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Yes, and it’s an admirably detached view. Back in the real world, if a business doesn't serve people, it goes out of business. The problem is that it lacks ethics, and promotes the interest of it's owners without regard to the community at large. This is a political problem, that is often solved democratically by imposing constraints (red tape) on business activities. In theory, the constraints are intended to compel the business to best serve everybody's interests, not just it's own. In practise, there are many loopholes and exceptions which balance out some way or other. But when the stakes are so high (we are talking about extinction here), we can’t take any chances.

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Whether you like it or not, the profit motive is the driver for all economic activity. Big business, small business and everything in between is driven by profit and all activity that is not directly profit-seeking is supported, ultimately, by individuals who do seek profit. What would you wish to substitute? A global barter system? A single global co-operative?

Just impose a code of ethics on business is all I ask - so that it can make some social redress for the potential harm done. The problem is that with so many firms being multi-national, they'll simply incorporate in a country without such rules and continue fleecing people for the benefit of the moneyed few.

We have more than enough in this world to go round. We should be enabling that rather than trying to hoard everything for ourselves.

Tc.

Crikey Observer, we do rub each other up the wrong way don't we?

Actually, my change of wording was a deliberate toning down on my emphasis. I didn't make that clear, sorry.
Nonetheless, I did also ask you and others to consider the possibility that no other explanation for the phenomenon (of global dimming) exists, that's why none was offered.
After all, when the ground starts to get wet, we believe that it is due to the rain falling from the sky at the same time; we don't go looking for another posssible explanation (such as water seeping up from the ground) for this simultaneous cause and effect. OK, that example is a little trite, but it's the best I can think of just now.

I didn't dismiss them - I merely pointed out a well-known shortcoming of land-based measurements.
Satellite and weather balloon measurements agree with each other, and cover the entire depth of the troposphere, and also measure over far more of the earth's surface than land-based instruments.



Where? Can you quote references?
Did you know that Russian and Canadian winters have been particularly severe in the last few years.



I said there will be a drop if temperatures should rise - I never even implied that they were rising.



I don't know much about antartica, but they only mention the antartic peninsula - which is a tiny part of the continent. I have heard that the ice over the main part of the continent is getting thicker - I will try scratch out some references.
But I do know that in Switzerland the number of receding glaciers is closely matched to the number of advancing glaciers.



It's very relevant, because if they don't understand cause and effect from the past, then how can they predict with any degree of confidence what's going to happen tomorrow? How do they know that the current rise in CO2 is not as a result of the warming in the early 20th century?

They still, to my knowledge, cannot explain what caused the warming in medieval times, or the cooling of the little ice age. It could not have been the burning of fossil fuels, so what was the cause?
Until they know by what mechanism that happened, how can they say with any certainty what caused the warming of the last century?
Some of them, eg Mann et al simply deny that those two climactic events ever occurred.



You've been reading the Grauniad again, haven't you?
Let's have some facts to back up all those assertions.

Cheers
Peter

So should we then dismiss everything you have to say because you're not a truly independent expert, and an "anti-car guy"?
What makes you think that your views are not influenced by your anti-car-ism?
What I said is actually published fact. I'll give you a reference when I find it.

Cheers
Peter

No need to apologise. I may have been a bit piranha like in sniffing out the apparent equivocation - sorry.

AIUI, the assertion that 'global dimming' has occurred is (barring errors in solar radiation measurements) broadly accepted. The contentious part is the consequences - particularly the connection with global warming and the theory that global warming will be accelerated because of the reduction in global dimming. Again AIUI, the argument anyway is not that 'global dimming' is necessarily a big problem in itself but the reduction in global dimming resulting from less aerosol pollution.

I find it all a bit tenuous, to say the least.

This thread has certainly generated a lot of heat, but it's now in danger of degenerating into a slanging match - so here's my last word on the subject.

It strikes me that people are very quick to shoot the messenger, and to discriminate between what they will or won't believe, or even take a closer look at, depending on who says it and what connections they might have.
Skepticism is absolutely vital to the scientific process, yet in today's world skeptics are sidelined as if they were lepers.
What people say, no matter how learned, seems to be totally brushed aside if they are perceived to have even the most tenuous links to big business, the tobacco industry, oil industry, or whatever - yet we happily believe the doomsday scenarios painted by politicians and the media.
Did I say politicians? Well, that would depend on the colour they wave around, wouldn't it?
I have now found the Newsweek article (you know, the one which started this thread) on many webpages, along with many other articles on the same subject. Yes, actually it was pretty much mainstream 'science' three decades ago. Except that, at that time, there were only a handful of climatologists. Nowdays, they're a penny-a-dozen - all clamouring for research grants from the global warming bandwagon.
Amongst the names which came up was Sir Crispin Tickell. He wrote a book on global cooling, about how we were plunging headlong into another ice age, and full of doom and gloom. Not too many years later he wrote another book - this time on global warming - full of the same doom and gloom.
And the same Sir Crispin Tickell just happened to be the chief scientific adviser to the Thatcher government.

