global warming is a fact of nature. It has caused ice-ages several times over the course of the earth's life and the fact that it will bring about another one (quite probably while humans are still walking the earth) can't be much of a suprise. I have no time for people who claim jets, cars and factories are causing global warming. There is barely even an argument that we are accelerating global warming.
I dont ever remember reading about dinosaurs driving around in gas-guzzling 4x4s and jetting off to the caribbean for their summer holidays, yet they experienced global warming - in fact it is the belief of many paleantologists that it was global warming that killed them off!
Greenies are hypocrits... and dont get me started on the (road tax exempt [UK]) toyota prius!
Apparently it has been the coldest/wettest northern hemisphere winter for the past 25 years.
The global warming sceptics were quick to point out that it shows that global warming is a myth.
This brought the predictable fury of the pro global warming fraternity to the fore. The claim that one event over a relatively short time scale cannot be used as a claim for a wild theory........
"Why not?" say the sceptics, "You lot do it all the time"
As I remember it from school, the dinosaurs were around at the time when much of the oil we use now was being created. There was a lot of methane and carbon dioxide around at that time and the vegetation thrived on it. It did also make the place rather warm. The two aforementioned gasses were "fixed" in the gas, oil and coal deposits and, no longer being in the atmosphere, the planet cooled. Burning the carbon fixing deposits puts the carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere and the temperature goes back up again. A vast over-simplification, of course. The world governments are happy with that sort of extreme oversimplification as it does allow them to tax the a**e off us as a point of morality.
Remember that Dick Turpin was a honourable man as at least he had the decency to wear a mask and didn't attempt to make his victims feel grateful.
.....Lord Lawson closes on a note that others of us have struck in trying to puzzle out the deeper reasons for this great climate panic. He recognises that in many ways the global warming ideology has filled the vacuum left by the collapse of Marxism: "Green is the new red."
He sees parallels with the apocalyptic visions held out by certain religious movements in the past. He is alarmed by the fanatical intolerance shown by many believers in global warming to any heretic who dares question their certainties.
He ends by describing "the new religion of global warming" as "the Da Vinci Code of environmentalism. It is a great story and a best-seller. It contains a grain of truth and a mountain of nonsense.
"We have entered," he says, "a new age of unreason, which threatens to be as economically harmful as it is disquieting. It is from this, above all, that we really do need to save the planet."
I didn’t think I should be able to say this quite so soon, but, unquestionably, the ‘Global Warming’ Grand Narrative is in trouble. The paradigm is shifting: the duck is becoming a rabbit. Everywhere, there is the first hint of decay, while the hot air of desperation is palpable..........
Don't know if this has been published here before, but it is worth reading:
The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change New York, March 2nd - March 4th) was attended by over 500 scientists, economists and policy-makers, with over 100 speakers delivering keynote addresses or participating in panel discussions.
At the end of their deliberations they issued The Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change, which reads as follows …
'Global warming' is not a global crisis
We, the scientists and researchers in climate and related fields, economists, policymakers, and business leaders, assembled at Times Square, New York City, participating in the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change,
Resolving that scientific questions should be evaluated solely by the scientific method;
Affirming that global climate has always changed and always will, independent of the actions of humans, and that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant but rather a necessity for all life;
Recognising that the causes and extent of recently observed climatic change are the subject of intense debates in the climate science community and that oft-repeated assertions of a supposed 'consensus' among climate experts are false;
Affirming that attempts by governments to legislate costly regulations on industry and individual citizens to encourage CO2 emission reduction will slow development while having no appreciable impact on the future trajectory of global climate change. Such policies will markedly diminish future prosperity and so reduce the ability of societies to adapt to inevitable climate change, thereby increasing, not decreasing, human suffering;
Noting that warmer weather is generally less harmful to life on Earth than colder:
Hereby declare:
That current plans to restrict anthropogenic CO2 emissions are a dangerous misallocation of intellectual capital and resources that should be dedicated to solving humanity's real and serious problems.
