Climate change

[Basil]

Couldn't agree more Clive.

 

 

Brian Kirby - 2009-12-27 7:06 PM

 

With all due respect to Basil, the way he has presented his argument is possibly a good example! :-)

 

Not quite sure what you meant by this comment Brian, even with the smiley. I have purposely avoided commenting on the facts or making an argument, with the exception of pointing out your inaccurate reference to 'the kick', and have tried to point people to read for themselves and see if they still come to the same conclusion as that which has been being thrust upon us.

 

Bas

[Brian Kirby]

Just a tease, Basil, because you appeared to be saying that the IPCC outputs are unreliable because they are based on computer models whereas, if the outputs are unreliable, they will be so because someone (accidentally or otherwise - conspiracy theorists apply here :-)) constructed defective models.

In other words the computer is the just messenger, not the message, so it seemed unfair to shoot the computer.  :-)

[Basil]

Hah, ok I understand now. Sorry thought you were suggesting that I was putting garbage into the thread!! Just shows how misunderstandings occur from time to time. LoL!

No I fully understand that a computer is just a tool to be used however the person operating it determines, so I would never blame the computer, mind you the computer models (software) that may well be a different matter, but then they are only produced by humans to give the results that they think they want with the parameters they choose.

 

Bas

[David Dwight]

Yes Climate Change is definitley here.

 

It started a couple of weeks ago it got cold and now colder and lots of snow, it seems to be getting like the winters we used to have back in the 40s 50s and early 60s. I love it perhaps a lot of people will learn to respect the weather and act sensibly, and bring back Common Sense if they know where to find it.

 

David

 

 

[nowtelse2do]

At the risk of getting KOTR thread pulled, is it alright to make an observation on the local climate around here at the moment!! :-D

At 8.30 this morning, just a little flurry of snow. At 11.15 am, 7"to 8" of snow dumped out side my house, (Which one of you did it?) It wasn't me!! 8-)

"What's it like down in the Bury Tropic's Malc?"

During the 50's and 60's the valley where I live was just a forest of factory chimney's belching out black and brown smoke. I can still smell and taste the bl**dy stuff. Since Maggie got her axe out and chopped them all down we have now got lot's of trees and more sprouting up every year, So Global Warming. Bring it on I say.

Dave

[nightrider]

Hi Dave,

Hows things in the valley? just like you we have had our fair share of snow, on monday I am due to go up to the 'owd mill house' in Stubbins village to check on the greenhouses but if the snow is still here I am inclined to leave it for a week or so, would'nt be able to get up the driveway.

When I started this thread I was asking a plain basic question 'are you bothered by climate change' and at the risk of upsetting the intelligentsia of the forum what happened? they all started trawling the internet and started posting all their fancy Dan answers gleaned from eccentric scientists who no doubt have been paid thousands for their waffle and gobbledigook findings.

These guys ought to get out in the real world instead of being sat in a nice warm office pontificating and waffling on at each other seeing who can come out with the biggest words, I have worked outdoors all my working life enjoying the harshness of winter and the benefit of the summer, in the winter I shed at least a stone in weight when the cold strips the fat off your bones.

All these dipsticks who have jumped on the climate change bandwagon, what can they do to combat mother nature??? with one swipe she could wipe the floor with them.

What tickles my funny bone is the two faced Herberts who, when the camping season starts head off for the sunny climes of Spain or wherever, conveniently forgetting climate change, as Jim Royle says 'my a***'

Here endeth my first rant of the new year.

[Brian Kirby]

A very long time ago, when humans lived in caves, some silly sod decided he could make life better if he could safely bring fire into the cave to warm himself and his family.  From that small beginning, little by little, humans learnt how to use fire to cook, to smelt metals, to make ploughs, to make saws, to shoe horses, to make nails, to make waggons, to make steam engines, to build bridges, to build ships, and to generate electricity and on, and on.  As each stage was reached, that knowledge was passed to the next generation, and was written in books (after another silly sod having invented written language and printing), so that others could benefit.  We studied the world around us, and we went to schools, and some even to universities, so that we could read those writings, and learn about the things of which we knew nothing when we were born, and of which our parents knew little and could tell us little.  From all this reading and writing we taught first ourselves, and then our children, of sciences, technologies, economics, law, diseases, medicine, geology, history, geography, theology: in fact, everything we know today.  For what seem to me obvious reasons, most of that learning, teaching, reading, and writing, was done indoors where it was warm and dry.