So, if it turns out (nobody's really telling, although strong rumours abound - and there is strong circumstantial evidence as well) that the whole 'enhanced' global warming theory was actually concocted by the tories, would you still be so quick to believe it?

Just wondered...

Cheers
Peter

Oh the irony

Just a final word from me then Pete if I may.
The problem I have with this issue is precisley the amount of noise it generates, let me explain....
Everyone today is empowered, empowered to have their say, their 15 minutes of fame, their own little public enquiry if you like. Now this is fine, the opposite is a dumb proletariat that does as it's told and questions nothing.
The problem, as I see it, is that empowerment has generated a cart load of instant experts, expert on virtually every subject imagineable. And where do these self-appointed gurus get their knowledge? The bloody internet that's where, the information gathering equivalent of trying to drink from a fire hydrant. Much of the information on the net is absolute bo$$oc&s, written by any old Tom, Dick or Harry who decides to make use of their ISP's webspace. But the instant experts drink it up, never before has the phrase 'a little knowledge' been more prohetic. Unfortunately the experts then create a whole load of white noise that threatens to drown out the serious aspects of the issues. Add to this the noise generated by parties with something to lose if the fallout from an issue goes against them and you have a cacophany of twittering and bickering.
Some issues, and this is one of them, are just too important to permit the bickering and opinion giving to continue add infinitum. At some point our elected government has to clear it's metaphorical throat and shout 'shut up the lot of you, we're going to do this...'. Now I know what some will be thinking..pah - trust the governement! Well I'm afraid I have to trust the government, if we of all nations can't trust our democratically elected representatives to act on the best information available then we're really porked aren't we?

Yes, we are

Sorry, couldn't resist
Won't do it again
Promise...

Cheers
Peter

And I'll just round off by saying that you must have found copies of the original Newsweek article on many webpages that were most definitely NOT around in the 70’s because the internet wasn’t invented. That cannot count as evidence that this was mainstream, yet to say it to bolster your case! Presumably, the many other articles on the same subject are contemporaneous with the New Week article? Or are they current web pages, from Global Warming Deniers who are re-writing history? Just asking.

And lastly, I am not anti-car – I have two, a Toyota and a Renault Clio. The Toyota is quite sporty, actually, with a plastic spoiler on the boot. If I’m not careful, I could be mistaken for a sad car anorak, Top Gear/F1 watching type of guy - God forbid!

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I stole this .sig

Did you just read that far and stop?
Did you bother to check out Crispin Tickell? And other links?

Anyway, that's not the reason for this posting - I know I said I wouldn't post any more on this thread, but I just found this article, which makes interesting reading. It needs no further explanation so I won't say anything more.

Cheers
Peter

It's not your references that bother me, it's your question - do you still believe in global warming?

Another question is - do you believe human activity could change the climate? Only a blithering idiot would deny that human activity can change the climate. Now, if some humans do change the climate, is it possible to measure and model the changes? And if it is found that some humans change the climate in a way that risks being deleterious to others, should they be compelled to cease or pay compensation? It is a political and legal argument, as well as a scientific one. In a fair society, perpetrators have to make good the damage they have done, or make provision for damages they risk doing– that’s called insurance.

A radical idea to deal with climate changing human activity is to set up a international environment police service and court, where people and organisations can be tried for climate crimes. This would allow people in low emission third world countries to prosecute fuel wasting industrial countries for the damage they wreak while persuing consumerism.

There – who on Earth could argue with that?

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Like much of your output, superficially plausible but doesn't bear close examination.

As you say, only a blithering idiot would deny that human activity could change the climate. The question is what is that activity, exactly? And who is doing it, exactly? And what change in climate is occurring as a result of that activity, exactly? And what is the nature of the risk posed by that change, exactly?

I have no problem with a precautionary principle, by the way, but before we set about changing the world in order to avoid changing the world, it would perhaps be sensible to use our best efforts to make sure we know that the changes we're seeking to avoid are not going to happen anyway.

[edited to add]

Oh and I take it you will be the first person to don the hair-shirt of 'non-consumerism'?

Why does non-consumerism automatically equate to environmentalism? Consumerism is compatible with sustainability! Just like car driving isn't mutually exclusive to lentil eating, sandal wearing vegetarianism.

More hmph!



That would be for the courts to decide, as they do in other disputes like this. That is why we pay judges so well – they can figure it out for us, and go after the polluters.



You’re a very reasonable man.



I hate shopping!

