Global Warming News

[bitingmidge]

No-one can say for certain that climate change is being caused by humans.

No, but it can be said for certain that the world's resources are finite, and that humans are treating them as though they are infinite.

No-one can say for certain that we can stop it or have any affect at all. I think there are good reasons for becoming energy efficient, but to think that we can actaully stop any of these things from happening is a bit of a stretch.

Agree. But there's more to being "energy efficient" than buying a new energy efficient router, or using 5% alcohol in our racing cars (for crying out loud! )

Nearly 50% of the population are so energy efficient that they store tonnes of it on their own bodies!

People are being sold 'energy efficient' technology on the basis that it will stop global warming. I think that is wrong, manufacturers are just cashing in on it. I don't think there's any evidence that we can and it's bollocks to put it that way.

Why do we really need any of that stuff? A fridge, a tele and a computer maybe, but how many of them do we need in a year, and why do they have to come wrapped in plastic?

When was the last time you bought something that wasn't in a plastic bag? It all seems a bit OTT to me, this consumerism thing.

But we want to have our cake and eat it (to help us store more body energy I guess!), which is why the opposition are currently running the foot each side of the fence.... cut out greenhouse gasses, but make fuel for cars cheaper. You see that's it. We'll all feel good that factories are making things "cleanly", while burning bucketloads in our cars.

Ban 4WD's they say, but V8 slurpees are fine.

It's a bit like the old definition of the difference between an economic recession and a depression: A recession is when your neighbour loses his job, a depression is when you do.

Well I suspect, whatever the reality, that we are in an environmental depression at the moment, which we may or may not be powerless to stop, but by golly when it turns into a depression, I'd like to think we gave it a shot!

Cheers,

P

[Bleedin Thumb]

You are kidding I hope.

Trust in God and pass the shotgun son.

[silentC]

When was the last time you bought something that wasn't in a plastic bag?

The last thing I physically handed over cash for was a beer, and it was wrapped in good old reliable, recyclable glass. In fact I'm sure I've seen that schooner glass before...

So you see, if you don't think you can do anything about global warming, then the answer is to drink more beer. It's made from renewable hops, delivered in reusable kegs, and served in frosty, recycled glasses!

This business of climate change denial is actually quite interesting. Just for the next couple of months at least, I'm going to place myself in that camp. Not because I deny that climate change is happening, but because it is interesting to step back and just for a moment not assume that the current theory on it is the be all and end all.

One of the interesting things that Nigel Caldwell said:

"You've got far more scientists than ever before but the pace of discovery has not increased. Why? Because they're all busy just filling in the details of what they think is the standard story and the youngsters, the people with different ideas have just as big a fight as ever and normally it takes decades ... for science to correct itself."

The easiest way of keeping these people with their radical ideas in their place is to paint them as deniers and sceptics, as if their alternate views make them ignorant of the truth.

[reeves]

hey good comments all, i tend to become skeptical whenever there s lot of $$ to made from something and if the pro GW lobby is right, then only a MASSIVE reduction in human emissions will have any result in reducing GW.
Turjing off afew light bulbs or have 1% of vehicles running on biofuels is unlikey to have any overall effect of the bulk of emissions.

And as 6.7 billion humans breathing out CO2 obviously has to be contrubuting to the problem, which is worse when humans exercise and release up to 16 times more Co2 when engaging in vigorous activity, work, sex, bushwalking etc, maybe just staying home and sitting on the couch is the best way to combat GW..

some more interetsing posts.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sh...s-guide-global

Michael Crichton Praises 'Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming'
By Noel Sheppard | August 11, 2007 - 16:52 ET

Best-selling science fiction author Michael Crichton has penned a glowing review of Bjorn Lomborg's soon to be released book "Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming."

For those unfamiliar, Lomborg is an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School and former director of the Environmental Assessment Institute. Although he believes in anthropogenic global warming, his controversial view is that there are far more serious problems facing the planet that governments should spend time and money solving.

As a result, his "Skeptical Environmentalist" series of books continually evoke great debate internationally.

