Do you believe that Global Warming is being caused by us?

Bob_Harris

Clearly, as can be seen by this graph, the decline in pirates is directly related to the rise of temperature.

Climategate seems to have stirred some journalists to look closer at the IPCC

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

I call shenanigans

The head of the UN's climate change panel - Dr Rajendra Pachauri - is accused of making a fortune from his links with 'carbon trading' companies

Dr Pachauri has established an astonishing worldwide portfolio of business interests with bodies which have been investing billions of dollars in organisations dependent on the IPCC’s policy recommendations

eh conflict of interest

These outfits include banks, oil and energy companies and investment funds heavily involved in ‘carbon trading’ and ‘sustainable technologies’, which together make up the fastest-growing commodity market in the world, estimated soon to be worth trillions of dollars a year.

Today, in addition to his role as chairman of the IPCC, Dr Pachauri occupies more than a score of such posts, acting as director or adviser

a little like insider trading

when Dr Pachauri took over the running of TERI in the 1980s, his interests centred on the oil and coal industries, which may now seem odd for a man who has since become best known for his opposition to fossil fuels. He was, for instance, a director until 2003 of India Oil

In 2005, he set up GloriOil, a Texas firm specialising in technology which allows the last remaining reserves to be extracted from oilfields otherwise at the end of their useful life.

It is one of these deals, reported in last week’s Sunday Telegraph, which is enabling Tata to transfer three million tonnes of steel production from its Corus plant in Redcar to a new plant in Orissa, thus gaining a potential £1.2 billion in ‘carbon credits’ (and putting 1,700 people on Teesside out of work)

Pa ElGrande

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwM_B4-5gaE

zod

A poll performed by Peter Doran and Maggie Kendall Zimmerman at Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago received replies from 3,146 of the 10,257 polled Earth scientists. Results were analyzed globally and by specialization:

76 out of 79 climatologists who "listed climate science as their area of expertise and who also have published more than 50% of their recent peer-reviewed papers on the subject of climate change" believe that mean global temperatures have risen compared to pre-1800s levels, and 75 out of 77 believe that human activity is a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures. Among all respondents, 90% agreed that temperatures have risen compared to pre-1800 levels, and 82% agreed that humans significantly influence the global temperature. Petroleum geologists and meteorologists were among the biggest doubters, with only 47 percent and 64 percent, respectively, believing in human involvement. A summary from the survey states that:

"It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes."[84]

Wertz

Deleted User wrote: »

Climategate seems to have stirred some journalists to look closer at the IPCC

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

I call shenanigans

So because corruption rears it's head amongst suchy lofty individuals as UN officials, that automatically undermines any assertion by independent scientists of manmade climate change?
You'll usually find that any place there is a lot of money swilling about, that there's always going to be a few pigs at the trough snuffling around.
I'd hate that a few individuals greed would become the focus of a debate invloving such important matters (although this does not mean that such corrution shouldn't be investigated or rooted out; quite the opposite).

As for the topic? I believe it's partially being caused by man's reliance on fossil fuels and his indirect influences on other climate systems, especially ocean pollution. Some input from non terrestrial influence has to be a factor too.
I also believe that we're past the point where we can reverse damage without feeling the negative consequences for a number of future generations.
That said, I believe the the planet itself has the ability to make our input look very tame in comparison to what it could do at any time, through vulcanicity, bottom turnover, seismic activity, algal blooms and who knows what else.

thebman

Wertz wrote: »

So because corruption rears it's head amongst suchy lofty individuals as UN officials, that automatically undermines any assertion by independent scientists of manmade climate change?

come on you can't get a more chaotic system.

Records don't go back very far and even when they do, just go over to the weather forum and you'll see people debating over the accuracy of the data being measured ATM.

So if you have little data and there are questions over its accuracies, how can you say anything with any level of certainty?

Answer you can't and its all up in the air still because its too chaotic to have working models for so all the simulations have completely unknown accuracy. I'm sure most of these scientists say that their certainty is based on the simulations at some point but its conveniently left out when the issue comes up.

Its like its own religion at this stage. There are just believers and non-believers on the topic of mans input into climate change.

Wertz

thebman wrote: »

come on you can't get a more chaotic system.

Records don't go back very far and even when they do, just go over to the weather forum and you'll see people debating over the accuracy of the data being measured ATM.

So if you have little data and there are questions over its accuracies, how can you say anything with any level of certainty?

Answer you can't and its all up in the air still because its too chaotic to have working models for so all the simulations have completely unknown accuracy. I'm sure most of these scientists say that their certainty is based on the simulations at some point but its conveniently left out when the issue comes up.