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You're not going to let me rest on this one, are you?
That's "global warming", as in mankind is heating up the planet and our children are going to fry
No, I don't.
Do I believe that average global temperatures rose by a bit more than half a degree over the first half of the 20th century, then cooled a bit more than one-sixth of a degree over the next 30 years, and have been more-or-less static since, with a few well-publicised blips, yes I do - because it's been measured.



Yes, we do have an effect on the climate. A butterfly flapping its wings affects the climate. Everything we do affects the climate. If we plant crops it affects the climate. If we clear a section of rainforest to make way for a farm we affect the climate. If we build a dam on a river, or a dyke across the sea, we affect the climate. If we build a city we affect the climate. If we put up wind turbines we take energy out of the wind and convert it into electricity - that affects the climate. Even if we breathe we affect the climate.

The question is, in what way and by how much? Is it significant? Can the effect be measured against the backdrop of natural variation? Do we know what the natural variation is, and can we distinguish between the two?
Do we know to what extent other things affect the climate, like the sun, cosmic rays, volcanic eruptions etc etc etc?
The answer to all those questions is a very emphatic no.
We simply don't know. Nobody does. And it appears that nobody is trying very hard to find out either. We've nicked our suspect, case closed. We've told you how you're ruining the planet and what you have to do to stop it, but please continue to pay us lots of money for our supercomputers, so we can continue with our research, and can continue to bombard you with scare stories just in case you forget.



No, it's quite impossible, given the extent of our knowledge, to measure and model the changes. And, equally, it's impossible to determine whether the effects, if any, will be good or bad, to what extent, and to whom. Or even from whom those effects came.
We don't even know what proportion, if any, of the CO2 increase is down to man's activities. We don't know if the total cessation of all fossil-fuel burning would make any difference to CO2 levels, or anything else.

In short, our current knowledge of natural processes and the mechanisms behind them is pathetically feeble.

Yet, some would have it that annihilation is looming, and we can only stave it off by spending humungous amounds of money which we can ill-afford. That's over £100,000 out of your pocket, BW, and out of mine, and every other working person in the developed world.
And that's just to pay for Kyoto - which environmentalists will tell you isn't going to do much anyway, and is only a first step.

But what we do know, from history and from experience, is that - generally speaking - a warmer climate is better than a colder one.
And that plants and crops grow better with higher levels of CO2.
If mankind is warming the climate, we might even be staving off the effects of the next ice age - which really would be disastrous. And my guess is as good as anyone else's, because nobody knows any better.



I'd love to see someone trying to define 'climate crimes' in a legal, or any other sense.
Slightly off-topic, how would the EPA stand, when their virtual ban on DDT has been directly responsible for the deaths of scores of millions of people (mostly children) from malaria - in fact, far more people than killed by Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot combined.



Everybody - and nobody.

Come to think of it, there's probably someone in the world who goes by the name of Santa Claus, so I'm not going to assert that he doesn't exist.



So the judges are climate experts then?

Cheers
Peter

Just checked the election results.....Greens won Zero, Lost Zero

Basicaly ZERO

Looks like about 3 people in 100 ticked the green box. A miniscule minority if ever ther was one.

They were sooooo sure they were going to get one in as well, shame..

Maybe we are not turning in to a nation of tree huggers after all..There is still hope..

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Speed camera policy Kills

What an odd position to take. You say we don’t know the answer to the most important question, yet you would deny scientists money for supercomputers which would help to find out!



Look again at the Mauna Loa CO2 graph, and say again that you can’t see the correlation!



It easy – if you base your industry on technologies that cause land, air or water pollution, you have to show that the benefits outweigh the downsides. If you can’t do that, anybody who is affected can bring climate crimes charges against you, and you have to compensate them. And you have to seek an indemnity in case your activities cannot be reversed. If you base your industry on non-polluting technologies, you will safe from charges of climate crimes.

Look, we are used to designing system for unfettered growth, but this is an adjustment that MUST be made sooner or later anyway, so let's start now, by designing our systems on sustainability.

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They're not trying to find out what's happening, just trying to protect their jobs - which would disappear if they admitted that there's nothing to worry about.
We're already a good way towards doubling of CO2 from pre-industrial times, and their problem is that what's actually been measured and observed doesn't come anywhere near what their comuter models say it should be.
So they come up with all sorts of other theories as to why we haven't had the warming they said we would have - instead of admitting that they may have been wrong.



A correlation with what?
Yes, CO2 concentrations have been rising rather steadily since they started measuring it in 1958, but what's causing it?
There's nothing there which correlates with events which are known to have had a massive effect on CO2 emissions, like the '70s fuel crisis, the burning of the oil wells during the first Gulf war, the massive forest fires in the Far East, etc. etc.
Do you not think that had they positively identified any anthripogenic signal there, that they'd be shouting it from the rooftops?

And the CO2 graph certainly does not correlate with measured global temperatures over the same period.

Cheers
Peter