stilover

Global warning is the new "Terrorist threat".

Give it a few months and it won't be so much in the media.

How our government think that if Britain does this or that to reduce carbon emmisions it will make a differance. It won't. Every country on the planet would have to do the same.

At the end of the day, it is just propaganda for our government to add Tax to everything, and say it's to fight Global warming. What difference did adding extra tax to air flights make to the enviroment? Nothing, it just added to Gordon Browns coffers.

And until they can turn the heat from the sun down, the planet is always going to heat up.

TelBoy

THIS is what we're up against.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

As I've said before: I'd be quite happy to take the words of all the so-called experts out there predicting dire consequences brought on by global warming..........were it not for the FACT that the self-same "experts" were predicting the next ice-age thirty odd years ago, when the sun was going through one of it's cooler periods

Alcazar

TelBoy

And Alcazar, did the point i raised in response at the time you said that go in one ear and out the other, or are you still going to tell people that story when you're 90??


WHY can people not change their minds once they've made them??? It's a human failing i tell you.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Nope, sorry, Volume = mass/density.

Alcazar

Leslie

So I was right after all then! Just over 14 tons!

Les

SJ_Skyline

Tel,

People will change their minds when they choose to. I believe there is evidence pointing in both directions with powerful lobby groups behind each argument. The one thing that I can be sure of is that I'm fatigued from seeing "Global warming this" and "Climate change that" in the media ad. nauseum.

There are too many unknows at play, the fact that I do accept is that the climate is changing. The significance of human impact on this is where the questions start.

I guess even after conclusive proof you will then face the difficulty of adoption by the masses, yes we can all do our part but you will have to convince 6 billion people along with their governments to do their part. This won't happen until it starts hurting and at the moment, it's not hurting enough.

- Just the way I see it.

LG John

No event would to be honest. I guess if some scientists were hacking around underground looking at rock and ice samples and concluded from their studies that the global climate had been stable for 100s of millions of years but has been changing in the last 50-100 years then I might sit up and think, sh*t. But, on the basis that the earth has worked on heating and cooling cycles for millions of years before Adam even thought of sticking his tool up Eve I'm a little sceptical that 'this' time round its our doing If it is our doing and we can't fix it, leading to us all dying the so be it - that's the way of things. The dino's had their crack at this whip and this is ours. I'm sure the new dominant species millions of years from now will be digging through the ice over an old historic lake when they will pull up a rusted metal box with 'Subaru' written on the back of it and ponder at these harmful devices man used to bring about his own destruction

TonyG

I could probably work the change out if I was at home. I strongly suspect that the level of change you described ther would not have the effect you described.
As for the moulten rock (sic), yes, that will happen in about 4 billion years when the Sun expands to become a red giant.

LG John

^^ LOL, my maths were made up When you get home feel free to work out the percentage change in sun surface temperature to bring about a 3mm rise in sea level

Geezer

I must admit, human arrogance always amused me.

We have neither the power to destroy this planet, nor to prevent our own destruction. Any influence we have is very small, and very temporary.

As Michael Crichton put it, "life finds a way". It has before, and it will again. The KT event changed the earth far more rapidly and with far greater effect than anything we (if indeed it is us) do, yet here we are, discussing climate change.

It just goes to show how puny and arrogant we are.

Geezer

TelBoy

Geezer, how do YOU know?? In simple words, please. And let's leave out of your explanation all the bits which are just your assumptions. Cheers.

Geezer

Telboy, and how do YOU know? You don't. Simple as. As stated earlier, experts cannot agree on the results of the same data. If you think that we are causing this, then that's fine, that's up to you. However, you didn't collect the data and you didn't come up with global warming, so you are no better placed than me say what is or is not happening. On that basis, I will continue to take cheap filghts, use my car, burn electricity as I see fit.