With that in mind, the following are snippets of Crichton's review of Lomborg's most recent installment (emphasis added, h/t Glenn Reynolds):

Bjørn Lomborg is the best-informed and most humane advocate for environmental change in the world today. In contrast to other figures that promote a single issue while ignoring others, Lomborg views the globe as a whole, studies all the problems we face, ranks them, and determines how best, and in what order, we should address them.

Lomborg is only interested in real problems, and he has no patience with media fear-mongering; he begins by dispatching the myth of the endangered polar bears, showing that this Disneyesque cartoon has no relevance to the real world where polar bear populations are in fact increasing. Lomborg considers the issue in detail, citing sources from Al Gore to the World Wildlife Fund, then demonstrating that polar bear populations have actually increased five fold since the 1960s.

Lomborg then works his way through the concerns we hear so much about: higher temperatures, heat deaths, species extinctions, the cost of cutting carbon, the technology to do it. Lomborg believes firmly in climate change--despite his critics, he's no denier--but his fact-based approach, grounded in economic analyses, leads him again and again to a different view. He reviews published estimates of the cost of climate change, and the cost of addressing it, and concludes that "we actually end up paying more for a partial solution than the cost of the entire problem. That is a bad deal."

In some of the most disturbing chapters, Lomborg recounts what leading climate figures have said about anyone who questions the orthodoxy, thus demonstrating the illiberal, antidemocratic tone of the current debate. Lomborg himself takes the larger view, explaining in detail why the tone of hysteria is inappropriate to addressing the problems we face.

It is plain to see why Lomborg is such a controversial figure, as he is not afraid to call a spade a spade regardless of who might find such straight talk inconvenient.

Speaking of which, Lomborg is the person soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore chickened out of an interview with in January (emphasis added):

The interview had been scheduled for months. The day before the interview Mr. Gore's agent thought Gore-meets-Lomborg would be great. Yet an hour later, he came back to tell us that Bjorn Lomborg should be excluded from the interview because he's been very critical of Mr. Gore's message about global warming and has questioned Mr. Gore's evenhandedness. According to the agent, Mr. Gore only wanted to have questions about his book and documentary, and only asked by a reporter.

As such, Lomborg is on a growing list of people that have challenged Gore to debate his junk science.

Of course, the Global Warmingist-in-Chief doesn't accept such challenges.

Why should he?

Or hadn't you heard that the debate is over?

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editor...l?id=110009552

Will Al Gore Melt?
If not, why did he chicken out on an interview?

BY FLEMMING ROSE AND BJORN LOMBORG
Sunday, January 21, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST

Al Gore is traveling around the world telling us how we must fundamentally change our civilization due to the threat of global warming. Last week he was in Denmark to disseminate this message. But if we are to embark on the costliest political project ever, maybe we should make sure it rests on solid ground. It should be based on the best facts, not just the convenient ones. This was the background for the biggest Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, to set up an investigative interview with Mr. Gore. And for this, the paper thought it would be obvious to team up with Bjorn Lomborg, author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist," who has provided one of the clearest counterpoints to Mr. Gore's tune.

The interview had been scheduled for months. The day before the interview Mr. Gore's agent thought Gore-meets-Lomborg would be great. Yet an hour later, he came back to tell us that Bjorn Lomborg should be excluded from the interview because he's been very critical of Mr. Gore's message about global warming and has questioned Mr. Gore's evenhandedness. According to the agent, Mr. Gore only wanted to have questions about his book and documentary, and only asked by a reporter. These conditions were immediately accepted by Jyllands-Posten. Yet an hour later we received an email from the agent saying that the interview was now cancelled. What happened?

http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=673

How Bacteria Nearly Destroyed All Life
Written by Alan Bellows on September 8th, 2006 at 12:27 pm
CyanobacteriaAbout two and one-half billion years ago, life on Earth was still in its infancy. Complex organisms such as plants and animals had not yet appeared, but the planet was teeming with microscopic bacteria which thrived in the temperate and nutrient-rich environment. Greenhouse methane lingered in the atmosphere and trapped the sun's warmth, creating a climate very accommodating to the stew of microbes life that made their home on primitive Earth.
But a billion years of bacterial evolutionary progress was soon stunted by a catastrophic global event. Geologists find no signs of a great meteor impact nor a volcanic eruption, but they have uncovered the unmistakable geologic scars of rapid worldwide climate change. Average temperatures, which were previously comparable to our present climate, plummeted to minus 50 degrees Celsius and brought the planet into its first major ice age. This environmental shift triggered a massive die-off which threatened to extinguish all life on Earth, and paleoclimatologists have good reason to believe that this world-changing event was unwittingly caused by some of the planet's own humble residents: bacteria.