That there is no convincing evidence that CO2 emissions from modern industrial activity has in the past, is now, or will in the future cause catastrophic climate change.
That attempts by governments to inflict taxes and costly regulations on industry and individual citizens with the aim of reducing emissions of CO2 will pointlessly curtail the prosperity of the West and progress of developing nations without affecting climate.
That adaptation as needed is massively more cost-effective than any attempted mitigation and that a focus on such mitigation will divert the attention and resources of governments away from addressing the real problems of their peoples.
That human-caused climate change is not a global crisis.
Now, therefore, we recommend -
That world leaders reject the views expressed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as well as popular, but misguided works such as An Inconvenient Truth.
That all taxes, regulations, and other interventions intended to reduce emissions of CO2 be abandoned forthwith.
Agreed at New York, 4 March 2008.
• This year, China had its coldest winter in 100 years …
• … and Baghdad saw its first snow in all recorded history …
• … and North America had the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began …
• … and Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina and Chile all reported record low temperatures …
• … and all four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) all report that over the past year global temperatures have dropped precipitously. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C - a value large enough to wipe out nearly all the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year …
• a… and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that almost all the allegedly 'lost' ice has come back …
• … and there is nearly a third more ice in Antarctica than usual.
But have the headlines been proclaiming "Global Warming at an end"? Have our television presenters stopped ending every single nature programme with dire warnings that "these beautiful creatures are under threat from climate change and we may never be able to film them again"? (If it's a film about polar bears or badgers, that'd be brilliant. Vicious bastards, the lot of 'em).
Has our government changed its tune even a tiny bit? No, not at all - in fact, as I write we await the Budget speech which is expected to include an enormous tax hike on new cars (to combat global warming) and a ban on plastic supermarket bags (to save the sweet ickle sharks and, like, turtles, you know? And combat global warming, of course).
The Chief Scientist has said nothing about it. The Royal Society has said nothing about it. Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth and Al Gore and George Monbiot have said nothing about it. No, for them Global Warming just carries on its merry way, same as usual.
Funny thing, that. But then Global Warming has often been described as a new religion, and religion depends very heavily on faith and not so much on hard evidence.
As a Jesuit priest of my acquaintance often says, "My mind is made up. Don't confuse me with facts."
I had the "trust me, I`m a scientist" line thrown at me the other day. The gentleman in question was a botanist BTW. I`ve nothing against botany, though I think it probably has more in common with flower arranging than climatology. This outburst was in reply to an innocent question I had posed (I thought one of the main features of science was continual scrutiny and enquiry). My question was that since CO2 content is running at about 380ppm, how did the proponents of global warming explain the lack of a runaway greenhouse effect during the carboniferous period, when CO2 content was several thousand parts per million? Since the oceans didn`t boil away then, and there was still ice at the poles then, why should imminent disaster be facing us now?
I am saddened that many scientists seem to have adopted the role of priests in this weird new religion (though I will concede that perhaps all religions are just a bit strange)...another feature, is this current practice of buying "carbon offsets" (I had the opportunity to do this when I booked my next holiday). That`s not unlike the selling of indulgences by the Roman Catholic church back in the middle ages....strange times indeed, a new dark age made darker by the lights of perverted science perhaps?
The priests of this new religion are fecking clever. I watched a prog on SBS (Oz TV) the other day and some tweed dressed feminist greenie psychologist was expounding on the theory that those who deny global warming and coming catastrophe are acting in a typical human "denial" fashion. This ensures that any argument against global warming is instantly denigrated. Clever eh?
Club of Rome. The First Global Revolution (1991). pp. 104
In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up
with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming,
water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill."
- Club of Rome,
The First Global Revolution
"The concept of national sovereignty has been immutable,
indeed a sacred principle of international relations.
It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to
the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation.”- UN Commission on Global Governance report.
United Nations. Our Global Neighbourhood, The Commission on Global Governance (1995). Oxford University Press.
