Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

Every time Channel 4 had broadcasted a documentary by Martin Durkin , they had to broadcast a prime-time apology. But with all the trouble this station has momentarily - that doesn't really matter


Channel 4: The Great Global Warming Swindle

The film features an impressive roll-call of experts, including nine professors

Its is clear finally that if we carry on with business as ususal with more countries growing in wealth and population, the stock of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will increase dramatically, with catastrophic consequences

In the 19th century Britain pioneered the transition to an industrial economy. The Industrial Revolution brought together invention and science, a culture of enterprise and political leadership from our great cities and national government. In the 21st century we are again a transition economy. We need the same combination if we are to make a new transition: from a high carbon to low-carbon society. We need political leadership at a local, national and European level prepared to make bold long term decisions

The position of the sceptics really puzzles me.

No-one[/b] denies that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. It's transparent to high frequency radiation from the sun, but absorbs the lower freqency radiation reflected from the earth's surface. Furthermore no one denies that there is considerably more CO2 in the atmosphere than before industrialisation. (When we started releasing billions of tonnes of CO2 in a geological blink of the eye, which had hitherto been trapped for eons).

The standard position is that warming is thus anthropogenic, i.e. is a result of man's activities.

But lets take the sceptical argument that warming has caused increased CO2 concentration, and that the Sun is the fundamental culprit. If[/b] that is the case, is that really justification for the continued and unregulated spewing out of carbon dioxide which we all agree is a greenhouse gas? If there is nothing we can do to turn the sun down a bit, dont we have just the same obligation not to make the situation worse by pumping out vast quantities of a known greenhouse gas?

The sceptics position seems to be one of despair. "There is nothing we can do about warming, so turn up the air conditioning while we still have enough fuel".

Absolutely we should continue to do the research to find and develop alternate and renewable forms of energy that will improve people's lives, protect the environment, and reap all sorts of other benefits beneficial to living things on earth.

We should absolutely not adopt policies that will harm or even inconvenience people if there is no practical reason to do so.

Yes, but, for the last fifty years or more we have known that we are running out of raw materials and fossil fuels, and we have done nothing during that time except accelerate the process.

Shortsighted? Blinkered? Blind? Criminally irresponsible? You choose.

Let not Americans be inconvenienced however, even though they consume more than four times other peoples per capita.

McTag wrote:

Yes, but, for the last fifty years or more we have known that we are running out of raw materials and fossil fuels, and we have done nothing during that time except accelerate the process.

Shortsighted? Blinkered? Blind? Criminally irresponsible? You choose.

Let not Americans be inconvenienced however, even though they consume more than four times other peoples per capita.

It's that "inconvenience" truth.

.. But..the question must allow for all.. answers until we arrive at the ....right one.

Foxfyre wrote:

.. But..the question must allow for all.. answers until we arrive at the ....right one.

We've been through this loop. Its called the IPCC. Who came up with an answer you dont like. Some how the phrase inconvenient truth comes to mind, cant think why.

georgeob1 wrote:

Gosh,

There is a whole complex world out there for the self-appointed carbon police to regulate. I'm sure they are breathless with anticipation. How exciting this must be for them and how truly important they must feel - the indispensable self-appointed regulators of everything.

Isn't that just a tad bitter, George? People are genuinely concerned that the glaciers are disappearing and the seas are coming up.
Any related topics are a legitimate subject for journalism, it seems to me.

Note, I did not comment on the article myself. Of course it takes more fuel to drive a bulk carrier than an aeroplane.

However the predictions of catastrophic warming, accompanied by rapid rises in ocean levels, major shifts in ocean currents, and sudden large excursions in climate are grossly exaggerated.

They are not based on the science that is still not able to accurately forecast next month's weather.

The intense interest in this subject, given all the far more pressing issues facing various segments of humanity is a very interesting, but hardly flattering, psychological phenomenon.

See my immediately previous post. And you might want to review all the MANY posts provided that disagree with the IPCC position. The inconvenient truth is that too many have decided they are unwilling to look at anything other than what they have decided they wish to believe.

Foxfyre wrote:

See my immediately previous post. And you might want to review all the MANY posts provided that disagree with the IPCC position. The inconvenient truth is that too many have decided they are unwilling to look at anything other than what they have decided they wish to believe.

You have done a good job of explaining how everyone you disagree with is refusing to look at facts. You don't seem to be willing to explore your own inability to look at facts you disagree with. When confronted with the factual problems in your theories you state you don't claim you know everything but then turn right back around and do the same thing all over again accusing others that don't agree with you of not looking at all the facts.

Your argument continues in its same circular fashion, over and over, round and round. "Look at all the facts." "Those aren't facts." "I don't know everything but look at all the facts."

As has just been pointed out, there are 9 scientists on one side and 1300 on the other. In my world 9 doesn't equal 1300. In your world we should give the more weight to the 9 than all the other science combined or we aren't being fair. It is YOU that is unwilling to look at things without bias Fox.

Claude Allegre, one of France's leading socialists and among her most celebrated scientists, was among the first to sound the alarm about the dangers of global warming.

"By burning fossil fuels, man increased the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which, for example, has raised the global mean temperature by half a degree in the last century," Dr. Allegre, a renowned geochemist, wrote 20 years ago in Cles pour la geologie.." Fifteen years ago, Dr. Allegre was among the 1500 prominent scientists who signed "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity," a highly publicized letter stressing that global warming's "potential risks are very great" and demanding a new caring ethic that recognizes the globe's fragility in order to stave off "spirals of environmental decline, poverty, and unrest, leading to social, economic and environmental collapse."

In the 1980s and early 1990s, when concern about global warming was in its infancy, little was known about the mechanics of how it could occur, or the consequences that could befall us. Since then, governments throughout the western world and bodies such as the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have commissioned billions of dollars worth of research by thousands of scientists. With a wealth of data now in, Dr. Allegre has recanted his views. To his surprise, the many climate models and studies failed dismally in establishing a man-made cause of catastrophic global warming. Meanwhile, increasing evidence indicates that most of the warming comes of natural phenomena. Dr. Allegre now sees global warming as over-hyped and an environmental concern of second rank.

Let me ask you a simple question Fox. On what basis do you think the skeptics have more credibility? Which skeptics do you believe have better science backing them up?

credible climatologists

That some non-climatologists have reviewed a paper and signed off that it looks good to them is not persuasive to me.