Its like its own religion at this stage. There are just believers and non-believers on the topic of mans input into climate change.

I'm not sure why you quoted me on the corruption thing but are taking issue with my personal view on human influenced climate change.
I base most of my beliefs on the work of James Lovelock and the gaia hypothesis, a system which itself has been shot down by other scientists.
Logically I can't see how you can keep on adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere that was previously removed and not have some effect. It's a closed system (admittedly a chaotic one) with checks and balances evolved over billions of years. Everyting you do within a closed system has to have some effect on other parts of it, especially when you burn the candle at both ends by removing some checks and balances but increasing the output of that which previously had been checked and blanaced.

I agree re: the religion thing. Didn't some guy in the UK secure a court ruling about his "green" beliefs being subject tot he same as the right ot hold religious beliefs and not be treated differently for having them?

thebman

Wertz wrote: »

I'm not sure why you quoted me on the corruption thing but are taking issue with my personal view on human influenced climate change.
I base most of my beliefs on the work of James Lovelock and the gaia hypothesis, a system which itself has been shot down by other scientists.
Logically I can't see how you can keep on adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere that was previously removed and not have some effect. It's a closed system (admittedly a chaotic one) with checks and balances evolved over billions of years. Everyting you do within a closed system has to have some effect on other parts of it, especially when you burn the candle at both ends by removing some checks and balances but increasing the output of that which previously had been checked and blanaced.

I agree re: the religion thing. Didn't some guy in the UK secure a court ruling about his "green" beliefs being subject tot he same as the right ot hold religious beliefs and not be treated differently for having them?

I can see how it made no sense to quote that part of your post with what I posted now. I was in a bit of a rush to get some tea to warm me up in the cold weather

My reason for quoting about corruption is both sides are equally likely to be corrupt. For any man who has an interest in oil, there is another man with an interest in wind farm developments being involved or carbon tax credits.

Its the same with the scientists, they all get their funding from somewhere and its unlikely to make them more likely to be unbiased in their findings.

I don't read into individual scientists findings on it much. TBH I don't really want to as you'll get to know a person in it somewhere and think he's fine and then he'll have some massive controversy about it himself. Everyones a suspect for corruption in this field. Its as bad as free energy really. Until someone can say something for certain, the lot of them would be better off saying nothing.

I just get annoyed reading about it as everything is presented as fact when its based on a simulation that is limited due to the chaotic nature of the system its trying to model.

I don't doubt we are having an effect, I just question how much and if we are capable of changing to a system where we don't effect it because I don't think we are.

Turtwig

Corruption occurs in all walks of life, but to get for there to all scientists who research stuff are corrupt is one heck of a leap.

thebman

Malty_T wrote: »

Corruption occurs in all walks of life, but to get for there to all scientists who research stuff are corrupt is one heck of a leap.

Not suggesting all scientists. Just ones that require massive funding for their research that is also highly politically sensitive with some of the richest companies having massive invested interests involved.

It narrows it down somewhat.

Wertz

thebman wrote: »

I just get annoyed reading about it as everything is presented as fact when its based on a simulation that is limited due to the chaotic nature of the system its trying to model.

I don't doubt we are having an effect, I just question how much and if we are capable of changing to a system where we don't effect it because I don't think we are.

The endless media drive toward greeness gets on my nerves too, and the citation of theory/forecast as fact is annoying...but that's more down to the media interpretation, editing, language and the use of buzzwords than it is the climate issue itself.

Re: your second paragraph, I couldn't agree more with that, except I think we are having sligghtly more of an effect than we like to admit. The bit about changing is spot on though...on an individualistic level where possibly the most positive changes can be made, the refusal of the majority to adjust their means of living for the sake of the environment, means that any individual action is less meaningful and ends up being just si much pissing in the wind. Then again governments trying to act on the macro scale to influence change get seen in a suspicious light (including by me) as using GW/CC as a revenue raising excersise.
You can't win.

RandomName2

I hope that climate change protesters at Copenhagen attempted to get back home via the Chanel Tunnel. It is so warm now that it is one of the worst winters in living memory.

Sorry, it is meant to be 'global' weather that is taken into account.

That's why i'll mention that it is one of the coldest winters in America as well! :P It even has its own wiki page! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_blizzard_of_2009

Maybe there is too little atmospheric carbon dioxide... it is only 0.03% of the atmosphere, after all!

I have actually hard people say that cattle should be slaughtered because they cause global warming (because they, like all animals -including humans- produce carbon dioxide and methane). Has the world gone mad?

