Forum search & shortcuts

Global Warming - re...
 

[Closed] Global Warming - really, aye?

Posts: 0
Free Member
 

Maybe someone should get really into the science and study all the data in detail and tell us what's really going on.

Oh wait, they did

And declared it was a travesty that they could not account for the lack of warming...


 
Posted : 02/11/2014 11:36 pm
Posts: 0
Full Member
 

I personally can't see why people seem to need hard evidence of Global Warming etc to know that a massive CO2 release is not really a good idea?

Any time you change the natural balance, things are likely to change.

There is no natural mechanism that releases such quantities of CO2 over such a short time as mans consumption of hydrocarbon fuels. That's got to be a bad thing in the long term.

I don't need to see graphs showing 2degcC warming or what ever to know that things will change if we continue to burn fossil fuels at such an unnatural rate.


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 12:04 am
Posts: 497
Free Member
 

Where is the problem?

we just need to print more money then we can fix anything.


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 12:15 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

I personally can't see why people seem to need hard evidence of Global Warming etc to know that a massive CO2 release is not really a good idea?

Not difficult really. The hydrocarbon industry creates huge profits and makes some people extremely rich. These vested interests obviously want to downplay and challenge the allegation that their industries are responsible for anthropic climate change and its devastating consequences.

For further obvious reasons these rich and powerful people find allies among right-wing politicians, indeed many of them are right-wing politicians.

They have enough leverage through power, wealth, and influence, to very effectively mount campaigns through the media to challenge and mislead the gullible. The usual stuff.......don't trust governments, all politicians are evil self-serving individuals, it's a conspiracy to tax you more of your hard-earned money, they want you to stop driving your cars, it's all just a big con.

Some people will fall for that crap, sufficiently they hope to delay any meaningful curb on carbon emissions.


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 12:34 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

wanmankylung - Member
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29822830

The climate is getting warmer and Arctic sea ice is melting at an alarming rate.
But in Antarctica sea ice levels are actually increasing, and this year reached their greatest extent since records began.

More sea is is a symptom of warming. More ice melts from the land means less salt water at the sea surface surrounding antartica, meaning it freezes quicker. Also add in wind direction and a few other factors I'm not sure of and expanding sea ice is interesting.

I'd have a guess that the volume of land ice on antartica is the real gauge.


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 12:51 am
 grum
Posts: 4531
Free Member
 

Think it depends on which data and scientists you want to be correct

Yeah, it depends on whether you want to believe 97% of them or 3% of them.

Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities,1and most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position. The following is a partial list of these organizations, along with links to their published statements and a selection of related resources.

https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 12:59 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

scientific consensus

Like continental drift?

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/when-continental-drift-was-considered-pseudoscience-90353214/?no-ist


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 1:03 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

As a scientist, I do have one comment to add:

Anthropogenically mediated climatic change is often dismissed as 'just a theory' by deniers*. Well, so's gravity, in which case may I kindly suggest you take your incredibly unhelpful and definitely undereducated views on this very complex topic with you and float off. Ta.

*And I'm being deliberate in my terminology here. A climate science sceptic is someone who takes an educated view point and has evaluated a large amount of information on the topic themselves, and has come up with a semi-justifiable defence for their scepticism. That makes most of the negative commentators on this topic, including those posting on this thread, as simply being layperson deniers.


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 1:14 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

For some, it won't be true until Simon Cowell says it is.


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 1:43 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

A climate science sceptic is someone who takes an educated view point and has evaluated a large amount of information on the topic themselves, and has come up with a semi-justifiable defence for their scepticism. That makes most of the negative commentators on this topic, including those posting on this thread, as simply being layperson deniers.

Most of them being retarded right wingers.

And declared it was a travesty that they could not account for the lack of warming...

Bingo!


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 1:46 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

Now I'll preface this by pointing out that I agree with the "scientific consensus" that man has a large influence on the observed warming (though I'm still kind of uncomfortable with the was the "consensus" is touted as some kind of evidence in itself). I've also come to realise that I'm actually a bit of a hippy in my attitudes towards transport and other energy use and think we could be doing a lot more to decrease our energy usage.

