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there'll certainly be some global warming to worry about in another 4.5 billion years or so

That's a case of, "damned if you do, damned if you don't"

Three decades ago there was only a mere handful of climatologists around. Then along came global warming, and suddenly they're like flies - all making a living out of a dodgy theory. They're hardly likely to say anything against, are they?
On the other hand, research (and researchers) costs money, and if the oil companies don't stump up then who's going to?
BTW the most vociferous of global warming skeptics are not those in the pay of the oil companies, but retired professors.
BTW2 99.9% of what you hear about climate change and AGW comes out of the mouths of journalists, politicians and greenies. Those who actually do know a thing or two hardly get a word in.

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

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Shooting is good for you and too good for some people.

But you could apply these arguments to almost any branch of science. You're effectively suggesting a significant branch of climatology is a self propelled fraud. I don't know how many climate scientists there were 30 years ago, but surely it wasn't a 'mere handful'. For most of human history we've been seeking to understand and predict weather patterns.

The question of funding is a tricky one, as clearly they have to get it from somewhere. It comes back to Paul's point about working from a pre defined agenda. But climatology, as with most sciences not having direct commercial application, is funded from a variety of (we hope!) fairly neutral bodies, mainly but indirectly goverment related.

Here is a list of bodies funded by Exxon. From the names of many of them you'd think they're environmental organisations, when they're mainly the opposite.

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/listorganizations.php



Again, you could say this about almost anything. Unless you read scientific journals and attend conferences this will always be the case. But I don't think you can argue the press is excessively pro AGW (if that's the right word!). Most of the time there is a debate on the issue they wheel out some crackpot like Myron Ebell, from one of the organisations on the Exxon list. This creates the impression there is more doubt on the subject than there really is. I maintain that there exists an overwhelming scientific concensus that AGW is a real effect.

I don't think it's helpful to dismiss anyone who disagrees with the AGW hypothesis as a crackpot. Are there any anti-AGW people you would consider reasonably sensible?


Strong, maybe, but not overwhelming. There are still plenty of reputable scientists who are very sceptical about it - in this country, Philip Stott, for example. Also if you look at it from the point of view of a political rather than a climate scientist, it's all so bloody convenient in supporting a hair-shirt, anti-development agenda, isn't it?

And it could be said that there was an overwhelming consensus that speed cameras saved lives until Paul Smith came along...

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

That wasn't my intention, I simply feel it is often the case with the people brought on in these debates. Of course there's nothing wrong with healthy scepticism, in fact it's an essential part of science.

There are a few, yeah. Stott is certainly a reputable scientist, with relevant qualifications, although I don't think he's had a single paper published in a scientific journal in the fields in which he most frequently applies his 'expertise', eg climate change or tropical ecology.

You could argue the sceptics position is also bloody convenient for those who want to push the 'business as usual' model, that we don't need to do anything difficult about climate change. You don't need to be anti development, just pro sustainable development. We'll have to move away from a carbon based economy at some point in the next few generations anyway.

If you want to see the monthly and yearly average temperatures in Central England from 1659 to present, then here they are here:

http://www.met-office.gov.uk/research/h ... ET_act.txt

Regards,

pmb

I've got it!
Average temperatues have been over 10C most years since 1994... the same year speed cameras were introduced. Therefore it's clear that speed cameras cause global warming.

Those figures are very interesting but have to be reduced by a factor to take into account urban warming.

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Shooting is good for you and too good for some people.

Central England Temperature (CET) is representative of a roughly triangular area of the United Kingdom enclosed by Bristol, Lancashire and London. The monthly series begins in 1659, and to date is the longest available instrumental record of temperature in the world. Since 1974 the data have been adjusted by 1-3 tenths °C to allow for urban warming. In November 2004 the weather station Stonyhurst replaced Ringway and revised urban warming and bias adjustments were made to daily maximum and minimum CET data. The mean bias adjustments have now been applied to the Stonyhurst data after a period of reduced reliability from the station in the summer months.
Reference: Parker, D.E. and Horton, E.B., 2004. Uncertainties in the Central England Temperature series since 1878 and some changes to the maximum and minimum series. Draft HCTN/paper for International Journal of Climatology.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/ha ... CTN_54.pdf

Regards,

pmb

My apologies, I shot my mouth of a bit quick there. Yes those figures do include urban warming.

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Shooting is good for you and too good for some people.

If the strongest criticism they can come up with about scientists is that they may be partly funded by an oil company, then those scientists don't have much to worry about.

Consensus is the stuff of politics, not science. The fact is, precious little is known about the dynamics of the atmosphere.
Have a look at the following recent articles from the BBC, Here and Here.

They simply don't know the dynamics of water vapour, which is a major component of the thermal behavour of the atmosphere. The theory is that the small amount of warming from CO2 is amplified by the positive-feedback effect of water vapour, but this simply cannot be the case. If that were true then life on earth would not exist. The radiation absorbed by water vapour in current concentrations is enough, by itself, to give us an average temperature of around seventy degrees celsius, so the feedback effect must not only be negative, but very strongly so.
Take away the supposed positive feedback and you're left with a very miniscule warming, which isn't going to increase significantly regardless of CO2 concentrations. The reason for this is that CO2 absorbs IR in a very narrow band between 13 and 17um, and this is already very close to saturation - ie radiation in this band is already being virtually fully absorbed by CO2 at current concentrations. And that wavelength of radiation is strongest in the coldest parts of the planet, being the dominant wavelength of black-body radiation at a temperature of minus eighty degrees celsius (according to Wien's law)
The facts of CO2 absorption have been known for over a hundred years, and for most of that time this was regarded as a mere scientific curiosity. It's only when the current GW scare started that it gained a quite undeserved prominence.

