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

'The thing that emerges from the whole environmental debate is the point
that there is somebody keen to kill the African dream, and the African dream
is to develop. We are being told don't touch your resources, don't touch
your oil, don't touch your coal; that is suicide.'

http://www.channel4.com/science/microsites/G/great_global_warming_swindle/index.html

I say we got to go back to go forward and scrap money - may seem harsh but the governments are only worried about the economy and their pockets - not global warming and what we have and are doing to the planet.

We are already slowly becoming a police state - smoking bans as that contributes to the depletion of the ozone, congestion charges - trying really to stop the amount of cars on the road and thus the poor are really the ones who are suffering.

Okay so what do we do? Who do we believe.

Now they are talking about lightbulbs lmao

Next we will only be allowed to pull the toilet flush once a day as there is another water shortage.

Yes I can jest, but our planet is warming up - fact

And we humans have contributed to it - let Africa do what they want - aren't we all meant to be "FREE", if China and the US can have power stations - why shouldn't Africa - at the end of the day humans are all just dictators and we are all killing each other - God help us

I've seen data that shows that mankind's contribution to the *World* CO2 output is 2%. Yep, 2%. Including flying, driving, industry..... Even before the industrial revolution, mankind was hacking trees down and burning them for fuel, to cook, to produce metals, to fire pottery, etc.

Heck, we as humans each emit circa 500kg of CO2 per year simply by breathing.

I feel very strongly that the moderate voices in the climate change debate are being lost in favour of enviro-fundamentalism. And yes, I do mean that in the sense of extreme religious fundamentalism.

It's like the whole hybrid vs conventional petrol engine debate, which really winds me up. A diesel car will achieve more mpg more consistently than a hybrid over the vast range of driving conditions; a hybrid only scores if you do spend most of your commute sitting motionless in traffic. Not to mention that the chemicals used in hybrid batteries are extremely noxious and hard to recycle.

In fact, the area around the plant in Ontario which produces the nickel used in the Toyota Prius' batteries, is heavily polluted and damaged by those emissions. http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=417227&in_page_id=1770

Indeed, when it came for the first environmental certificate for a car to be handed out, the recipient wasn't the Prius, but the Mercedes S Class: http://www.daimlerchrysler.com/dccom/0,,0-5-505402-1-558048-1-0-0-0-0-0-243-220714-0-0-0-0-0-0-0,00.html

Funny how those things never get mentioned, isn't it?

I don't believe we are the root cause of climate change; our planet's climate has rarely been stable for long in its history, and we weren't around to cause it then.

That said, our planet *is* warming up; and we should look after it sensibly. I'm not saying we should all drive thirsty cars, or not recycle, or not be wiser in our use of gas, electricity, water etc - we should do these because it conserves resources, and our planet isn't a bottomless pit of things for us to plunder.

However, that won't allow the government to tax us all into poverty and submission, will it?

I hope we're not citing that godawful Channel 4 report as useful science here. The programme clearly had an axe to grind from the beginning (just look at the title), was utterly one-sided and deliberately omitted a huge number of relevant points because they didn't support its conclusion.

They mentioned political interference in a previous IPCC report designed to *exaggerate* the adverse effects of global warming. They didn't mention the political editing in this month's IPCC report that *removed* all mention of the potential positive feedback mechanisms that the scientists had included.

They dismissed a graph showing that the warming trend had started "before cars and planes had even been invented", neglecting to point out that the industrial revolution started some considerable time before this.

No mention whatsoever of the damping effects of the oceans and particulate pollution that would've served to contradict many of their conclusions.

Evidence was presented from ice-cores going back (and this was strongly emphasised) one THOUSAND years. Presumably the 100,000 year-old samples didn't support their conclusions either.

There were a couple of classic conspiracy-theorist tactics used throughout -

making a big point of mentioning the all the contributor's qualifications, experience and positions, every time they they spoke;

neglecting to adequately explain the actual *motive* for all these major governments to initiate this alleged massive conspiracy to overplay the reasons and consequences of climate change.

Balanced it was not.

No, it wasn't - but then neither is a lot of the other side of the debate, either. Media hysteria is rampant on both sides .

I thought the ice cores had gone back further than 1000 years, but I must admit I was only half-listening while doing other things.

I have tried Googling for sensible links to cover both sides of the argument, but my brain gave up - if there are any reliable ones you can supply, I'd be interested to read them.