However I have a bit of a problem with this cartoon:

[quote=anagallis_arvensis ][img] [/img]

The implication being that anything done in the name of preventing climate change is a good thing, when in reality that's far from being the case.


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 1:59 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

I think you might have missed both the humour and the point behind the punch line.


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 2:06 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

That's the problem with extrapolations.


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 2:56 am
Posts: 52609
Free Member
 

So some simple facts and ideas.
Carbon based fuels are finite and will run out at the rate we are using them - fact.
Alternative energy sources exist - fact.

Would it be a good or a bad thing to be the ones who don't need oil when the price spikes so high it causes more world issues.
For all the things you can make with oil burning it is one of the stupidest ideas going.


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 3:18 am
 JCL
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

Nothing will ever be done. The Amazon is being chopped down at the fastest rate ever, countless coal fired power stations being built etc etc.

Humans are greed driven. The only thing that bothers me is all the other species that get taken down with us.


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 3:46 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

Most of them being retarded right wingers.

That as well, but I was (uncharacteristically) trying to remain polite 😉

Everyone is entitled to their opinions, including their opinions on climate change.

What people are not entitled to is their own facts, or to pass off their opinions as fact.


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 7:28 am
Posts: 91181
Free Member
 

I'd have a guess that the volume of land ice on antartica is the real gauge.

Or sea levels. Are they rising? Should be easy to measure?


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 8:25 am
Posts: 5296
Free Member
 

These discussions always remind me of tobacco companies telling people cigarettes weren't bad for you


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 8:35 am
Posts: 18615
Free Member
 

Or that there was a threshold below which lead consumption was safe to justify lead in petrol. Or that there's a threshold below which nuclear radiation is safe to justify releasing nuclear waste into the environment... .


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 8:42 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

Or that there was a threshold below which lead consumption was safe to justify lead in petrol.

Correct, there isn't, because there is no measurable background of volatilised lead, apart from perhaps during volcanic eruptions

Or that there's a threshold below which nuclear radiation is safe to justify releasing nuclear waste into the environment... .

Not so correct, there may be: as there is quite measurable background radiation that is not man-made, there genuinely is no consensus on whether risk vs dose continues linearly to zero, or tails off somewhere around normal background levels...

But, lets not get too distracted, eh 😉


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 9:08 am
Posts: 15
Free Member
 

"As often happens when confronted with difficult new ideas, the establishment joined ranks and tore holes in his theories, mocked his evidence and maligned his character"
Thanks for the link ninfan the above quote from your link entirely sums up the attitude of politicians the oil industry and their "climate sceptical " stooges to the scientists in the climate change debate. Have you ever wondered why when yhere are billions of dollars being pumped into denial of man made climate change not one scientist with a relevent qualufication not even my brother an oil industry geologist disputes it.


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 9:38 am
Posts: 18615
Free Member
 

there may be

Not quite so adamant now, Zokes, you've made my day. Of course there is no consensus, there rarely if ever is. This thread shows there still isn't a consensus on the existence of man-made climatic change. There will always be "someone" to say that we're just observing natural cycles. History shows that the "someone" will then be paid lots of money to spread their ideas by the industry concerned.


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 9:46 am
Posts: 18615
Free Member
 

So if the STW concensus is now that climatic change existsa dn is a bad thing, what are we doing about it?

[url= http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx ]One of many carbon footprint calculators[/url]

In my case a lot but still not enough:

"Your footprint is 5.23 metric tons per year
The average for the industrial nations is about 11 metric tons
The average worldwide carbon footprint is about 4 metric tons
The worldwide target to combat climate change is 2 metric tons"

I eat meat, do energy greedy sports and have a car. The house is sorted though, still no need for heating (down to 21°C in the living room so it won't be long before the wood burner gets lit).


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 10:07 am
Posts: 8961
Free Member
 

Love the reference to continental drift Ninfan. Basically we should never listen to scientists because, like idiiots, they base their hypotheses on the availalble data and change them when the data suggests they should.

Instead we should listen to Lord Lawson cos he rattles out the same old shite consistently and with absolutely zero regard to any data whatsoever.

10/10.


