Is global warming/climate change a crock?

Yes but there are areas where tidal power is practical and could provide a good chunk of power. In fact the 200 turbines that are proposed will provide roughly enough power for up to 40% of the homes in Wales and lets be honest that's a lot of power in one go.

Roughly equivalent to taking almost 600,000 cars off the road.

Surely you can't believe in a problem but not actually want to solve it? If Nuclear is part of the solution then surely wind power is part of the solution as well.

Wales is admittedly not densely populated but if 30 or so miles of coast can provide 40% of the power needed for residential needs then if the coast is 750 miles long then you do the maths! everyone needs to do their bit surely!

Me too. In Australia most people have solar hot water systems on top of their roof and this helps a lot with not needing to burn stuff to heat water :) The problem with solar is that it's not constant enough. I suspect we'll never see a time when we don't burn fossil fuels or use nuclear energy but we can lessen the need for it!

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Originally Posted by race aficionado

I don't have a link to reference this to but I have read and heard that we are not even aware of how much damage nuclear energy pollution does to our planet and to our health.
It is said that mental deseases, alzheimers for example, are on the rise because of levels of radioactivity that our 'geiger" detectors can't even sense and that are out there creating havoc.

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Thats not true, in fact its what is called pseudoscience, sounds plausible if you're not trained in that field but if you know then its obviously bs.

There are three types of radiation, alpha, beta and gamma. We have equipment to detect all three though alpha travels such a short distance its really irrelevant.

Alzheimers isn't a mental disease, its a neurological one and there was some talk about a link with electromagnetic radiation ie from mobile phones and masts etc which is probably what you're getting confused with. No significant study has shown a link between Alzheimers and any type of radiation btw.

In actual fact the amount of radiation you get from nuclear power stations if you live in a country which has them is barely detectable and nothing compared to from natural sources like radon, cosmic radiation and the sun.

In fact you'll get more radiation from a one way flight to Spain than you would from a lifetime living next to a nuclear power station (from that power station only).

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Originally Posted by Daniel

Yes but there are areas where tidal power is practical and could provide a good chunk of power. In fact the 200 turbines that are proposed will provide roughly enough power for up to 40% of the homes in Wales and lets be honest that's a lot of power in one go.

Roughly equivalent to taking almost 600,000 cars off the road.

Surely you can't believe in a problem but not actually want to solve it? If Nuclear is part of the solution then surely wind power is part of the solution as well.

Wales is admittedly not densely populated but if 30 or so miles of coast can provide 40% of the power needed for residential needs then if the coast is 750 miles long then you do the maths! everyone needs to do their bit surely!

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You've answered the points you've raised in your own post. Supplying electricity to 40% of a sparsely populated area is vastly different to supplying the Ruhr or London.

Also tidal power is not the same as wind power so the comparison is irrelevant.

Human nature being what it is, if you build wind turbines on or near land you WILL get opposition from NIMBY parties. That is going to be a major limiting factor with wind power whether you like it or not.

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Originally Posted by Dylan H

You've answered the points you've raised in your own post. Supplying electricity to 40% of a sparsely populated area is vastly different to supplying the Ruhr or London.

Also tidal power is not the same as wind power so the comparison is irrelevant.

Human nature being what it is, if you build wind turbines on or near land you WILL get opposition from NIMBY parties. That is going to be a major limiting factor with wind power whether you like it or not.

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Yes. The good old NIMBY :) The problem with Llandudno is that it's full of old farts and they don't like change. Thing is if the turbines had been there before they wouldn't want them taken down ;)

Why does the fact that tidal power is not like wind power make it irrelevant? Surely if it can generate power without emitting greenhouse gases then it's good?

Every journey starts with a small step as they say. You recognise that there is a problem yet you don't want to sort it out? You're even nuttiier than me if this problem exists because you recognise that it exists but don't seem to want to sort it yet I don't think it exists but still advocate moves to lessen the future effects of this supposedly human induced problem.

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Originally Posted by Daniel

Why does the fact that tidal power is not like wind power make it irrelevant? Surely if it can generate power without emitting greenhouse gases then it's good?

