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

thescouselander

jamtart6 wrote: »

Ah see I feel like this is the classic attitude of everyone in Britain outside of the scientific community "climate change is a scam" - no, but the way the media present it it really does seem like that, and ultimately with all these money making and dare I say it "green taxes":rolleyes: no wonder people think it is a "scam". I don't blame them. People have said to me many times in the past "it isn't getting warmer, I saw a programme about how the climate has always changed between warmer and cooler, so this is nothing new, plus based on that record we are about to descend into an ice age and its all to do with the suns radiation anyway" :rolleyes: but I can't blame them for thinking that because the media get it wrong so often. I wish they would listen to scientists; NOT the catastrophic scientists, but the ones in the middle - Yes climate has always changed, yes it is getting warmer, yes we think C02 has a large part to play, the current problem is climates are changing more rapidly and at higher magnitudes than ever seen before in the last 650'000 years. The C02 and temperature curves match each other perfectly over this time period.



...but we have all assumed that increasing C02 has increased the temperature - what if it is the other way around? what if the temperature is increasing naturally which is causing the C02 to rise?? Not one person I know can prove or disprove that.

Anyway I think the debate needs to move on from C02, because regardless of the cause, the temperatures ARE increasing, the last 10 years have been the warmest on record, and no amount of carbon emission reductions is going to change that - not on the scale we need, we need NO ONE to use fossil fuels and it isn't going to happen.

Anyone who denies that climate IS changing though regardless of cause is just nuts, you can see the effects already - everyone is complaining about the UK weather in JUly and August - its been like monsoon weather for the last few years - I hear people saying "so much for global wamring, it is always raining here" - well yes it might be, but it hasn't been cold, the increased temps have caused the fluctuations in the weather systems and increased rainfall. We see the implications of increased temperature all the time and that is what we should be focusing our efforts on, in this country improving flood defences and mitigating for what is inevitably going to happen, not sign up to cut emissions!

Yes, I agree with everything you say there. The scam is that we are being ripped off with so called "green taxes" etc.


The other thing is that any analysis of what may happen if the climate warms always focuses on the negative. I'm sure there will could be lots of cases where climate change may be bad or even disastrous. But equally climate change could make currently uninhabitable (or harsh) parts of the world much more nicer places to live.

Who is to say the overall net effect of climate change wont be positive? As far as I can tell nobody has done this analysis - everyone (including the scientists) seems to assume change will be bad and they focus on the negative aspects - and of course this gets all the media coverage.

jamtart6

thescouselander wrote: »

Yes, I agree with everything you say there. The scam is that we are being ripped off with so called "green taxes" etc.

Ah good, yes couldn't agree more - never heard anything quite so preposterous in my life.

I think your point about the "positive" aspects of climate change is a good one, but I think one thing that is clear is everywhere will have negative effects, some zones more than others, but bad things will happen everywhere which is what needs to be tackled first. Dry regions get drier, wet regions get wetter, sea levels get higher, ice caps get lower. We're all doomed

thescouselander

jamtart6 wrote: »

Ah good, yes couldn't agree more - never heard anything quite so preposterous in my life.

I think your point about the "positive" aspects of climate change is a good one, but I think one thing that is clear is everywhere will have negative effects, some zones more than others, but bad things will happen everywhere which is what needs to be tackled first. Dry regions get drier, wet regions get wetter, sea levels get higher, ice caps get lower. We're all doomed

Yes, bad things could happen in some areas, other areas may benefit. I think the key is to prepare to manage these effects. There may be need for a large migration of the population from the worst effected areas to somewhere else - how can this be managed? Can we develop crops that will grow in the changed wetter / drier conditions? How can we deal with flooding etc etc?

All of these are big issues that are going unaddressed while everyone is being distracted by the media frenzy re CO2.

Really its just a case of applying standard risk management methodology - a combined strategy of avoidance through reduction of CO2 together with mitigation of the effects by various means. Alternatively it might be better to just accept the changes in climate.

moonrakerz

Do you realise that if early Britons had not ignored Climate Change and had cut down on the use of their camp fires, to reduce CO2 emissions, Liverpool would still be under a mile of ice ?