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 10:19 am
Posts: 52609
Free Member
 

This thread shows there still isn't a consensus on the existence of man-made climatic change.

If 97% of the worlds climate change scientists say it's happening is that not a consensus? They are the people who should be asked rather than the population as a whole who think ghosts, fairies and demons exist. Climate change doesn't have a science problem it has a PR problem.


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 10:25 am
Posts: 66134
Full Member
 

Edukator - Troll

Of course there is no consensus, there rarely if ever is. This thread shows there still isn't a consensus on the existence of man-made climatic change. There will always be "someone" to say that we're just observing natural cycles.

Concensus doesn't require unanimity 😕 It means general agreement, which there certainly is.


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 10:27 am
Posts: 18615
Free Member
 

After over 10 years on these threads there is still the odd denier that raises his head and several deniers who don't post on the threads anymore. I don't think there is a consensus yet, just less vocal deniers.


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 10:32 am
Posts: 52609
Free Member
 

I don't think there is a consensus yet, just less vocal deniers.

Going back to my last post, the consensus is not among the lay people it's among the scientists. In reality the public is ignorant and wrong, unless they are going to join the field of climate science and prove what they claim they should rightly be ignored as just cherry picking data from the internet to fit their views.


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 10:36 am
Posts: 8961
Free Member
 

Ban Ki Moon Says:

'get the frick over it, people. It's happening so you'd better sort your schizzle, girlfriend.'

on the telly last night and everything.


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 10:41 am
Posts: 5559
Free Member
 

I think the public deny it because if they accept it then they have to do as Edukator has done rather than just carrying on damaging whilst in denial.


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 10:43 am
Posts: 0
Full Member
 

Thing, in everything we know about "excess" is the issue.

You can swallow poison and your body will react and save you, as long as you only swallow a little bit.

You can hit yourself in the face with a brick, and, your body will heal, as long as you only do it a few times

People live safely in areas of high natural radiation as their bodies have evolved to cope over time

The environment can balance long term, slow shifts in pollutant or atmospheric contamination.

What matters is the rate of release. I can't see how anyone can not understand that a massive and rapid (<100 years) change in the status quo in terms of atmospheric concentration of CO2 WILL change things.

What those things are, and if you think they are "good" or "bad" well, that's mostly politics.....


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 10:43 am
Posts: 8416
Free Member
 

I am not a "Climate Change" denier.

The climate is cyclical. It has changed greatly many times with no help from mankind.

I think pollution is a bad thing.

I think over reliance on fossil fuels is a bad thing.

However, I am completely skeptical regarding some of the "Green" solutions that are now being heavily subsidized and proclaimed to be excellent solutions.

Hydrogen powered cars. Ridiculous, requires huge electrical output to produce. Complex and expensive infrastructure to supply.
Hybrid cars. Ridiculous, lugging heavy, expensive batteries around. What's the real carbon footprint of those things?

Offshore wind. Ridiculous. Expensive needs massive subsidy to be worthwhile. The carbon footprint of the construction and support vessels is huge.

I await my flaming.


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 10:48 am
Posts: 91181
Free Member
 

The climate is cyclical. It has changed greatly many times with no help from mankind.

Yes but as I explained, a) it wasn't always a good thing and b) it's never changed this fast.

Ridiculous, requires huge electrical output to produce

The point about H is that you can (in theory) produce it where renewable energy is free and transport it. That's not ridiculous at all.

Hybrid cars. Ridiculous, lugging heavy, expensive batteries around.

Do you know how much the battery in a Prius weighs?

Offshore wind. Ridiculous. Expensive needs massive subsidy to be worthwhile.

What's cost got to do with it? Is offshore wind too expensive, or is coal too cheap? The need for renewables has nothing to do with being competitive in the market.


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 10:53 am
Posts: 18615
Free Member
 

People live safely in areas of high natural radiation as their bodies have evolved to cope over time

Oh dear, you've fallen for those "studies" which claim lower cancer rates in high natural radiation areas in places such as Iran. Do some of your own research and you'll find the studies are highly misleading and many of the claims plain inaccurate.


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 11:00 am
Posts: 31206
Full Member
 

Thing, in everything we know about "excess" is the issue.