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Tidal power is irrelevant to the point I was trying to make and you were trying to rebut, ie that the appearance and noise of the machines would push people to oppose them being placed near where they live. Tidal power units are not nearly as intrusive as wind farms are.

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Originally Posted by Daniel

Every journey starts with a small step as they say. You recognise that there is a problem yet you don't want to sort it out? You're even nuttiier than me if this problem exists because you recognise that it exists but don't seem to want to sort it yet I don't think it exists but still advocate moves to lessen the future effects of this supposedly human induced problem.

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It would appear the problem is that you are attacking positions I am not holding. Some would describe your arguments as being strawman.

For example in your previous post you bring up tidal power stations which were not previously mentioned in this thread and which were irrelevant to the point being discussed at that point as I explained above.

If you really think I'm not interested in proposing solutions I suggest you read my posts regarding nuclear power and fuel cells/hydrogen. Its courteous to read other peoples posts properly before replying to them.

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Originally Posted by Dylan H

Tidal power is irrelevant to the point I was trying to make and you were trying to rebut, ie that the appearance and noise of the machines would push people to oppose them being placed near where they live. Tidal power units are not nearly as intrusive as wind farms are.



It would appear the problem is that you are attacking positions I am not holding. Some would describe your arguments as being strawman.

For example in your previous post you bring up tidal power stations which were not previously mentioned in this thread and which were irrelevant to the point being discussed at that point as I explained above.

If you really think I'm not interested in proposing solutions I suggest you read my posts regarding nuclear power and fuel cells/hydrogen. Its courteous to read other peoples posts properly before replying to them.

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Huh? We're talking about global warming and you were saying that renewables would impact upon our ability to produce food

According to you global warming is caused by CO2
Common sense tells us that power generation is a primary source of CO2 emissions.
We were talking about alternative means of power generation (renewables)
Tidal power unless I'm very much mistaken is an alternative means of power generation which doesn't emit CO2 in it's day to day operation.
You talked about renewables taking up farming land
Tidal power generally doesn't impact upon farming land.

What are you on about?

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Originally Posted by Daniel

Huh? We're talking about global warming and you were saying that renewables would impact upon our ability to produce food

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Errrr I thought my point was pretty easy to grasp. At the moment the main renewable energy source worldwide is biofuel.

If we switch to using renewable energy sources on a large scale, then poorer countries that are already running the risk of starvation will be at greater risk as they start shifting land from agriculture to growing renewable energy sources because they would generate more income.

As I explained in my original post which I hope you read, that isn't a problem for Europe or America which already have a food surplus but few other places are that lucky without having to grow renewable energy sources.

I am discussing the pros and cons of each potential future energy source, something that might just be relevant to this thread. I thought you were too.

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Originally Posted by Daniel

Tidal power unless I'm very much mistaken is an alternative means of power generation which doesn't emit CO2 in it's day to day operation.
You talked about renewables taking up farming land
Tidal power generally doesn't impact upon farming land.

What are you on about?

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Read posts no 118 and 119.

My points were regarding WIND POWER and the fact that many people don't want ugly noisy turbines near where they live which limits their uptake which you took exception to by claiming that tidal power units aren't obtrusive. Last time I looked tidal power is different from wind power......

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Originally Posted by race aficionado

I don' have a graph or an expert's quote but I look forward to the time when we can get our energy from the sun, that big red hot power generator in the sky.

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Almost right. Earth-bound nuclear fusion (as opposed to fission, which is what we have now) will solve the problem of fossil-fuel power stations. Shame it's so bloody difficult to get working on Earth though.....

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Originally Posted by Dylan H

Errrr I thought my point was pretty easy to grasp. At the moment the main renewable energy source worldwide is biofuel.

If we switch to using renewable energy sources on a large scale, then poorer countries that are already running the risk of starvation will be at greater risk as they start shifting land from agriculture to growing renewable energy sources because they would generate more income.

As I explained in my original post which I hope you read, that isn't a problem for Europe or America which already have a food surplus but few other places are that lucky without having to grow renewable energy sources.