With so little actually known, what's surprising is that there are any scientists who are anything but highly skeptical.

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

On the BBC news tonight they had an article about how the Antarctic Peninsula is warming, and how man is to blame - funny how nobody mentions that the vast bulk of the Antarctic continent is getting colder.
Bur what really got me is that virtually the next news article was about record low temperatures in Russia, and how the Russians are calling it, "Russia's new ice age".
Not a trace of irony...

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

I'm pretty wary of jumping into either camp here. I'm not 100% certain that the theory of global warming is true, but on the other hand I can see the good sense in treading carefully even on the off chance that it is true. There is probably more to lose any other way.

On the other hand, I do think some of the tactics used by environmentalists really are deplorable, and give the whole thing a bad name. Firstly, they label sceptics 'deniers'. When you say someone is a <blank>-denier, what is the first thing that jumps to everyone's mind to fill <blank>? That is a tacky and cheap technique.

Secondly, some of the claims are pretty outrageous. Like the claim that Inuits in Alaska can see ice melting over a period of a few years or a decade. Even the worst case calculations show that the temperature rise since 1900 has been 1 or 2 degrees. There is no way that would be visible to the human eye over the top of seasonal variance.

However, I would still rather be wrong than risk even a chance of making the Earth uninhabitable.

Zamzara: That's a pretty sensible attitude to take but the problem is that billions of pounds are being spent on things that are unlikely to have any effect while people are starving, dying of thirst and various horrible things like Aids and malaria.

Scare stories are much more news worthy and therefore get the headlines so the balance will always be towards doom and gloom.

Pete317: Nicely put. Can you explain to me why people insist on calling CO2 and Methane, 'greenhouse gases' when they don't act anything like a greenhouse? Pedantic point but it annoys the hell out of me.

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Shooting is good for you and too good for some people.

Uninhabitable for who or what exactly? I remember hearing once that if the lifetime of the earth to date was the equivalent of one year, then homo sapien has been inhabiting the planet for the last second of that year only.

I find it extremely arrogant that certain humans believe we have a greater force over nature than it does over us, hence my extreme cynicism about the green lobby.

Their stories are merely modern day scaremongering. Fear of the unknown is a powerful weapon. In the past those who sought to control an ignorant populace used 'fear of God' (Noah's ark, etc.....)

Well said.

And this is the third atmosphere this planet has had in its lifetime. The first two would not have supported life as we know it (Jim). so lets enjoy it while it lasts and cure our own human ills without worrying about the planet.

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Shooting is good for you and too good for some people.

I would agree Zamzara's position is pretty sensible. You could summarise the situation as follows:

If AGW is a real effect we could:

a) Do nothing about it, which, if the worst predictions are correct, could make the earth uninhabitable.

b) Take action to mitigate the worst effects.

If it is not, we could

a) Do nothing

b) Take action based on a false premise, but that has the effect of softening the transition from a carbon based economy anyway.

This position was summarised by a politician before the last election. Surprisingly it was Michael Howard.

I'm none too keen on the phrase 'climate change denier' either, though I found myself using it before for want of a better expression. That's not to say people who don't agree with me are in denial, or have not though about the issue.

I don't know of anyone who believes we have a greater force over nature than it does over us, but that doesn't mean we can't influence the climate. Aren't smog and urban warming examples of this?

Of course there are many other issues which require attention and funding, but they are not mutually exclusive. Ironically Brookwood, with the exception of Aids, all the problems you mention could be increased as a result of climate change.

Whilst I don't pretend tackling climate change will be easy, I think some of the claims of the economic and social costs are exaggerated. Reducing energy wastage also saves us money, and there will be many market opportunities in carbon-free technology.

It annoys the hell out of me as well. Greenhouses work by (mainly) inhibiting heat loss by convection. 'Greenhouse gases' do nothing of the sort - in fact, convection in the atmosphere reduces the effect of the so-called greenhouse gases. Putting it simply, hot air rises.

Another thing that annoys me is the way people refer to CO2 as 'pollution'.

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

Tackling 'climate change' is futile as we live in a biosphere that is a balanced equilibrium. Any attempt to tackle climate change, if effective, is itself a measure that changes the climate brought about by a force within that equilibrium. What exactly are we changing??

It seems that the path we are being told to follow merely protects the interests of a particular group of people with a social engineering agenda. If global warming were true there are plenty folk living on hills in Scotland who look forward to the sea being closer and the warmer weather allowing them to grow exotic fruits and veg....

Measures proposed by 'greenies' for controlling climate change remind me very much of speed cameras - well intentioned tinkering with a system motivated by scare stories and emotive arguments, with no way of knowing the true effects or if the issue is being tackled at all.