[bitingmidge]

Just for the next couple of months at least, I'm going to place myself in that camp. Not because I deny that climate change is happening, but because it is interesting to step back and just for a moment not assume that the current theory on it is the be all and end all.

Ahh so you've joined the great unwashed!

Interestingly I heard a "once leading" scientist/turned politician today who wasn't at all denying climate change, just strongly suggesting that the evidence presented doesn't pass scientific scrutiny.

Sort of, yes I can see that house is burning, but is it burning down or up? Unless you can give me three corroborated reports of the core temperature of the flames, we won't be able to finalise our scientific opinion.

It was quite curious, and frustrating at the same time, to be able to take from his words, whatever one wanted. Reminded me of that wonderful Leunig cartoon of the father and child watching the sunset live on tele, while out the window behind them the same scene was actually happening.


Cheers,
P (I think I'll be a rabid warrior for the change side for a month!)

[silentC]

My favourite Leunig cartoon is the one that goes:

"What are you looking for?"
"I'm searching for the thing that separates truth from lies. It cuts the wool from our eyes. Slices away doubt. You know, the cutting edge of reason. Have you found it?"
"Did you look in the cupboard under the sink?"

(or words to that effect...)

[silentC]

The interesting thing about it, for me, is that now that we have 'accepted' global warming and acknowledged that it's all our fault, it becomes part of the common vocabulary now.

It's like at dinner parties from now on, if you mention being sceptical about climate change being caused or being preventable by humans, you will be an outcast. No-one will care what you have to say or what your arguments are, it will be as though you just said that gay people have no right to get married, or whales are just fish and they taste good (although I suppose that depends on whose table you're sitting at).

But if you say you've just swapped out all the halogen downlights in your house for glow worms that you feed with the scraps from your organic vegie garden, it's garaunteed to boost you in the kudos stakes. If you're a single bloke, it might even get you somewhere with the ladies, or the men if that's your thing.

[Grunt]

My inclination is to believe that the changing climate is man made.

If you look at the exponential growth in the human population over the last 100 years and the number of ecological disasters that us humans have perpetrated on the earth in that time, it's not too hard to believe we are the cause of global warming. Especially considering the amount of fossil fuels we burn and have burnt in that time.

• Introduction of weed species. This has and continues to devastate natural environments. Think Cane Toad.
• Marine Pollution and over fishing. See this thread. Coral Reefs Dieing. Fished Out.
• Unsustainable agriculture. Dead Zone Gulf of Mexico , Loss of Top soil, desertification, increasing salinity.
• Water. Draw down on the worlds aquifers, pollution seeping into the aquifers, polluted rivers.
• Deforestation and habitat loss. At an astounding rate, the worlds forests are being cut down for wood, for agricultural land.
• Air pollution. Have a look at some of the pictures of Beijing, Melbourne and Sydney on a still day.

There are countless other examples where man has had large scale environmentally adverse interactions with the planet.

I think global warming is another.

[Gra]

Cool Grunt and Silent on opposing sides of an argument. Where did that beanbag go.

[silentC]

Undoubtedly there are examples of bad things we have done. It does not follow that every bad thing that happens is caused by us.

Undoubtedly there is evidence to suggest that reintroducing carbon into the atmosphere contributes to the greenhouse effect. That this causes global warming and thus brings about climate change is a currently popular theory. It is not the only theory. It is based on scientific observation and is supported by a large number of scientists (perhaps the majority?). That does not make it true. There is a certain probability that they are wrong, just as there is a probability that they are right. Like black holes, evolution, big bang - it is a popular working theory.