I am discussing the pros and cons of each potential future energy source, something that might just be relevant to this thread. I thought you were too.



Read posts no 118 and 119.

My points were regarding WIND POWER and the fact that many people don't want ugly noisy turbines near where they live which limits their uptake which you took exception to by claiming that tidal power units aren't obtrusive. Last time I looked tidal power is different from wind power......

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Congratulations tidal power is different to wind power.

Post 118 I said that the Gwynt y mor wind farm will not impact food production (you said it would), that the wind supply is not as variable as you said it was and you said it was noisy (it isn't)

Post 119 - You agreed with me but stated that it's not the correct solution for the whole of Europe and mentioned that not all of Europe is like North Wales. Funny that!

Post 120 - I stated that in addition you could have tidal power and that by themselves the gwynt y more turbines will generate 40% of the household power needed for Wales and said that Wales is not densely populated. On looking at the statistics it's actually more densely populated than Europe on average.

Post 124 - Some sort of magic mushroom slipped into your tea and the hallucinogenic effects caused you to imagine that I was comparing wind power and tidal power in some way which I never did.

I never took offense to it by saying that tidal power isn't obtrusive. I merely stated that I live near a freaking windfarm and it doesn't dominate the freaking scenery and it isn't freaking noisy.

The suns radiation is increasing to a solar maximum in 2011. It was on perfect disaster a few months back about a potentially devastating solar storm

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Originally Posted by Captain VXR

The suns radiation is increasing to a solar maximum in 2011. It was on perfect disaster a few months back about a potentially devastating solar storm

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See that's the thing. It was said before that solar irradiation was not high and then a program says it is? Who is correct?

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Originally Posted by Daniel

See that's the thing. It was said before that solar irradiation was not high and then a program says it is? Who is correct?

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Solar radiation is high but so are greenhouse gases. According to the models greenhouse gases are having significantly more of an effect at the present time. Anything that gets brought up on a forum or a TV programme has already been considered by climatologists.

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Originally Posted by Daniel

Congratulations tidal power is different to wind power.

Post 118 I said that the Gwynt y mor wind farm will not impact food production (you said it would), that the wind supply is not as variable as you said it was and you said it was noisy (it isn't)

Post 119 - You agreed with me but stated that it's not the correct solution for the whole of Europe and mentioned that not all of Europe is like North Wales. Funny that!

Post 120 - I stated that in addition you could have tidal power and that by themselves the gwynt y more turbines will generate 40% of the household power needed for Wales and said that Wales is not densely populated. On looking at the statistics it's actually more densely populated than Europe on average.

Post 124 - Some sort of magic mushroom slipped into your tea and the hallucinogenic effects caused you to imagine that I was comparing wind power and tidal power in some way which I never did.

I never took offense to it by saying that tidal power isn't obtrusive. I merely stated that I live near a freaking windfarm and it doesn't dominate the freaking scenery and it isn't freaking noisy.

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I think you've proven my point that you didn't read my posts properly.

In post 117 paragraph 1 I was referring to renewable energy resources in general. Since you're clearly interested in this topic I'm sure you understand that biofuels such as oilseed rape are the most important renewable energy resource. Tidal/wind are nowhere near as significant globally. Hence my point about the impact on food production (of course I'm assuming you know the controversy about third world countries switching land from food to energy source production).

In paragraph 2 I then referred to local opposition to the presence of wind turbines as a subtype of renewable energy sources. Hence your point in 118 regarding food production was irrelevant. I never claimed that wind turbines would significantly impact food production but renewable sources in general would.

Regarding your last paragraph, that is YOUR opinion. Plenty of people disagree which is why websites such as the one you posted were made.

Would you still be so pro-wind turbines in your area if you realised that their presence would cut the value of your house by several percent, the same as that of living near an airport? YOU may not mind them but plenty of people do.

I'm finding this exchange rather tedious and your inability to understand rather clear posts painful to watch. There won't be any further responses from me on this matter.

Andrew, fusion power seems to be the answer to all our prayers, its such a pity that it keeps being delayed by new problems encountered in its development.

