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The Great Global Warming Swindle


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Great documentary which went out in the UK last week, and which is now on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6Wr1hcIp2U

 

Outlining the complete fallacy of the global warming scaremongering that's been going on for the last 20 years.

I'll not bother going into all the details, you're far better watching the program.

Sufficed to say, that the current global warming has absolutely nothing to do with humans, and is simply a natural cycle that has always gone on, driven by sunspots, the solar wind, and water vapour.

What's more, developing countries are being seriously held back and damaged by the fact that they are being told not to use fossil fuels, but alternate sources of power such as wind and solar panels.

The upshot is that there is zero evidence to show that humans have anything to do with the current warming, and in fact, the evidence is just the opposite. Temperature drives Co2 levels rather than the other way around.

As I say, watch the program.

I've always been a global warming skeptic, and this has really condensed and solidified my views on it.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

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Very nice, thank you.

 

All liberal arts college classes should be required to learn this so they can actually hear something other than the brainwashing they get pounded with.

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This documentary has been widely discredited since its release, and one scientist who took part, Carl Wunsch, has complained that they just cut up his interview to make it look like he disagreed with the global warming theory.

 

Channel 4 loves creating controversy, and that's just what this is.

 

2,500 scientists from 30 countries agreed in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, published just last month, that there was a 90% change that humans caused climate change. That's enough reason to be taking it seriously.

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The only thing I know about global warming is that I am not qualified to have an opinion on global warming. People are all too ready to take sides in a disagreement based on whatever subset of the arguments they have been most persuasively presented with, and I am not going to fall into that trap if I can help it.

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This documentary has been widely discredited since its release, and one scientist who took part, Carl Wunsch, has complained that they just cut up his interview to make it look like he disagreed with the global warming theory.

 

Channel 4 loves creating controversy, and that's just what this is.

 

2,500 scientists from 30 countries agreed in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, published just last month, that there was a 90% change that humans caused climate change. That's enough reason to be taking it seriously.

 

That '2,500 scientists' is bollocks for a start. A large percentage of them aren't scientists at all, but government officials and hangers on. The report also still listed names of scientists who had resigned from the panel in disgust.

They don't all agree either, the report simply takes quotes from them and stitches together it's own biased views from them.

They also omitted large chunks of data from the scientists findings, which made the report misleading, causing the former president of the American Academy of Scientists to write a letter of protest against it which was published in the Wall Street Journal.

An allegation which the IPCC did not deny.

It was not the report that was agreed by the contributing scientists, but an altered version typed up by government officials.

 

When you say the documentary has discredited, what you mean is that people who are pro-'humans cause global warming' have disagreed with it. That's not the same thing.

WHat are their scientific reasons for disagreeing?

The undeniable scientific fact is that CO2 levels do not drive temperature changes. The evidence on that is clear.

They even had the founder of Greenpeace appearing in this documentary agreeing that it's all bollocks.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

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They even had the founder of Greenpeace appearing in this documentary agreeing that it's all bollocks.

:D In one thread you argue against a drug-addled hippy and in the next you call on the king of all hippies to support your argument?

 

A large percentage of them aren't scientists at all, but government officials and hangers on.

LOL, why would government officials want to promote the idea of global warming? They have everything to gain from continuing to pump crap into the atmosphere. The only reason they're reacting now is that they've realised global warming could cost them money.

 

The undeniable scientific fact is that CO2 levels do not drive temperature changes. The evidence on that is clear.

Clear as the shit you're talking. It's about as far from a 'fact' as anything can be, and it's very telling that you're putting all your faith in some crappy Channel 4 documentary. I did enjoy their documentary about the Loch Ness Monster and the Fake Moon Landing, but I don't think we were supposed to take those seriously either.

 

Anyway, this is a pointless argument, because our opinions aren't exactly going to stop the earth from getting hotter if it wants to. I suppose we'll find out in the year 2050 or so.

