Getting off the oil hook

grahamc2003

tbourner wrote: »

Weather patterns are extremely difficult to predict. Climate patterns are much easier.

True, mainly because if you predict the climate in a hundred years, you won't be around to have your career ruined if you're wrong.

The only guaranteed way of ruining your career in the climate field is by not conforming to the orthodoxy, whereas is other scientific fields, the orthodoxy is constantly questioned as a prime requirement of science itself.

As to the accuracy of the models and the state of the science, here's a quote from an email from a climate scientist at the University of East Anglia CRU (the body charged with gathering and processing the source temperature data)

The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't.

Ben84

I'm not sure why everyone has dived in to climate change here. It's not the only issue.

Oil is exceptionally useful stuff, it fills our lives with relatively inexpensive and useful items and materials, from plastics to detergents, drugs and synthetic fabrics. Just imagine how much items would cost without synthetics, as well as the many modern uses where there just isn't an alternative. Derivatives are also an ideal fuel for transport due to their high energy density. Oil matters a lot in everyday modern life and most of us use a lot of it.

However, oil is getting expensive and threatening this supply of inexpensive useful stuff. Climate change is also not the only environmental hazard either. Oil drilling damages the environment and burning oil produces various pollutants that contribute to acid rain and heavy metals in the environment, as well as CO2 as a source of ocean acidification that leads to problems such as coral reef death. While global warming may be most obvious in the media coverage, it is not the only hazard associated with our extensive fossil fuel consumption. We still risk in the short term significant increase in the price of essential consumer products and in the longer term actual oil shortages and very real environmental damage if we continue at this rate. Even some years ago when I was much less convinced we were affecting the climate I didn't ever blithely think we could continue consuming fossil fuels in such great amounts without any consequences.

darkpool

From the nasa website:

"Global sea level rose about 17 centimeters (6.7 inches) in the last century. The rate in the last decade, however, is nearly double that of the last century."

nasa have managed to put man on the moon. i would take their opinion on scientific matters before most people on this thread.

PeterZ_2

Ben84 wrote: »

I'm not sure why everyone has dived in to climate change here. It's not the only issue.

Oil is exceptionally useful stuff, it fills our lives with relatively inexpensive and useful items and materials, from plastics to detergents, drugs and synthetic fabrics. Just imagine how much items would cost without synthetics, as well as the many modern uses where there just isn't an alternative. Derivatives are also an ideal fuel for transport due to their high energy density. Oil matters a lot in everyday modern life and most of us use a lot of it.

However, oil is getting expensive and threatening this supply of inexpensive useful stuff. Climate change is also not the only environmental hazard either. Oil drilling damages the environment and burning oil produces various pollutants that contribute to acid rain and heavy metals in the environment, as well as CO2 as a source of ocean acidification that leads to problems such as coral reef death. While global warming may be most obvious in the media coverage, it is not the only hazard associated with our extensive fossil fuel consumption. We still risk in the short term significant increase in the price of essential consumer products and in the longer term actual oil shortages and very real environmental damage if we continue at this rate. Even some years ago when I was much less convinced we were affecting the climate I didn't ever blithely think we could continue consuming fossil fuels in such great amounts without any consequences.

Ben84, I have an idea why this thread has turned into a global warming thread - to distract from the real issue of peak oil and rising oil prices, something which is much harder to deny.

Thank you for what is the easily the best and most informed post on this thread.

This is my biggest concern, oil forms the basis of the modern lifestyle that us in the west have become accustomed to.

What happens when we cant afford the oil anymore? What can we do today, to help?

PeterZ_2

darkpool wrote: »

From the nasa website:

"Global sea level rose about 17 centimeters (6.7 inches) in the last century. The rate in the last decade, however, is nearly double that of the last century."

nasa have managed to put man on the moon. i would take their opinion on scientific matters before most people on this thread.

On the subject of gloabl warming I also prefer to the take the opinion of informed and highly educated scientists over a vocal minority in this forum.

Climate science is the most highly reviewed and critically analysed branches of science. The science is sound. While I do believe that global warming and local pollution are major issues, the more pressing and immient issue is that of peak oil and our dependance on others for our energy.

tbourner

PeterZ wrote: »

What can we do today, to help?

Mass genocide.

Mankysteve

stoozey wrote: »

hahahahhahahhaaahahhahaha :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Met office cant even predict if its going to rain tomorrow let alone in a 1000 years. I think you have been breating in too much gas :T

Again Weather not Climate. Yes the two are interlinked, they can predict actual the climate but they can't predict localised weather as well.

Still doesnt change the fact that last year was the hottest on record.

PeterZ_2

tbourner wrote: »

Mass genocide.

While technically the best solution to many of the worlds problems, unfortunately its not a humane solution.

Excess population is the root cuase of many issues, at some point we will have to place a limit on population growth. How this will happen no one knows, war, famine, disease or contraception?

PeterZ_2

Mankysteve wrote: »

Again Weather not Climate. Yes the two are interlinked, they can predict actual the climate but they can't predict localised weather as well.

Still doesnt change the fact that last year was the hottest on record.

Well put Mankysteve.

Kinda feels like banging your head against a brick wall doesn't it?

When will people get it, weather not climate...........

zeupater

Mankysteve wrote: »

Again Weather not Climate. Yes the two are interlinked, they can predict actual the climate but they can't predict localised weather as well.

Still doesnt change the fact that last year was the hottest on record.

Hi

Regarding 'they can predict actual the climate but they can't predict localised weather as well.'[sic] ..... they can, but this is within a wide tolerance band & for almost a decade the climate models have been wrong, not a little wrong, a lot. Whether this is a blip or not is open to question, but it surely shows that climate modelling has a long way to go before anyone can claim that it's accurate.

Regarding "Still doesnt change the fact that last year was the hottest on record" ..... I believe that it's true to say that the majority of this warming was recorded within the southern hemisphere, whilst much of the industrialised northern hemisphere experienced more normal temperatures, this almost definately being due to the extended El-Nino effect until May 2010. With the change to a La-Nina cycle the southern oceans are expected to drive a period of southern hemisphere cooling ... source, the 'informed and highly educated scientists' at NASA whose 'opinion on scientific matters' are to be believed (Ref:GISTEMP - http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/ ) ....

Z