'Is global warming happening?' Poll discussion/results

russjacks

a friend of mine has i idea and its this. millions of years ago when the dinosurs ruled the earth all land was forests lush and green, in fact tropical rain forests, then came along the ice age killing the dinosaurs and creating the ice caps. the melting of the ice caps now are just the end of the ice age, the ice caps are not meant to be there. the earth is returning back to that lush and green tropical earth of millions of years ago. look at our weather now lots of rain but still warm, a bit hotter and it will almost be like a tropical rain foreast, just like it suppose to be.
all this crap about global warming is so they can carry on taxing us for anything we use or do.

westernpromise

star2007 wrote: »

I was drawing a parallel between the corruption of the medieval Church and modern "green consumerist" type environmentalism (for want of a better phrase). Whereby, if we buy the right type of "ethical" products or carbon offsets for the impact of our purchases and lifestyle, it doesn't matter how much we consume... our consciences will be clear.

Quite - Al Gore runs just such a company. That's the point - it's a money-making opportunity. It has nothing to do with concern for the planet, any more than Popes who sold forgiveness gave a toss about the buyer's moral welfare.

And your assertion that environmentalists kill people is frankly astonishing and outrageous.

But true, sadly. It was environmentalists who campaigned against DDT. As a result, poor people in hot countries died of malaria, so environmentalists could feel good about pretecting the environment. Estimates vary but somewhere between 10 and 30 million, most of them children, have died since the 1970s in places like Africa and Bangladesh because environmentalists didn't like DDT.

Environmentalism will next proceed to starve many more. I find it astonishing and outrageous that environmentalists think we should use wheat to make fuel instead of food. Who do you think will starve as a result? Clue: it won't be westerners. It will be children in the Third World. Sorry Ethiopia, can't send you any food for your next famine - we turned all the wheat into ethanol for our cars.

The next evil environmentalism will inflict is to lock in poverty. Emissions are closely correlated to GDP and this is why the US, the most productive economy on earth, emits so much. So if we can restrict the emissions of countries like China and India, we can prevent their economies overtaking ours. It means they'll stay poor, but too bad. Got to save the planet, right?

The assumptions behind most climate change models are that both the population and economic activity will continue much as they are. In fact, famine, some of it environmentally-induced, will ensure that the population stalls about where it is now, and we can be sure that to the extent third world economies are allowed to grow it will be because we have outplaced our own emissions to them. China, for instance, is emitting more and more because manufacturing is emissions-intensive and western countries have shipped most of their manufacturing to China.

It's a religion. Religions do this stuff to people, and they always think it's righteous to do so.

star2007

westernpromise wrote: »

Environmentalism will next proceed to starve many more. I find it astonishing and outrageous that environmentalists think we should use wheat to make fuel instead of food. Who do you think will starve as a result? Clue: it won't be westerners. It will be children in the Third World. Sorry Ethiopia, can't send you any food for your next famine - we turned all the wheat into ethanol for our cars.

If you read my first post properly above (#58 in this thread), you would see that my final point I was advocating strongly against the use of biofuels due to the impact on the developing world. (Incidently, they're made from corn and sugar cane, not wheat). What I am saying is we need to reduce the intensity of our impact on humanity & the planet overall that a Western lifestyle causes.... eating a little less meat, driving a little less, buying a few less disposable gadgets etc etc, rather than believing that "green consumerism" can offer us a carte blanche to continue the way we are.

tomhill

Western Promise ... sounds like your experience of environmentalism is very eco-fascist. Typical environmentalism tends to air more on the greater equality side than the lesser.

Regarding the DDT aspect you have a point. Although it must be said that the women who were feeding their children breast milk at the time were effectively poisoning them via the cocentrations of DDT. Rather than keeping the third world reliant on first world hand outs and things like DDT would it not be better to give them a fairer go on the world front then the current skewed situation that we ave now. They'd be better off than they are now and so would the environment - the two things which damage environmental sustainability the most are hyper abundance (as we have in the west) and poverty (as exists in Africa).

Regarding the biofuels arguments ... actually most environmentalists that I know aren't in favour of them. They dont address the underlying cause of the problem and could lead to further environmental degradation and poverty for the poor. If anything ... biofuels are an 'unenvironmental' solution in that they appear to be largely trying to fudge the issue rather than find a true solution... Check out Stephen Porrit of Sustainable Development Commission's argument against Branson converting everything to biofuel.

Finally, being green does tend to sit with people values perceptions but the scientific literature is based upon rigourous scientific research. People tend to accept scientific research which doesnt mean they have to challenge their of values and convictions but tend to scorn that research which does. For instance people accept the science behind the ozone layer and hiv-aids because it makes no demands on them whereas they fight CC research because it asks them to question their own responsibilities.

westernpromise

I am looking at an article from Newsweek magazine from 1975. Does the tone of this sound familiar at all?

"There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically...Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars' worth of damage in 13 U.S. states...Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the trend...but they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century."

Gosh. Scientific unanimity...the sky falling...were they talking about global warming back in 1975?

Er, not quite. Read on:

"A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures...Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin points out that...the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average...a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972."