Indeed, I believe that climate change should be considered a religion. Warmism, anyone? A splinter sect from the Ice Agers (who have since declined in numbers). Personally, I am agnostic.

People have said that religion and science have an inseparable barrier between them. Not any more it seems.

RandomName2

One more thing:

We were supposed to have run out of oil by now (look at any 1980s documentary). There were really scary graphs showing that by the year 2000 the western world would be struggling and by 2010 there wouldn't be enough oil for domestic use. There would be civil strife and industry would collapse. The whole of our society would grind to a halt. I mean... haven't 'they' seen the Max Max series of films?

Or perhaps it was just a load of conjecture that was designed to scare monger in order for certain groups to suck up public funds (in order to avert this 'catastrophe'). Now oil will eventually run dry - but by the time it does (and nobody alive today will probably see that) technology might well have made oil defunct as a major fuel.

Maybe I could find a German text from the 19th century talking about the end of the world resulting from the supply of coal ending .

There is some science behind climate change. A little. But who cares about hard science when you can say the end is nigh and suck up millions of cash. Did anybody get a load of Mugabe shouting at the western nations at COP15, saying that it was the West's fault that global warming had wrecked Africa (and his own country). If you had a list of agricultural disasters in Africa created by drought it would be pretty short. If you had a list of agricultural disaster in Africa created by war, civil disorder and government corruption you would have a very very long one.

BigEejit

I dont think that humans are completely responsible for CC/GW. But I do think we are having an effect (not by what we produce, in my case quite a bit of methane ) but what we are consuming... large swathes of rainforest disappearing is going to change climate (at least locally) ...

And as was mentioned, its very hard to swallow carbon taxes when it looks like 95% of the rest of the worlds population does not have to pay!!!

Personally I hope that power microgeneration and large scale renewable energy creation gets going sooner rather than later, just to reduce our petrochemical reliance and stop those OPEC f*ckers and russians having a hissy fit from controlling my heating bill.

Worst case scenario we could get lots of 'local' nuclear power plants .... self contained and no plutonium, 4 years between refuelling = http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf33.html

RandomName2

BigEejit wrote: »

I dont think that humans are completely responsible for CC/GW. But I do think we are having an effect (not by what we produce, in my case quite a bit of methane ) but what we are consuming... large swathes of rainforest disappearing is going to change climate (at least locally) ...

And as was mentioned, its very hard to swallow carbon taxes when it looks like 95% of the rest of the worlds population does not have to pay!!!

Personally I hope that power microgeneration and large scale renewable energy creation gets going sooner rather than later, just to reduce our petrochemical reliance and stop those OPEC f*ckers and russians having a hissy fit from controlling my heating bill.

Worst case scenario we could get lots of 'local' nuclear power plants .... self contained and no plutonium, 4 years between refuelling = http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf33.html

+1 (although there is no such thing as local 'climate change' just local ecological disaster). No bad thing having electric cars imo.

Also, just in relation to probability...

The possibility that the world is getting hotter. The possibility that on the whole, a warmer planet is a bad thing. The possibility that this warming is mostly caused by carbon dioxide. The probability that this CO2 is mostly the result of humans. The possibility of creating more CO2 doesn't just speed up the carbon cycle and negate itself in the long run. The possibility that most of this CO2 is actually caused by western countries. The possibility that increasing taxation and economic restrictions of said countries will solve this global warming effect.

All of this together seems pretty unlikely (even if aspects hold true). Now if you look at The Most Terrifying Video You Will Ever See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ the narrator of the video says that all we have to lose by acting against global warming is money. By turning belief of global warming into something of a religion, I believe that may be serious psychological and sociological perils that might exist, along with mere economic ones...

thebman

RandomName2 wrote: »

all we have to lose by acting against global warming is money.

How many scams could claim similar :-/

Danno

Alot of very good stuff above. But what boils my blood is the idea of Carbon Credits/Taxes. How the hell is our economy going to work when 95% of our produce moves around on the back of a truck. How much will we have to pay as consumers to get our food on the table when the hauliers have to pass on the carbon tax. This country is already uncompetitive enough without further taxes adding to our cost base.

These people cannot see further than the foreskin hanging from their foreheads. :mad:

Danno

The gobshyte government here allowed carlow and mallow sugar plants to close instead of turning them into biofuel factories. the gobshyte government pays farmers to leave farmland idle instead of encouraging them to grow crops for biofuel.

the gobshyte government spends millions of euro on new motorways which encourage car usage. the gobshyte government taxes fuel to discourage car usage. the gobshyte government cuts public transport funding. the gobshyte government allowed cie to end its rail freight operations thus putting more trucks on irish roads.

