TelBoy

Come on, read ALL the posts. It's clearly evident that he didn't say they were attributable to climate change at all. Don't be myopic!!

_RIP_

Come on, read all the posts TB

TelBoy

One doesn't contradict the other. Don't understand your point.

_RIP_

Oh sorry I'm only half awake here, I just though you had missed TonyG's retraction. But yes, you're correct. Time to leave work then, always sends me to sleep at this hour

TonyG

See post 42

TelBoy

Just send me the tenner, Tony

New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

Anyone else thinking of the South Park Episode where a Redneck suggests speeding up global warming as a means to prevent the future from happening and the Goobaks from takin our jobs.

Audience Redneck: "I was just trying to help"
Chief Redneck "Well, help yourself to a f**king science book, cause you're sounding like a f**king retard...now come on people deytookerjerbs!!!"

DEYTOOOOKERRRRJEEEEERBS!!!

TelBoy

Er, nope.

OllyK

Nor implicitly either. It merely means that I don't believe that we have sufficient data or sufficiently reliable models to start drawing conclusions. Climate Change is not in dispute and most people agree that the global mean temperatures are rising, the main area of contention is the exact cause(s) and the relative contribution human are making.

While I think it is responsible to ensure that we do not pollute our environment more than is absolutely unavoidable, I don't suggest a knee jerk reaction to try solving an unknown problem.

It's a little like seeing a brown mark on your arm and worrying it is cancer, so you set about removing it with a pen knife. In the process you infect the wound making it an immediate threat to your health. On getting assistance you find out that the mark was actually just indelible marker.

When you know what's broken and how to fix then fix it, but don't mess with it till you know the full implications. I would like to see far more resource going in to studying this first - we have very little actual direct data to go on, most of it is being derived from tree rings and ice cores.

New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

And we've all done that......

Agree with Olly's sentiments though.

There was a joke on the 11 O'Clock show that referred to a expert who had documented 3 tornados in very close succession after a long period of none occurring. They joked that:

"They're a bit like buses, aren't they?"

To which the newscaster replied:

"Well, yes they are: if one hits you, you're f**ked!"

NS04

TelBoy

Your analogy is a good one, Olly. But, to draw a comparison, i'd personally prefer to be preventative and deal with the consequences of being wrong, rather than doing nothing only to be told i had six months to live somewhere down the line.

Having said that, i just don't think there's enough will to stop the momentum of industrialisation, especially in countries like India and China, and i don't see the introspective Americans being able to blame themselves anytime soon, so i actually fear that your version events WILL be the one we'll be dealing with, whether we like it or not. Let's hope there are no nasty "told you so" stings in the tail...

OllyK

You got where I was coming from that's the main thing.
1) Find what if anything is broken
2) Figure out the best way to repair it
3) Repair it

I think we are still at stage 1, TB seems to have skipped stages 1 & 2 and gone straight to 3 in my mind.

Very good

OllyK

Even if your prevention gives you only 3 months to live now?

I condone environmental responsibility and we should continue to promote that and look for technological ways to better meet our energy needs, that all makes sense. I am just concerned we may be trying to stop something that is just part of the planet's natural cycle which may in turn have significantly more detrimental effects than just letting things run their course. I'm just not happy we have the information to make an informed decision yet.


There's certainly economic pressure resisting cutting emissions. The unrest in the middle east and the growth in the East, may well push the West in to driving forward new technological solutions to avoid the dependance on oil from a rather unstable part of the world - let's hope so as this will hopefully be good for us all.

hedgehog

Did someone mention hurricanes? Once again this is evidence of people believing that the media = science. Dr. Chris Landsea (fab name) is the expert on hurricanes, so much so that he was employed by the IPCC to produce a report on the likelihood that Atlantic hurricanes would increase if climate warmed. Dr. Landsea concluded that there was no connection between warming and hurricane frequency or intensity, the IPCC released a report which announced that we are all doomed and that hurricanes are going to increase in frequency and intensity. You can see Dr. Landsea's resignation letter here:

http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/pr...ea_leaves.html

The lesson in all of this is, of course, to believe nothing you read or see in the media. Lets see some peer reviewed science papers indicating that man made CO2 is causing the current slight increase in global temperature. I personally am not aware of a single such paper, though I am aware of many which demonstrate that this is not the case.

There is no scientific evidence of man made global warming, though the earth has warmed by 0.6 degress since around 1850. The recovery from the last cold period was much more rapid and yet the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere were lower then. CO2 does not drive climate but, in fact, CO2 production is driven by climate warming with an increase in atmpspheric CO2 following a warming period by about 800 years. (e.g. Monnin et al)

Yesterday the media bombarded me with pictures of melting ice caps but made no mention of the fact that the arctic ice is currently at a similar summer extent to that of the 1940s and there has been no reduction in the winter extent. So, even in living memory people have seen the current level of variability.

