The Great Global Warming Swindle

[willman 10]

i dont recall dinosaurs generating much co2 or driving 4x4's.

 

the planet is organic and evolving. so the inevitable will happen - organic things die they have a limited lifespan, 1 day or 1million years.

evolution will create differences in species alive to cope with the inevitable. if man cannot adapt, he will go the same way as the dinosaur.

 

the only real difference between us and the dinosuars is that we are realisng it won't last for ever and think we can change it.perhaps in 100 years someone will say - if they hadn't used that alternate fuel source in 2001 things wouldn't be this bad,if, if if........

[theripsaw 10]

Obviously

Meanwhile in Brazil they're replacing the tropical rain forest with vast plantations of sugar cane to produce bio-ethanol so we don't have to feel guilty about using petrol and diesel in our cars

 

Save the rainforests - use petrol cars! Im all for that. I dont believe GW is our fault.

[angle20 10]

I do think that once a theory becomes accepted to the degree that this has then it means either have faith in it (yes faith) or you struggle in your career. If you are a scientist and just starting out in a career then you will struggle to get grants or obtain a position if you claim that global warming doesn't exist.

 

Yes, the programme said something along those lines.

 

The dispute isn't particularly about whether global warming exists, but whether greenhouse gases are the cause, ie do have the power to do something about it, or is it a natural phenomenon which is completely out of our hands.

[Greybeard 10]

I do think that once a theory becomes accepted to the degree that this has then it means either have faith in it (yes faith) or you struggle in your career. If you are a scientist and just starting out in a career then you will struggle to get grants or obtain a position if you claim that global warming doesn't exist.

 

It seems now to be the case that your reseach just won't be funded unless it has some relevance to the promotion or proof that man-made global warming is a matter of fact.

 

The progrmme did highlight the fact that with many politicians and scientists man-made GW has become a religion and those who question or deny the fact are regarded as heretics.

 

Heaven knows how they will cope with a global temperature downturn as there was between 1940 and 1975.

[JoeP 11]

???? so 200 years ago we had the out put of co2???

 

i dont think so.. it only stated after the war

 

Errr....no. Core samples from the Arctic and Antarctic ice indicate that CO2 levels started increasing significantly with the industrial revolution. The other peaks due to eruptions and other natural events can be seen in these samples as well, but what is seen is a gradual increase in the background level.

 

We REALLY got in to our stride in teh 20th Century, though.

[bladesufc1 10]

Try the industrial revolution, bladessufc1.

 

 

 

what 200 years ago!!

[JoeP 11]

Heaven knows how they will cope with a global temperature downturn as there was between 1940 and 1975.

 

This is why I made the comments above - our activities on the planet are almost certainly having some impact on climate patterns - we're just too big a disturbing influence NOT to.

 

However, the effects may not be as clear as we think.

 

Look at the arguments about solar influence on warming - the period 1940 to 1960 had increasing sunspot counts and sunspot areas, and culminated in the 1959 cycle - one of the highest periods of solar activity on record. At the same time we were generating a lot of CO2. Temperature fell. For supporters of BOTH teh solar hypothesis and the CO2 warming effect, temperature should have increased.

 

Oops. It didn't.

 

So - back to my theory that we're fiddling with things and we don't really know whether we're doing anything that's permanent or transitory. Even the GW theories have a range of temperature effects between an increase in just 1 degree to an increase in temperature of 11 or twelve degrees over the same time!

 

A good argument all around is, I'm afraid - play safe, be frugal with energy, and get some better understanding. As someone once said about the film industry - 'No body knows nowt'.

 

The one thing we do know is that the climate of the planet is a complex, non-linear phenomenon that is astonishingly senstivite to initial conditions. The old 'butterfly effect' of Chaos Theory was first explored using something called the Lorenz Attractor - a VERY simplified model of climate.

 

We've spent 200 years dumping all sorts of stuff in to the atmosphere - gasses to warm it, gasses to cool it, gasses that react with other gases in teh atmosphere to change it's chemical and physical properties, we've generade ozone holes, pached 'em up again, and on at least one recorded occasion tested nuclear weapons in the atmosphere that were powerful enough to leave long term effects on the Van Allen Belts, which may again have impact on climate.

 

In other words, we're seriously messing with the initial conditions of a chaotic system, and hoping that there's enough 'inertia' in it to keep it within boundaries that we can live with.

 

We shouldn't be surprised if our collective ass doesn't get kicked.

[JoeP 11]

what 200 years ago!!

 

Yes, 200 years ago. The Industrial Revolution started in the late 18th century.

[Alastair 12]

Also, as for vested interests - the oil business is worth 600 billion dollars a year. That's an awful lot of reasons why it's in some people's interests to prove that we're innocent of any contribution to climate change.

 

I think we should punish the producing countries the same way we punish the countries that produce drugs. We could send in crack SAS teams to attack their oil installations and shut down production.

[JoeP 11]

I think we should punish the producing countries the same way we punish the countries that produce drugs. We could send in crack SAS teams to attack their oil installations and shut down production.

 

I assume starting here in the UK?

[Alastair 12]

Hell, no. Let's attack Scotland first

[willman 10]

has anyone given a thought - what would the difference be if you weren't here.

if you hadn't been born would the non-effect of your life been beneficial to the planet.

 

so why don't all the GW "fanatics" and greenies stop having kids.they're making it worse by continuing with the species.