Then, one day, in a far off land, a man decided this was not good, and he decreed that all these learned people threatened him, and his way of doing things, and he closed the universities and schools, and threw the teachers and scientists etc all out of their nice warm institutions to work in the fields and get their hands dirty.  So they did, and many tens of thousands of people died as a consequence of having to do things they had never before done, and could not endure doing because they lacked the physiques for these activities.  With them, their knowledge and skills of learning died as well, and the people who had thought this would be a good idea began to suffer because things did not work as well as they had before, and when they were ill, or had tooth ache, there was no one to make them better, and when their tractors broke down there was no one to fix them, and if the power failed, it was not reinstated.  More and more people died as a consequence until the death toll stood at two million.  Eventually, people from a neighbouring country had to invade to put things right, and that country is still recovering from the workings of this man and his regime.  The country was Cambodia, the man was Pol Pot, and the regime the Khmer Rouge.  The rescuer was Vietnam.

So, which do you prefer, Malcolm?  Your apparently preferred world where everyone works in the great outdoors with dirty hands, or our present real world where some people spend their time indoors learning to do things more complicated than wield a shovel or swing a pick? 

I'm sorry, but I don't think I have ever read quite such bigoted, ignorant, clap-trap.  Who do you think invented, then made, the computer on which you typed your little piece, let alone who invented and maintains the means by which you made it appear on my computer, and gave me the opportunity to reply - the local carpenter?  Who invented the internal combustion engine, the gears, the tyres, that allow your motorhome to be driven - the local road sweeper?

No, fortunately, it was those "eccentric scientists" you are so quick to put down, with their "fancy Dan" answers, who ought to "get out into the real world" who discovered all these things.

The earth's climate and its behaviour is still only partially understood, and the reasons it behaves as it does even less so.  If someone who is studying the natural world sees something he can't understand, he can do one of two things.  He can ignore it, or he can try to work out why it is happening.  If, in the process, he becomes convinced that what he can see is potentially disastrous for life as we know it, what should he do?  Shut up about it, and wait to see if the disaster occurs, or try to draw attention to his findings in the hope disaster can be averted?  Please do give just a little credit for other people's knowledge and motivations, even if you don't/can't yet understand what they are on about, or why.

This whole debate is about a complicated, fragmented, theory that touches almost every branch of science.  No one individual is expert in all branches, so as each branch examines the theory, they shoot holes in the bits that don't gel.  They do this in a precise language, intended for other scientists, because it is a scientific theory, and it is a huge, and hugely contested, very complex, debate.  Politicians have been persuaded to try to change our behaviour, because that is what they, and not the scientists, do.  But politicians are not scientists: they, just like Pol Pot, like black and white certainty and simple statements, because that is what we can understand.  Unfortunately, these statements do not fit the scientific facts, and misrepresent the subtleties and nuances the scientists use to indicate uncertainty.  You may think of cold, or darkness.  Scientifically, the former is an absence of heat, the latter an absence of light.  That is why the debate becomes heated, complicated, and confusing.  It is possible it will all turn out to be a red herring, and that man's contribution is negligible, or non-existent.  However, it is important for us, and yet more important for our children and grand children, that we know the answers, and that we stop doing that which presently seems damaging before we pass the forecast point of no return, because if the theory is right and we do not act, we may sentence many millions to death, just like Pol Pot.  Not much of a legacy, is it?

So here endeth my first, and I hope last, rant of 2010 - against blind, selfish, bigoted, ignorance.

[nowtelse2do]

knight of the road - 2010-01-02 4:38 PM Hi Dave, Hows things in the valley? just like you we have had our fair share of snow, on monday I am due to go up to the 'owd mill house' in Stubbins village to check on the greenhouses but if the snow is still here I am inclined to leave it for a week or so, would'nt be able to get up the driveway. When I started this thread I was asking a plain basic question 'are you bothered by climate change' and at the risk of upsetting the intelligentsia of the forum what happened? they all started trawling the internet and started posting all their fancy Dan answers gleaned from eccentric scientists who no doubt have been paid thousands for their waffle and gobbledigook findings. These guys ought to get out in the real world instead of being sat in a nice warm office pontificating and waffling on at each other seeing who can come out with the biggest words, I have worked outdoors all my working life enjoying the harshness of winter and the benefit of the summer, in the winter I shed at least a stone in weight when the cold strips the fat off your bones. All these dipsticks who have jumped on the climate change bandwagon, what can they do to combat mother nature??? with one swipe she could wipe the floor with them. What tickles my funny bone is the two faced Herberts who, when the camping season starts head off for the sunny climes of Spain or wherever, conveniently forgetting climate change, as Jim Royle says 'my a***' Here endeth my first rant of the new year.