That's right: they were talking about global cooling! And it's the same old shtick as we get today: authoritative talking heads, impressive-sounding scientific studies, apocalyptic predictions, and, of course, consensus instead of evidence.

Of course the predicted fall in agricultural output never happened: "...between 1983-2003, world population rose by 35%, world GDP by 90% and global agricultural output by 52%." (http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/2/7/annex7g_agriculture.pdf).

I give MMGW about 5 years at the outside - but something else will be along to justify the research grants, the tax hikes, and the snooping at around the same time.

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/eibessential2/april_28__1975_newsweek___the_cooling_world___by_peter_gwynne.guest.print.html

star2007

Newsweek is a popular magazine, not a scientific journal. Journalists can find any research in the world to back up their slant on a story. This only cited a small study.

The current scientific consensus on climate change is based on hard evidence. The vast majority of studies from across the spectrum of scientific disciplines are finding in favour of anthropogenic climate change... meterologists, oceanographers, botanists, glaciologists etc...

The World's climate is an incredibly complex system. In systems theory, any input/ change to the system in question can have any number of unpreditable effects large or small. The climate is already subject to numerous factors affecting its state... perihelion, wobble on earth's axis etc.... we should try not to contribute further to climatic unpredictability by burning millions of years of fossil carbon in just a few decades. The atmosphere up till lately has been a pretty much a closed system, as the fossil carbon was locked underground. Since the industrial revolution, CO2 concentrations have been increasing steadily.

see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory

see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_the_Earth%27s_atmosphere
for details about increases in CO2 concentrations in the atmophere.

To reiterate my point in post above: carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas in the atmosphere and is a good thing as it keeps the planet at a suitable temperature for life. Too much, however will lead to overheating/ and/ or other unpreditable meterological events.

I totally agree with you that this shouldn't be a new opportunity for the powerful to make money from us, whether it be government taxation, or corporations switching tack, and selling us new "green" products; we should however reduce our overall consumption to ensure a fairer world for developing countries, and our own great-grandchildren.

lazyhead

teddyco wrote: »

I don't believe that 'man-made global warming' is a reality and I also don't believe that man evolved from a monkey or green slime. What I find amusing is how Darwin's 'Theory of Evolution' started out as just a 'theory' but somehow it has become 'fact' over the past hundred years and is being taught as 'fact' today.

Still no evidence of a 'missing link' to prove that we indeed evolved from monkey's. Although, just being around some people does give me cause to believe it.

It's amazing what people will believe because 'TV said that'.

I know this is off subject but these sort of comment get my goat.

a. We didn't evolve from 'monkeys', monkeys and apes (including us) evolved from a common ancestor. there is no missing link between monkeys and humans, what there are is lots of well-documented common ancestors.

b. It's still a theory because you can't prove beyond doubt in less than 200 years something that takes hundreds of thousands of years to take place.

c. Perhaps the bible should have the work theory in front of the title? I guess my learned friend believes in that although it started out as a story to keep everybody in line when we didn't know better. I've never seen any evidence that supports a god (or gods for that matter)


Rant over

ZTD

tomhill wrote: »

Couple of points guys.

1) If the motive behind Climatologists' support for CC was to increase their funding then surely they would say that the problem isn't 'solved' but rather is 'unsolved' and needs further research. They aren't doing this.

But they are. The always end their reports with "But further studies are needed...".

To quote Peter Kay: "It's like Tourette's. [They] just can't help [themselves]."

ZTD

tomhill wrote: »

The fact that Carbon Dioxide constitutes a minor part of the atmosphere is irrelevant. Ozone too is extremely scarce but nevertheless has a massively disproportional effect upon the atmosphere. A few drops of arsenic in your tea would be trace but could still kill you.

However ozone is different as it has no direct competitors as an absorber of UV (at least to my knowledge). Carbon Dioxide does. Water vapour is actually a more effective "greenhouse" gas such that it provides (at a lower bound) 2/3rds of the greenhouse effect on Earth. Then there is the anthropmorphical significance of the CO2 that is there providing a "greenhouse" effect. How much of it is man-made? Alas, just a fraction of it is. CO2 obviously existing in the atmosphere before 4x4's...

So to correct your example: A few drops of arsenic in your cup of cyanide would be trace but could still kill you. Yes true - but there are bigger things in the cup to worry about.

tomhill wrote: »

I'm slightly at a loss with this one. Personally I believe in holding a degree of sceptism with all scientific endeavor ... Science is situated in the time and place in which it occurs and can often be shaped by whats looked for as much as anything else (In times of war, for example, 'aggressive' science progresses). Nevertheless, the scientific consensus on CC is completely overwhelming. Every single scientific institution in the world suscribes to the theory (1000's of scientists)

This is the argumentum ad populum fallacy. More people believe Elvis is alive than believe I am alive - therefore I am dead and the King lives.

Though I suppose there is also a bit of the "Appeal to Authority" fallacy in there too.

ZTD

lazyhead wrote: »

a. We didn't evolve from 'monkeys', monkeys and apes (including us) evolved from a common ancestor. there is no missing link between monkeys and humans,

Are you a betting man?