The gobshyte government is more worried about a natural gas in the air instead of un-natural pollutants in our drinking water. The gobshyte government will spend €100m on combatting a natural gas instead of removing lead pipes that carry drinking water.

The gobshyte government and their well paid team of number fudging "scientists" want you to believe that the place is warming because of you.

Now, if this is the type of weather station recording...



...that they are using while trying to get us to accept global warming they must think we came down in the last shower.

Pangea

I found it funny , At the climate change conference , the building was surronded by snow.
Then it shows obama returning to washington from the climate change confernce , and there is a blizzard as he walks out of the air force one.
Global warming indeed

MrCreosote

Pangea wrote: »

I found it funny , At the climate change conference , the building was surronded by snow.
Then it shows obama returning to washington from the climate change confernce , and there is a blizzard as he walks out of the air force one.
Global warming indeed

You know I hadn't thought about that! Snow in Copenhagen and Washington in December? Well, that does disprove completely the 99% of climate scientists who claim that average temperatures are increasing! And I've got really bad chilblains this year- it must be global freezing!!

Wertz

BigEejit wrote: »

Personally I hope that power microgeneration and large scale renewable energy creation gets going sooner rather than later, just to reduce our petrochemical reliance and stop those OPEC f*ckers and russians having a hissy fit from controlling my heating bill.

See this is the sort of thing we should be moving toward as a country so reliant on importing our carbon based fuel.
Never mind the whole CO2 debate for a while...on a financial level our hunger for an ever diminishing resource of oil/coal/gas is going to become more and more crippling (even before carbon taxes are brought to bear).
We need some ideas to reduce costs and if they reduce pollution too then it's double the deal.

One thing we could do here is to give every home owner/landlord/business premises in the country a small roof mounted wind generator. There's certainly no shortage of wind here. the cost of such a scheme would be large, but with so many out of work now, couldn't we start home producing these and train people to fit and install them? All those little power stations feeding the national grid when the home itself isn't using the output would mount up to rather a lot of electricity.
I'm not saying we could become self sufficient, just cut our overheads and provide work in the process (I'm sounding like Eammon Ryan here). People talk of wind farms and large trubines...but those are costly and still need conventional steam driven back ups. We seem to have this whole fashionable environmental thing here where things like hoem, generators and solar panels are available at a large cost and only get taken up by the middle classes as much as for a talking point as it is for an actual cost/environment saving measure. Why should this technology cost so much?
The trouble is though that we have a a tax system in this country that is hugely reliant on the taxation of imported fuel and taxation of all the industries it trickles down to...

Danno makes some great points below about the ambiguity of our gubberments efforts on environmental issues, particulalrly the sugar plants (thought this at the time they were closed tbh) and on the whole public transport issue (tax income on fuel and motor vehicles again having a negative influence).

As for the constant stream of people citing the current chilly air in the northern hemisphere as some sort of defence of the GW conspiracy? :rolleyes: FFS people this is the weather forum. Global warming does NOT mean that we all get to walk around in bermudas sipping drinks with little umbrellas.

One last thing on the micro generation thing. About 10 yrs back I lived in a very hot and sunny part of the States. For about 7-8 months of the year air conditioning was an essential service in every home. I lived i an appartment complex with 16 units and 16 AC machine servicing them. When we got our first utility bill I was shocked at the cost that having the AC running all day amounted to....and meanwhile all that high intensity sunshine beating down on the shingled roof. Solar panels was an ovious "no brainer" as the yanks call it. So why didn't it happen? Cheap oil probably (well cheap until you got the electric bill). Now this was a decade ago, things have changed by now surely. Well I was talking to some mates on the phone the last while, all living in rented appartments, all paying for their AC...have solar panels become more common? Well none of them have seen or heard of places with them.
Greeness is common sense stuff for the most part...if we as a race can't see cheap free energy for what it is and insist on digging expensive holes in the ground to reap what the sun had sowed millions of years ago for our energy needs, then frankly we deserve everything we have (or haven't for the dpoubters) coming...

octo

Danno wrote: »

Now, if this is the type of weather station recording...

...that they are using while trying to get us to accept global warming they must think we came down in the last shower.

Just wondering - do you know that this is an official met station somewhere? Where is it?

Danno

Hi Octo, I am pretty sure it is - http://www.surfacestations.org is a site that monitors alot of the USA's weather recording sites and quite frankly it is hillarious.