Steady on Malc, The view's of the members should be known like anybody else's, (but I know what you mean).

I started work in the local quarries abt 1300ft up on the moors around here. Use to set of to work in winter dressed in vest, scotch check padded shirt, jumper, donkey jacket, pair of levi's, 2 pair of socks and a pair of clogs with iron's, What a laugh! had to walk to work, i'd set off my height was about 5'8" by time i reach the cabin's I was nearly 6', Bloody snow clinging to the clogs I thought I was on stilts.:-D  It use to be bitter walking over them moors, couldn't do it now, but I love to go up there in the spring and summer, listening to the skylarks, pewits, curlew's ect, (Ho roll on spring) 

You take care, no jumping of the van this year eh!!

Happy ranting new year to you, and let there be more.:-D

Dave

[nowtelse2do]

And after all those wonderful inventions, which they are, we still can't live in peace with one another, and are always under a nuclear threat.

Dave

[nightrider]

Brian Kirby - 2010-01-02 6:47 PM

A very long time ago, when humans lived in caves, some silly sod decided he could make life better if he could safely bring fire into the cave to warm himself and his family.  From that small beginning, little by little, humans learnt how to use fire to cook, to smelt metals, to make ploughs, to make saws, to shoe horses, to make nails, to make waggons, to make steam engines, to build bridges, to build ships, and to generate electricity and on, and on.  As each stage was reached, that knowledge was passed to the next generation, and was written in books (after another silly sod having invented written language and printing), so that others could benefit.  We studied the world around us, and we went to schools, and some even to universities, so that we could read those writings, and learn about the things of which we knew nothing when we were born, and of which our parents knew little and could tell us little.  From all this reading and writing we taught first ourselves, and then our children, of sciences, technologies, economics, law, diseases, medicine, geology, history, geography, theology: in fact, everything we know today.  For what seem to me obvious reasons, most of that learning, teaching, reading, and writing, was done indoors where it was warm and dry.

Then, one day, in a far off land, a man decided this was not good, and he decreed that all these learned people threatened him, and his way of doing things, and he closed the universities and schools, and threw the teachers and scientists etc all out of their nice warm institutions to work in the fields and get their hands dirty.  So they did, and many tens of thousands of people died as a consequence of having to do things they had never before done, and could not endure doing because they lacked the physiques for these activities.  With them, their knowledge and skills of learning died as well, and the people who had thought this would be a good idea began to suffer because things did not work as well as they had before, and when they were ill, or had tooth ache, there was no one to make them better, and when their tractors broke down there was no one to fix them, and if the power failed, it was not reinstated.  More and more people died as a consequence until the death toll stood at two million.  Eventually, people from a neighbouring country had to invade to put things right, and that country is still recovering from the workings of this man and his regime.  The country was Cambodia, the man was Pol Pot, and the regime the Khmer Rouge.  The rescuer was Vietnam.

So, which do you prefer, Malcolm?  Your apparently preferred world where everyone works in the great outdoors with dirty hands, or our present real world where some people spend their time indoors learning to do things more complicated than wield a shovel or swing a pick? 

I'm sorry, but I don't think I have ever read quite such bigoted, ignorant, clap-trap.  Who do you think invented, then made, the computer on which you typed your little piece, let alone who invented and maintains the means by which you made it appear on my computer, and gave me the opportunity to reply - the local carpenter?  Who invented the internal combustion engine, the gears, the tyres, that allow your motorhome to be driven - the local road sweeper?

No, fortunately, it was those "eccentric scientists" you are so quick to put down, with their "fancy Dan" answers, who ought to "get out into the real world" who discovered all these things.

The earth's climate and its behaviour is still only partially understood, and the reasons it behaves as it does even less so.  If someone who is studying the natural world sees something he can't understand, he can do one of two things.  He can ignore it, or he can try to work out why it is happening.  If, in the process, he becomes convinced that what he can see is potentially disastrous for life as we know it, what should he do?  Shut up about it, and wait to see if the disaster occurs, or try to draw attention to his findings in the hope disaster can be averted?  Please do give just a little credit for other people's knowledge and motivations, even if you don't/can't yet understand what they are on about, or why.