 

Since you're such a fan of ethnic minorities, I hope you're particularly displeased when they all move to Ireland because the rest of Europe is an arid desert.

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Every time I see this debate coming up, I groan in pain.

 

Why oh why had this to become a left/right issue? Politics fucked up the whole topic good, even to the point where otherwise open minded people become ignorant and stubborn. I stopped listening to polticians some time ago, I rather listen to sience.

 

As with everything, sience has pro and contra groups on this particular topic. The best I can do is to read up on both sides and form my own opinion, because I didn't do the research myself. Some scientists say evolution didn't happen and some say it did, and I have no other choice but to look at the reasoning of both sides and think about what is more plausible.

 

So I did, and I must say that afterwards one thing of the whole affair stood out to me:

 

Would it be a bad thing to cut down CO2 emissions?

I know that constantly shitting into my living room wouldn't be healthy for me in the long run.

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:LOL, why would government officials want to promote the idea of global warming? They have everything to gain from continuing to pump crap into the atmosphere. The only reason they're reacting now is that they've realised global warming could cost them money.

I meant to say officials from the IPCC. However, governments are no strangers to jumping on popular bandwagons. They're pouring billions into global warming research to show the population how concerned and sensitive they are.

 

Clear as the shit you're talking. It's about as far from a 'fact' as anything can be

Look at the evidence for yourself.

and it's very telling that you're putting all your faith in some crappy Channel 4 documentary. I did enjoy their documentary about the Loch Ness Monster and the Fake Moon Landing, but I don't think we were supposed to take those seriously either.

They never made a documentary trying to prove the loch ness monster existed, and many people, including myself are rightly skeptical about the first moon landing.

And, of course, you and your inbred cousins from the valleys are partly to blame for the global warming scaremongering in the first place. If you were all down a coal pit sucking leeks with your little blackfaced brother (who's also your uncle) where you belong, instead of going on strike and cavorting around the countryside trying to be journalists and hairdressers, Thatcher wouldn't have been so enamoured with promoting nuclear power, and that's what started the whole 'CO2 is bad' bandwagon.

And then further, it's journalists like you who love to scaremonger. There's nothing you love more than a doom and gloom prediction for a headline.

 

Anyway, this is a pointless argument, because our opinions aren't exactly going to stop the earth from getting hotter if it wants to. I suppose we'll find out in the year 2050 or so.

That's exactly the point of the program, our opinions or actions aren't going to stop the Earth getting periodically hotter or cooler, it's been doing so by itself for billions of years, and there's nothing we can do to control the sun, which is the cause of it.

 

 

Since you're such a fan of ethnic minorities, I hope you're particularly displeased when they all move to Ireland because the rest of Europe is an arid desert.

They're already here. You can't move 10 yards without bumping into an Eastern European immigrant. I'd probably have less chance of meeting a Polish guy in Poland than I have in a walk to the shops and back.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

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I only saw part of this documentary but enough to know it's a damn weak argument (part of the college curriculum to write convincing arguments). For one thing, this documentary is one sided & doesn't cover counter arguments. You need to cover the opposing point of view & then shoot it down to support your argument. This documentary keeps saying "them" without defining who "they" are. Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" had plenty of evidence to support his POV. Not that I agree with that POV but Al's movie has support to back up those claims. He brings in experts who measure the amount of CO2 in glaciers & compares those findings to temperature records (I do wonder if temperature readings are the same between centuries ago and today . . .) Al did his research. The people who made this documentary basically interviewed people who really didn't have enough evidence to back them up and there was very little opposing views.

 

Then there's all these pretty graphs showing temperature/climate trends based on paintings from that era? :blink:

 

I'd have to see all of this documentary to get a better picture, but from what I seen, it doesn't have a lot of substance. Besides, I don't rush into one point of view or another based on a single documentary. You need several different sources in order to have a better grasp on the whole picture.

