-1 for big dave same head in sand toss from somebody who has yet to think about what it will mean to him.

Actually I have. I've studied it, been out there in the world and gotten my hands dirty working on nature reserves and even changed career on the strength of my believes but after many years I have to admit that my views have softened, I've listened to the other side of the argument and I have to say that I'm really and truly not convinced. I also grew fed up with under powered weedy little eco cars and the feeling that I was slowly becoming an form of eco-catholic (full of guilt but without the buggery :D)

Science is about having a balanced argument and the almost evangelical tone that some of the posters on this thread have adopted sums up everything that is bad about the climate change movement. The tone of the pro-climate lobby only serves to alienate people who may be interested but not overly familiar with some of the issues as it doesn't come across as open minded.

I work alongside a lot of very passionate people in very high profile delivery bodies and environmental institutions and I have to say that a lot of the time their arguments are well intentioned but surprisingly flimsy when viewed objectively. They are also not always relistic or entirely rational as too much emotion has crept into the green movement over the last ten years.

For my parting shot consider this; you are all on this forum because you are presumably mountain bikers. You ride bikes that in most cases where made thousands of miles away from the UK, you probably always make sure you buy the latest gear and to enjoy your hobby a lot of you will most likely strap your bikes to the back of a car (not great for fuel consumption) and travel sometimes hundreds of miles to ride them in a largely artificial environment which was created at the expense of once natural habitat. Some of you will even fly to Europe and beyond to enjoy your biking. Seriously, are you really the sort of people to be handing out sage advice on climate change?

Science is about having a balanced argument and the almost evangelical tone that some of the posters on this thread have adopted sums up everything that is bad about the climate change movement. The tone of the pro-climate lobby only serves to alienate people who may be interested but not overly familiar with some of the issues as it doesn't come across as open minded.

We are open minded what facts have you got then?
We just get polemics like yours and others that slate scientific orthodoxy with religous words [evangelical, zealots] despite the fact it is you that is taking a leap of faith. You offer no explantion of what is happening [clearly it is warming and things are melting], nor offer any evidence to support you position.

We did the how green are you thing early re-read the thread and see our scores. Your description/ slur is not that accurate and even if it were it adds nothing to your argument. Notice than when challenged you offer nothing to explain some of your rather outlandish claims /assertions.

Again I am open minded now persuade me with facts not invective.

Big Dave, can I summarise for you?

What you seem to be saying is that you can't be arsed, but you'd feel better about yourself if nobody else could be arsed either.

Well, I'm sorry, but you have to make your own decisions in this life, then live with them.

If you think some people on here have an evangelical tone that you don't like, then don't listen, but don't make it an excuse for not facing up to reality.

dave had you said it like that the first time round i would not have responded in the way that i did.
that seems like a fair view to me.

I think the earth is a bit too big and complex a structure for us to truly damage.

That's not a good enough reason to ignore our resonsibilities.

We all reap the benefits of technology. We've all picked up the habits of our parents, like they did from theirs, and made them normal.

All these problems seem to stem from using technologies on a large scale before we understand all their effects.

We're just engaged in a series of unproven experiments with the natural world. For 200 years we've been at this but I think that arrogant attitude needs to be left in the 20th century.

Science is about having a balanced argument

Nope – it's about looking at the data and following your logic to its conclusion, however uncomfortable that may be. The truth is not "balanced", or democratic.

I avoid posting credentials or a CV as I'm not deluded enough to think it gives any weight to what I say, either you follow my reasoning and take it on its merits or you don't. I will say that some of the best MTB trails I've ridden anywhere start less than a mile away though. 🙂

I note you are of the view Britain is not in Europe Dave. 😉

Bet you guys are hopping mad now, big summit in Frankfurt about global warming and 2 stories on the BBC today: Branson unveils his rocket ship to fly you in to space for £120k a go and Britains aviation needs room to grow 😉

epicyclo,

Greenhouse effect in a bottle

Greenhouse effect in a bottle

Slightly ironic that the video starts with a car ad.

Also – it slightly annoys me that she says she "hopes" the CO2 bottle will get hotter. Why "hope"?

because, it's a science experiemt, and they go wrong sometimes.

