it isn't all bad news

[Outrider]

It was a reference to the number of people making the climate change due to mankind claim. Just because there are billions of gullible idiots doesn't make what they say right.

No, the data makes that apparent, and that's why all those climate scientists in the peer-reviewed articles in multiple organisations in multiple countries around the world agree that the climate change we are witnessing is, at least in part, due to human activity.

The professionals, collectively, agree that it's happening. They have the data to support that claim, which has been rigorously peer reviewed.

There is no practical doubt that it's happening, there's just political obfuscation from groups that don't want to have to be the people to make the unpalatable hard choices that accepting reality requires.

O.

[Hope]

There is no practical doubt that it's happening, there's just political obfuscation from groups that don't want to have to be the people to make the unpalatable hard choices that accepting reality requires.

Whilst the comment about political obfuscation is true, it isn't the only such obfuscation.  There is scientific and environmental obfuscation as well.  It is true to say that the scientific opposition to the climate change argument has lagely collapsed over the past 10 years, but prior to that, it was very strong - despite the evidence - and there are still some who insist, like JK, that is all just 'natural'.  Even some environmentalists obfuscate in the other direction by making out that everything is due to human intervention.

[Outrider]

Whilst the comment about political obfuscation is true, it isn't the only such obfuscation.  There is scientific and environmental obfuscation as well.  It is true to say that the scientific opposition to the climate change argument has lagely collapsed over the past 10 years, but prior to that, it was very strong - despite the evidence - and there are still some who insist, like JK, that is all just 'natural'.

That's not 'despite the evidence' - that collapse has come about because of the increasing body of evidence. Twenty or so years ago there was little long-term prediction at all, and then there were a few forward-thinking voices who looked at the trends and started to worry. They were castigated as fear-mongers, but they put the data together and put it out there and people started to look. Competing theories came about, and then more data came in, and more money was put into the possibility which generated further data, and as that data came in and was analysed so more and more people saw the facts of the situation and bought into it.

It's not like paradigm shifts such as the Theory of Relativity's impact on gravity, where we previously knew there was a gap, we just didn't know what it was.

Even some environmentalists obfuscate in the other direction by making out that everything is due to human intervention.

I don't doubt there may be one or two, but I can't think of any examples immediately, and I'm pretty sure that the mainstream scientific community would look at the claim and explain that the natural background fluctuations of climate are well-established and accounted for in the models.

O.

[Hope]

That's not 'despite the evidence' - that collapse has come about because of the increasing body of evidence.

O, I have to disagree to an extent, in that there were vocal naysayers appearing on TV until only a few years ago - and I recvall seeing one or two on BBC Breakfast at various times last year.  'Oddly' enough, several such people seem to be sponsored by the oil industry!

I remember posting a link to an article of glacier retreat on a forum I was a member of back in the mid-noughties that a friend had brought my attention to.  Perhaps the most telling picture was one of the Gangapurna Glacier taken in October 2004.  I had a picture of the same glacier I had taken in October 1999 that I was able to compare.  In the space of 5 years the front wall of the glacier had retreated 50 or 60m - and round an almost right-angled bend in the 'river'bed.  The weather records didn't support this kind of melt - but the discolouration of the glacier (from a pale grey to a slaty grey) gave an idea of the amount of polluted snow that had fallen over that 5 year period.

My fellow-forumites - some of them scientists - simply said that this colouration change was down to different photographic exposures, etc. - despite the colouration of other elements of the picture being identical.

[Jack Knave]

No, the data makes that apparent, and that's why all those climate scientists in the peer-reviewed articles in multiple organisations in multiple countries around the world agree that the climate change we are witnessing is, at least in part, due to human activity.

Oh?!?! In part. So two questions. How much is due to man's activities and what is causing the other half of this global warming?

The professionals, collectively, agree that it's happening. They have the data to support that claim, which has been rigorously peer reviewed.

I never claimed it wasn't happening; that bit of the activity is clear enough.

[Jack Knave]

I don't doubt there may be one or two, but I can't think of any examples immediately, and I'm pretty sure that the mainstream scientific community would look at the claim and explain that the natural background fluctuations of climate are well-established and accounted for in the models.