I am not convinced that we as humans are 100% directly responsible for climate change. There is far more on this earth and to this earth than just us humans.

This doesn't stop me from trying to reduce my use of my car, or using energy saving lightbulbs, or choosing "green energy" tariffs from my utility supplier, or recycling as much as I can. I think we *should* do these things, as climate change or not, we have only the one planet and should look after it regardless.

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Agreed. The media would let you believe you can save the world by changing a light bulb , which doesn't help either.

I get most of my info via New Scientist, and if it is to be believed then the overwhelming concensus amongst climate scientists (we're talking 99% here) is that climate change is real and man-made. The doubters probably do feel marginalised, but then so do the flat-earthers and moon-landing deniers. In the real world, the debate has moved on from "is it happening" to "what should we do about it".

The IPCC itself is probably the best and most up to date source of info, although you need to accept its scientific impartiality. You can download the new report summary from http://www.ipcc.ch/ but some extracts of note:

"The understanding of anthropogenic warming and cooling influences on climate has improved since the Third Assessment Report (TAR), leading to very high confidence7 that the globally averaged net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming, with a radiative forcing of +1.6 [+0.6 to +2.4] W m-2."

Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level

Of course both New Scientist and IPCC may be part of the great climate conspiracy, in which case I may as well give up believing anything and go worship the great frog god in my back garden . Wibble.

for the link, I'll spend some time tomorrow checking that out (busy for the rest of tonight, once I'm off here). I want to read and digest, not read and run.

*Anything* could be a conspiracy, if you look at it in the right light.

Particularly the issue with energy in developing nations (as SWL originally stated when this thread started) - looking at how polluted the skies are in Indonesia, China and India, would it be right to allow Africa to pollute this much? Is it right to allow China etc to continue to pollute like this with little or no intervention?

Not something that can be easily answered...

I tend to get a lot of my info from www.realclimate.org. In fact, there is an article about that Channel 4 programme on therre now.

I think what has been said about the moderation viewpoint is very good. That's the kind of stuff we need. Perhaps don't go overboard, but certainly don't ignore it. I must say I might well err on the side of 'overboard', but perhaps it's because going overboard won't make that much of a difference to me. For instance, I have never been on a plane in my life. No, its not an environmental decision: we simply can't afford it .

And, going back to the original point about lightbulbs, I'm not sure they need to be banned at all. The old ones are in many ways completely obsolete anyway. Although there is the question about the chemicals, which I can't really answer. That gives me an idea. We don't have an EG entry on lightbulbs. I might write one when I get round to it.

It's interesting, really. All this hoo-ha about climate change has made me think: 'I really need to find out what's going on in this atmosphere of ours.' That's why I'll be going to the University of Reading this September to study Meteorology. I want to do everything to increase my understanding of the whole subject area.

That is indeed a good site.

As for the Great Global Warming Swindle, it appears that they committed all the cardinal errors they were accusing the green lobby of - misrepresenting statistics, reporting conjecture and opinion as fact, in some cases resorting to outright lies, and it appears, interviewing scientists funded by the oil industry.

One of them, Carl Wunsch, (who isn't funded by the oil industry) has already complained of misrepresentation to the programme makers and is threatening legal action.

'nuff said methinks.

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umm, a balanced debate then. Lies and extremists at both ends

Surely the point is that we have been bombarded with global warming hysteria for years without any sort of counterpoint being aired. And the minute a dissenting voice is raised, they're branded as extremists and delusional. I believe Copernicus and Galileo had similar problems when they spoke out against the status quo.


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As opposed to scientists funded by the global warming industry

Seriously, the major manufacturer of wind turbines is owned by Shell. Does that mean we should dismiss wind turbines?

I also believe the former editor of New Scientist spoke out against global warming being attributable to mankind. Is he a nutter too?

Not a nutter, but I think he's wrong.

But yes, there are lies and extremists at both ends. I concede that point at least .

Well why don't we at least see a debate then? To my knowledge all we get are groups of scientists arguing about just how deep underwater London is going to be. There hasn't until now been anyone saying, 'Hold on, this might not happen'. Even the political parties are getting into the act, starting a pi$$ing contest over which one can be the "greenest". It seems the measure of a party's green credentials is how much it's going to tax people.