Spot on.

A point I often bring up with the lay-deniers is that they are quite happy with the idea that "the climate is always changing" and most would accept that huge natural forces such as volcanoes must play a part in this natural change.

After all, volcanoes spew out somewhere in the region of 0.15 to 0.26 BILLION metrics tons of CO2 every year! That's a lot.

But anthropogenic CO2 emissions stand at 35 BILLION metric tons a year!

Can that [i]really[/i] have no effect?

Put another way, we would need an extra 11,200 volcanoes the size of [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C4%ABlauea ]K?lauea[/url] in Hawaii to produce that much CO2.

Imagine for a moment that we are in an alternate Earth where there is no man-made CO2, but we have an extra 11,200 huge active volcanoes and more of them appearing every year. How many people would readily dismiss that?

[Source: [url= http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/climate.php ]"Volcanic Gases and Climate Change Overview", US Geological Survey[/url]]


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 11:05 am
Posts: 5559
Free Member
 

I await my flaming.

you seem confused between challenged with facts and flamed


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 11:07 am
Posts: 31206
Full Member
 

The climate is cyclical. It has changed greatly many times with no help from mankind.

I never understand why people keep making this point.

Do they REALLY think that the world's foremost climate scientists are unaware of natural climate cycles?

I always picture someone in a white coat, sitting at a desk deep inside an IPCC research lab, stumbling on these comments and saying: [i]"By Jove, there's a chap here who reckons the climate has [b]always[/b] changed. I think he might be onto something. Get me someone at NASA immediately."[/i] 😆


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 11:17 am
Posts: 5559
Free Member
 

Its also interesting they believe the same budget let purveyors of lie or scientists as the rest of us call them about previous change and causes but not about current change or causes.

I also wonder what they think is natural about burning tons and tons of fossil fuels and why they have not realised that previous natural change does not preclude current man made change.


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 11:21 am
Posts: 8416
Free Member
 

What's cost got to do with it? Is offshore wind too expensive, or is coal too cheap? The need for renewables has nothing to do with being competitive in the market.

The cost is directly related to the carbon footprint of their construction, maintenance and operation.

They are not very "green", when the true "carbon cost" is added up.

After all, volcanoes spew out somewhere in the region of 0.15 to 0.26 BILLION metrics tons of CO2 every year! That's a lot.

[url= http://www.livescience.com/40451-volcanic-co2-levels-are-staggering.html ]Not everyone agrees with those numbers[/url]


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 11:27 am
Posts: 10980
Free Member
 

Nobody believes scientists, that's the problem. We all know scientists have vested interests, we all know you can lie with statistics and we have all been fed conflicting dietary advice in our lives. It's time we stopped treating scientists as prophets.

Read Bad Science if you don't agree with me.


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 11:29 am
Posts: 52609
Free Member
 

Hydrogen powered cars. Ridiculous, requires huge electrical output to produce. Complex and expensive infrastructure to supply.

As opposed to deep drilling on and off shore, massive transportation vessels and pipelines, refineries, storage and distribution network. Though I guess you could knock that all up with the bike spares in your shed.


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 11:29 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

gobuchul - Member

The climate is cyclical. It has changed greatly many times with no help from mankind.

that's sort-of why lots of people are extremely concerned.

we've all seen the historical temp/CO2 graphs... the climate has warmed/cooled a LOT uring the last 800,000 years, probably longer, but the greenland ice-cores only go back so far...

and all of that variation has happened within a CO2 range of what, 180-300 ppm?

we've already gone way past that; we're at 400ppm at climbing, we have no idea what's going to happen - but it's going to be HUGE.


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 11:31 am
Posts: 497
Free Member
 

why is everyone so concerned about this?

if it does turn out to be a disaster we can just press a button to fix it.

[img] [/img]


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 11:35 am
Posts: 18615
Free Member
 

Gobuchul, a quick sum says that even taking the highest figures for volcanic out-gassing of C02 in the article you link you still only get to 2% of anthropogenic CO2.


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 11:45 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

That's okay then, if volcanos can do it, we can do it too.


 
Posted : 03/11/2014 11:51 am
Page 2 / 7