The Great Global Warming Swindle

[jenny61_99]

One of the great dangers of global warming is that it produces more extreme weather conditions. So, although the globe as a whole will warm, there will also be inordinately cool temperatures in some regions. The raise in overall temperature sets off a number of chain reactions.

And we can all validate that our weather has been at extremes! We had days of 31 in late May in Brisbane, and then in June - just 3 weeks later, experienced a day where the maximum got no higher than 10! We have had two separate days of good solid rainfall in the last two years! Our dams are at 17% - the lowest in recorded history. You can't get much more extreme than that!

 

[NikkiNoo]

Mate it's not a youtube video as such, it's a Channel 4 documentary that's been screened on the ABC in a couple of weeks. That's the equivalent of calling An Inconvenient Truth a youtube video as segments of it are on youtube.

Some articles worth having a look at are:

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/solar.htm

Jo have a good look at the link I provided and maybe look into the history of the director of the 'documentary' who Channel 4 had to apologise for screening his last documentary where he compared environmentalists to Nazis!

One of the scientists (Wunsch) who appeared it it has asked that he be removed from it as he has been misrepresentated, plus what they told him it was about and what it really was about was vastly different. Plus the titles of some of the other scientists used in it are not correct. There is no such School of Climatology at the University of Winnepeg. Most of the Scientists used in this film have not had their science peer reviewed and in fact many of them have never tried to have it peer reviewed. Mainly because they accept money from companies who need coal etc to survive.

The science that they are using is also very flawed.

There is this site as well that provides some other discussion on the subject - http://www.celsias.com/blog/2007/03/11/the-great-global-warming-swindle/

 

[jo172]

Jo have a good look at the link I provided and maybe look into the history of the director of the 'documentary' who Channel 4 had to apologise for screening his last documentary where he compared environmentalists to Nazis!

Yeah, i read that, no question the bloke is biased and somewhat insane but it was interesting to hear from one of the founders of Greenpeace in the doco saying the exact same thing, pretty much that the environmental movement has turned into a political movement who value "a whale ahead of a human"

Most of the Scientists used in this film have not had their science peer reviewed and in fact many of them have never tried to have it peer reviewed. Mainly because they accept money from companies who need coal etc to survive.

Movie did raise a good point in that no government sponsored work is ever going to come out with any different hypothesis on climate change due to the possible shaming of the government. Scientists who don't believe in climate change are treated like lepers and cannot get funding, of course they have to turn to companies with a vested interest in their research to gain funding.

 

[Southerntakeover]

Mate it's not a youtube video as such, it's a Channel 4 documentary that's been screened on the ABC in a couple of weeks. That's the equivalent of calling An Inconvenient Truth a youtube video as segments of it are on youtube.

Some articles worth having a look at are:

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/solar.htm

When you're telling me to search youtube for information, your credibility in a serious debate is lessened. Also, for the record, that link you provided is to a piece, which hasnt been published, written by Spencer Weart, who as far as i can see isnt a Climatologist. I also wonder if you read the whole thing.

In the mean time, you could also try responding to the article Nikki provided which demonstrates some of the flaws in the documentary.

 

[Southerntakeover]

Movie did raise a good point in that no government sponsored work is ever going to come out with any different hypothesis on climate change due to the possible shaming of the government. Scientists who don't believe in climate change are treated like lepers and cannot get funding, of course they have to turn to companies with a vested interest in their research to gain funding.

Thats a conspiracy theory where one need not exist.

Could it not be that the theories of these scientists simply arent credible, and dont deserve public funding?

 

[NikkiNoo]

Movie did raise a good point in that no government sponsored work is ever going to come out with any different hypothesis on climate change due to the possible shaming of the government. Scientists who don't believe in climate change are treated like lepers and cannot get funding, of course they have to turn to companies with a vested interest in their research to gain funding.

Jo those statements prove that you have no idea about research, especially government funded research. I work for a Research Office, so just trust me on this.

Those scientists take those companies monies and they could send their results off to be peer reviewed but they do not. Why not, because it would not stand up to peer review. It is poor science in most cases.

 

[jo172]

Jo those statements prove that you have no idea about research, especially government funded research. I work for a Research Office, so just trust me on this.

Those scientists take those companies monies and they could send their results off to be peer reviewed but they do not. Why not, because it would not stand up to peer review. It is poor science in most cases.