If it gets people to reassess their behaviour, then it is a good thing for ''the environment" (that's another phrase that has taken on a life of it's own). Whether it's a good thing for science remains to be seen. I'd hate to think we stopped asking questions and poking holes in theories because it just became too hard to fight the establishment.

[Sebastiaan56]

But if you say you've just swapped out all the halogen downlights in your house for glow worms that you feed with the scraps from your organic vegie garden, it's garaunteed to boost you in the kudos stakes.

OK thats commitment, beats my feeble efforts.

Recommend that the learned assembly listen to the replay of house of reps question time. There is a series of questions by Peter Garret (Pete...) to the PM (Johnny...) that ends in the best punchline, its not often anyone let alone Johnny cops one that good, It'll be podcast here soon, http://webcast.aph.gov.au/livebroadcasting/

Sebastiaan

[Grunt]

Despite Gra wanting to sit on his bean bag and eat some popcorn, I'm not really inclined to have yet another debate on Man Made Climate change for it will give the deniers more air space than deserved. The time to act is now.

I will post these links for those who have yet to make up their minds.

Newsweek.
New Scientist
The Denial Machine.

[bitingmidge]

But if you say you've just swapped out all the halogen downlights in your house for glow worms that you feed with the scraps from your organic vegie garden,

Been there, done that.

Geckos ate 'em all.

P

[reeves]

this ones interesting, some scientists call on Gore to go easy on the alarmism,

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/...gore.php?page=

From some scientists, a call to Gore to temper the alarm

Hollywood has a thing for Al Gore and his three-alarm film on global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth," which won an Academy Award for best documentary. So do many environmentalists, who praise him as a visionary, and many scientists, who laud him for raising public awareness of climate change.

But part of his scientific audience is uneasy. In talks, articles and blog entries that have appeared since his film and accompanying book came out last year, these scientists argue that some of Gore's central points are exaggerated or erroneous. They are alarmed, some say, at what they call his alarmism.

"I don't want to pick on Al Gore," Don Easterbrook, an emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, told hundreds of experts at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. "But there are a lot of inaccuracies in the statements we are seeing, and we have to temper that with real data."

Gore, in an e-mail exchange about the critics, said his work made "the most important and salient points" about climate change, if not "some nuances and distinctions" scientists might want. "The degree of scientific consensus on global warming has never been stronger," he said, adding, "I am trying to communicate the essence of it in the lay language that I understand."

Although Gore is not a scientist, he does rely heavily on the authority of science in "An Inconvenient Truth," which is why scientists are sensitive to its details and claims. Criticisms of Gore have come not only from conservative groups and prominent skeptics of catastrophic warming, but also from rank-and-file scientists like Easterbook, who told his peers that he had no political ax to grind. A few see natural variation as more central to global warming than heat-trapping gases. Many appear to occupy a middle ground in the climate debate, seeing human activity as a serious threat but challenging what they call the extremism of both skeptics and zealots.

Typically, the concern is not over the existence of climate change, or the idea that the human production of heat-trapping gases is partly or largely to blame for the globe's recent warming. The question is whether Gore has gone beyond the scientific evidence.

"An Inconvenient Truth," directed by Davis Guggenheim, was released last May and took in more than $46 million, making it one of the top-grossing documentaries ever. The companion book by Gore quickly became a best-seller, reaching No. 1 on The New York Times' list.

Gore depicted a future in which temperatures soar, ice sheets melt, seas rise, hurricanes batter the coasts and people die en masse. "Unless we act boldly," he wrote, "our world will undergo a string of terrible catastrophes."

[sawdustmike]

Why bother! Unless the Chinese, Indians, Yanks, Europeans et al get on board we are just P#ssing in the wind. We (Aussies) can all reject electricity, automobiles and anything else that generates excess gas and the world would not know it. I personally cannot for the life of me, imagine that any of the above are going to change their ways. In the end, the Earth will just do a big hiccup and mammalian life will be wiped out which will then let the cockroaches and nature regain their rightful place, albeit over several million years.

Happy woodworking (sustainably of course).