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I watched and agreed with The Inconvenient Truth, and after watching this video, I must say I found it very persuasive. In particular, I had considered Al Gore's ice-core temperature/CO2 graph to be a strong argument for global warming until this video pointed out that the CO2 line lags behind the temperature by about 800 years. Also, several of the things the video mentioned were consistent with prior stuff I've seen. A few examples: When they talk about the global warming report erroneously stating that mosquitoes can only survive in the tropics, I was reminded of nature videos where caribou on permafrost were constantly attacked by huge swarms of mosquitoes. I've also taken a (single) college class on weather/climate, which had pointed out that water vapor has a much larger greenhouse effect than CO2, and this video echoed that. And their explanation of why temperatures would affect CO2 was consistent with my knowledge of aquariums and water chemistry.

 

Would it be a bad thing to cut down CO2 emissions?
Actually, if you take the time to watch the video, they cover that issue near the end, saying that at least for developing nations it could be very bad... Perhaps it may be a good idea for developed nations to work on renewable energy sources, but carbon-based energy can be vital for boot-strapping an economy.

 

So we have absolutely nothing to do with global warming ? The fact that Earth was getting increasingly warmer in the last 100 years is just a coincidence ?
According to the video, human influence is dwarfed by things like volcanoes (though I don't consider their mention of decaying vegetation to be a valid source of CO2, since it ends up getting reabsorbed). And they lay out arguments/evidence that at least provide reason to think that yes, it may be a coincidence. In particular, they provide evidence suggesting that our climate is linked to sun-spots, and that global warming may cause high concentrations of CO2 rather than the other way around. (although CO2 does have a greenhouse effect, this video suggests that it's negligible compared to the other influences, such as the sun)

 

I'm SO relieved. Now we can poison that stupid planet even more !
If you consider CO2 to be "poison" then perhaps you need to carefully reconsider breathing. ;)

 

You need to cover the opposing point of view & then shoot it down to support your argument.
Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" had plenty of evidence to support his POV. Not that I agree with that POV but Al's movie has support to back up those claims. He brings in experts who measure the amount of CO2 in glaciers & compares those findings to temperature records (I do wonder if temperature readings are the same between centuries ago and today . . .) Al did his research.
If you watch the video, they shoot all that down.

 

 

 

I'd like to request that everybody at least watch the video before disagreeing with it...

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Exactly, and I don't see any equally persuavive arguments coming from the other side which show me that humans are causing the current small rise in temperature.

So we have absolutely nothing to do with global warming ? The fact that Earth was getting increasingly warmer in the last 100 years is just a coincidence ?

 

I'm SO relieved. Now we can poison that stupid planet even more !

 

Perhaps you might want to take a look at global temperature charts for the last few thousand, or even millions of years to see how much the Temperature has fluctuated.

It's an entirely natural phenomenon driven by the sun, and our impact on it as about the same as a gnat bumping into a charging rhinoceros.

You might want to particularly look at all the independant studies of core samples leading back millions of years which show that temperature controls the levels of CO2 by heating the oceans. CO2 does not drive temperature.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

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Actually, if you take the time to watch the video, they cover that issue near the end, saying that at least for developing nations it could be very bad... Perhaps it may be a good idea for developed nations to work on renewable energy sources, but carbon-based energy can be vital for boot-strapping an economy.

 

I don't need to watch the video to know the impact of head-over-heels emission restrictions on the industry/economy. I'm not saying that we should OMG CUT OFF ALL EMISSIONS NOW. As I said, I have seen the arguments of both sides but - surprise - I have no option to verify them.

 

Look, I think we can agree on that we've got a lot more CO2 in the atmosphere than any time since earth matured. Other times with massive volcanic eruptions produced also peaks, but nowhere as high as now. I wasn't at a pole and looked it up in core drills myself, so you could thwart me on that. Seeing how much of the stuff we pump into the air every day, I'm inclined to believe it.