Look i'm tired of arguing with you all (i had a very hard game today) and you all make a lot of good points.

What alarms me is most posters in this thread's reluctance to even consider alternate points of view because it is too far from the norm. This is the same as the 1400's the world is flat thinking. Healthy debate of facts and issues should be encouraged not stamped on.

And i don't care what anyone says, watch the day of the Live Earth concerts for the Gorichal to announce he's running for President, then from day 1 of the Gore Presidency watch him forget about this issue as it becomes too hard.

 

[NikkiNoo]

Jo I look and see if it has been peer reviewed. Those scientists that have appeared in the doco have not have peer reviewed science. Until they put it out there and stop being talking heads that are funded by companies that are not after good science but science that backs up their interests only, I will not give it much credence.

 

[Southerntakeover]

Look i'm tired of arguing with you all (i had a very hard game today) and you all make a lot of good points.

What alarms me is most posters in this thread's reluctance to even consider alternate points of view because it is too far from the norm. This is the same as the 1400's the world is flat thinking. Healthy debate of facts and issues should be encouraged not stamped on.

And i don't care what anyone says, watch the day of the Live Earth concerts for the Gorichal to announce he's running for President, then from day 1 of the Gore Presidency watch him forget about this issue as it becomes too hard.

No, see you've got it backwards.

By denying climate change you are playing the role of the man warning us not to fall off the edge of the world.

Healthy debate would be welcomed. Unfortunately those who deny it are not taking place in a healthy debate. Suggesting a course of inaction to a major societal dilemma, based upon nothing more than poor science and fear of 'left wingers' is at best ignorant, and at worst dangerous.

 

[- PC -]

What alarms me is most posters in this thread's reluctance to even consider alternate points of view because it is too far from the norm. .

If you look at my post history on this subject on the SRP boards you will see I take a little from column A and a little from column B.

I do think man has made some mistakes in the way he has treated the earth, I also dont think it can all be blamed on pollution. Rampant population growth is the most prevalent factor ( imo ) in most of this

 

[Ghostwriter]

One of the great dangers of global warming is that it produces more extreme weather conditions. So, although the globe as a whole will warm, there will also be inordinately cool temperatures in some regions. The raise in overall temperature sets off a number of chain reactions.

And you know this how, have you experienced other global warming scenarios in previous ice ages?, ffiw i think its great that the polar ice caps are melting, at least the evaporation is causing rain which is falling into our catchments.

 

[- PC -]

i think its great that the polar ice caps are melting, at least the evaporation is causing rain which is falling into our catchments.

Ohhh kay

Walks away whistling

 

[KUNG FU]

I wish I could remember the name of the doco, but in the SBS "Future" series that ran a couple months ago there was a really good doco about climate change sceptics. To put it simply, most of the scientific sceptics on climate change are the exact same people who were smoking causes cancer sceptics, usually retired scientists who specialised in other fields and driven by PR companies. But I can't remember its name. It was good.

 

[Southerntakeover]

I wish I could remember the name of the doco, but in the SBS "Future" series that ran a couple months ago there was a really good doco about climate change sceptics. To put it simply, most of the scientific sceptics on climate change are the exact same people who were smoking causes cancer sceptics, usually retired scientists who specialised in other fields and driven by PR companies. But I can't remember its name. It was good.

Yeah, i remember seeing that myself. Thats why whenever im linked to an article trying to deny climate change i always try to look up the authors credentials. Yet to find one that actually stacks up.

 

[Cap]

i read somewhere that if all the icecaps melted we would lose something like 8% of total land because we would actually get a whole continent back (antartica) and other countries like Greenland would be inhabitable.

but these things happen

 

[Pie eyed]

If you think there could not be any reason why "Governments" who historically do not give a S**T about anything environmental eg: US and Australian, are all of a sudden accepting all "science" on the matter then have a think about their preferred option to deal with the alledged problem.

They want to set up a "World Market" where "Carbon Credits" can be bought and sold to offset "Carbon" load.
The only thing stopping this from becoming a full blown industry is they are making sure that right people profit from the commissions on the transactions.

Imagine a Global Market which profits by making commissions on trade in a commodity which may or may not exist.