This whole debate is about a complicated, fragmented, theory that touches almost every branch of science.  No one individual is expert in all branches, so as each branch examines the theory, they shoot holes in the bits that don't gel.  They do this in a precise language, intended for other scientists, because it is a scientific theory, and it is a huge, and hugely contested, very complex, debate.  Politicians have been persuaded to try to change our behaviour, because that is what they, and not the scientists, do.  But politicians are not scientists: they, just like Pol Pot, like black and white certainty and simple statements, because that is what we can understand.  Unfortunately, these statements do not fit the scientific facts, and misrepresent the subtleties and nuances the scientists use to indicate uncertainty.  You may think of cold, or darkness.  Scientifically, the former is an absence of heat, the latter an absence of light.  That is why the debate becomes heated, complicated, and confusing.  It is possible it will all turn out to be a red herring, and that man's contribution is negligible, or non-existent.  However, it is important for us, and yet more important for our children and grand children, that we know the answers, and that we stop doing that which presently seems damaging before we pass the forecast point of no return, because if the theory is right and we do not act, we may sentence many millions to death, just like Pol Pot.  Not much of a legacy, is it?

So here endeth my first, and I hope last, rant of 2010 - against blind, selfish, bigoted, ignorance.

Brian,I am all for learning and knowledge but for the life of me I cannot see that mankind can alter the worlds climate.

[nightrider]

Brian Kirby - 2010-01-02 6:47 PM

A very long time ago, when humans lived in caves, some silly sod decided he could make life better if he could safely bring fire into the cave to warm himself and his family.  From that small beginning, little by little, humans learnt how to use fire to cook, to smelt metals, to make ploughs, to make saws, to shoe horses, to make nails, to make waggons, to make steam engines, to build bridges, to build ships, and to generate electricity and on, and on.  As each stage was reached, that knowledge was passed to the next generation, and was written in books (after another silly sod having invented written language and printing), so that others could benefit.  We studied the world around us, and we went to schools, and some even to universities, so that we could read those writings, and learn about the things of which we knew nothing when we were born, and of which our parents knew little and could tell us little.  From all this reading and writing we taught first ourselves, and then our children, of sciences, technologies, economics, law, diseases, medicine, geology, history, geography, theology: in fact, everything we know today.  For what seem to me obvious reasons, most of that learning, teaching, reading, and writing, was done indoors where it was warm and dry.

Then, one day, in a far off land, a man decided this was not good, and he decreed that all these learned people threatened him, and his way of doing things, and he closed the universities and schools, and threw the teachers and scientists etc all out of their nice warm institutions to work in the fields and get their hands dirty.  So they did, and many tens of thousands of people died as a consequence of having to do things they had never before done, and could not endure doing because they lacked the physiques for these activities.  With them, their knowledge and skills of learning died as well, and the people who had thought this would be a good idea began to suffer because things did not work as well as they had before, and when they were ill, or had tooth ache, there was no one to make them better, and when their tractors broke down there was no one to fix them, and if the power failed, it was not reinstated.  More and more people died as a consequence until the death toll stood at two million.  Eventually, people from a neighbouring country had to invade to put things right, and that country is still recovering from the workings of this man and his regime.  The country was Cambodia, the man was Pol Pot, and the regime the Khmer Rouge.  The rescuer was Vietnam.

So, which do you prefer, Malcolm?  Your apparently preferred world where everyone works in the great outdoors with dirty hands, or our present real world where some people spend their time indoors learning to do things more complicated than wield a shovel or swing a pick? 

I'm sorry, but I don't think I have ever read quite such bigoted, ignorant, clap-trap.  Who do you think invented, then made, the computer on which you typed your little piece, let alone who invented and maintains the means by which you made it appear on my computer, and gave me the opportunity to reply - the local carpenter?  Who invented the internal combustion engine, the gears, the tyres, that allow your motorhome to be driven - the local road sweeper?

No, fortunately, it was those "eccentric scientists" you are so quick to put down, with their "fancy Dan" answers, who ought to "get out into the real world" who discovered all these things.

The earth's climate and its behaviour is still only partially understood, and the reasons it behaves as it does even less so.  If someone who is studying the natural world sees something he can't understand, he can do one of two things.  He can ignore it, or he can try to work out why it is happening.  If, in the process, he becomes convinced that what he can see is potentially disastrous for life as we know it, what should he do?  Shut up about it, and wait to see if the disaster occurs, or try to draw attention to his findings in the hope disaster can be averted?  Please do give just a little credit for other people's knowledge and motivations, even if you don't/can't yet understand what they are on about, or why.

