The 10:10 Climate Change Pledge. Will you be signing up?

Cardew

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/6425269/The-real-climate-change-catastrophe.html

Without comment!!

Volcano

Cardew wrote: »

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/6425269/The-real-climate-change-catastrophe.html

Without comment!!

I think the author's Wikipedia article sums up his scientific expertise:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Booker

bert&ernie

Volcano wrote: »

I think the author's Wikipedia article sums up his scientific expertise:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Booker

Perhaps you would care to sum up yours? And while you're at it, why don't convince me why I should give a !!!!?

Cardew

Volcano wrote: »

I think the author's Wikipedia article sums up his scientific expertise:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Booker

Whilst I have no idea where the truth lies in the great global warming debate, I really think it is a specious argument to denigrate the author who presents views and opinions from one section of the scientific community.

Al Gore, a politician, won a Nobel prize for presenting the other side of the argument. I don't think he lays any great claim for 'scientific expertise'

Volcano

Cardew wrote: »

I really think it is a specious argument to denigrate the author who presents views and opinions from one section of the scientific community.

I think it's wholly relevant to call into question someone's understanding of scientific issues who also thinks that asbestos is harmless, second-hand smoke doesn't cause cancer, BSE doesn't cause CJD and that a mythical wizard in the sky created the Earth in 7 days.

His interpretation and presentation is that of the overly dramatic, self-publicising author. This isn't really a rational platform on which to question a complex scientific problem.

timmmers

Cardew wrote: »

Whilst I have no idea where the truth lies in the great global warming debate, I really think it is a specious argument to denigrate the author who presents views and opinions from one section of the scientific community.

Al Gore, a politician, won a Nobel prize for presenting the other side of the argument. I don't think he lays any great claim for 'scientific expertise'

No, but he had a lot of mates in the places that count.

Anyone seen the movie Fall of the Republic ? It's on Youtube in parts and is very thought provoking.

Did you know that on the day of 9/11 the Americans grounded ALL flights barring military and a handful of civil ones ...giving clear skies for the first time in decades...and partly due to this the phenomenon of Global Dimming was confirmed in tests. According to some scientists this dimming DOES cool the planet and is balanced out by Global warming to some extent. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dimming_prog_summary.shtml tells more about this.

There is so much twaddle talked about carbon foorprints , it's just a way to make money from us and for us to happily go along with it out of fear.

As for global warming...who exactly was measuring all these stats 100+ years ago I wonder? We have the technology now to monitor everything, but even 100 years ago they didn't, nor did they care about it. So what are we comparing todays climate to exactly? Weather and planetary changes take a very long time, so this current slight rise may just be a natural phenomenon, it could easily be the magnetic poles changing over (as they do constantly over loooong periods, it could be Sun spots or other solar activity...actually that's very likely indeed, or it coulc just be that Mother Earth isn't MacDonalds and can't instantly fix herself and needs time to do so.

The really funy thing to me is even on this board...what green measures are people taking to reduce carbon emissions? Installing wood burnering stoves like mad. Greaat for saving cash...but for the environment I doubt that. Chopping trees down that are mature and replacing with saplings that take 20 years mature ? How does chopping down a big tree that can process a lot of CO2 into oxygen and burning it to produce more CO2 get fixed by starting to grow a much smaller and inefficient tree in exchange? Where are they planting all these trees anyway? They aren't is the official answer to that, they say it and don't usually do so.

The Amazon ...sad that it's being destroyed. It shouldn't be. The entire planet including the poles were all once forests though...since they are all gone shouldn't we be suffering from lack of oxygen by now if the amazon really produces so much (abd gets rid of so much CO2) ? Not really since 2/3 of the globe is sea packed with plants doing it (plankton is mainy plant)...that's doing the job as it always has.

Someone told me in Aldi last week how I was contributing to the fall of civilisation due to greenhouse gasses produced by the steak I was buying....cow farts contribute massively to greenhouse gasses she said. True, but she needs to check out what is happening in Siberia with methane from dead trees which is 100% natures doing and unstoppable.

We're like fleas wrestling the cat when we try to mess with nature..it's too powerful and always wins. We're best letting it do what it always has and fix itself.