(wires fall off, a bottle leaks, the cat escapes, someone left a cheese sandwich in the vacuum chamber, yada yada yada).

clicky

and before someone says: 'most weather stations have seen urbanisation over the last 200 years, blah blah concrete blah…' it's the arctic regions that are seeing some of the fastest warming.

with enough pressure on our governments, we can start funding serious research into nuclear fusion, once we get that sorted, we're sorted.

Surely the world would turn wartastic if everyone had fusion

Anyone watching "Man on Earth on Channel 4 now? Tony Robinson doing a sort of Time Team thing tracing human history through climate change.

Amazing how the changes just happened with "Scientists" saying how they just happen even within a decade giving big temp changes…im sure it will be dismissed…by the its all our fault brigade… 🙄
did ya see the cavemans private Jet parked outside his Cave..next to the bently…. 🙂

rightplacerighttime – Member
epicyclo,

Greenhouse effect in a bottle
Thanks, quite interesting demonstration of how CO2 absorbs heat. I'm familiar with that bit.

I've been trying to rig up a similar experiment but with a black metal plate on one side to see what happens when the heat source is cycled, ie what happens to the heat stored in the CO2 when the heat source is removed – ie how much radiates away. Also to compare how much heat reaches the plate through CO2 compared to air when the heat source is active, and does less heat hit the plate when going through CO2. (I'll insulate the plate on its non exposed side).

Need more sensors and have to write a wee programme first.

If I finish it I will post it (regardless of results)

But I also have 5 bikes to get ready for the 'Puffer… 🙂

“members of the public feel more confident expressing opinions on others’ motivations and tactics than they do expressing opinions of scientific issues.”

Global warming is happening – fact.

Global warming due to man is the biggest Con out there.

It is an excuse for everyone to tax you within an inch of your life.

We are in a natural cycle, always have been, always will be.

Which natural cycle would that be hainey? All of the ones I'm aware of would suggest we should be cooling right now.

Global warming due to man is the biggest Con out there.

Looking forward to your detailed, peer-reviewed, analysis that supports that conclusion.

Sun spot activity low

"Low solar activity has a profound effect on Earth’s atmosphere, allowing it to cool and contract."

Thanks hainey. I was one of those that believed the evidence and the science behind it but I'm now converted by your solid argument 😉

Could you provide similar incite in the field of particle physics as they're going through such a kerfuffle starting up the LHC?

It has been proven and ratifed by a large proportion of the scientific community that the earth has a natural warming and cooling cycle of 1500 years. In fact, there are far more smaller cycles of warming and cooling which happen every 50 years.

From about 1840 to 1890 the temperatures slowly rose by about 0.6degC. Then from 1890 to 1965 they slowly dropped by about 0.6degC. From 1965 to present day they have risen 0.4degC. The difference between 1890 and 2010 is that we have a knee-jerk media and governments who are struggling for money. In the late 1960s they were predicting doom and gloom that the earth was cooling.

Global warming and cooling does exist, but its just part of the planets natural cycle.

The suns activity vastly outways any effect of pollution or man made gases. The number of the Sun's cosmic rays hitting the Earth affect the number of low, cooling clouds that reflect solar heat back into space, amplifying small variations in the intensity of the Sun.

2000 years ago greenland was covered in trees, birds and mammals! Now its covered in about 200m of ice.

it is excellent to see the anti lobby litterally say it is wrong , offer no evidence to support this position and then go. It is like they have no robust arguments to back up their position.
article above here with hyperlinks to case studies,graphs etc

Global warming and cooling does exist, but its just part of the planets natural cycle.

Why do we need to go back over and over these things? The magnitude and timescale of current warming trends are NOT explained by "natural cycles" (do you think the Earth menstruates? 🙂 ), but ARE explained best by man-made CO2.

These issues are not illuminated by bar-room type arguments like:

The suns activity vastly outways any effect of pollution or man made gases

It takes actual work to quantify that stuff, and the work suggests very strongly that you are wrong.

We've been through the rest but I like the anecdote about trees on Greenland. Were these below where the ice sheet is now?