 

I can also see on satelite images that the forests are shrinking away, and unless some hippie photoshopped them all, I would regard this as a fact. My chemistry course and own experience have also teached me the properties of CO2, and I believe in a thing called dark reaction. I'm not a plant and can't do it myself, though.

 

The verdict is, CO2 is toxic, and too much of the stuff in the air can't be good - so I think it might be a good idea to cut it down, for whatever reason.

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Just read this on ananova

 

Carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere much faster than scientists had predicted.

 

It means there may be less time to tackle climate change than previously thought, reports the Guardian.

 

New figures from measuring stations across the world reveal concentrations of CO2, the main greenhouse gas, rose at record levels during 2006.

 

CO2 the main greenhouse gas?

Water vapour is by far the main greenhouse gas, CO2 is a few percent of total greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and humans produce a minuscule amount of that CO2 compared to natural sources.

This is a good example of the sort of misinformation that is constantly fed to us by the media looking for scare stories.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

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humans produce a minuscule amount of that CO2 compared to natural sources.

 

As of January 2007, the earth's atmospheric CO2 concentration is about 0.0383% by volume (383 ppmv) or 0.0582% by weight. This represents about 2.996×1012 tonnes, and is estimated to be 105 ppm (37.77%) above the pre-industrial average.

 

The initial carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of the young Earth was produced by volcanic activity; this was essential for a warm and stable climate conducive to life. Volcanic activity now releases about 130 to 230 teragrams (145 million to 255 million short tons) of carbon dioxide each year. Volcanic releases are about 1% of the amount which is released by human activities.

 

Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, the atmospheric CO2 concentration has increased by approximately 110 µL/L or about 40%, most of it released since 1945.

 

This is from Wikipedia, so feel free to post your own numbers that debunk this. You're right about water vapour though, CO2 is only the second most-significant greenhouse gas.

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If you watch the video, they shoot all that down.

I'd like to request that everybody at least watch the video before disagreeing with it...

The core samples they used in the video does not take the last hundred years into consideration. After watching the whole video, I still stand by my assessment of my first post. It's too one-sided & I can't really take it seriously.

 

Exactly, and I don't see any equally persuavive arguments coming from the other side which show me that humans are causing the current small rise in temperature.
That's because they did not show that POV. The video is almost totally one sided.

 

Perhaps you might want to take a look at global temperature charts for the last few thousand, or even millions of years to see how much the Temperature has fluctuated.

It's an entirely natural phenomenon driven by the sun, and our impact on it as about the same as a gnat bumping into a charging rhinoceros.

You might want to particularly look at all the independant studies of core samples leading back millions of years which show that temperature controls the levels of CO2 by heating the oceans. CO2 does not drive temperature.

Some would argue that human activity accelerated the natural cycle.

 

CO2 the main greenhouse gas?

Water vapour is by far the main greenhouse gas, CO2 is a few percent of total greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and humans produce a minuscule amount of that CO2 compared to natural sources.

This is a good example of the sort of misinformation that is constantly fed to us by the media looking for scare stories.

If you're using only this video as your main source of info, then you need to back up your arguments with even more sources. It's poor research to only use one source. If only one source is used, then you could be considered as being too gullible.

 

As of January 2007, the earth's atmospheric CO2 concentration is about 0.0383% by volume (383 ppmv) or 0.0582% by weight. This represents about 2.996×1012 tonnes, and is estimated to be 105 ppm (37.77%) above the pre-industrial average.

 

The initial carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of the young Earth was produced by volcanic activity; this was essential for a warm and stable climate conducive to life. Volcanic activity now releases about 130 to 230 teragrams (145 million to 255 million short tons) of carbon dioxide each year. Volcanic releases are about 1% of the amount which is released by human activities.

 

Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, the atmospheric CO2 concentration has increased by approximately 110 µL/L or about 40%, most of it released since 1945.

 

This is from Wikipedia, so feel free to post your own numbers that debunk this. You're right about water vapour though, CO2 is only the second most-significant greenhouse gas.

Finally, someone bringing in another source! Although wikipedia is not the most reliable source of info.