Renewable biofuels means more farmland, which if I understand a previous post, increases methane, a greenhouse gas while at the same time increasing the starvation rates because we're growing fuel, not food, so the populations would drop thereby also having the effect of lowered emissions due to fewer people.

Yeah, could work.

Nature, nature.

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Originally Posted by Dylan H

Nuclear to me seems to be the way ahead, it is safe in properly designed and maintained reactors and is zero emissions, silent and relatively compact. Its a pity that the green groups have helped give nuclear power such a bad name that many people dismiss it out of hand.

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I very much agree. Given that this view is largely based on a 20-plus-year-old accident in the Soviet Union, it doesn't exactly bear up to much scrutiny in the West today.

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Originally Posted by race aficionado

I don't have a link to reference this to but I have read and heard that we are not even aware of how much damage nuclear energy pollution does to our planet and to our health.
It is said that mental deseases, alzheimers for example, are on the rise because of levels of radioactivity that our 'geiger" detectors can't even sense and that are out there creating havoc.

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Well, someone had better come up with some proof of this damn quick if they have any. It's not as if scientists haven't had the time to examine this one over the years.

Personally — and this is similar to my view on global warming, in that I have an opinion but am no scientist — I have my doubts as to the veracity of such claims.

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Originally Posted by Dylan H

You've answered the points you've raised in your own post. Supplying electricity to 40% of a sparsely populated area is vastly different to supplying the Ruhr or London.

Also tidal power is not the same as wind power so the comparison is irrelevant.

Human nature being what it is, if you build wind turbines on or near land you WILL get opposition from NIMBY parties. That is going to be a major limiting factor with wind power whether you like it or not.

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I know only two things about windpower. One is that it can never be enough to meet our energy needs. The other is that it is an anagram of 'downwiper'.

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Originally Posted by BDunnell

I very much agree. Given that this view is largely based on a 20-plus-year-old accident in the Soviet Union, it doesn't exactly bear up to much scrutiny in the West today.

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Do I remember reading somewhere that the technology used in the Soviet reactor was considered risky and not used in the west?

Duh, came from work to find several more pages in this thread. Good stuff, by the way :up:

So, I'll depart a little from the current subtopic (you Europeans are sleeping, anyway ;) ) and I'll say this: the thing that puzzles me the most about the "consensus" on GW is the catastrophes predicted. One has to deduce from that, that warming of the planet is a bad thing (hard to convince me, when we get -40 in the Winter here ;) ); in any case, does that mean that global cooling would be a good thing? Or, does that mean that the current temperatures are "perfect". I stuggle with that :confused:

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Originally Posted by Daniel

I should point out that I don't support using wiki links as evidence. I'm at work and I don't have time to do a lot of research because I'm doing my job. I think the evidence of grapes being grown in colder places kind of says a lot of the people who disagree with it.

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The reason I said check the wiki, is because much of it is correct. But you have to read all of it.

As for grapes growing in Britain in the medieval warming period, so what? There are plenty of vineyards in Britain at present. I think there may even be one in Scotland, but I am sure the owner is mad.

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Originally Posted by Daniel

I have no bias. I'm simply after balanced discussion. Don't suggest that. If in 50 years temperatures are going up at a level that models suggested then I'll agree. If it turns out you're wrong will you agree or are you to proud to admit you could be wrong?

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I wasn't saying you were biased. I was saying research paid for by oil companies usually is.

In 50 years it will be too late. In 20 years it will be too late.

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Originally Posted by Fiero 5.7

Renewable biofuels means more farmland, which if I understand a previous post, increases methane, a greenhouse gas while at the same time increasing the starvation rates because we're growing fuel, not food, so the populations would drop thereby also having the effect of lowered emissions due to fewer people.

Yeah, could work.

Nature, nature.

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Biofuels are not much of an answer at the moment. When they are made our of grasses or other easier plants then it could work. It will have to work anyway after peak oil.

No single renewable power source is the key. All of them combined can do it.

Germany is agreat example of what can happen with Govt backing. They are the world leaders in utilising solar power.