Are you refering to Milankovitch cycles hainey? In which case you are being very selective in your time periods as there are three major superimposed cycles. How about posting a link to a site with the cycles expressed graphically? Or would that be embarassing as it would not support your view as Milankovich cycles in no way explain current high temperatures and CO2 levels.

Everyone arguing against global warming is brain-washed by big oil without even knowing it, FACT

According to who? All the research i have seen categorically links fluctuations in temperature on earth to sun activity. If you have evidence suggesting differently then great. Thats what debate is all about.

You say that cycles "ARE explained best by man-made CO2" – care to elaborate on that, or is that an easy flippant statement to make? Its easy to blame man-made CO2, but global warming and cooling trends suggest differently and at times far earlier than us humans had entered the industrial revolution.

You say that cycles "ARE explained best by man-made CO2" – care to elaborate on that, or is that an easy flippant statement to make?

Fair bit of elaboration here:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_ipcc_fourth_assessment_report_wg1_report_the_physical_science_basis.htm

Not really, you've just pointed to a website.

Not really, you've just pointed to a website

Yes – a website with detailed information about the science behind climate change predictions. There are also executive summaries, if you're pushed for time.

There is also this site that I posted yesterday:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8376286.stm

For every hypothesis there is a counter hypothesis or argument. This is the great and exciting thing about science. Unfortunately the climate models that are used are only as good as the data that is put into them. A lot of the IPCCs arguments aren't based on fact, they are based on prediction. In fact there own research goes into great detail as to why ALL the global warming and cooling over the last 400,000 years has been caused by natural occurences, sun activity, volcanos etc. But seemingly this is now not relevant for the 21st century!? Why is that? Is it because the IPCC scientists have their wages paid by the same governments who are a little strapped for cash right now? The same governments who are charging us green taxes but building more roads, more airports and less investment in public transport?

All the research i have seen categorically links fluctuations in temperature on earth to sun activity

So the Earth should have been getting colder for the last 50 years of decreasing solar activity hainy. Your own logic is against you.

Sun cycles, Milankovitch cycles, volcanic activity cycles. None of them explain either current CO2 levels or current warming. On the contrary as my sun activity link from NASA clearly states if you read it.

All the research i have seen categorically links fluctuations in temperature on earth to sun activity.

Quote some so I can decide to believe you or not

No, its because the scientists are all in the pay of the lizard-people and the secret one world government. However, I believe that they do take other causes of climate change into account and they do not appear to explain recent changes in the climate.

Also, prediction is usually considered a reasonable way of investigating, given the current difficulty of taking measurements in the future, what is likely to happen in the future.

I already have Mark, hainy is ignoring it as it proves he is wrong to attribute current warming to solar activity.

NASA solar cycles

If NASA is right then we should really take their projections into consideration and predict even faster global warming as higher CO2 levels and a higher level of solar activity in the next decade combine to rapidily increase temperatures.

If NASA is right then we should really take their projections into consideration and predict even faster global warming as higher CO2 levels and a higher level of solar activity in the next decade combine to rapidily increase temperatures.

Which seems to be being borne out by reality as temps are rising WAY faster than predicted.

irrespective of the arguments laid out, Hainey seems to be in a natural cycle whereby they come across as a bit thick

For every hypothesis there is a counter hypothesis or argument. This is the great and exciting thing about science.

Yep – and if the counter hypothesis is shown to be better, it will be accepted; and if not, it will be tossed in the bin. And that process has led to the current state of our understanding, which is that man-made global warming is happening.

NASA is government funded right?

There are plenty of papers out there which link it, don't have the time to search now. But google global warming, sunspots, thousand year high – you'll get the picture.

At the end of the day, Scientists can not prove that global warming is directly linked to Man. Neither can we categorically say that its not.

My main issue with it all is that its not science anymore, its more of a religion. And we all know where religion gets us! Those of us who question the scriptures of global warming are labelled heretics or deniers – as quoted recently an innuendo intended to link us to something as horrific as the holocaust.

I am looking forward to the global warming inquiry (like the Iraq war enquiry at the moment) where the leaders of the world go on the stand to proclaim that they heard the evidence from a cab driver.

which is that man-made global warming is happening.

– thats your opinion, not everyones, and that doesn't make it correct!