This whole debate is about a complicated, fragmented, theory that touches almost every branch of science.  No one individual is expert in all branches, so as each branch examines the theory, they shoot holes in the bits that don't gel.  They do this in a precise language, intended for other scientists, because it is a scientific theory, and it is a huge, and hugely contested, very complex, debate.  Politicians have been persuaded to try to change our behaviour, because that is what they, and not the scientists, do.  But politicians are not scientists: they, just like Pol Pot, like black and white certainty and simple statements, because that is what we can understand.  Unfortunately, these statements do not fit the scientific facts, and misrepresent the subtleties and nuances the scientists use to indicate uncertainty.  You may think of cold, or darkness.  Scientifically, the former is an absence of heat, the latter an absence of light.  That is why the debate becomes heated, complicated, and confusing.  It is possible it will all turn out to be a red herring, and that man's contribution is negligible, or non-existent.  However, it is important for us, and yet more important for our children and grand children, that we know the answers, and that we stop doing that which presently seems damaging before we pass the forecast point of no return, because if the theory is right and we do not act, we may sentence many millions to death, just like Pol Pot.  Not much of a legacy, is it?

So here endeth my first, and I hope last, rant of 2010 - against blind, selfish, bigoted, ignorance.

Nah then Brian,Have you been taking lessons off one or two other unamed members in the art of hurling personal insults??

[CliveH]

 

 

“However, it is important for us, and yet more important for our children and grand children, that we know the answers, and that we stop doing that which presently seems damaging before we pass the forecast point of no return, because if the theory is right and we do not act, we may sentence many millions to death, just like Pol Pot. Not much of a legacy, is it?”

 

Brian this is the classic ad hominem, scam science argument of the likes of Al Gore.

 

The last gambit in a game of poker for very high stakes. Because one issue the alarmists consistently ignore is the opportunity cost of getting it wrong. Whenever the Alarmists views are challenged and the logic breaks down up comes the Ad Hominem arguments that because X has happened in the past we have to believe the worst case scenario of global warming to protect the next generation. More than just a bit of a crock that. But they still try it. Latest was the scary cartoon advert that gave kids nightmares when the dog drowned and the big black scary CO2 monster was up in the sky.

 

Then we have the Copenhagen film of a young girl hanging from a tree branch whilst a flood and storms whirl about below and all around her. And all this spin to convince us that the “science” is correct and that the “debate is over” whilst in reality we are all looking aghast at thousands of documents and emails from the CRU.

 

I think that a goal of reducing energy use is good. But to reduce it to the levels of 1984 is mad--simply crazy. But that is what our politicians wanted us to do via Kyoto. It won’t happen – just look at the debacle of Copenhagen. I think telling India or China that they need to limit the growth of their economies because we spent the last century burning coal and oil is obscene. And for the US to demand that they “inspect” China whilst they carry on regardless is more than just obscene – in fact I find myself at a loss to describe the arrogance of the USA in this regard.

 

I personally do support higher levels of foreign assistance and if I am ever asked to vote on it – I would. But a vote to accept that we must spent US$180 billion a year, every year for the rest of the century, just to implement the Kyoto Protocol, which wouldn't even reduce the !PROJECTED! global warming would most definitely NOT get my support. Not least because the projections are clearly bogus having been manipulated beyond credibility as shown by the CRU leaked data and by many scientists before who tried to debate the findings but were shouted down. Again - just look at the UK House of Lords report of some years ago to see how corrupted the "summaries" were compared to the actual scientific data of the IPCC reports.

 

I submit that this money would, if effectively used, solve most of the health and development issues of the poorest third of the planet. I believe that this would be a more judicious use of our money. I think it would, by its nature, reduce CO2 emissions (by reducing deforestation). I am willing to pledge to support this with my votes and willingness to pay taxes.

What I'm not willing to do is return to the Dark Ages because some hysteric goes against established science and tells me that the seas will rise by 20 feet or that the temperature is going to rise by 11 degrees. We are not drowning, we are not melting, and the modest global warming predicted by real scientists can be dealt with incrementally as it happens over the course of the next century.

 

From the scam scientists who have been caught with their trousers down via the CRU leaks, to the hype of Al Gore with his film “An Inconvenient Truth” that was in fact shown to be a very inconvenient lie by a British court with at least 9 substantial untruths listed, the politicians have fallen for the dodgy dossiers from those who are on a gravy train at best (grant money – nice university life – lots of foreign travel) to the charlatan actions of Gore who plans to make personal $millions via a Carbon Trading scheme that never would have been dreamt of if the likes of the Alarmists had not come up with the scare story in the first place.

 

And now we have proof that a lot of the science is bogus.

 

So with all due respect to KOTR – for admitting that he as a guy who works with his hands (seriously KOTR – no disrespect intended) – what are the average voters/man in the street/field/factory etc., supposed to make of it all? The really sad thing about all this is that science and scientists in general will now be tainted by the revelations of the bogus science from the CRU. So from that point of view KOTR’s reaction is, to my mind, a typical and quite reasonable one. It is not blind or bigoted, sefish or ignorant. It is a typical reaction to any scam.