At least myself and others have given examples of how the earths climate has changed under differrent circumstances without human influence, all you have done is said "oh I can't believe you can look at what's happening and not think it's us". Classic delusions of grandeur

Geezer

TelBoy

How you're using patronisation to go with the arrogance.

So you DON'T have anything substantive other than a home-concocted theory which suits your own selfish lifestyle. Well WHAT a surprise. But don't worry, there are lots of others just like you.

I hope, i really do, that you're right about all this. It probably won't affect me much in any case but in light of what i see happening around me i for one WON'T be using the age-old cliché of "Earth's natural (10,00 year) cycles" to explain what's been going on in the last few decades. That to me is the ultimate statement of arrogance, if not ignorance.

PeteBrant

What? The calculation came out at 25 tonnes.

Geezer

It's not quite home concocted now is it? There is a clear split amongst scientists/climatologists, what ever, on whether the current warming is caused by natural influences, or whether humans are adding to it in an amount sufficient to make a real difference.

The same data is interpreted differently by experts in the same field, so what does that tell you? It's hardly unequivocal is it?

There are well documumented climate changes throughout earths history, obviously with no human unfluence (indeed, some even within recorded history, without industrial influence), so to jump to the conlusion it must be us seems simply folly.

If you can prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that the current warming is due to us, and, that left unchecked, will destroy the planet or all that lives on it, then fine, I will be 'green'. However, you cannot. Looking at Earths past history, I think we will do just fine.

Geezer

TopBanana

Arrogant beasts of the field would be even more amusing. An arrogant sheep for example.

Baa

Geezer

Being Welsh, I would find that extremely attractive

Geezer

CrisPDuk

He's right Pete, 25 is over 14


As to whether it's just that's merely a question of perspective

TelBoy

Except, apparently and conveniently, the last fifty years it seems. You DO see that you're doing this, don't you? I mean i know i'm not going to make you change a damned thing but please patronise me one last time and acknowledge that you're only considering the data which supports your cosy assumption, right? Global warming has become somewhat more urgent of late for a reason, believe it or not...

CrisPDuk

I'd like to recommend a very good book by a guy called Simon Winchester, about the build up to, and the aftermath of, the Krakatoa eruption.

At the end of the book the author raises some very good points worthy of more discussion. The eruption of Krakatoa and the resultant blasting of millions of tons of dust into the upper atmosphere caused global temperatures to drop by 15deg over the following 2 years, and that wasn't the only major eruption in that period, there were two more on similar scale, but without the catastrophic tidal aftermath. One was in the first half of the 19th century, and one off the coast of Alaska at the end of the century.
Subsequently we have had no major volcanic activity, with the result that the earth has been slowly warming itself up, back to pre-eruption temperatures, as the dust cloud gradually falls back out of the atmosphere.

The other point he raises is that global warming is not likely to be a problem for much longer anyway, as the island (Anak Krakatoa) that appeared in Krakatoa's place 30 years after the eruption is now growing at such a rate that it is likely to eclipse it's predecessor in size during the next 10-15years
Thanks to the relentless tectonic plate activity in the area (witness the Boxing Day tsunamis of 2005 and the April 2006 earthquake), it is a case of when, not if, an eruption on a similar scale will occur

I think I should get a pretty good view from here

Then all the ****'s currently bleating on about Global Warming will be telling us the next Ice Age is coming, and it's all the fault of them nasty car drivers

TelBoy

I'm not bleating, and i don't consider myself to be a ****. Is that ok with you, CrisPDuk? Well is it??

Geezer

During the Cretaceous period, average global temperatures were much higher than today. In fact, they were much higher than the current estimates for the future by doom mongers such as yourself. We had no polar ice caps, forests grew near the poles where there was land mass.

Even so, there was no disasterous warming in the tropics, nor a runaway greenhouse effect. Life flourished.

OK, I fully admit that rising sea levels are a problem for large portions of the population, but the earth is not a static place, and the coast has never been a particularly stable choice for inhabitation.