Damn' them !! :rotfl::rotfl:

Cardew

The issues:

1. Is global warming taking place?

2. If affirmative, is this part of a natural cycle or attributable to man?

3. If man is in some way responsible, how much of an effect are we having?

4. What can we do about it?

Please Please don't tell us that you don't leave your TV on Standby! The power your computer uses to post that reply will undo all the good work with your TV.

jamtart6

Cardew wrote: »

The issues:

1. Is global warming taking place?

2. If affirmative, is this part of a natural cycle or attributable to man?

3. If man is in some way responsible, how much of an effect are we having?

4. What can we do about it?

Please Please don't tell us that you don't leave your TV on Standby! The power your computer uses to post that reply will undo all the good work with your TV.

1. Yes. No longer an issue that needs discussing.

2. 90% certainty down to man (IPCC, 2007) small fluctuations from solar radiation but nothing to cause this scale of issues. No longer an issue that needs discussing much.

3. "if man IS in some way responsible" - things like this just really confuse me? I don't think it is a co-incidence that most of the change has happened since the industrial revolution and the burning of fossil fuels. No longer an issue that needs discussing as it is not important as we are well beyond trying to reverse the damage.

4. Put the money into better management strategies. Where will be worst affected? What can we do to make it less disasterous?e.g. more floods in uk, how can we stop it from costing peoples lives and costing the economy. Thats what needs to be thought about!

moonrakerz

jamtart6 wrote: »

1. Yes. No longer an issue that needs discussing.

Agree !

jamtart6 wrote: »

2. 90% certainty down to man (IPCC, 2007) small fluctuations from solar radiation but nothing to cause this scale of issues. No longer an issue that needs discussing much.

Disagree ! Quoting the IPCC as the authority that proves Man-made climate change is akin to asking Sir Alex Ferguson which is the best team in the Premiership.
Everyone in the IPCC has a vested interest in keeping this unproven myth going. Their lives may not depend on it - their jobs certainly do !

What caused previous, well documented episodes of global warming ? What caused the last ice age - only 10,000 years ago, to retreat ? Neanderthals building coal fired power stations ?

The sheer stupidity of some of the things they come out with are breathtaking. They have even roped in the Sec Gen of the UN, poor old Mr Ban Ki-Moon. His totally embarrassing performance the other day when pontificating about the melting ice-caps was toe-curlingly dreadful.
He was 700 miles from the Pole - the ship couldn't get any closer, because of the ice - in mid-summer ! (Also not mentioned was the slightly "un PC" fact that the ice cap is appreciable larger that it was this time last year)
He warned that sea levels will rise and the Arctic will be ice free in 30 years. He seemed to be oblivious of the fact that huge amounts of ice thaw and re-freeze every year - without making the slightest difference to sea levels around the planet.
This is another doom scenario peddled by the Climate Change lobby. Get half a glass of coke fill it to the top with ice, come back when the ice has melted - has the level of the liquid risen ? No ! - simple physics.

I will listen to any sensible argument on this subject but I regret to say that I have not heard one yet !

The biggest threat to this planet is over population - no one dares mention doing anything about that.

thescouselander

I'm not sure its that straight forward.

Is global warming taking place?

Yes, it was, until a few years back then things seem to have levelled out. Even then measurements taken on the ground have diverged from those taken by satellite - Satellite measurements seem to be cooler then those from ground stations. Whats going on here? I have not seen a satisfactory explanation although the placement of some ground measurement equipment seems suspect.

Is the change attributable to man?

Perhaps. The IPCC certainly seem to think so however, this is not certainty and there is still plenty of opposition from well respected scientific experts. Most of the IPCC's conclusions are based on models that, by their own admission, cannot be validated against actual real world measurements and are still some way off being accurate.

How much effect has man had?

I dont think anyone can say for the same reasons as above.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

But I'd rather take action and be proven wrong, than to do beggar all and find out later that something could have been done about it.

Cardew

moonrakerz wrote: »

The biggest threat to this planet is over population - no one dares mention doing anything about that.

Agreed!

There is a certain irony that China, the country that has just overtaken the USA as the biggest producer of CO2, have at least had compulsory birth control measures in place for decades.

I hate to think what their population would be if families were allowed to have a dozen children.