h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I am collecting here a few ideas in order to see what they amount to.

Melanie Phillips, writing in the D.Mail (UK) on 13/01/05 reported on some work by Dr Frank Keppler (of what organisation???). Until now, methane was thought to be produced mainly by decomposing organic matter. But Keppler's study has found that the CH4 emiited in normal oxygen-rich surroundings - ie by green plants - is between 10-1000 times the amount produced by dead material Phillips says that this study clears up one or two unexplained features about the environment- such as the fact that the rise in CH4 has been slowing down ovcer the past 10 years. (Note to self: Does this go aganst what I said in my Entry that it has inbcreased by 11% since 1978?)So, the study argues that Deforestation may be a factor in PREVENTING GW!)

Interesting.

I am putting together an informal global-warming-cynicism page, and I'd like to use that, if I may?

My plant biology is non-existent. In words of one syllable, what is the natural botanic process that creates methane, then?

B

Hi MB. Yes, please feel free to use it. I don't know anything about CH4 production by green plants either; also I haven't yet found out where Keppler publihed his reseach - mind you, I haven't looked very hard either yet

Well, a quick search shows that he could be the Frank Keppler who's at the Max Planck Inst. in Heidelberg, which means he's pukka.

It doesn't explain why a quantum physicist is studying plant emissions, mind.

B

(Thought you were serious for a moment )

Melanie Phillips: barking mad right-wing commentator. Sides with far-right Christian and Jewish groups and is a darling of the American Right, who hail her as one of the few voices of reason ("she thinks like us") in a Europe lost to liberals and atheists (ie. normal people like you and me)


Her ulterior motive? Writing for her market of North American right-wingers, the kind of people who deny global warming is happening because it's a commie/European Liberal plot to attack American industry and load it with un-necessary regulation, else it's to tell Americans to cut their living standards...and anyway the good Lord never said this in the Bible, so it's all part of the great Satanic plot.. (you know - THAT sort of American..)

I already posted on this. The fact of the matter is, the hotter it is, the more methane plants release. So you cannot blame global warming on plants because without humans they would not be releasing so much methane.

That is a very flawed argument. How much do you think the rate of methane production increases over a 1C differential?

Negligible?

B

I'm not sure, but even if it's .000000001 kg per plant more a year for every 1 degree C higher, there are so many plants that it would make a significant difference. And keep in mind, CH4 is 23 times as potent of a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide.

In a world in which meaningful debate has becoming outmoded I believe that to take a cynical view to anything which is promoted as the ‘correct’ way of thinking is a wise precaution; probably wiser than many of the measures proposed in the name of combating global warming.

Personally a lot of what I see in this debate reinforces my belief that man is totally arrogant and must see themselves as the centre and controlling influence of everything. Climate is changing, but that is no surprise the Earth has never been and will never be a completely stable environment. However to immediately decide that it is man’s fault is rather like our forebears deciding that the earth was at the centre of the universe. The Earth is an extremely complex and poorly understood system, hence if you want to find evidence for a proposition you can always find some evidence to support your argument. However I have yet to see one theory that provides a sufficiently all encompassing understanding of the Earth that we could happily base predictions on it.

So what do we do. Well lets not do what our political masters are doing and using global warming as a handy way of raising more money for their pet schemes or as a cover to impose yet more controls on their subjects (sorry I meant to say those that elect them!). I would suggest that we do what man has always done and is very good at, adapt to the prevailing conditions. Stop spending time, money and intellectual effort trying to control the uncontrollable and start planning for change. Not what so many people seem to want, an unchallenging life; but that’s just how life is a series of challenges.

You, Sir/Madam have just put the most succinct, well written case against anthropogenic global warming I have ever read.

If you're not already aware of it, please take a look at the website of the Asociation of British Drivers ( http://www.abd.org.uk ), not a bunch of raving petrol heads but a group of concerned motorists with interests in everything to do with their lives and livelyhoods where motoring is concerned. The site is an eye opener in a number of different topics.

May I also draw your attention to and recommend the documentary which was shown on Channel 4 a few weeks ago entitled "The Great Global Warming Swindle", an other eye-opener, except it seems that yours and mine (at least partially) are open already. You can reserve a copy of the documentary on DVD at http://www.wagtv.com/acatalog/store.asp . This is something I have already done, even though I watched it intently when it was first transmitted.

More power to you and your pen/keyboard, my friend.

Hi - never posted a message here before and I don't have any scientific background, but I was just browsing through H2G2 (have become obsessed recently) and spotted this conversation. I read a book recently by Michael Crichton called State Of Fear, that has some very interesting things to say about sensationalism and politicized science, specifically GW. if you're interested in arguments against it (and haven't read the book already), then I recommend it highly.

Ta ta!

I've always had a bit of a suspicion that science isn't quite as 100% intellectually disinterested as it claims to be... surely if any scientific investigation is backed by big bucks that pay to keep scientists in jobs or prestigious research at a particular university, then those scientists are going to bloody well find the results they are being paid to get? (Paying the piper means you can dictate the playlist). And if the big money at the moment lies in proving a thing called global warming is happening, then can we be surprised if the evidence appears in profusion? I mean, my old uni, UEA Norwich, has a prestigious school of climate studies which has built its reputation on the back of the global warming thing, and which draws in seriously big bucks and academic kudos for the university... even though one school of thought says that melting ice caps and so on will ensure Norfolk will in years to come be twinned with Atlantis and the fabled lost continent of Mu, they still base themselves at Ground Zero - Norwich - and show no signs of urgently relocating to somewhere more sensible, like perhaps the University of the Central Cairngorms. I may be cynical, but if the CRU announces a move from slightly below sea level to somewhere a bit higher up, I might take a bit more notice!

I once read about conditions four hundred or so years ago, when the climate was a lot colder - in fact, positively siberian - and England's major rivers froze rock-solid in winter. What was the Gulf Stream doing then? And a thousand or more years before that, the Romans could apparently grow grapes as far north as Durham, suggesting that within a cosmic blink of 2000 years or so, the British climate has swung from a lot more clement than it is now, to an awful lot colder, and back to "getting warmer" again. How do we know that what's happening now is not within the parameters of "normal", viewed on this longer-term basis?

Here's a fact - and they are few and far between in the orthodox treatment of this topic - the scientific concensus is far from settled.

Inconveniently for Al Gore, who is not a scientist, there is a large and growing set of proper scientists, with degrees and doctorates and research projects, who profoundly disagree with what the politicians are pushing.

Go and google "Manhattan Declaration" and then you can find a case set out against anthropogenic GW, plus a whole bunch of podcasts of their popular conferences of 2008 and 2009. These brought together scientists who want to understand the climate better, not just aid and abet politicians to scare us all into paying scads of pointless taxes.

I think it is time the Guide entry was re-edited to reflect the new information available. In its current form it is incomplete and in places just plain wrong (eg discussion of water/water vapour).
Suggested subheadings: Sunspot Cycles; Global Cooling; Why Did Other Planets In The Solar System Warm Up In The 1990s, Then - Have The Martians Got 4x4s Too?