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Originally Posted by tinchote

Duh, came from work to find several more pages in this thread. Good stuff, by the way :up:

So, I'll depart a little from the current subtopic (you Europeans are sleeping, anyway ;) ) and I'll say this: the thing that puzzles me the most about the "consensus" on GW is the catastrophes predicted. One has to deduce from that, that warming of the planet is a bad thing (hard to convince me, when we get -40 in the Winter here ;) ); in any case, does that mean that global cooling would be a good thing? Or, does that mean that the current temperatures are "perfect". I stuggle with that :confused:

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The problem isn't that the world is warming. The problem is that the world is warming too quickly. If the world was cooling that would be fine, as long as it happened slowly and naturally. Many species on the planet can addapt to a changing temperature, as long as it happens over a few thousand years.

I'm trying not to get too involved in this however an interesting article in the guardian regarding the melting of the Artic Ice Cap here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen.../climatechange

A couple of small quotes:

Experts say they are "stunned" by the loss of ice, with an area almost twice as big as the UK disappearing in the last week alone.

Changes in wind and ocean circulation patterns can help reduce sea ice extent, but Dr Serreze said the main culprit was man-made global warming.
"The rules are starting to change and what's changing the rules is the input of greenhouse gases."

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Originally Posted by tinchote

Duh, came from work to find several more pages in this thread. Good stuff, by the way :up:

So, I'll depart a little from the current subtopic (you Europeans are sleeping, anyway ;) ) and I'll say this: the thing that puzzles me the most about the "consensus" on GW is the catastrophes predicted. One has to deduce from that, that warming of the planet is a bad thing (hard to convince me, when we get -40 in the Winter here ;) ); in any case, does that mean that global cooling would be a good thing? Or, does that mean that the current temperatures are "perfect". I stuggle with that :confused:

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The simple short answer is that we adapt to the changes that come, be they man made or natural. Like everything else, some will benefit from and enjoy their new climate and others will have to seek new homes and livelihoods elsewhere. Some will stick it out in place and proclaim it as no big deal. Then 500 years from now, when the climate starts changing back to the way it is now, the same debate and predictions of doom shall start anew.

Fiero, many of the same people were saying we were doomed for an ice age back in the 70's. I don't know what we can do if we are the cause, and short of stopping life as we know it, it likely should have been done 30 years ago. There is no way of knowing exactly what is causing it, but climate modelling is a bit of a joke IMO, and I say that after taking 2 climatology credits in University and having an weather observors certificiate at one point in my life. I know how the weather is forcasted and collected, and I can tell you, there is a great unknown out there on what will happen 2 days from now. To forecast 10 years or 50 years hence is a lot more of a crap shoot....

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Originally Posted by rah

The problem isn't that the world is warming. The problem is that the world is warming too quickly. If the world was cooling that would be fine, as long as it happened slowly and naturally. Many species on the planet can addapt to a changing temperature, as long as it happens over a few thousand years.

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Or course. But as I said and you seem to have ignored. Not so long ago there were vineyards in the north of england and as we know vineyards tend to prefer warmer climates which the north of england still to this day doesn't really provide.

There is also the hockey stick controversy. How long has world temperature been shown to be rising so rapidly? How long have we been accurately measuring termperature? Roughly the same amount of time!?!?!?!?!?!?

As I said I do not doubt that there is warming happening. But I feel that climate study is in it's infancy and although we have lots of tools at our disposal do we nearlly know what the data means? Typically the more complicated an experiment the more data you need to draw a conclusion. Now if we were simply seeing if we could make gold our of plastic and you did whatever you did and made gold out of plastic then that's proof enough. But we're talking about something that's infinitely more complex than our level of current understanding and even if we have computer models they're only interpreting data in a way that we instruct them to.

A lot of theories that seem perfectly reasonable and have data to back them up have been disproven. Up until recently it was said that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light. Guess what! A few weeks ago this was said to have been broken. Of course it could all be smoke and mirrors but I suspect it's probably right.

As I think Mark said previously Einstein was considered a nut back in the 20's and then suddenly he turned everything on it's head and is now considered one of the great minds of the 20th century. Food for thought?

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Originally Posted by Fiero 5.7

Do I remember reading somewhere that the technology used in the Soviet reactor was considered risky and not used in the west?