 

Here are some more sources to chew on:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html

http://www.globalwarming.org/science.php

This site includes both sides of the argument

http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org/

 

http://www.globalwarming.org/article.php?uid=901

This should prove to be an interesting read.

2500 minus one

 

World Climate Alert

February 02, 2005

 

Dr. Christopher Landsea of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration�s Hurricane Research Division at NOAA�s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, has withdrawn as an author of the Fourth Assessment Report under preparation by the UN�s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for release in 2007.

 

Landsea has written more than forty articles on hurricanes and other tropical storm systems for refereed scientific publications during the last twelve years (see www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html for specific references). As an author, he contributed to the last two IPCC Assessments and had primary responsibility for sections describing the past, present and future behavior of tropical cyclones.

 

He recently wrote and circulated an �Open Letter� among his colleagues to announce and explain his decision to withdraw from further IPCC participation. We have his permission to quote it. We have added bold-faced emphasis to certain section that are not in the original.

 

Dear colleagues,

 

After some prolonged deliberation, I have decided to withdraw from participating in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). I am withdrawing because I have come to view the part of the IPCC to which my expertise is relevant as having become politicized. In addition, when I have raised my concerns to the IPCC leadership, their response was simply to dismiss my concerns.

What Landsea�s letter illuminates is yet another example of what climatologist Patrick Michaels, our senior editor, calls �the predictable distortion of global warming� in his book Meltdown in which he argues that, in general, climate scientists are not policy-neutral. Professional advancement often is best-served by exaggerating threats of climate change in public discourse. A glaring example was the complete omission of the word �satellite� in the Summary for Policymakers of the 1996 IPCC Second Assessment. As a result, policymakers were not aware that orbiting temperature monitors show no statistically significant warming � a difference with the surface thermometer record that nine years later is yet to be resolved.

Just like this forum thread, some people seem to be wearing blinders & following their own agenda. This debate will keep going because some people will find evidence to support their theories on both sides.

 

I'm leaning towards the natural cycle because on my trips to Alaska & I see thousands of miles of lush, green forest & it's hard to comprehend that we could have an impact like man-made climate change in those areas.

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The whole entire core argument, besides anything else, is the claim that man-produced Carbon DiOxide is causing (or accelerating or whatever) the current global warming trend of the past three decades.

 

That is the only thing that matters, whether or not this is true.

 

When the data from as far back in Earths past as we can gather ALWAYS shows temperature trends PRECEDING Carbon DiOxide level trends, it's hard to come back and suddenly argue that Carbon DiOxide levels cause the temperature changes.

 

It doesn't even matter how tiny or large a percentage of the world's CO2 is produced by man, since CO2 doesn't cause temperature changes.

 

If there is scientific data that does indeed show historic CO2 levels going up first and then temperatures rising afterwards, consistantly, then that evidence would negate the above paragraph (two prghs up).

 

Also, since all the past data shows relationships that are hundreds of years apart, it's hard to say that now things should react within years or a couple decades. And even if it did react right away, how do global warming advocates explain the three decade cooling period from 1940 to 1970, during the hight of industrial CO2 pumpage?

 

I very sincerely believe myself to be intellectually honest and open minded, and I just haven't seen any convincing evidence to genuinely support the theory that mankind is causing a problem of global warming by emmitting tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. If there is it would be new science, because all the past fact certainly don't support the idea. I'm willing to change my mind, but I have to be convinced.

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My professor (Michael Oppenheimer, about as authoritative as you get in the field) said the real smoking gun was from ice core studies ('Evidence of Global Warming' page with graph). It's far from the only evidence, but it makes the point in maybe the clearest fashion.

You can tell from the compactification pattern what the mean temperature is at each level, and from the chemical composition (trapped C02 bubbles) what the C02 levels is, and with that the researchers found practically a one-to-one pattern between the two variables at each layer, consistently the whole way down.

