Safe Speed Forums

Mr C Sedman writes to tell us we must act now to save the planet based on a program by the BBC which has recently been revealed to be admittedly unbalanced in its presentation. No doubt this programme was in a similar vein to the infamous Al Gore movie "An Inconvenient Truth". Many scientists, while accepting that the greenhouse theory is valid and that there might have been, or even be, some global warming over the last half century, remain sceptical that man has had any significant impact, far less that he can, King Canute like, stop, never mind reverse it. For example the retired head of the UN body that monitors changes in the content of the atmosphere has reported that global warmers' use of ice cores as a proxy for atmospheric CO2 levels gives lower levels of CO2 for historic cores due to no corrections having been made for CO2 losses from the ice over time. And in his opinion when this correction is made, the cores show no increase in atmospheric CO2 since the industrial revolution. We keep hearing stories about glaciers retreating. Only to find that half a dozen adjacent ones were advancing. We keep hearing about polar ice retreating or melting. Only to find that more areas are advancing or thickening. I would be amused at the number of people convinced of impending man-made global disaster by Gore's movie and the kind of BBC programmes that hit the headlines if the knee-jerk reaction of band-waggon jumping, crowd-pleasing politicians wasn't to use the mass hysteria to justify counter-productive policies. One report on Gore's movie apparently claims that the nation's "top climate scientists" are giving the movie five stars for accuracy. Apparently only a fifth of the "top climate scientists" contacted for their views had bothered to see it, presumably the ones that already believe in the myth, support it, and are supported by grants to study it. Others, for example Richard S. Lindzen, the Professor of Atmospheric Science at the world renowned MIT, was both critical of Gore's movie and the idea of a consensus among scientists about the causes and nature of global warming. Similarly, Dr Fred Singer, who I believe was the man who set up the US weather satellite system, developed the instrumentation that measured the hole in the ozone layer and discovered the global warming attributes of methane is similarly sceptical. Unfortunately 'No Change In Climate After All' doesn't sell newspapers. In my youth the world was about to be devastated by a man-made ice age. In my mother's day there was an earlier panic about global warming. And my grandmother's generation were scared by an earlier version of the coming ice-age prophesy. Every generation has it's doomsayers claiming that man is about to bring about the end of the world. And every generation has it's politicians ready to take advantage of the mass hysteria. As H L Mencken wrote: "the desire to save mankind is almost always a false front for the desire to rule it" and "the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and hence clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary". Although as far as I know this is the first time that the scare has provided the doomsayers with a multi Billion dollar "research" industry. Or the politicians with a vast source of funding, both in carbon taxes, and political donations. Apparently the Democrats received several times as much in donations from environmental groups as the Republicans did from oil and coal companies. That tells you all you need to know about the scientific "debate".
Mr B J Mann, Nottingham

The economic benefit of transport far outweighs any of the costs, can't say the same for politicians...

Even though global warming is codswallop I think advertising how *cheap* offset schemes are would take the power out of the government policy as people will be wondering why they are getting screwed for hundreds when they could offset all their emissions for £50-£100 per household. Being able to pay £50-£100 per year to offset CO2 emissions and opt out of all swingeing govt green taxes would be taken up by the million.

BP are doing it commercially. Clearly they think it is going to make them money. There are schemes in the states too.

BP scheme is here: http://www.targetneutral.com/TONIC/index.jsp

No idea about the sound science part

I just have a bit of a fear that much of the good work done and credibility built up so far could be relatively easy to blow away if SafeSpeed adopts a flat denial policy on global warming. We'll just be seen (and there are plenty who do so already) as a bunch of hooligans that want to drive as fast as they like all the time AND in the thirstiest cars we can find. (regardless of whether we do or not)!

I share your concerns 100%. We should stay out of it. But, but, but... I feel the need to consider options.

I share your concerns 100%. We should stay out of it. But, but, but... I feel the need to consider options.

We should not dilute (or corrupt) the message here by mixing in global warming.

I think you (as SafeSpeed) should stay out of the "denial of global warming" arena.

I think challenging the validity of human contribution to global warming is a bit far out for SafeSpeed. I myself am extremely skeptical but associating the campaign with what is still looked upon by the vast majority of the media as a bit of a "luncatic fringe" viewpoint might damage your reputation with them.

It's probably something the ABD should do instead. They could work out the per ton cost the govt are expecting people to pay and then ask why BP can do it for £5 a ton and if so why can't people opt out of those taxes if they join the BP scheme or equivalent and actually do something constructive. Cue mass panic as their money making schemes turn to dust