Is there a single scientist who says global warming can be averted by environmental measures? No. So why isn't the govt, (any govt) taking practical steps to deal with the consequences? Indeed, why are they doing the exact opposite - building extra runways, approving developments on coastal and low-lying land?

Look past all the hot air and examine the actions of govt. The talk is of environmental disaster but the action is of 'business as usual'. I don't think TPTB really believe what they're saying.

I think they're riding the publicity wave of Global Warming, hoping to gather votes along the way.

And have you ever known a politician to shy away from the opportunity to grab more taxes?

>>There hasn't until now been anyone saying, 'Hold on, this might not happen'<<

I'd say that's because the scientific consensus is that it *is* going to happen. In fact, I don't think it's disputed that it's going to happen. It's when we talk about whether we're at fault that the faultlines (as it were) appear.

I don't have a lot of faith in our politicians on this matter (we're finding a suprising amount of common ground, actually).

But I'm sure that the notion that no scientists say we can avert global warming is incorrect. There are surely some (I admit I can't quote any one scientist who says so).

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/451.htm
Quoting my sources. Good science , even if you disagree with the source.

"There is a very uncertain and possibly large negative contribution from the indirect effects of aerosols. Other factors such as that due to increases in fossil fuel organic carbon, aviation, changes in land use and mineral dust are very poorly known and not yet incorporated into simulations used in formal detection studies. Their contribution is generally believed to be small relative to well-mixed greenhouse gases, though they could be of importance on regional scales."

It's interesting that some anthropogenic factors like aviation are considered too hazy at the moment to 'incorporate into simulations used in formal detection studies'.

Well, I watched the programme tonight that Dave hated. Not being a scientist, I won't linger on the science, but there were other points to note.

The founder of Greenpeace admits that the environmental lobby has been taken over by extremists. As he put it, by the mid 80's Greenpeace had largely won the argument against pollution and waste. Nobody was arguing with them any more. So they had to become more extreme to continue with a high public profile. They're arguing now because it's all they know how to do and all they want to do.

The former editor of New Scientist bemoans the rise of environmental journalists who owe their living to producing bigger and scarier stories. He also pointed out how a Norwegian Scientist was lambasted for talking about global warming in 1974. He was viewed as a crank because the conventional thinking back then was for global cooling.

The Japanese head of the Arctic research station points out that the Arctic ice constantly shrinks and expands and he sees no connection with global warming.

The former Chancellor, Nigel Lawson admits that Mrs Thatcher gave scientific institutes money to research CO2 links to global warming to enable her to push ahead with nuclear power - with the specific remit "Here is a big bag of money, go and find a link"

Food for thought.

Oops, quote my sources

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=9005566792811497638&q=global+warming

The dificulty with much of the Channel 4 programme would appear to be that it was based on the Friis-Christensen theory that global warming co-incides with solar flare activity. That's all well and good but he was proven to be very bad at stats in 2001 and then when he re-published in 2004 got the maths wrong. Not a good track record then.

And SWL, you fall into the same logical fallacy as David Bellamy - just because Gallileo was right and reviled by his contemporaries does not mean that every 'lone' voice in the scientific community is another Gallileo.

At the end of the day the equation is actually very similar. If the man-made climate theories are wrong, the most the green movement will have done is cause a bit of inconvenience to people's lifestyles whilst probably saving them a bit of money. If the climate change deniers are wrong, they'll be the ones who have to explain to their grand-kids why they did absolutely nothing to present something that will, in retrospect, have been as plain as a pike-staff. Good luck with that one.

"The Japanese head of the Arctic research station points out that the Arctic ice constantly shrinks and expands and he sees no connection with global warming."

I'd be interested to read more about that, actually. What the scientific theory behind it is, and what data there is to back it up. I can see how salinity changes could affect how ice forms, but apart from that the major factor appears to be global temperature.

On a semi-related note, it's worth knowing that any warming experienced at the equator is seriously amplified at the poles. Quoting from the top of my head (a notoriously unreliable source), a 1.6 degree equatorial warming will lead to a 6 degree polar warming. So although small warmings in the more populated areas of the planet might not seem to be much to worry about, the amplification will cause all sorts of problems at the poles.

Hey look, well known EX-Tory leadership candiddate and Vulcan John Redwood thinks global warming is great because it will give a much needed boost to the tourist economy in the UK.

So no need to worry after all...

Oh, that's alright then. Panic over, eh?

It's a shame sarcasm doesn't come through in writing.