O.

Yeah? That doesn't sound too sure to me!

Are you saying they understand and know how this planet works and have plenty of data for the last 100 million years to make such a judgement?

[Outrider]

O, I have to disagree to an extent, in that there were vocal naysayers appearing on TV until only a few years ago - and I recvall seeing one or two on BBC Breakfast at various times last year.  'Oddly' enough, several such people seem to be sponsored by the oil industry!

There are vocal naysayers appearing in the media to this day. Media representation, though, is not proportional to their numbers in the broader scientific community - the naysayers are massively over-represented in the public debate for a variety of reasons to do with the conflicting pressures on modern media outlets.

O.

[Outrider]

Oh?!?! In part. So two questions. How much is due to man's activities and what is causing the other half of this global warming?

How much is down to human influence is meaningless, given the variation at any given point in the change due to natural climate variation. As to the natural components, there are the cyclic and random variations in solar output, the impact of weather in various regions, the interaction of components of the climate that react at vastly different rates to the solar impact (such as deep ocean temperatures and currents).

O.

[Outrider]

Yeah? That doesn't sound too sure to me!

If I pretend that there's 100% certainty I'm lying. If I suggest 99% certainty or less, there's a gap for people to try to wedge an excuse into. Either way, deniers are going to keep on denying, so I maintain my integrity and don't pretend that it's absolutely proven, but it's consistently reported widely enough that there's no valid reason to deny the conclusions of the overwhelming majority of the scientific community, especially those areas of the scientific community who specifically work in this area.

Are you saying they understand and know how this planet works and have plenty of data for the last 100 million years to make such a judgement?

They understand and know how significant parts of the world work, and yes they have data from hundreds of millions of years - ranging from chemical traces in fossils and ancient rocks through ice-core samples and plant types in various regions through history right up to the more precise direct measurements of the past few centures.

O.

[Leonard James]

If I pretend that there's 100% certainty I'm lying. If I suggest 99% certainty or less, there's a gap for people to try to wedge an excuse into. Either way, deniers are going to keep on denying, so I maintain my integrity and don't pretend that it's absolutely proven, but it's consistently reported widely enough that there's no valid reason to deny the conclusions of the overwhelming majority of the scientific community, especially those areas of the scientific community who specifically work in this area.

They understand and know how significant parts of the world work, and yes they have data from hundreds of millions of years - ranging from chemical traces in fossils and ancient rocks through ice-core samples and plant types in various regions through history right up to the more precise direct measurements of the past few centuries.

O.

And if that fact is not convincing enough for the romantics, they must go with whatever illusion takes their fancy.

[Shaker]

If I pretend that there's 100% certainty I'm lying. If I suggest 99% certainty or less, there's a gap for people to try to wedge an excuse into. Either way, deniers are going to keep on denying

Shamelessly pinched for the quote file and a possible future signature, if you've no objections 

[Jack Knave]

How much is down to human influence is meaningless, given the variation at any given point in the change due to natural climate variation. As to the natural components, there are the cyclic and random variations in solar output, the impact of weather in various regions, the interaction of components of the climate that react at vastly different rates to the solar impact (such as deep ocean temperatures and currents).

O.

Roughly, give or take. Otherwise all these claims that man can reverse this global warming is sheer political rhetoric.

[Outrider]

Roughly, give or take. Otherwise all these claims that man can reverse this global warming is sheer political rhetoric.

If you've been told that we can 'reverse' the global warming, you've been fed a lie. All we can do at this stage is slow the warming rate component that's due to human influence and wait to see what the change has done to the various feedback processes.

O.

[Hope]

Oh?!?! In part. So two questions. How much is due to man's activities and what is causing the other half of this global warming?

The very use of 'the other half' in the second part of that second sentence shows how little you understand. 

[Jack Knave]

If you've been told that we can 'reverse' the global warming, you've been fed a lie. All we can do at this stage is slow the warming rate component that's due to human influence and wait to see what the change has done to the various feedback processes.

O.