They were also saying that the antarctic was shrinking but yet I just happened to be looking at this:

Comiso, J.C. 2000. Variability and trends in Antarctic surface temperature from in situ and satellite infrared measurements. Journal of Climate 13: 1674-1696

Over the entire period studied, it was determined that the mean rate of change of sea ice extent for the entire Antarctic region was an increase of 0.043 M km2 per year. The authors additionally concluded that "the increasing trend in the sea ice extent over the Antarctic region may be slowly accelerating in time, particularly over the last decade."

Liu, J., Curry, J.A. and Martinson, D.G. 2004. Interpretation of recent Antarctic sea ice variability. Geophysical Research Letters 31: 10.1029/2003GL018732.

Liu et al. report that "overall, the total Antarctic sea ice extent (the cumulative area of grid boxes covering at least 15% ice concentrations) has shown an increasing trend (~4,801 km2/yr)." In addition, they find that "the total Antarctic sea ice area (the cumulative area of the ocean actually covered by at least 15% ice concentrations) has increased significantly by ~13,295 km2/yr, exceeding the 95% confidence level," noting that "the upward trends in the total ice extent and area are robust for different cutoffs of 15, 20, and 30% ice concentrations (used to define the ice extent and area)."

Parkinson, C.L. 2002. Trends in the length of the southern Ocean sea-ice season, 1979-99. Annals of Glaciology 34: 435-440.

Over the 21 years of the study, most of the Ross Sea has, in the words of the author, "undergone a lengthening of the sea-ice season, whereas most of the Amundsen Sea ice cover and almost the entire Bellingshausen Sea ice cover have undergone a shortening of the sea-ice season," while "results for the Weddell Sea are mixed." Overall, Parkinson reports that "the area of the Southern Ocean experiencing a lengthening of the sea-ice season by at least 1 day per year over the period 1979-99 is 5.6 x 106 km2, whereas the area experiencing a shortening of the sea-ice season by at least 1 day per year is 46% less than that, at 3.0 x 106 km2."

Zwally, H.J., Comiso, J.C., Parkinson, C.L. Cavalieri, D.J. and Gloersen, P. 2002. Variability of Antarctic sea ice 1979-1998. Journal of Geophysical Research 107: 10.1029/2000JC000733.

For the entire Southern Ocean, sea ice extent was found to have increased by 11,181 ± 4190 square km per year, or by 0.98 ± 0.37 percent per decade. Sea ice area for the Southern Ocean was also shown to have increased by nearly the same amount: 10,860 ± 3720 square km per year, or 1.26 ± 0.43 percent per decade. Regionally, trends in sea ice extent were positive in the Weddell Sea, the Pacific Ocean and the Ross Sea; while they were nearly in balance to slightly negative in the Indian Ocean, and negative in the Bellingshausen/Amundsen Seas. In terms of variability, the interannual variability of the mean sea ice extent was only 1.6%; while monthly variability in sea ice extent was 4.0% over the first ten years of the record, declining to 2.7% over the last ten years.

Yuan, X. and Martinson, D.G. 2000. Antarctic sea ice extent variability and its global connectivity. Journal of Climate 13: 1697-1717.

Among a host of other things, it was learned that the net trend in the mean Antarctic sea ice edge over the last 18 years has been an equatorward expansion of 0.011 degree of latitude per year.

With this in mind you can choose to believe in man made global warming and you should feel free to do so but please don't try to present it as science. I don't need belief, I know that there is no scientific evidence for man made global warming and I also know that the huge amount of money and effort being focused on something that isn't happening (for political ends) would be better focused on malaria, for example, which kills 2.5 million people every year. It could also be focused on other, valid, areas of conservation and as a result could make a difference rather than being nothing but a lot of hot air.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Hear hear!. Nicely put, as always.

Alcazar

^Qwerty^

I think you need to read my post again. All I said was that nobody (i.e. the governments of this world) gives a toss at the moment. Fully aware that every so called "environmental" tax is just an excuse to stop you doing what you want to do, and make money out of you at the same time.

Don't jump in with both feet to have a pop at somebody to quickly

TelBoy

Oh come along, that's nicely put spin!! If you're happy to leave this all to chance then that's your choice of course.

I'll go out on a bit of a limb here and suggest that those who choose not to think this is an important issue are those without kids. How anyone can be totally comfortable that the planet will breeze along in the decades to come, when their children will be in the middle of it, i fail to see. We're polluting like never before - i think it is crass arrogance to suggest we can keep on doing that with no detrimental effects whatsoever.

New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

From the letter

"I personally cannot in good faith continue to contribute to a process that I view as both being motivated by pre-conceived agendas and being scientifically unsound"

This is pretty much what Prof Bellamy was saying and why I am deeply suspicious of the governments line on global warming. It seems as if hard science is being replaced by hard spin. As Dr Landsea says, the unfortunatel thing about this is that it will undermine the face validity of other research in the area.

The issue will eventually be seen as nothing more than a front for justifiing further taxes on joe public.

The first thing you have to understand if you want to be involved in Science is that it doesn't respect agendas!

NS04

OllyK

TellBoy - you seem to want to meddle with things that have not yet been shown to be broken.

