Climate Change Honesty required!

Ben84

Cardew wrote: »

You really are missing the point of this thread, so please spare us from the 'we are right and they are wrong and it was ever thus' routine.

It is not in dispute that vested interests, will try to rubbish the 'climate change' theories.

There is also a huge body of sceptics who, frankly, are suspicious of the climate change scientists.

The point I was making is that the deceipt shown by the University of East Anglia is simply an own goal that has served the interests of the deniers and reinforced the doubts of the sceptics.

I don't know about this. Like most of the debate it's done little to change sides, just polarised them even further. Everyone who reads those emails seems to find what they expected.

Cardew

Ben84 wrote: »

I don't know about this. Like most of the debate it's done little to change sides, just polarised them even further. Everyone who reads those emails seems to find what they expected.

Well there is to be a full enquiry into the matter:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8510498.stm

Dr.Shoe_2

cliffski wrote: »

So cardew, which do you think has more lobbying money to try and skew the debate?

1) Enviornmentalists
2) The global fossil fuel lobby?

Dont make me lagh and pretend its not 2). Also, explain to me why NASA's own data, 100% independent from the IPCC comes to the exact same conclusions? Are NASA tree hugging hippies trying to con us all too?

If climate change could be fixed by drinking beer and eating cakes, all the current 'skeptics' would accept every word of it. The truth hurts.

It's not lobbyists who are doing it it's the governments themselves. The amount of money that can be made in "green taxes" is emmense. Add to that all the companies selling "low carbon footprint" and energy saving products, the energy consultants, the brokers who deal in carbon trading credits and you have an industry that has far more money to spare than the fossil fuel lobbyists...

cepheus

"In a unique experiment, The Guardian has published online the full manuscript of its major investigation into the climate science emails stolen from the University of East Anglia, which revealed apparent attempts to cover up flawed data; moves to prevent access to climate data; and to keep research from climate sceptics out of the scientific literature.

As well as including new information about the emails, we will allow web users to annotate the manuscript to help us in our aim of creating the definitive account of the controversy. This is an attempt at a collaborative route to getting at the truth."

.......Remember two other things. First, this was war. The scientists were under intense and prolonged attack, they believed, from politically and commercially motivated people who wanted to prevent them from doing their science and trash their work. And they had, as their most vocal protagonist Professor Michael Mann puts it in one email, "dirty laundry one doesn't want to fall into the hands of those who might potentially try to distort things ..."

Meanwhile, their attackers came to believe that the scientists were fraudsters. In many ways, what follows is a Shakespearean tragedy of misunderstood motives.

There are two competing analyses of what "climategate" means. One sees it as the mob entering the lab – the story of a malicious attempt to disrupt, cross-question, belittle and trash the work of mainstream scientists. This may or may not have been the motivation for the original hack, but it has certainly been the motive of some who have driven the news agenda since........

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/series/climate-wars-hacked-emails

cepheus

Dr.Shoe wrote: »

It's not lobbyists who are doing it it's the governments themselves. The amount of money that can be made in "green taxes" is emmense. Add to that all the companies selling "low carbon footprint" and energy saving products, the energy consultants, the brokers who deal in carbon trading credits and you have an industry that has far more money to spare than the fossil fuel lobbyists...

This is like claiming that the only motivation behind tobacco taxes were to generate revenue. It is misleading to conclude it is either tax or moral dissuasion, it is impossible to separate the two. Governments need to raise taxes, inevitably this will be targeted at things they believe society should be discouraged from doing!

The tax thing is just a straw man argument used because it is an effective argument for the intellectually challenged.

Cardew

cepheus wrote: »

This is like claiming that the only motivation behind tobacco taxes were to generate revenue.

What pray, were the reasons for taxing tobacco if not to generate revenue?

Ben84

Dr.Shoe wrote: »

It's not lobbyists who are doing it it's the governments themselves. The amount of money that can be made in "green taxes" is emmense. Add to that all the companies selling "low carbon footprint" and energy saving products, the energy consultants, the brokers who deal in carbon trading credits and you have an industry that has far more money to spare than the fossil fuel lobbyists...

I don't believe there is much money to be made from protecting the environment, and this is why there's often resistance to doing it. Most countries are also sitting on large valuable fossil fuel reserves and home to many profitable industries that rely on cheap abundant energy. There are few incentives to leave these fossil fuels unsold and to reduce the profits of big businesses, or worse encourage them to leave. If anything fossil fuels attract government spending and endorsement around the world.

Aviation fuel still has zero tax, with as far as I'm aware no plans to change it any time soon, and oil companies still pick up vast sums of money in subsidies from various governments (US being a big spender on oil subsidies), and that the UK government were seriously discussing building new large coal power plants as recently as last year and have kept large scale coal burning on the list of options. We seems far from a situation where governments are ready to discourage fossil fuel consumption or even view doing this as profitable.

cliffski

Dr.Shoe wrote: »

It's not lobbyists who are doing it it's the governments themselves. The amount of money that can be made in "green taxes" is emmense. Add to that all the companies selling "low carbon footprint" and energy saving products, the energy consultants, the brokers who deal in carbon trading credits and you have an industry that has far more money to spare than the fossil fuel lobbyists...

I dont think you understand basic economics. Nor this issue.
Your eally think that the lobby from companies selling green technology is more powerful than the lobby from the largest companies on earth that sell and drill for oil, gas and coal?
Get real.
You have made the mistake of reading the !!!!!!!! jeremy clarkson writes methinks. He should stick to reviewing cars, he is hardly a climate expert.

cepheus

I don't believe there is much money to be made from protecting the environment

Interesting point, is it not possible to make money out of anything providing you can convince the public to do it? I guess this is the motivation behind much of the green wash which gives environmentalism a bad name. Giving an impression of being green by doing something trivial and publicising it could have a substantial effect. I guess the Prius, until recently at least, gave an unwarranted impression of Toyota being more environmental and technologically advanced than other motor manufacturers even though it occupied a small proportion of total sales.

I personally don't believe that companies making short term profits out of green issues is the way forward, governments need to invest to prevent even greater future costs, and in a corporate dominated world this is especially difficult.

Perhaps companies need to be made liable for future damage as with the tobacco industry and this might focus their minds away from short term profits.

Ben84

cepheus wrote: »

Interesting point, is it not possible to make money out of anything providing you can convince the public to do it?

Businesses are keen to keep us consuming new things, and collectively spend billions on marketing to produce sales, because as long as they're turning resources in to stuff and we want it, we will keep parting with money. The items that fill our personal environments must be replaced over and over again to make money. It's an unfortunate thing, but if you sell someone something that is perfect they will probably never return. To be profitable companies must either find a way to make the item need replacing early, or devalue our perception of it once we've bought it by making new highly advertised items that do more, and when they run out of things to add to the item just make it a fashion item. The aim of fashion is to produce distinctive items that will enjoy a brief trend with lots of sales, then age badly when everyone is wearing it/using it, sending consumers for the next fashion fix.

Tackling the environmental damage of over-consumption threatens most businesses' profits.

However, aside from businesses depending on mass consumption to keep making profits, the real conflict between profit and environment seems to take place well before consumers get involved. Take any natural environment, for example a square kilometre of rainforest. Leaving it alone is the best option for the environment and in that state it does a lot for the environment and people around the world, but it doesn't directly do anything substantial for any one individual or organisation who might own it. Cutting down the trees for hardwood, or to produce cash crops makes money for the owner. That's the economics the environment is faced with, just about all the natural environment and resources that everyone and every living thing depend on are owned by individuals, who although in this with the rest of us, can get hugely more benefit from damaging their area that they personally derive from leaving it alone.