For example, the east of the UK is sinking in to the sea. That has nothing to do with us, that is directly to do with the rebound effect of losing the ice sheet after the last ice age. Another example of our powerlessness (real word huh?) to do anything.

CO2 is a weak greenhouse gas (in fact, it is proven that plants will use more CO2 if you give it to them. Our love of hydrocarbons may yet solve the food problem in the world, with increased precipitation and huge plant growth, ironic eh?), yet everything is being driven to reduce it. Methane is far more effective, but the big daddy of them all is water vapour.

Now, call me cynical, but those lovely big cars and planes don't give off alot of methane, and water is actually touted by the greens as being good! Somewhat contradictory don't you think? So what do they target? A nice, easy, taxable source, like hydrocarbon based fuels.

If you truly believe we are causing this (and of course I concede that we may, because the evidence is inconclusive either way, but I prefer the "it isn't us" view), then why don't you campaign for the abolition of anything that produces water vapour?

Geezer

RB5_245

As for the original post, engines don't run with perfect combustion. that 25tonnes is assuming 100% combustion, I don't know what the percentage is from a jet engine but it's not that.

As for global warming, are we making a difference? maybe, no one knows (despite what they think they know, or pass off theories as fact).

Does it make a blind bit of difference? No.

The earth will continue to cycle through it's major and minor ice ages. We can't change that.

In the past few thousand years, single volcanic eruptions have been enough to provoke minor ice ages lasting a couple of hundred years. Much more effect that we have made ourselves. The human race never died out. It won't this time.

Here's one for the environmentalists out there, the human race is undoubtedly causing damage to the planet, to wildlife and vegetation. We will continue to do so. The sooner we're gone the sooner the planet will get back on track. Why not let us pollute ourselves to death and speed up up the recovery process?

TopBanana

We're already in an ice age.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Tell me again. I probably lost interest in that thread and didn't see the response

Alcazar

Editted to say: I'll not reach 90. All you doomsayers will have the world ending in a few years

TelBoy

Just that scientific evidence in the 1970s was a whole lot less reliable. I really don't think the goalposts have moved in that time, just our ability to measure what's going on around us more thoroughly and accurately. In technological terms the 1970s is like the dinosaurs wiped out by a global ice age. Apparently.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Give over! In the 70's they couldn't measure temperature properly? You ARE joking I take it?

In any case, even if you were right in THAT assumption, it doesn't mean that in ANOTHER 30 odd years, more data, another way of measuring it etc etc won't prove the PRESENT scientists wrong

As has already been stated elsewhere, scientists are split over whether or not global warming is real.

Whether you chosse to believe the yay, or the nay, camp makes no difference. Nor does it make the others definitely wrong.

Alcazar

Dream Weaver

What do I see outside my window? It is warm in summer and cold in winter, it rains if its cloudy and its sunny if its not, if its windy fences get knocked over, and we have the odd "natural disaster" every so often somewhere around the planet.

Nothing has changed from now to 10,000 years ago, and it never will.

What do you see outside your window thats so different to what was seen when your ancestors were roaming about?

TelBoy

Your last sentence i totally agree with, Alcazar. Tell the people on this thread who KEEP saying that global warming is a fake/tax ruse or whatever that maybe, just MAYBE there's something to it. As i've said elsewhere i *hope* there isn't and it's all in the lap of the Gods, but for people to be SO sure it's all a bunch of bollocks just confounds me.

As to 1970s science, well if we're going to take it down to "can't tell the temperature" level then let's leave it there. Or have a word with a meteorologist. I think you know what i mean though - at least i hope you do.

In terms of future technological advances - yes, of course we might make further progress in our understanding of the Earth's climate. So what to do. Sit and wait until that happens and do bugger all about it in the meantime, or make relatively small adjustments to our hedonistic lifestyles which might make some, admittedly small in isolation, difference? I know which route i prefer.