The Great Global Warming Swindle?

kittiwoz

Lynwen, the link you provided to A guide to calculating the carbon dioxide and payback times for wind farms on the windaction.org website made very interesting reading. It makes a distinction between wind farms built on peat bogs and those built in other areas which you do not. Also far from claiming, as you have that

Lynwen wrote:

Windfarms will never ever in the whole wide world save ANY CO2

the payback calculated in the example, which takes account of damage to peat in an upland site with dry/shallow peat, is 3.5 years, longer than a typical industry analysis which does not take account of peat destruction but still much less than the expected 25 year lifespan of the turbines. So that supports the environmental viability of wind farms but shows the importance of appropriate choice of site.

Lynwen wrote:

Boiling a kettle is just an example of how much electricity developers state when they say "enough electricity for 11000 homes"... another example then, if it makes you feel better, its enough electricity to keep a 1 bar electric heater on for 12 hrs..... this is "Per property".

It doesn't matter whether you say enough energy to boil a kettle for 6hrs or enough energy to power a one bar heater for 12hrs. Either way you are using examples of energy intensive processes to make the amount of energy you are referring to seem low. If I were to say it was enough to power 25 low energy lightbulbs for 24 hrs that would be an equally valid way of expressing it and also equally meaningless. What would be more meaningful would be to point out that 9kWhrs per day is 3,285kWhrs per year and that a typical household electricity consumption in the UK is around 3,300kWhrs. In light of this the figures seem reasonable.

cepheus

All what the ‘Great Global Warming Swindle’ programme proved is that it is possible to generate confusion in a complex subject by using biased data, editing scientists comments and dragging out a few die-hard individuals which have long since lost the argument, but want to make a name for themselves.

Rather than get bogged down in a lot of detail one can use a bit of common sense by examining the ‘hockey stick’ graph in the link. The rise in temperature since around 1970 has been increasing faster than anytime in human history and is responsible for almost half the overall rise during the last 400 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png

Now think about what is the most likely. That the Sun’s activity has increased enough during the last thirty years whilst being relatively stable for thousands, or that global temperatures are predominantly influenced by something else that we know has increased substantially in that time, namely human population and the emissions they produce?

In fact the sun has warmed a bit during this century, and there are many other factors which have changed, some which increase and other which decrease global warming. These are all allowed for in the calculations, but greenhouse gases are the most important positive factor and will become even more dominant in the future.

Most scientists are actually conservative in their estimates and many of the more radical statements in the latest IPCC report were removed after political influence, so everything you hear will more likely be an underestimate. Regarding scientific funding, who has the most to lose? The scientific establishment who research into a wide range of disciplines and whose papers are subject to extreme scrutiny, or businesses all of which are ideologically committed to unlimited economic growth and can only achieve this by using ever greater amounts of fossil fuels?

Cardew

cepheus wrote: »

All what the ‘Great Global Warming Swindle’ programme proved is that it is possible to generate confusion in a complex subject by using biased data, editing scientists comments

That statement is indisputable! However it applies to both sides of the argument.

It is also equally true that vested interests can ‘procure’ seemingly authoritative and convincing arguments from some sections of the scientific community; ‘he who pays the piper etc

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’ As the multi-post diatribe in this forum against wind generated power, complete with scientific paper after paper selectively culled from the web, demonstrates.

I suggest that there is little point - in this forum - in you, or anyone else, to yet again rehearse the arguments supporting your interpretation of GW. Anyone who takes any interest in these matters must agree that there is a consensus in the scientific community that man is contributing to GW.

The debate should surely be on how much Man is contributing, and the measures Man should take. Is it reasonable for instance for the UK to ‘green tax’ us into submission, simply to set an example to the rest of the world? -who are carying on regardless!

The one positive aspect of the GW Swindle programme – one sided as it obviously was – is this form of debate:

The challenge of climate change is seldom out of the news. This week Gordon Brown and David Cameron are competing over which political party has the greenest credentials. Dissenting voices are few, and risk instant mockery - labelled delusional, wishful-thinking, and on a par with holocaust deniers. Climate change has become the New Orthodoxy, the New Religion, brooking - as religions often do - no stepping out of line.

Tonight's Maze examines the rise of this New Orthodoxy Which Cannot Be Questioned - what happens when it clashes with notions of tolerance and intellectual rigour, even commonsense? Truth versus propaganda - how do you tell the difference?