I appreciate that humans can be selfish and the idea that many coastal areas may be destroyed if oceans rise can seem pretty daunting. But if those rises are due to natural recovery from the last ice age, is it not potentially even more damaging for humans to try and artificially maintain the globe at a cooler temperature than it should be at?

As I said before, it makes sense to keep pollution levels as low as practicable, but it doesn't makes sense to try and fix something when we don't know if it is broken or if our "fixing" may actually make things worse.

TelBoy

Because i don't see the downsides of actively taking action as outweighing the potential problems if we do nothing, quite simply. It's a relentless path of modernisation and industrialisation that we're on at the moment, and i just cannot believe we have the right to assume that it's all cost-free, much though i'm sure we'd all like it to be.

OllyK

While the scientific process may not - that doesn't mean that the scientists are immune, hence why we currently seem to have 2 opposing camps of scientists.

IMO the science is currently confirms there is an effect, just not what the actual cause is (and I doubt there is a single cause).

OllyK

If you accept that humans are currently able to affect the climate of the globe and are currently doing so, they you also have to accept that we can make things considerably worse by taking the wrong action.

We are at the stage where we are in a hospital with a patient in front of us. We can see they have a temperature, we are trying to determine if there is cause for concern. We don't yet have a diagnosis and the patient is not in any immediate danger. I'd like to do a little more digging, so I have them lie on the couch and refrain from things that may further elevate their temperature while I investigate further.

You have assumed that they have an infection becuase they have a temperature and immediately prescribe penicillin to treat it. Unfortunately the patient is allergic to penicillin and you have now killed them.

As it turns out they had overdone it at the gym and were suffering from overheating and dehydration which I could have treated with rest and a glass of water.

So is my wait and see action worse than you're jump in and fix it one? If we had the facts showing a definate AGW then I'd agree with you, but we don't - yet.

_RIP_

Id rather accept the views of a world respected scientist, who at over 80 years old has worked on this most of his life, over the usual blethering of the SN massive. And I dont have any kids.

TelBoy

You're over-complicating it, Olly. We're pumping crap into the atmosphere, and that is quite likely having an adverse effect on the environment. Reduce pumping crap into the atmosphere, and assuming only moderate amounts of probability, that will be good for the atmosphere. Why do we need to wait until we know *exactly* what the cause is before doing something. Why take the chance that by then you're too late? I think we're already nearing that point anyway, dangerously fast.

OllyK

Seeing as the climatologists cannot show that correlation, I'm not sure how you feel you can. The evidence is inconclusive, there is a lot of scaremongering within the press and you are being dragged along with it. Yes we are pumping out pollutants and there are many more chemicals that concern me far more than CO2. Nitrates, phosphates, sulphates, poisoning water, causing Acid Rain and killing crops off are a major concern. As I said before - I see no good reason to not try and keep the release of pollutants to a minimum. I also agree that moving to nuclear power rather than fossil powered power stations would be a good idea.

Why? Because you have "assumed" the cause of an observed effect - that is not a reliable way to do science. You need to test that what you believe is the cause is actually the cuase. At the moment CO2 does not seem to be the major contributor that everybody thinks, water vapour seems to be the bigger issue along with CH4. If you address the wrong thing, you "may" make it worse, you may not. I'd prefer to know what we are dealing with and address it rather than potentially knacker the planet based on an over impulsive hunch.

Again you're swept up in the media hype - you have us doomed before science has confirmed there is actually a problem.

TelBoy

I wasn't suggesting we concentrate our efforts on CO or CO2.

An imperfect approach it might be, but i still do not, and will not, accept that sitting around waiting for scientists to come up with a finely tuned synopsis of what's wrong with planet Earth should prevent us from reducing some of the activities that we have only been undertaking for the past century or so.

Hype it might be, but i'm also not blind, nor impervious to what i see around me. If i thought it was purely hype, i'd go and set light to a tyre in my back garden just for the hell of it. Rather than pick yet another post apart point by point, let's just leave it here and see how things pan out. You can keep your fingers crossed, i'll keep an eye out for practical suggestions as to how i might be able to do my bit. And then we'll both be happy.

OllyK

Maybe I'm reading your posts wrong then, as it seemed to me you thought human generated CO2 was responsible for GW and that we should do something about it. If you're just worried about global pollution and doing something about that - then I see that as a different issue and not (as yet anyway) linked to GW.

Are you talking about general pollution here or are you back on to AGW?

TelBoy

Christ

With respect, i'm not reading that.

OllyK

Well seeing as you wrote most of it - I wouldn't have thought it was necessary

TonyG

Isn't methane the third biggest greenhouse gas? After water vapour and CO2?

Our atmosphere

And I also found this:

Methane is very strong greenhouse gas found in the atmosphere. Methane concentrations in the atmosphere have increased by more than 140 % since 1750. The primary sources for the additional methane added to the atmosphere (in order of importance) are: rice cultivation, domestic grazing animals, termites, landfills, coal mining, and oil and gas extraction.