Interesting documentry on channel 4 tonight about global warming. It seems that there is very strong evidence that although CO2 levels historically have been high when the earth warms up, the level of CO2 LAGS the temperature rise so isn't the cause, but a symptom. However there is historically excellent evidence that earth temperature follows sun activity. The stronger the sun activity the stronger it's magnetic field, and the more cosmic rays are deflected away from earth. Apparently the cosmic rays entering a water laden atmosphere form clouds which reflect the sun, so when the cosmic rays are at a low, so is the cloud cover and up the temperature goes. After a considerable lag the ocean temperature rises a bit, and as CO2 is less soluble in warm water than cold water, more is released into the atmosphere. Apparently the volume of CO2 dissolved in the oceans and naturally being released is orders of magnitude greater than anything man is releasing. Small changes in sea temperature alter the balance.
And that's the real issue - not to mention (as the program pointed out) the 1000's of jobs, and billions of investment in "Human induced global warming". A very interesting program, and one that finally backs up my own long-held personal view (i.e. that the planets natural cycle has far more to do with GW than human activity) However, I'm still not convinced that it is a good idea for us to be pumping large amounts of crap into the atmosphere regardless of the consequences, so *sensible* work reducing pollutants (not necessarily talking CO2 here) and reducing energy consumption isn't all bad.
I was interested to see the co-founder of Greenpeace on there and his views, and it was particularly interesting to see where the people involved in the green movement came from - failed socialists finding an alternative way of getting at capitalism - makes a lot of sense.
Billy Conelly once said: "The desire to be a politician should preclude you (them) from ever becoming one".
Never was a truer word said than in the context of the Global warming debate. The arrogance of governments in their assertion that they can have even a miniscule influence on the immense power of the earth and our solar system is only matched by the antics of King Canute. We all know what happened to him.
They claim there is a correlation between CO2 emmisions and global temperature. There is but they have cause and effect the wrong way around.
Here's an algorithm to consider:
Global temperature rise (cubed) x Mass hysteria = More taxes
QED
If you missed the programme on Channel 4 "The great global warming swindle", I strongly recommend you obtain a recording by any means.
On or around Fri, 09 Mar 2007 08:49:06 +0100, Matthew Maddock enlightened us thusly:
The one glaring flaw that I can see in the argument about "the planet does this anyway" is the speed issue. Sure, the planet has in the past been warmer. Sure, the CO2 has been higher. but the speed of temperature change is, AFAIK (and I'm no real expert on it) much faster than before.
IMO it's not a safe conclusion about CO2 - it might be true that in the past CO2 level has lagged behind warming; that doesn't mean it's so now. The warming in the past might have been triggered by something else, that doesn't mean that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas, nor does it alter the production of CO2 by man's industry, which is something that wasn't happening historically, and is definitely happening now. In my lifetime, I reckon overall it's got warmer, and that's a vanishingly small interval in global terms.
Bear in mind that it wouldn't have been interesting if it just said that we *are* having an effect on global warming, you'll always see stories like this cropping up, giving mavericks more coverage than is representative of their actual worth, because it makes for an interesting programme. There's nothing more boring than a programme about global warming that fits in with the status quo so they're hardly going to put that on.
So don't go pinning your hopes on a few qualified people pointing in one direction, surrounded by cameras, when behind the camera the majority of qualified people are pointing in the other.
Personally I couldn't really give two figs, it's sod all about saving the planet, it's not going anywhere, but is all about trying to stop things from changing, i.e. we just want things to remain as they are. We'd be better off concentrating on solving inter-country conflicts as they have much greater potential for screwing things up.
The only way to stop us from having a large effect on the resources of the world is to kill lots of people, which will happen when the resources get too low, so why worry?
I seem to recall the some ice samples or similar have shown that very rapid change has taken place in the past - tied in with the Gulf Stream getting fed up with comming here and heading for sunnier climes instead. Whetever man's infulence is (I'm sure there is one, but just how big that is compared natural cycles doesn't seem to be accounted for, at least in poularist articles/programmes) it is worth remembering that the Romans grew grapes in southern Scotland and the Thames froze over in Dickens time, so were still not in extremis...yet?
But it has a huge effect on the global weather - when it goes south the polar ice cap grows - as far as Hampshire (where it stops due to a points failure at Havant) - which buggers the job up for everyone.
Don't forget it wasn't that long ago that people were strung up for suggesting that the earth revolved around the sun!
There was one interesting part in the program that showed the scientific opinion in the mid 70's (when there was fear about a new ice-age taking over the planet and causing global disaster because the earth was cooling faster than ever!) - at that time the scientist who suggested a link between CO2 and global temperature was considered crazy.
It's not comparable, at that time, it wasn't scientists versus scientists, it was religious bigotry that was the problem. Here, it's experts from multiple disciplines finding that their disciplines are all pointing at the same thing, versus a few maverics after some publicity and funding money.
Not even George Bush, an oilman from texas funded by oil barons, believes that it's a natural effect any more.