Works something like this...You plant a tree (Carbon Sync) and I will give you $1.00..ei. I purchase 1 carbon credit...I then sell this credit to the Steel Industry for $2.00 and they can burn the equivalent of 1 tree's worth of carbon in the form of coal or fuel oil.

The trick here would be to Grow the sapplings to sell to you in the first place and also mine and sell the coal the steel industry needs to power it's furnaces.


Lets have a look..
I grow a sapling.... $0.05 cost to Me
I sell it to you...... $7.50 $3.00 to the nursery, $4.50 to Me
I give buy your Carbon Credit $1.00 cost to Me
I sell your Carbon credit to BHP $5.00 to Me
I sell coal to BHP $10.00 to Me

Every one in the chain has done the right thing environmentally and feels good about themselves.
I have made a neat profit from basically do nothing but playing along.

The exact same effect environmentally could be obtained if you just planted a tree and the Government gave your a $1.00 rebate


Total Gross I Make $18.45
Government Cut $ 8.12
Total Nett Profit to me $10.33




The reason Governments are doddering around at Kyoto and the likes is that they are trying to decide who gets to be "Me" and how much the Government Cut will be.

What are the chances that John Howard will become and Environmental..(Carbon Trading) Consultant once he retires.

 

[ThePeckers]

The world is screwed. Because 1. China is growing so fast and 2. Because China is growing so fast


The world just can't handle another 1 billion consumers. In a non mean way the world needs China to be poor. There is some doco that said with every problem we fix another arises and when it comes down to it the world is just to overpopulated.

 

[Crow-mo]

Sponsored by Halliburton im sure.

There were also 'scientific studies' which denied smoking caused cancer.

dude,

the 'science' behind this greenhouse/global warming thing never existed.

that's not to say the idealogy is a bad thing, being more environmentally friendly, recycling, carbon focussed etc is all good. we should do that, can't imaging anyone would disagree.

but there has never been any scientific basis behind it.

 

[Southerntakeover]

dude,

the 'science' behind this greenhouse/global warming thing never existed.

that's not to say the idealogy is a bad thing, being more environmentally friendly, recycling, carbon focussed etc is all good. we should do that, can't imaging anyone would disagree.

but there has never been any scientific basis behind it.

Well i always respect your opinion, as its usually well backed up. Im interested on what leads you to say this though. So whats your take on why most major scientific bodies have reports accepting climate change?

 

[jenny61_99]

If you look at my post history on this subject on the SRP boards you will see I take a little from column A and a little from column B.

I do think man has made some mistakes in the way he has treated the earth, I also dont think it can all be blamed on pollution. Rampant population growth is the most prevalent factor ( imo ) in most of this

Kind of a little OT here, but when I lived in Toronto Canada (on Lake Ontario) we followed an experiment being conducted by scientists (hired by the auto industry in Detroit) to try to prove that Lake Ontario was not polluted (despite the fact that it no longer froze over during winter - which it had done for 200 years). Anyways they released one dozen white ducks into the Lake and were going to monitor them over a 6 month period. At the end of the first WEEK - half the ducks were already dead and the other half were BLACK and couldn't move due to the pollution weighing them down.

The fact that glaciers are receding rapidly must be some proof of global warming surely? Athabasca Glacier has markers showing it's rapidly shrinking size over the last 40 years (something like 20 times + faster than the previous 40).

 

[jenny61_99]

Look i'm tired of arguing with you all (i had a very hard game today) and you all make a lot of good points.

What alarms me is most posters in this thread's reluctance to even consider alternate points of view because it is too far from the norm. This is the same as the 1400's the world is flat thinking. Healthy debate of facts and issues should be encouraged not stamped on.

And i don't care what anyone says, watch the day of the Live Earth concerts for the Gorichal to announce he's running for President, then from day 1 of the Gore Presidency watch him forget about this issue as it becomes too hard.

Everyone would stand up and listen IF the opposition to Global Warming could provide concrete evidence to prove it is not happening. At the moment they cannot and people tend to be fairly cynical when research is "funded" by companies that will lose if we keep pushing for a cleaner society.

 

[jo172]

The fact that glaciers are receding rapidly must be some proof of global warming surely? Athabasca Glacier has markers showing it's rapidly shrinking size over the last 40 years (something like 20 times + faster than the previous 40).

I don't think there is any debate as to whether Global Warming exsists, just whether it is anthromorphic.

 

[YOTC]

Way to fight the Good Fight Jo!!