 

When the data from as far back in Earths past as we can gather ALWAYS shows temperature trends PRECEDING Carbon DiOxide level trends, it's hard to come back and suddenly argue that Carbon Dioxide levels cause the temperature changes.

 

This is a simplification, C02 and Mean Temperature have an interrelationship; they move in tandem. When C02 rises, you get warming from a greenhouse effect. The warming does things like melt ice and cause more fires, releasing more C02, increasing the warming effect, and so on ... until it reaches an equilibrium.

 

If the temperature begins to cool, things like more ice and less fires means more of the C02 is getting sequestured, which takes even more C02 out of the atmosphere, leading to more cooling ... and you get a down-cycle until you reach an equilbrium. Normally, there is a grand cycle to the periodic release and sequestration of C02 along with temperature change (there's a finite amount of C02 on the earth, well a little addition over time by things like volcanic activity, but not so much now as earlier in geologic time -- as someone else said, I think. But with that consistent amount, it's just a matter of if it's in the atmosphere or sequestered); but that's been clearly knocked out of balance by anthropomorphic influence.

 

Anyway, the point is the fact that the causal primacy is ambiguous isn't as important as the fact that they are co-determinate. You increase one, the other one goes up in tandem, and vice versa. (here's a short article explaining it).

 

As for the 800 year jump-start that temperature rise has on C02 release, as far as I know that stat is being cherry picked to make the point, because I recall from the core studies, on the whole, sometimes temperature rise is before C02 release, sometimes the C02 is before tempature rise, and the chances were pretty even which took primacy. More generally, though, the argument doesn't much affect the critical point that they are co-determinate variables; they always come together and mutually accellerate the effect of the other until an equilibrium is reached.

 

As for the 1940-70 statistic you gave, I mean, look at the top graph on that "evidence of global warming" page I linked and you can clearly see that you are cherry-picking a period to make a point that dissipates from a broader perspective; it's not nearly as statistically important as you think it is; e.g., notice that it is a wobble in the context of a larger than expected spike from 1930-1990, which maintains the statistical pattern you'd expect with global warming on the larger scale.

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Even if the upshot is that t's not conclusive either way, the point is that it's always presented as though it is totally conclusive, and that human CO2 emissions will definitely cause disaster within the next 50 years.

This January was the warmest in Britian for 100 years.

Global warming?

Nope, it was this warm in January 100 years ago as well, so how is that global warming?

Yet, that's exactly what you read in the press.

Everything, from a bush fire to a tornado to a freak flood, to someone's dog getting lost is blamed on global warming, and while all these thousands of 'climate specialists' and 'environmental journalists' swank about to conferences costing millions of dollars to be held in some plush Nairobi hotel, 20 miles away you have people living in mud huts having to cook over open fires, because of lack of any sustainable or affordable energy source. While the West was built on coal and oil, they're told they can use theirs.

I think it's quite obvious from temperature charts that temperature fluctuations bigger than the current one are perfectly normal and should be expected no matter what we do or don't do.

We have no control over the weather.

It's a symptom of our general delusion of self importance that we can control the weather of an entire planet by our puny actions.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

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As for the 800 year jump-start that temperature rise has on C02 release, as far as I know that stat is being cherry picked to make the point, because I recall from the core studies, on the whole, sometimes temperature rise is before C02 release, sometimes the C02 is before tempature rise, and the chances were pretty even which took primacy. More generally, though, the argument doesn't much affect the critical point that they are co-determinate variables; they always come together and mutually accellerate the effect of the other until an equilibrium is reached.

 

Okay, I think this is the main crux of the whole thing again. If the temperature rise has always been long before the CO2 rise, and the temperature fall long before the CO2 fall, then it greatly deflates the idea that CO2 increases makes temperatures rise. But if what you say is correct, that it was randomly one or the other first with no pattern of one in particular always being first, then it's indeed inconclusive in that regard.