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I don't know anything about the technology used, I'm afraid, but what was clear was that it was poorly run and maintained.

There is no use crying over spilt milk. Warming is happening and we can't stop it. Adapt and survive.

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Originally Posted by rah

I wasn't saying you were biased. I was saying research paid for by oil companies usually is.

In 50 years it will be too late. In 20 years it will be too late.

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What if in 20 years it doesn't exist?

Have you thought of that possibility?

I think one of the problems here is that we are still using the term Global Warming instead of Global Climate Change.

The world naturally goes through periods of climate change. Some take many ages and some are rapid and happen over a few hundred or thousand years. These aren't the problem because as RAH says, the ecology of the planet changes over time and adapts to the different conditions so the Romans can grow vines in England.

What the big problem happens to be is when these rapid change events are significant (ie. more than a centigrade or so over a hundred years average) and the dramatic effect they have on the ecology of the planet.

What tends to happen then is that rather than just warming (lovely for the Canuks no doubt ;) ) we get extreem shifts in weather patterns. Droughts, floods, Cat five storms etc. The melting of the ice caps leads to dilution of sea water and possible change in global oceanic currents because of the change in density etc.

There appears to be a change in the severity and extreems of weather conditions that could quite possibly be caused by man. That is the stark reality. What the extent of this change could be and the effects it might ultimatly have is not yet obvious. What is obvious though is that the majority of the scientific community believes we have a big problem and as they are the people that are in the best position to know about this, it might be prudent to listen to them.

After all, if you hear a fire alarm, do you react or are you one of the people that sit there saying "I can't smell smoke so I'll stay here till I can". By then, it may be too late but if you take action immediatly and it's a false alarm, then what have you lost?

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Originally Posted by Flat.tyres

After all, if you hear a fire alarm, do you react or are you one of the people that sit there saying "I can't smell smoke so I'll stay here till I can". By then, it may be too late but if you take action immediatly and it's a false alarm, then what have you lost?

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In the case of a fire alarm, very little. In the case of stopping all emissions, then we are talking about human civilisation as we know it.

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Originally Posted by rah

Biofuels are not much of an answer at the moment. When they are made our of grasses or other easier plants then it could work. It will have to work anyway after peak oil.

No single renewable power source is the key. All of them combined can do it.

Germany is agreat example of what can happen with Govt backing. They are the world leaders in utilising solar power.

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I agree. Biofuel is merely another way of releasing CO2. Just like electric cars. Something is burnt to fuel it. So unless the power behind it is clean then it's useless. Biofuels are going to come from Brazil and what are they going to do? Cut down forest (carbon sinks) and create cleared land which when ploughed will absorb more heat from the sun and contribute to the problem. Yeah good one you short sighted environmentalist plonkers! I consider myself someone that cares about the environment. We recycle, compost, have a wormery and recycle when possible even though the local council makes it hard (they don't recycle cardboard ffs!) and I get pissed off when I buy a packet of something and it's sealed in a celophane wrap, has a stiff plastic base and inside the biscuits or cakes or whatever have individual wrapping. I think that by not being wasteful in this way, turning heating on when a jumper could suffice, not buying a new car every three years and so many other things. If there is this problem and it is caused by us we need to really look deeply at the full implications of the technology we are going to use to combat this and not go for the "Lada Samara" solution which is cheap, seems nice at the time but ends up costing more in the long run and doesn't actually solve the problem.

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Originally Posted by Flat.tyres

I think one of the problems here is that we are still using the term Global Warming instead of Global Climate Change.

The world naturally goes through periods of climate change. Some take many ages and some are rapid and happen over a few hundred or thousand years. These aren't the problem because as RAH says, the ecology of the planet changes over time and adapts to the different conditions so the Romans can grow vines in England.

What the big problem happens to be is when these rapid change events are significant (ie. more than a centigrade or so over a hundred years average) and the dramatic effect they have on the ecology of the planet.