Global warming is a load of bollocks. 8000 of the last 10000 years have been warmer than it is now. Here's something I saved several months ago:
Kiwifruit is indeed under threat from green fundamentalism - as indeed may be the right of everyone of us to breath out about 2kg of CO2 a day. Jim Anderton, New Zealand minister of agriculture (Letters, November 7), would do better for his country and the world if, rather than plead his case with those who are drafting CO2 rules to curb his economy and impose more taxes, he challenged the false assumptions of global warming ideology. Measurements (in ice cores and sea beds off New Zealand's shores, for example) show no evidence that changes in CO2 drive world temperatures or climate - indeed, it appears to be more generally the other way round. Sea temperatures generally govern changes in CO2 over very long (and some short) time scales. About 8,000 of the last 10,000 years since the end of the last ice age were warmer than now, and generally had less CO2 and lower sea levels. Interestingly, for 3,000 years - from the peak of the bronze age warmth
5,000 years ago (about 3C warmer than now) to the early Roman empire 2,000 years ago - world temperatures were falling while CO2 levels were rising.
It follows that humankind's CO2, which is no different from other CO2, is of no consequence in climate change. Despite the facts, global warming ideology is sold to us on the basis that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and so more of it means more warmth. But CO2 is a minor greenhouse gas, man's CO2 is only worth 1% of the total greenhouse effect, and plant life and the sea, not taxes and windmills, decide what happens to CO2
What happens to human CO2 - or any "extra" from volcanoes or upwelling sea water - is that it and/or its effects are absorbed and negated by feedback mechanisms of plants and the sea. As became clear at a recent conference in Stockholm, the overall climate machine is driven by much more powerful forces than man's activity, and particle and magnetic effects of the sun play a key role.
It is through this understanding that long-range weather forecasts, 12 months ahead, are now produced for Britain and Europe with a high degree of accuracy - while the CO2-based theories of climate and traditional meteorology only manage a week ahead. It is probable that climate forecasts - many years ahead - could be produced by developing our solar weather technique for a tiny investment compared with the charges the climate-crisis industry hopes for. Surely knowing what will happen is better than suffering through the greedy application of false theories and dogma.
Let's not get taken for a ride. Politicians are jumping on the climate-crisis bandwagon to justify tax hikes. The climate crisis industry hopes to make a lot of money through silly projects and carbon-credit trading which helps the west to dominate the developing world. Africa and the Arctic are being dishonestly used as emotional blackmail by self-interested green fundamentalists. Paying extra taxes or putting up a windmill will not help one jot. The honest application of science will. Piers Corbyn Weather Action (long-range forecasters)
Take tectonic plates then - the originators and early converts were ridiculed for years. I'm not taking either side, but pecieved wisdom is not necesserily correct and quite often truns out to be completely wrong (through lack of suitable theories and/or data). The bit that leaves me decidedly undecided about mans effect on natural climate change is that all predictions are based on computer models, and those models will be based on (probably unitentional) pre-conceptions that only have to get one assumption wrong to be pretty much useless, or at best sticking a finger up in the air the very expensive way. As for George, I don't belive he has changed his view, I believe he has just realised which way the political wind is blowng and is keeping his gob shut. What I do belive though is that by shipping our relatively clean industry overseas where it reverets to being very dirty we are doing far more harm to the global envoronment than tinkering with car emissions will ever change.
He may think that it is fruitless to counter the doom-mongers, after all, fear means a harder grip on power and the potential to raise government income [maybe to bolster his armed forces]. It may be that Georgy is just a slow learner but he got the message eventually ;-) He has now realised which way his bread is buttered
Perceived wisdom in scientific circles is *almost* invariably correct, but people have a habit of latching on to the rare times when it's been wrong and clinging on like mad. It's a poor prospect to base a strategy on.
Your point about the whole shebang being based on modelling of the atmosphere is plainly legitimate, it's hard to trust a model that's being developed and is having new factors glued on fairly regularly, plus of course there's the expected outcome and the concern of the modeller that if the answer isn't what's expected then they might make a fool of themselves because they miss something out. This is an issue that science has always had to deal with and always will.
However, the much-vaunted "common sense" can surely be bought to bear here, think of carbon in the cycle being like water, if you keep carving off chunks of it that's been out of the cycle in the form of land-bound ice, you're going to keep adding water that "wasn't there" (effectively inert) until something bad happens. Similarly, if you keep adding fuel to an engine's mixture then you're going to push past the point at which the ECU (if you have one) can compensate and the house of cards will come down. If we keep sucking carbon out of the ground and adding it into the world we live in, we're going to f*ck
*something* up at the very least. The trick is to make sure you're long dead when it happens ;-)
Hybrid cars being a case in point; reduce carbon emissions here, massively raise them at the point of manufacture. The only saving grace I suppose is that it's easier to deal with a hotspot emitting X tonnes of s**te than it is to deal with a large number of small emitters of s**te totalling X over a large area. Electric cars for example, if we could solve the major problem of long recharge times, we'd just move carbon emissions from car exhausts to power stations, but it's easier and more efficient to deal with them there.
I wouldn't set much credibilty against that, Bush reckons god talks to him and judging by the advice he seems to take all the time through that bulge in his pants back pocket god is "having a laugh" and therefore must be a cockney cushty. Derek
He believes what is beaten, or at his level, brow beaten into him. The man does not think. He is told. Some times he does/says what he is told. Most of the time he doesn't.
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