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Actually, if you take the time to watch the video, they cover that issue near the end, saying that at least for developing nations it could be very bad... Perhaps it may be a good idea for developed nations to work on renewable energy sources, but carbon-based energy can be vital for boot-strapping an economy.

 

1. Burning fossil fuels produces a hell of a lot of other stuff which probably isn't wanted in that atmosphere, not just CO2.

2. Surely the pollution of the planet is a bigger issue than some countries' economies? If we want to help the third world develop we could start actually helping them, rather than screwing them over with debts, forced free markets, "intellectual property" licencing and other crap.

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Whether or not you accept global warming as a fact, we are polluting, and that is bad. Raising awareness of tihs impact we have on the environment (and we do have an impact) can only be a good thing.

 

If we want to help the third world develop we could start actually helping them, rather than screwing them over with debts, forced free markets, "intellectual property" licencing and other crap.

Hear, hear.

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then it's indeed inconclusive in that regard.

 

It may be inconclusive about the primacy in a natural cycle. But it seems pretty suggestive that there's a mutual relationship between the two either way, so that if you increase one you can very well expect the other to co-determinately rise with it. In a sense, it doesn't matter so much which comes first. We mooted it by pumping up one side of the equation.

 

 

Nope, it was this warm in January 100 years ago as well, so how is that global warming?

Yet, that's exactly what you read in the press.

Everything, from a bush fire to a tornado to a freak flood, to someone's dog getting lost is blamed on global warming,

 

Where you are right that the press is misrepresenting things, even from an avowed global warming advocate's p.o.v., is that the effect is a statistical one. It would be a mistake to attribute specific climate events to global warming. So they are wrong when they say *this* specific storm, or *this* specific record high year is directly attributable to global warming. The most you can say is that the chance for that event is increased across a timeframe. But it doesn't mean much unless it's in the context of a reasonable period of time.

 

To give an obvious analogy, if you're rolling a dice and suddenly you change it so that two sides have the number four; it would be the same kind of mistake to say that the next time you specifically hit four was *because* the extra four was added. (Or if you want an even more neutral argument, if you haven't rolled four in the last 50 rolls, it would be the same kind of mistake to say the next specific time you roll the four was *because* you didn't roll it for 50 times.) The statistics aren't changing according to the rolls; you'll have just the same likelihood to roll a four before and after the last four you rolled or 100 rolls since the last four you rolled. But the rolls do evolve according to the statistics if the dice is being stacked. What is significant is the pattern over a span of roles, which converges to a number over time; any one specific event doesn't tell you much (although its more politically charged, of course).

 

So in that respect, the popular press often misrepresents global warming my focusing too much on specific events as the tale-tell signal, especially in the context of the recent natural disasters.

 

While it may be good press, a real problem with it is that it deflects attention from the fact that the real bite of global warming is in its gross economic effects, and those effects will hit developing countries the hardest. It's their agricultural economies that have the most to lose, and here we are (in rich countries) worrying about a few severe weather events, and maybe nostolgia for lost glaciers we might have seen on our Alaskan cruises. Economically, rich countries will be able to adapt much more ably than poor countries, even though of course, rich countries contributed more to the problem*. So there is an unfairness element to how global warming is being (incorrectly) characterized by the press, IMO, which leads to misplaced attention. The press is focusing on the wrong problems to be really worried about.

 

But even if you don't care about poor countries, even for rich countries, saying that they will adapt better, it is still important that people focus on the bigger scale gross economic effects and not this or that hurricane or record high. Otherwise they are going to make poor decisions on how best to respond.

 

 

* although that doesn't let some developing countries like India and China off the hook because they'll be large contributers in the near future. By the way, on the "it's unfair that we don't let poor countries use their coal like we did" argument, like the other guys said, burning coal is dirty and ultimately unproductive (costing more money, e.g., in ineffecient energy production and pollution externalities, for fewer widgets). We have good reasons to upgrade them to more effecient, cleaner burning plants even without global warming.

Edited by demagogue

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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