What tends to happen then is that rather than just warming (lovely for the Canuks no doubt ;) ) we get extreem shifts in weather patterns. Droughts, floods, Cat five storms etc. The melting of the ice caps leads to dilution of sea water and possible change in global oceanic currents because of the change in density etc.

There appears to be a change in the severity and extreems of weather conditions that could quite possibly be caused by man. That is the stark reality. What the extent of this change could be and the effects it might ultimatly have is not yet obvious. What is obvious though is that the majority of the scientific community believes we have a big problem and as they are the people that are in the best position to know about this, it might be prudent to listen to them.

After all, if you hear a fire alarm, do you react or are you one of the people that sit there saying "I can't smell smoke so I'll stay here till I can". By then, it may be too late but if you take action immediatly and it's a false alarm, then what have you lost?

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The thing is are the extreme weather conditions caused by climate change or is it just natural? As I said there are records of extremes of temperature and so on. For instance with the Thames freezing over in the 60's which is a very strange bit of weather indeed. So merely seeing weird things happening and looking for an explanation is the wrong thing. Global warming was used to explain the strange weather in the UK this summer AFTER it happened. If they had said we've seen warming of .25 degrees celsius and we're going to see a lot of rain and then it rained a lot I could understand. But using these models they've not been able to predict any of the weather. They've merely predicted that climate change will result in unpredictable weather which is about as unscientific as you can be!

As for your fire alarm example it's a good one. But it still doesn't confirm that man is causing climate change.

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Originally Posted by Mark

In the case of a fire alarm, very little. In the case of stopping all emissions, then we are talking about human civilisation as we know it.

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My post was looking more at whether mankind is detrimentally influencing Global Climate Patterns which is in dispute on this thread.

What do do about this influence is another matter entirely but it seems that there is a fundemental disagreement about the reality of (for arguements sake) AGW and then some of the people that don't agree in the principle of AGW are proposing solutions to a problem they don't think exists. I find this quite ironic so just decided to post on the thread subject instead :D

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Originally Posted by Flat.tyres

My post was looking more at whether mankind is detrimentally influencing Global Climate Patterns which is in dispute on this thread.

What do do about this influence is another matter entirely but it seems that there is a fundemental disagreement about the reality of (for arguements sake) AGW and then some of the people that don't agree in the principle of AGW are proposing solutions to a problem they don't think exists. I find this quite ironic so just decided to post on the thread subject instead :D

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It's not ironic. It's called having doubts about something but not discounting it to the extent that you doom yourself if you're wrong. It's called common sense and it's better than thinking there's no problem and not doing anything to combat any possible issues we may have or realising that there's a problem and choosing silly solutions like electric cars, hybrids and biofuel.

In fact my argument is very much similar to your "fire alarm" argument so you're only disagreeing with yourself here....

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Originally Posted by Daniel

The thing is are the extreme weather conditions caused by climate change or is it just natural? As I said there are records of extremes of temperature and so on. For instance with the Thames freezing over in the 60's which is a very strange bit of weather indeed. So merely seeing weird things happening and looking for an explanation is the wrong thing. Global warming was used to explain the strange weather in the UK this summer AFTER it happened. If they had said we've seen warming of .25 degrees celsius and we're going to see a lot of rain and then it rained a lot I could understand. But using these models they've not been able to predict any of the weather. They've merely predicted that climate change will result in unpredictable weather which is about as unscientific as you can be!

As for your fire alarm example it's a good one. But it still doesn't confirm that man is causing climate change.

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Your first sentence is the focal point of the whole debate. Is it natural or not?

We have weather records going back over a small period of time. Of course, things like Ice Core samples can give us a much clearer idea of long term climate patterns but the day to day stuff, the hurricanes, cold spells and floods form 500+ years would have to be on near biblical proportions to have a chance of being recorded.

BUT, there is evidence that the patterns we are seeing are becoming more extreem and from historical evidence, things like CO2 levels are rising.

Interpretation and modelling of this data is in it's infantacy and nobody is really certain of what the long term effects and symptoms will be as we have limited data to base any claims on. It's almost a case of us knowing it's getting worse but untill we've been through it, we wont know how bad it can be. The problem is, if current predictions are accurate, will we be in a position to care?