At least here in Ireland, we move stations (Birr, Clones, Kilkenny etc...) when the gobshytes build too close to them.

Deep Easterly

Danno wrote: »

The gobshyte government here allowed carlow and mallow sugar plants to close instead of turning them into biofuel factories. the gobshyte government pays farmers to leave farmland idle instead of encouraging them to grow crops for biofuel.

the gobshyte government spends millions of euro on new motorways which encourage car usage. the gobshyte government taxes fuel to discourage car usage. the gobshyte government cuts public transport funding. the gobshyte government allowed cie to end its rail freight operations thus putting more trucks on irish roads.

The gobshyte government is more worried about a natural gas in the air instead of un-natural pollutants in our drinking water. The gobshyte government will spend €100m on combatting a natural gas instead of removing lead pipes that carry drinking water.

The gobshyte government and their well paid team of number fudging "scientists" want you to believe that the place is warming because of you.

Danno, that has to be the best rant I have read all year! . Highlights nicely the every increasing contradictions people are faced with everyday.

RandomName2

MrCreosote wrote: »

You know I hadn't thought about that! Snow in Copenhagen and Washington in December? Well, that does disprove completely the 99% of climate scientists who claim that average temperatures are increasing! And I've got really bad chilblains this year- it must be global freezing!!

Well, up to a point. It is one of the coldest winters on record (and a pretty wet one as well for Ireland and Britain). According to the 'authorities' on the matter, it being cold either (a) means nothing in relation to global warming or (b) actually PROVES that it is warmer (as it is proof that the gulf stream is being affected).

Naturally when it was hot last summer, and the summer before, the media harped on all the time about this being a sign of global warming (particularly in relation to the bush fires in Greece and California). Hot in summer? God-damn it must be the end of the world!

It's all a load of garbage - and hell, maybe the methane produced by this garbage decomposition is having an effect on the climate - who knows? All I do know is that carbon credits and climate concern is so overly saturated in bullsiht that it is almost impossible to tell fact from nonsense, from blind belief and from agendas focused primarily on government revenue.

Danno

Deep Easterly wrote: »

Danno, that has to be the best rant I have read all year! . Highlights nicely the every increasing contradictions people are faced with everyday.

Glad to have provided some entertainment DE!!!

Seriously though, we need to start hounding our local TDs over this. The next thing they'll tax us for breathing and farting. :mad:

utick

Danno wrote: »

the gobshyte government spends millions of euro on new motorways which encourage car usage. the gobshyte government taxes fuel to discourage car usage. the gobshyte government cuts public transport funding. the gobshyte government allowed cie to end its rail freight operations thus putting more trucks on irish roads.

.

They have to build new roads so the wealthy can get where they are going quickly, by increasing the taxes they will force the average citizen off the road, therby clearing up traffic jams so there is more room for the politicians in their limos.

Danno

Can they not continue to get around in their Helicopters?

Turtwig

RandomName2 wrote: »

Well, up to a point. It is one of the coldest winters on record (and a pretty wet one as well for Ireland and Britain). According to the 'authorities' on the matter, it being cold either (a) means nothing in relation to global warming or (b) actually PROVES that it is warmer (as it is proof that the gulf stream is being affected).

Actually it proves neither. Attributing one isolated event of any sort to something such as Climate Change or AGW is foolishness, most climatalogists are well aware this. How many of them said that while more intense flooding like what Ireland experienced recently is what we'd expect of the changing the climate putting this latest events of flooding down to a Climate Change is simply something you cannot logically or rationally do. If their predictions are correct then we should see events like this past winter occurr more frequently. We'll just have to wait and see, but I think many people already agree that the weather in Ireland has been growing steadily more extreme.

Naturally when it was hot last summer, and the summer before, the media harped on all the time about this being a sign of global warming (particularly in relation to the bush fires in Greece and California). Hot in summer? God-damn it must be the end of the world!

God damned media. Of course, you wouldn't be giving credit to media naivety for AGW now, would you? Afterall that would be building a strawman of AGW.

climate concern is so overly saturated in bullsiht that it is almost impossible to tell fact from nonsense

Here's one way to tell fact from bull**** : read the scientific literature. Here's another: stop reading stuff from wattsupwiththat, or Al Gore they're not climatalogists. Read Linzdens papers, read Hansens etc etc

Danno

Malty_T wrote: »

I think many people already agree that the weather in Ireland has been growing steadily more extreme.

Warm seas and cold air will do this. Nothing to do with AGW. BTW, it looks like we are headed for the coldest December ever. Still has nothing to do with AGW either - I am sure you'll agree.