People love to believe they are destroying the world. I've got some bad news for you. You are not destroying the world.

Guess what happens when a tree dies, where does all that carbon dioxide it's absorbed go? Thats right, straight back into the atmosphere.

There has been weather changes from the start of time, There has been hotter periods on Earth.

The Artic and Antartic wouldn't be the size they are without the Ice Age.

 

[Crow-mo]

Well i always respect your opinion, as its usually well backed up. Im interested on what leads you to say this though. So whats your take on why most major scientific bodies have reports accepting climate change?

ok, fair enough. that's not my point.

the climate is changing, it has been changing for millions of years. we had an ice age once

there have been many things written and presented over here on this subject, and again I'd say anything that causes us to behave 'better' is a good thing.

regarding the ice age thingy, I heard one cambridge professor about a year ago, say that the earth has been changing for millions of years, long before we got here, and that it was the height of arrogance in a lot of ways to think we have anything to do with this.

it is generally accepted that the amount of man made greenhouse gases are tiny, and if that's the case (it is) any variation on that is not going to make much difference either way. it's one of the principle reasons why getting countries to sign up to the kyoto treaty and similar is so difficult, global warming is a nice political device, but you wouldn't want to stand behind it in an economic sense.

best of all, there was a BBC special on the subject about 2 or 3 months ago, and one guy (must've known what he was talking about, he had a white coat, and a beard and everything ) was saying that there is a natural lag between the cause and effect in the environment. what we do today, doesn't take effect immediately. his research estimated that delay at 800 years! which intuitively makes sense to me, though I am no scientist.

there are all sorts of things like that out there. things are changing, they have always changed, and our role in it is very speculative at the moment. According to many scientists I have seen or read on the subject, there is next to no real science being used to promote these agendas. Which is ok by me, as I don't think that is any reason to not conduct ourselves responsibly either way.

my personal view on what drives these things? hubris and folly of the human condition, that likes to believe it is in charge of all elements of the world around, and if something is our fault, then in turn it follows that we can fix it. If we don't have much of a say in things, then how can we prevent further change?

 

[jenny61_99]

ok, fair enough. that's not my point.

the climate is changing, it has been changing for millions of years. we had an ice age once

there have been many things written and presented over here on this subject, and again I'd say anything that causes us to behave 'better' is a good thing.

regarding the ice age thingy, I heard one cambridge professor about a year ago, say that the earth has been changing for millions of years, long before we got here, and that it was the height of arrogance in a lot of ways to think we have anything to do with this.

it is generally accepted that the amount of man made greenhouse gases are tiny, and if that's the case (it is) any variation on that is not going to make much difference either way. it's one of the principle reasons why getting countries to sign up to the kyoto treaty and similar is so difficult, global warming is a nice political device, but you wouldn't want to stand behind it in an economic sense.

best of all, there was a BBC special on the subject about 2 or 3 months ago, and one guy (must've known what he was talking about, he had a white coat, and a beard and everything ) was saying that there is a natural lag between the cause and effect in the environment. what we do today, doesn't take effect immediately. his research estimated that delay at 800 years! which intuitively makes sense to me, though I am no scientist.

there are all sorts of things like that out there. things are changing, they have always changed, and our role in it is very speculative at the moment. According to many scientists I have seen or read on the subject, there is next to no real science being used to promote these agendas. Which is ok by me, as I don't think that is any reason to not conduct ourselves responsibly either way.

my personal view on what drives these things? hubris and folly of the human condition, that likes to believe it is in charge of all elements of the world around, and if something is our fault, then in turn it follows that we can fix it. If we don't have much of a say in things, then how can we prevent further change?

Nice post Particularly like the technical terminology (the ice age thingy) . Concerns re the delayed effect of our damage to environment... does that mean the people in 800 years are going to be well and truly rooted because of our haste to use the earth as a garbage disposal unit today?

Your suggestion of common sense approach is probably the way to go - except perhaps for our current water crisis. Years ago in Brisbane, everyone had rain water tanks - Councils MADE people get rid of them because they posed a huge mosquito problem. Now they are paying people to put them in because we have no water . I predict in 5 years time, we will have mossie problems again! My B.I.L. works for Brisbane Water and apparently they have been so successful getting people to install tanks, that our creek systems are suffering because there is not enough run-off to flush them through. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.