 

Faith in “science” as something to trust and believe in has taken a knock because of the shenanigans of Gore, Hansen, Jones et al.

 

However your reference to Pol Pot is interesting Brian, seeing as he believed in what I crudely call the Mud Hut ideal.

 

Some of the Climate Change Alarmists have similar opinions if you believe the Gardianistas spin. Save the planet by destroying the capitalist system. Forgive me whilst I have a little chuckle at that.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/feb/02/energy.comment

 

(lol) (lol) (lol) (lol)

 

As a one time member of Greenpeace I am appalled by the way this once respected organization is now a clique of a few anti-capitalist numpties. Even one of the founding members feels the same:-

 

“The environmental movement abandoned science and logic somewhere in the mid-1980s, just as mainstream society was adopting the more reasonable items on the environmental agenda. This was because many environmentalists couldn’t make the transition from confrontation to consensus, and could not get out of adversarial politics."

 

This particularly applies to political activists who were using environmental rhetoric to cover up agendas that had more to do with class warfare and anti-corporatism than they did with the actual science of the environment. To stay in an adversarial role, those people had to adopt ever more extreme positions because all the reasonable ones were being accepted.”

 

Patrick Moore: Founder of Greenpeace

(Patrick Moore resigned from the organization in 1986)

 

 

Note - name is the same but this P Moore is not the same chap as our UK Astronomer.

 

[nightrider]

CliveH,

Your last post was informative and enjoyable to read, I honestly can't see how man can influence or alter the global climate.

We are only short term guests on this planet, mother nature in her infinite wisdom calls all the shots.

 

[nightrider]

Brian,

I have been a member of this group for quite a while and have sent in quite a lot of posts which have generated quite a lot of replies.

The posts that I send in are searching posts, looking for answers, the posts that you send in are replies to other members posts giving your answers, answers no doubt that you have gleaned from the internet.

Nobody but nobody has all the correct answers apart from you so that means that you must be a really clever chappie.

You also want to take heed of your own words, was it not you that posted some time ago that when the personal insults start flying (from you) the argument is lost where you accuse me of sending in bigoted ignorent clap-trap posts.

[Brian Kirby]

knight of the road - 2010-01-03 1:07 AM  Nah then Brian, Have you been taking lessons off one or two other unamed members in the art of hurling personal insults??

Well, Malcolm, I don't think there is a personal insult anywhere in what I wrote.  I do take very strong issue with what you wrote, which may or may not be your opinion, or even an expression of your personality, but how could I possibly know?  I don't know you, other than through what you write, so I replied to what you wrote.  It is, therefore, what you wrote that I have criticised, and not you personally, and it was what you wrote that I found, as I said, "bigoted, ignorant, clap-trap".  Whether you wrote it as a wind-up, or whether you were serious, I have no idea, and am not particularly interested in finding out.  However, taken, as I read it, to be serious commentary, I think it is dangerous rubbish.  I'm sorry, but that remains my opinion.

[Brian Kirby]

knight of the road - 2010-01-03 1:43 PM Brian, I have been a member of this group for quite a while and have sent in quite a lot of posts which have generated quite a lot of replies. The posts that I send in are searching posts, looking for answers, the posts that you send in are replies to other members posts giving your answers, answers no doubt that you have gleaned from the internet. Nobody but nobody has all the correct answers apart from you so that means that you must be a really clever chappie. You also want to take heed of your own words, was it not you that posted some time ago that when the personal insults start flying (from you) the argument is lost where you accuse me of sending in bigoted ignorent clap-trap posts.

OK, you've now had a"pop" at me in retaliation.  I happily accept that some of your posts are, as you put, it searching - others are not.  Likewise, some of my posts are answers to other's questions, which I am happy to give if I can, but some of my posts seek answers, and some merely express my opinion as part of a debate.  So do we all. 

I'm not quite sure where you get the idea I think I have some monopoly on being right, but I can assure you I do not.  I have made far too many mistakes to have that opinion of myself.  I try, so far as possible, to check my facts before posting, sometimes from the internet, sometimes not.  However, what I do try scrupulously to avoid is name calling and personal insults.  I have not insulted you, I have said that I think what you wrote is, in terms, rubbish.  Not you, but what you wrote, and I don't see how that can be termed a personal insult.  I've had to endure far harsher criticisms of my work in the past, and have been stung by being so criticised, but have also come to understand that the critics, at the time, were probably right!  It's just the price one pays for sticking one's neck out.

