Global warming in the Sunday Times mag

Yes it was rather a scary read. Must say it kept me awake for a few hours that night worrying about what my kids are going to face in years to come
 
A dear if rather elderly lady in our club said on Sunday.
' If it is the hottest it has been for a hundred years it must have been as hot as this a hundred years ago' You can't argue with that.
 
I notice someone has described it a "superheated drivel".
Of course anyone who does so is at immediate risk of being pilloried for the crime of Imminent Global Catastrophe Denial.

The article seems to be mainly a puff for a sensationalist book.
 
The fact that any particular record is broken, as the lady pointed out, isn't remarkable in itself, after all daily temperatures have a certain degree of random variation and this does not, in itself, represent underlying change. However, the frequency at which temperature records are broken will indicate more general trends (being less prone to stochastic variation).

In the same way the breaking of an annual temperature record is more significant than a daily temperature record etc etc.
 
Is this co2 blanket filling the hole in the ozone layer, I read somewhere it was getting smaller and we are still alive. Maybe we should go back to using cfc to open it up again and let the co2 out. The planet will sort itself out at the detriment of those that can't adapt, (dinosaurs please note), it might just take a while.
 
The thing is, with global warming, non of us mere mortals actually know the truth.

There is no doubt in my mind that the current government are supporting the perceived wisdom because they know that it is the current Big Thing and they would lose votes if they didnt. There is also no doubt in my mind that any money they collect under the misnomer of "green taxes" will be used to fill their existing black hole, and will not go near solutions to climate change... just like road and petrol taxes dont go near roads.

If they were serious about combatting climate change, they would be taking action much faster, even at the risk of being even more unpopular and risking lost votes.

The other thing that I am reasonably sure of is that, whatever steps are taken, most people and nations tend to look after No. 1, so the whole thing will be fiddled, or spun, and will probably achieve little in the sense of reducing climate change.

Whatever happens, the world and its' economies will adapt, just like it adapted from the days of the dinasoaurs, through the ice age, and so on. Our children and grandchildren will deal with things, technologies will advance in particular directions and, whilst things will be different, they will almost certainly be no worse than they are now.

a couple of decades ago, Gordon Brown was spouting about how labour would not buy Trident and would use the money to help the disadvantaged of the country. Today, he is busy encouraging people to vote for Trident. i could suggest that they are as full of whatever crap suits their self serving purpose on the day.
 
Why are these things always so full of hyperbole and hysteria? Has the discovery channel opened a school of journalism? To me it really weakens the case for global warming, as once you feel lied to by a particular part of the argument, the rest of it seems a bit weaker.

I particularly like this bit:

[ QUOTE ]
The entire Indian subcontinent will be fighting for survival. "As the glaciers disappear from all but the highest peaks, their runoff will cease to power the massive rivers that deliver vital freshwater to hundreds of millions. Water shortages and famine will be the result, destabilising the entire region. And this time the epicentre of the disaster won't be India, Nepal or Bangladesh, but nuclear-armed Pakistan.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm no expert, but isn't the indian subcontinent liberally watered by the monsoon, when hot, moist air (becoming hotter, and no doubt moister) is pushed upwards by the himalayas, or did they dissapear when the ice holding them together melted?

And will Pakistan start randomly nuking its neighbours because it wants their arable land? That would seem counter productive.

I really think climate change is an issue, but extrapolations from the facts like this only serve to weaken the case. Perhaps he'll sell enough books to fund his retirement, but other than that, I can't see that any good will come from articles like this.

Future predictions, whether they be horoscopes or climate change models are always to be taken with a pinch of salt. The only certainty is what we can observe now.

Has anybody isolated any of the supposed causes of global warming in a laboratory? Has anybody proven whether projected rises in CO2 from it's current level of 0.036% of the Earth's atmosphere would significantly inhibit the reradiation of thermal infrared wavelengths back to space? As this is the central argument, surely somebody has proven it somewhere?

How come, what has been touted as the biggest issue of our time, has only been researched using computer models, which are only ever as good as, and always sharing assumptions with, their designer?

Why is nobody publishing pure, simple, unadulterated, verifiable facts? If conclusive facts were there, and were rigorous beyond dispute, action would be taken.
 
>There is no doubt in my mind that the current government are supporting the perceived wisdom because they know that it is the current Big Thing<

I'm bemused about when climate change became 'perceived wisdom'. Fossil fuel driven climate change is something I've believed possible for years, yet it doesn't seem long ago that I was perceived as the odd one out, rather than - as now - being at the heart of mainstream opinion! Or better still, a tax-grabbing conspirator.
 
The trouble with models is that they start from assumptions, and if the assumption is flawed, the model is useless.

Granted, sun activity can't be replicated all that easily, neither can polar reversals. But, according to the greenhouse theory, the pivotal factor is how well thermal infrared wavelengths pass between a gaseous mixture replicating our atmosphere, and one containing higher quantities of CO2. That much can be measured in a laboratory.

I'm not saying it hasn't been done even, simply that, if it has been done, the experimenter has been more modest than other researchers in their field.

Given that pumping out CO2 and methane is only one of the many ways we're influencing our environment, it seems imprudent to base all projections on that one factor.

From the facts we can draw our own conclusions, is all.
 
[ QUOTE ]
>There is no doubt in my mind that the current government are supporting the perceived wisdom because they know that it is the current Big Thing<

I'm bemused about when climate change became 'perceived wisdom'. Fossil fuel driven climate change is something I've believed possible for years, yet it doesn't seem long ago that I was perceived as the odd one out, rather than - as now - being at the heart of mainstream opinion! Or better still, a tax-grabbing conspirator.

[/ QUOTE ]

It seems to have crept up on us over the past 4 or 5 years, becoming the Big Thing over a couple of years.... people gradually got more interested in recycling then, all of a sudden, climate change!
 
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