in Europe can meet our politically set CO2 emissions targets without having a negative effect. But growing palm oil at the expence of the rain forests to reduce our countries CO2 emissions is surely one of the most bizarre and obscene actions caused by the AGW alarmists????

 

Would it not be better to save the rain forests, even invest in them for the future rather than setting up the new currency of Carbon Credits that will make $billions for a select few that set the whole gravy train running in the first place!

 

[Basil]

Brian Kirby - 2009-12-23 6:01 PM

I think that is not entirely correct, Basil.  It is the extent of the "kick" that is disputed, but not its presence, is it not?  My understanding is that the observed warming of the past two hundred years is not generally disputed, just why it has arisen, and the base against which it is measured.

No, that is entirely correct, there is no 'kick', only in the IPCC's discredited Hockey stick graph (made up from the 'massaged' data in an attempt to prove their theory).If you examine the data that is now available for the period derived by both thermometer and satellite e.g. 2 instances of many others from Hadley Centre or University of Alabama, which shows a global temperature increase from the 1800's to 1900 (less than 0.2C) at a normal rate (normal in terms of the same as previous rises and falls through out history) then a fall to 1910 (of 0.1C) a normal increase 1918 to 1940 (of 0.2C) a decrease from 1940 to1976 (0.2C) an increase from 1976 to 1998 (of 0.3C) followed by another decrease from 1998 to the present time (currently 0.2C) and still decreasing, during which period humans were and are adding ever increasing amounts of CO2, a phnomenon that the IPCC has failed to explain. This of course means that there has been a temperature increase, but we are still 5C below the norm that would be expected as we leave the Ice Age.It is also plain from data collected that far from increase of CO2 creating temperature increase the line for CO2 against Temperature clearly shows that CO2 increase lags Temperature increase, i.e. temperature goes UP then CO2 goes up, therefore suggesting that CO2 is not the culprit.My concern is that whilst we waste time pandering to the lies and scams, wasting money on something that you cannot change, we are not looking at what we should be doing to protect humankind from what will happen naturally.Bas

[nightrider]

So here we are on a subject brought up by yours truly KOTR and the subject matter was, 'are you bothered by climate change'

Has or does the climate change have an effect on your own personal life?

All this trawling through the internet to bring up the so called findings of some academic is a load of poppycock, so what if the climate is warming up slightly, you are not going to go from freezing cold to a blast of searing desert heat all within five minutes are you?

What gets me is the hypocracy of it all, all these people going on about climate change and all the taxes that we are being hit with in order to fund recycling in order to prevent CO2 emissions etc.

Where do all these people go for their holidays? somewhere where it is hot thats where, its a load of cobblers.

[CliveH]

Well I do believe we need to take more care of our planet. After all - until Richard Branson builds a fleet of his spacecraft we only have the one to muck up.

 

But going on from the holiday point KOTR - which is a good one - the CO2 "footprint" from the Copenhagen Summit is HUGE!

 

Al Gore, Gordon Brown, Prince Charles et al all arriving by private jet and jets having to be parked in neighbouring countries because there are so many people attending this bun fight from al over the world. Whilst telling me to save the planet by driving 5 miles a day less just leaves me gobsmacked at the hypocrisy.

 

 

[Guest Tracker]

Okay then - to answer the question directly - am I bothered about climate change - here is my bottom line.

 

No - not really - I'll be long dead before anything affecting me is likely to occur!

 

But I AM bothered about dubious science being hijacked by politicians as an excuse for screwing me for extra tax to fund their saviour of the world delusions.

 

And I do believe we should be cutting down on energy use and waste of finite resources - so I might have to sell the Jag and the big 4WD to be able to keep the van on the road!

 

 

[Paul-]

 

Whether you believe it or not, we owe it to the next generations & try to do something about it, if it only preserves the earths resources it will have been worthwhile.

 

However helping our grand kids & their grand kids only works if you give a toss about helping anyone else.

 

Fortunately they'll be able to read on the iterweb thingy, & decide if they're going to help their granddad when he's old & house bound :D

 

Paul