[Travelling Tyke]

Hello, Just "found" this thread. It has been quite an interesting read....

 

Many thanks.

 

 

 

[Syd]

I think this has been one of the better debates that I have ever seen on this forum.

Well mannered and well informed.

Now which camp do we all respectively fall into ?

[nightrider]

Rather than spend millions in trying to alter something that we can't, (climate change) would the money be better spent on combating things that can be changed for the betterment of mankind.

Instead of spending millions on wars that can never be won why not send armies of medical teams to various parts of the third world who are in dire need. If certain countries have problems with terrorists who want to revert back to the 12th century, well let them, let their own people resolve the problems like we did in times past, use our homebound troops to protect our own borders, air and sea ports.

[nightrider]

Syd - 2010-01-04 7:45 PM

 

I think this has been one of the better debates that I have ever seen on this forum.

Well mannered and well informed.

Now which camp do we all respectively fall into ?

 

Syd,

As you will know it was me that started this thread off, you can rely on plenty of replies to my threads, usually when I am being bombarded with insults and halfbricks aimed at my head.

[Syd]

Very True KOTR.

 

By the way good luck on Wednesday, keep your bum upermost :D

 

Have you thought about relaxation classes >:-)

[nightrider]

Syd - 2010-01-04 9:06 PM

 

Very True KOTR.

 

By the way good luck on Wednesday, keep your bum upermost :D

 

Have you thought about relaxation classes >:-)

 

Thanks for that Syd, I panicked a bit when someone mentioned organ shutdown and an anal spread OMG >:-)

[colin]

knight of the road - 2010-01-04 8:45 PM

If certain countries have problems with terrorists who want to revert back to the 12th century, well let them, let their own people resolve the problems like we did in times past, use our homebound troops to protect our own borders, air and sea ports.

 

We have been sending troops to fight muslims for nearly a thousand years, why change :-S

[Brian Kirby]

Responding to both Malcolm and Clive, without the tedium of quoting their posts at length: I think the biggest problem with this whole issue is that it is not, in truth, "a" scientific debate at all.  There is a scientific debate, but that is about whether the climate is changing in some significant way, or just fluctuating in its normal way.  More tenuous, is a rather speculative, but largely scientific, debate, that assumes it is changing more significantly and asks whether some, all, or none, of that change is man-made.  Beyond that is a further debate, largely unscientific, though aided by scientists, as to whether, and if so what and to what extent, we should do to ameliorate the effects of any such man made element.

The first debate is based upon observation of the world's current climate, in itself complex enough, but further complicated because of the need to compare this to recent historic records, and also gather reliably comparable historic data from periods long before man could measure temperatures, or even existed.  This alone is a far from settled issue, and much argument continues.  There will be no consensus: what will emerge, over time, is a settled theory.  That is to say a theory that no-one can knock down - until someone can, of course, when a newer and better theory will no doubt take its place.  However, this is just normal scientific practise: it is the way science works.

The second debate is based upon the as yet unsettled first debate, and involves a sub-group of scientists who believe they can already perceive that more significant change is taking place, and believe they have a theory that explains how and why.  Their theory is carbon cycle based, and leads them to conclude that releasing "old", fossil, carbon into the atmosphere is causing a significant part of the warming.  This theory is still being argued over, and is still unsettled, although it seems to have been quite widely accepted as a working hypothesis, and is being given the benefit of the doubt by many simply because a) it makes sense in terms of what we already know about the extent of the remaining exploitable reserves, and b) it represents a "fail safe" option.  That is to say, if we reduce our consumption of old carbon as an energy source it is consistent with our need to conserve those reserves, can do no harm to the climate, and may actually benefit it by reducing the degree of future change.  However, it suffers one major flaw as science, because it is speculative rather than being solidly grounded in established facts.  Thus, it can have no "proof", unless and until the forecast event takes place.  However, as the whole object of the theory is to prevent the event taking place, it is only failure to heed the warning that can prove it was right.  It is trying to prove a negative: a bit like trying to prove one is innocent instead of someone else having to prove one's guilt.

The third debate, regarding what we should actually do, to what extent, and when, is really what has brewed up since the second group began agitating at politicians to begin to implement some of the measures they deem necessary.  In terms of the evolution of human social structures it is a bit of a watershed.  I think it is probably the first time man has ever identified a global, systemic, threat to our entire ecosystem, and begun trying to change collective behaviour to head it off.  It has been running, in various forms, for many years, and has to be seen in the more general context of earlier concerns about the great American dust bowl, the exhaustion of North Sea herring, the use of DDT, CFCs, organophosphates, the hole in the ozone layer, pollution of the oceans, accelerated land erosion through deforestation, etc etc, all of which have tended to prove that many things man thought impossible or insignificant are, in fact, neither.