The emerging 'environmentalization' of our civilization
and the need for vigorous action in the interest of the entire global
community will inevitably have multiple political consequences.
Perhaps the most important of them will be a gradual change
in the status of the United Nations. Inevitably, it must
assume some aspects of a world government."
- Mikhail Gorbachev,
State of the World Forum
Gorbachev, Mikhail. Keynote address - State of the World Forum 1996, San Francisco. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=State_of_the_World_Forum
Location: In the workshop, next to the beer fridge.
Age: 57
Posts: 259
It's a known scientific fact that the earths temperature goes through its own cycles. The larger of these cycles inclded the likes of the ice age. Much smaller cycles last around 7 years. What we can do it alter just fractionally, the levels of these smaller peaks and troughs. If however, we go too far in limiting our CO2 emissions, what long term effect will this have on the planets plant life and forests?
The other line we get from the eco nazis is " All the arguments for global warming have been fought and won, and anyone who argues against us is either mad, bad, or in the pay of the big oil companies"
All that that suggest to me is that these people are hiding something, or that they are frightened that someone might rumble them, or ask an awkward question they can`t answer.
I got into an argument on another forum with a couple of actual scientists. In the end I gave up. The problem I had with them was their utter refusal to countenance any idea that scientists could get it wrong or that scientists were human enough to fall prey to the usual human frailties. I couldn't get it into their head that science could be used by others to advance an agenda. Nothing would convince them that climate models could be wrong. Their simple attitude was that the science had proved we humans caused global warming. They wouldn't even admit that there were scientists out there who failed to believe in the consensus. Like Loki's botanist, neither was an actual climate scientist. But they defended the brotherhood vigorously apparently unable to believe that becoming a scientist didn't automatically make you infallible or always honest.
They actually reminded me of priests in a religion. There is no argument or discussion about whether God exists or not. God exists, discussion over. It's the same with the AGW situation. The impression I got from them was that both were quite young. It's worrying that the new generation of scientists out there appear to have no hint of scepticism in the make up.
But I have a feeling the tide is beginning to turn on the AGW issue. Doubts have crept in. Some prominent scientists are beginning to put their heads above the parapet. I think this will be the high water mark (good pun that) of the AGW scare. A few years from now, many people are going to look foolish and the ordinary gullible public are going to be annoyed they were being scared for nothing.
Dr David Bellamy, is none of that, he is a un believer of global warming and because of this he is now a heritic. Shame I used to love watching Lenny Henry do him on Tiswas.
It seems that the Red's are getting their way, no more expensive cars and tax going up!
Got my info from National Business Review (NZ publication, edn. of 4.4.08, p24).
There's a chap called Roy Spencer who has found the defect in the computer model. The original theory was that a small increase in CO2 would cause a large increase in water vapour, being the main greenhouse gas. But the computer model had all this vapour sitting up there in the upper atmosphere, in a gaseous form. In fact, of course, it doesn't all sit up there. It forms clouds in the lower atmosphere, which produce rain. So there's a negative feedback - which is why the earth's temperature hasn't increased since 1990, despite the increase in CO2.
The article goes on to say "... the lead author of the IPCC chapter on feedback has written to Spencer agreeing that he is right."
The whole deal comes down to exactly that! How can they screw more taxes out of us....if the various governments were REALLY concerned about the environment and the warming thereof, they could try leading by example and even invest ALL the revenues in Green projects.
As many of the previous correspondents have observed, one is now considered to be an anti-social pariah if one dares to question their dubious statistics and they do not countenance any other facts than their own.
Our first three Winters in Canada (as in real Winters) started mid-December and ended around mid-March = 3 months. This last one started in mid-November and looks well set to continue to mid-April or later = 5 months+.
I admit I don't have a PhD in Climatology, but a Winter that lasts 2 months longer than the previous three does not in my book = Global Warming.
'Oooo,oooo,oooo' the ecomentalists all cry: 'There can be localised cooling. There can be localised cooling......'
Linear Mode