My Mum told me about when she smoked. it was not considered a problem at the time but people know it make them cough and wheeze. Yet, "There was no evidence it was bad for you" even though it made people feel like hell.

Then, these weirdos said some disgraceful rubbish about it could give you something called cancer which the tobacco companies proved was a load of lies. It got to the point that hundreds of thousands of people were dying of smoking and still there wasn't enough "evidence" around to prove it was linked until a few years ago. I think the tobacco companies still maintain there is no link.

Can we afford to wait 50 years when we have a fairly good idea this stuff is going on but the Oil companies fund more and more slanted research to disprove it or question it through lack of evidence?

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Originally Posted by Flat.tyres

Your first sentence is the focal point of the whole debate. Is it natural or not?

We have weather records going back over a small period of time. Of course, things like Ice Core samples can give us a much clearer idea of long term climate patterns but the day to day stuff, the hurricanes, cold spells and floods form 500+ years would have to be on near biblical proportions to have a chance of being recorded.

BUT, there is evidence that the patterns we are seeing are becoming more extreem and from historical evidence, things like CO2 levels are rising.

Interpretation and modelling of this data is in it's infantacy and nobody is really certain of what the long term effects and symptoms will be as we have limited data to base any claims on. It's almost a case of us knowing it's getting worse but untill we've been through it, we wont know how bad it can be. The problem is, if current predictions are accurate, will we be in a position to care?

My Mum told me about when she smoked. it was not considered a problem at the time but people know it make them cough and wheeze. Yet, "There was no evidence it was bad for you" even though it made people feel like hell.

Then, these weirdos said some disgraceful rubbish about it could give you something called cancer which the tobacco companies proved was a load of lies. It got to the point that hundreds of thousands of people were dying of smoking and still there wasn't enough "evidence" around to prove it was linked until a few years ago. I think the tobacco companies still maintain there is no link.

Can we afford to wait 50 years when we have a fairly good idea this stuff is going on but the Oil companies fund more and more slanted research to disprove it or question it through lack of evidence?

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You're suggesting that all people who do studies which don't agree with popular concensus and so on are biased. Is this the case? Who knows!

Is it natural? Is it not? Who knows? No one can say for certain. Not like I can go outside and measure the temperature and say without a doubt that it is 16 degrees celsius exactly. As I said it's a theory and as we all know theories are not fact. We don't know that it's going to get worse. As has been shown many times there really is very little correlation betwen CO2 levels and temperature. There have been times of extreme cold where CO2 levels have been through the roof.

What is an extreme weather pattern? Does weather necessarily follow predefined patterns? We would like it to but it never seems to and these models never seem to predict events such as the hugely abnormal weather patterns in the UK and the rest of Northern Europe. We're not talking a microclimate here. We're talking about a huge part of the world that had totally unexpected weather. Food for thought?

Your body is not a climate. A climate is extremely complicated. If lots of people smoke and have lung problems and the ones who don't smoke don't have problems then that's quite easy to understand. But we don't have another planet to test this theory on ;)

I never said lets ignore a possible problem. You are putting words in my mouth ;)

In a way the tobbaco example is a good one. Yes people who smoked coughed and many died from lung diseases however, smoking has never been proven to be the exclusive cause of theses diseases. I'm not saying smoking is healthy or that smoking will not harm you. What I am saying is that people that don't smoke are afflicted with these same diseases. Also ignored is that many of the people also spent a life time in heavy industries breathing chemicals, coal dust, ash, and silica particles, etc. In the US, the tobbaco companies didn't lose the lawsuits over health issues, they lost them when it was proved they were "juicing" their products to make them more addictive. I don't think anybody here disputes the climate is changing, the dispute is over whether we are the cause, a factor in the cause i.e., speeding up what would occur anyway, or completely innocent of all charges. If additional taxes are to be taken to deal with climate change I feel the money would be better used to help people and animals adapt to the changes as they come instead of trying to prevent what you can't stop. China is often cited as a major emissions player and they are going to do what they want. They are large enough and militarily strong enough to pretty much shrug off any sanctions you may care to hit them with.