Thus, faced with an unprovable, highly speculative theory, which cannot be supported by any relevant "facts", and which can only forecast the possible outcomes of uncertain events, all we are left with is "belief".  The trouble with belief, is that it belongs in the realms of religion and not of science.  However much we may strive for support for this or that argument, from this or that quarter, all we are doing is arguing based on the beliefs of others, and not on a basis of fact.  Man has a track record of this kind of behaviour - not good: think laws of heresy, of inquisitions, of crusades and of the hundreds of thousands killed in their names.  We argue over facts, but we kill for beliefs.

We need to remove the heat.  Part of my response to Clive is that it is no more helpful for him to erect visions of a financial Armageddon if we do as the theory suggests, than it is for others, myself included I'll admit, to promote visions of an ecological Armageddon if we do not.  We have a present financial Armageddon, and so far, touch wood, we have survived.  I think financial problems are far more easily fixed than climatic ones may be, mainly because they are within human control.  However, more than climate change, I am convinced there will be great future problems arising out of the gradual depletion of the earth's resources, and to the extent that any climate change is happening, from changing sea levels and alterations to rainfall with resulting inundations and desertifications that will displace millions.

So, as I see things, whether or not we accept the climate is changing we urgently need to address conservation of dwindling resources.  Beyond that, if we accept the climate is changing without any input from man, the changes in sea levels, floodings, inundations, erosions, altered wind patterns, and desertifications will generate famine and death on an enormous scale, with resulting migrations and hordes of refugees descending on those already crowded parts of the world that still have sustainable agriculture.  Conflict seems to me almost inevitable as the starving fight the well fed for their food.  If we go beyond this, to accept that the climate change is to any extent man made, I cannot see what would be different.  We need to do all the same things, in much about the same timescales.  In truth, we need to do one thing above all others: a thing that no-one will ever mention, and that is to reduce the human population of the world to a truly sustainable level at which all countries can share similarly good living standards.

Therefore, cold hearted as it may seem, I am against diverting large amounts of resource to ameliorating suffering in other countries, merely because I think it will accelerate and deepen the impending problem.  I do not mean ignoring periodic appeals for humanitarian aid in the aftermath of natural disasters, just that we should resist some warm, fuzzy, notion to rush off around the world seeking to do short term good with medicines and feeding programmes.  Many people are in their present plight because they are badly governed, or inhabit already marginally inhabitable parts of the world.  Obviously, this is not their fault, and I am not seeking to blame them for their plight.  Having said that, I cannot see that ensuring increased rates of survival under these circumstances would have any outcome for them than to better survive disease, only to die of starvation or dehydration as a result of rising population.  What we truly need to do is export education and ideas, so that people can begin to identify their own solutions, and then to help them to bring these to fruition.

Will we succeed?  I doubt it, because despotic rulers don't welcome educated populations, and the only viable solution for those who inhabit marginally habitable parts of the world is to move.  It just won't happen.  So, instead of pie in the sky, I think we need to turn closer to home, where we have influence, and fix first the things that are wrong in UK and Europe, and that includes, in my opinion, population reduction on a large scale.  For a start, each country should aim to be fully self sufficient in agriculture, and that should mean importing only foodstuffs that cannot be grown at home, balancing those with exports of what can be produced, and living within the population limits that imposes.  So, will we achieve that?  One day, yes, because events will impose it on us: but before then?  In truth, I think it very doubtful - unless we get some kind of jolt that makes us all acutely aware of what we face.  Happy New Year to all!

[nightrider]

Brian,

Much as I admire your stance I personally am not going to worry about climate change, what will be will be.

If academics and scientists are all arguing the toss about what should or not be done and they can't come to a conclusion then what can I do?

It is a hard fact to swallow but thousands if not millions are going to die from lack of water and food.

It would be an impossible task to save these people, you could term it as mother natures collateral damage, having said that I would do all in my power to save these people but you cannot combat a natural phenomenon.

I believe in the saying that charity begins at home and each and every country should look to its own, Britain by all accounts is only 60% efficient in feeding itself, therefore I would urge the powers that be in making this country 100% efficient in growing our own food.

I have read that various town councils are opening up more land for allotments so people can cultivate their own produce which I think is an excellent idea, I cannot get over the fact that Africa, a country in turmoil has the potential to be the worlds food bowl, basically the world is not being managed to its full potential.