In America right now you can be made to move out of your home if it is inspected and found to be having a poor carbon footprint...and you pay for the inspection that is a surprise visit too. Expect that in a council near you very soon. Carbon taxes are the new boom area for those able to trick the gullible into belief.

Pollution prevention and wildlife conservation to me is our duty ..the rest is pure BS.

t

thescouselander

Well now that the CRU data has beed hacked and appears to be genuine we can see what Dr Briffa and co were thinking during the incident. It certainly looks like there was some funny business going on and I stand by my original comments:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/11/024995.php

buggslife

People with views like "thescouselander" almost make you lose all hope. Are you small timers who cannot see any further afield than your own immediate surroundings, no further in the future than your next few years?

Irregardless of the clear detrimental effects man is having on earth and its climate, if anyone can take the view that the extreme abuse that we are inflicting is not simply a bad and unsustainable way of life then I am concerned. One of the problems is that plenty of people do think this way and the Brits seem to be worse than in other 'developed' countries, at least compared to much of Europe.

Can it really make sense to use up all natural resources (burn all available fuels, cut down most trees), release such incredible levels of waste into the environment (be it CO2 or otherwise) and to expect the planet's eco-systems to deal with? Even as those eco-systems are made less effective as they are continually destroyed and replaced with less effective recycling systems such as concrete urban centres and agricultural land?

Really?

Many people are putting great effort in, many of us are hypocrites and worryingly, others somehow ignore the greater issues entirely.

tomhill

Interesting discussion guys. I work as a Life Cycle Assessment and Carbon/Ecological Footprinting consultant in south London. For what they're worth my thoughts on the above are as follows.

1) A well installed solar thermal panels will typically provide around 50% of a dwellings hot water supply (based upon say about 3 people sharing). In a single person house this may rise to about 70%. Its hard for them to go much higher than this because we basically don't have enough sunlight in the winter.

2) Depending upon the way you look at it, the environmental impact of a plastic bag is almost insignificant. They are usually small and lightweight meaning that the energy used to make them is almost insignificant (compared to other activities such as heating your house). Quite often they are also reused or recycled as carrier bags for waste. My colleague was telling me the other day that they are actually preferable to using paper bags as they are lighter and have lower embodied energy than the paper based bags. Its been in the supermarkets interest to promote plastic bags as being a big issue because it allows them to pass the responsibility of doing something on to the customer.

3) Regarding the impact of China. Yes, its worrying that China is building lots of coal fired power stations but it still stands that if everyone lived like the average Chinese person we would be living within sustainable limits. Its worth noting that the majority of China's economy (and therefore its fossil fuel use) is based to make cheap products that are consumed in the West.

By comparison, if everyone lived like the average Brit we'd need 3 planets to support us. If your interested in seeing the size of your 'Ecological Footprint' you can do a free survey on the website of the charity that I work for; http://calculator.bioregional.com/ .

Btw. this doesn't mean that 'China' is off the hook (at all). It does mean, however, that as the group who is currently causing the bulk of the problem (I think) the pejorative lies on us to get our house in order.

4) Regarding climate change science and denial. At the risk of sounding patronising I'm not sure how worthwhile it is arguing about climate change on forums. There are plenty of resources available for the genuine 'sceptic' (indeed, I'd hope that all scientists are sceptics since scepticism is a critical part of scientific enquiry) such as the UNEP at http://www.unep.org/climatechange/ , the Royal Institute of Science https://www.rigb.org , or Real Climate at https://www.realclimate.org/ . People who are genuinely interested may wish to take a look at one or two of those links. Most of the others might better be described as being denialists rather than sceptics; their response is more often motivated by a political/emotional response and a fear of the impact of change. This means that the position not subject to reason (which, in turn, makes it a bit like debating scientology or any other anti-scientific ideology).

GreenSue

To me arguing about what is causing global warming is like shifting deckchairs on the Titanic! If every person did their best to be less wasteful of the world's resources it would have an impact, as there are a lot of people in the world. In our house we have been working to reduce waste etc. for some years, and will certainly carry on in 2010.