So we are going to make our selves bankrupt, in many ways, wasting trillions trying to just slow it down (god knows why) on ideas that have never been tested and shown to be viable and workable all rapped up in some stupid ideology of the Left. Well, that makes sense, NOT!

[Jack Knave]

The very use of 'the other half' in the second part of that second sentence shows how little you understand.

It wasn't meant literally and you know it.

[Outrider]

So we are going to make our selves bankrupt, in many ways, wasting trillions trying to just slow it down (god knows why) on ideas that have never been tested and shown to be viable and workable all rapped up in some stupid ideology of the Left. Well, that makes sense, NOT!

No, we're going to put ourselves at the forefront of some emerging and some proven technologies, whilst insuring ourselves against the economic power of middle-Eastern regimes, in order to give our children the best possible chance of inheriting a world they can actually flourish in rather than merely survive.

This is not a 'leftist ideology', unless you're of the opinion that reality has a left-wing bias - it's a scientific consensus. The ideological opposition comes from the economically-right wing who know it's happening but don't want to admit to not being willing to do anything about it, and so in conjunction with the vested interests of the oil, gas and coal producers they promote bullshit 'science' and sponsor media coverage to give a 'fair and balanced' impression that the issue is still somehow up for debate.

If the right-wing politicians were open and honest and said 'I don't think we can afford to do this, so I'm going to fuck over the next generation for my right to drive a Hummer' they know they'd struggle to be elected, but they can't actually bring themselves to be honest. They claim 'I'm not a scientist' and then try to pretend like they're qualified to say that the scientific institutions of the world have it wrong because BP's pet labcoat told them so.

O.

[Jack Knave]

No, we're going to put ourselves at the forefront of some emerging and some proven technologies, whilst insuring ourselves against the economic power of middle-Eastern regimes, in order to give our children the best possible chance of inheriting a world they can actually flourish in rather than merely survive.

This is not a 'leftist ideology', unless you're of the opinion that reality has a left-wing bias - it's a scientific consensus. The ideological opposition comes from the economically-right wing who know it's happening but don't want to admit to not being willing to do anything about it, and so in conjunction with the vested interests of the oil, gas and coal producers they promote bullshit 'science' and sponsor media coverage to give a 'fair and balanced' impression that the issue is still somehow up for debate.

If the right-wing politicians were open and honest and said 'I don't think we can afford to do this, so I'm going to fuck over the next generation for my right to drive a Hummer' they know they'd struggle to be elected, but they can't actually bring themselves to be honest. They claim 'I'm not a scientist' and then try to pretend like they're qualified to say that the scientific institutions of the world have it wrong because BP's pet labcoat told them so.

O.

But we have closed down some very viable gas-fired plants and left us at risk of being short of energy and in the process made our energy prices higher than others so killing off our industry etc. All for what, for some poor models of our planets weather system and an ideology that is fuelling this. You go on about the scientists but it is not they who do the politics it is the Leftie lot and it is they who are doing us the harm by using climate change to get others to do as they want.

[Outrider]

But we have closed down some very viable gas-fired plants and left us at risk of being short of energy and in the process made our energy prices higher than others so killing off our industry etc.

Labour prices and the cost of transporting raw materials (with the associated waste products) is what's put pay to our manufacturing industries. We have closed down a number of the older power plants, because they were the most polluting, even though some of them were more productive than plants that have remained. We haven't put ourselves in the line of a power shortage yet, though that is dependent on new systems being implemented on time - not a certainty in the modern era.

All for what, for some poor models of our planets weather system and an ideology that is fuelling this.

To minimise the damage that's already been done. The 'ideology' that's fuelling this is that our children deserve not to have to clean up any more of our mess than we've already made.

You go on about the scientists but it is not they who do the politics it is the Leftie lot and it is they who are doing us the harm by using climate change to get others to do as they want.

Bullshit. It's the scientists that are highlighting the issue. It is some politicians - not solely, but primarily on the left - who are prepared to make the hard choices to react to that, and it is some politicians - not solely, but primarily on the right - who are publicly playing the 'nothing has been proven' card and raking in their own money, not giving two shits who has to swim to school in twenty year's time.

O.