What global warming?

[kevin555]

Regarding the ski-ing industry: The inference appears to be, we must not accept climate change and a changing environment - we must be in charge of it and be able to fix it.

This is, of course, futile. The world is an ever moving and changing 'organism' who we have to live with not tie up on a lead and shout orders at.

I blame it on the me me me culture, where everything is my right, not my responsibility. It's about needs and rights, not would likes and wants. Is it my human right to be able to ski on a mountain?

The UK coastline is an excellent example where this change can be seen. Erosion on huge swathes on the east coast while near me in the north west, we have growth in sand dunes that is pushing the coast out to sea.

The National Trust had to relocate their car park in Formby - the old one of a couple of years ago is now under sand. But given the ski analogy, should the NT have put up concrete barriers to prevent nature doing what it does?

So accept that the sea level may rise and do something about it. Accept that if you build on historic flood plains your house will get flooded unless you build it on stilts. Accept that if the temperature rises your ski slopes will no longer be of much use - you'll have to relocate.

They used to grow grapes in Scotland a 1000 years ago. They don't anymore. It's called climate change.

There used to be hippos swimming in the Thames. There aren't anymore. It's called climate change.

We've always had it, we can't control it, we just have to deal with it.

 

[WhatManufacturersWant]

Ronald:

I seem to racall back in the early nineties were we being warned that we had to do something soon about the ice age that was comming (by the same people that are now saying warming is the problem) and that we would all be freezing to death soon.

Kevin: What an excellent post. At last the voice of reason is heard.

 

[AdamJ]

Nice post Kevin - couldn't agree more.

 

[Ronald]

Kevin said

Regarding the ski-ing industry: The inference appears to be, we must not accept climate change and a changing environment - we must be in charge of it and be able to fix it.

Sorry,

The point I was trying to make was that the skiing industry was already changing 20 years ago as a result of warming and pollution.

Most people learnt a long time ago that sitting still is not going to stop the tide coming in, and the ski industry has headed up the slopes as the snow melts.

There has been resistance in places such as Switzerland where they fought hard against introducing snow making and eventually decided that they had to do it. However most of the lower resorts in Switzerland have now gone as a result, and it is just the high resorts that survive with snow making.

More locally most of the Scottish ski resorts went bust a few years ago.

There are things that are difficult to fight against such as the climate.

However, it is possible to make significant change. Europe is much cleaner than it used to be, and it is quite easy to save significant amounts of energy.

From a business perspective we can probably make larger change than as individuals and my company has now formed over 150,000 companies electronically. We can make an even larger change once we persuade our government customers to trade electronically, and measure their carbon footprint.

In any case from a business perspective change is always a threat and an opportunity. Skiing may be in long term decline, but e-business is doing well.

All the best
Ronald

 

[Cornish Steve]

If you look anywhere in the world the glaciers have melted back a long way.

Sorry, but simply not true. See an earlier article I referenced about glaciers in Greenland and elsewhere.

 

[Ronald]

Sorry, but simply not true. See an earlier article I referenced about glaciers in Greenland and elsewhere.

Unfortunately the system does not allow me to post URL's yet. So you can go back to your original article or fill in the blanks.

Your article was sermitsiaq.gl klima article30834.ece?lang=EN

This is about a temporary cool spell. The northwest passage from Greenland to the pacific is now open for the first time on record. I am sorry but you have confused weather with climate.

Weather is day by day/month by month change. Climate is the average temperature and conditions over a statistically valid time period.

The other article is non factual on sunspot theory and has lines such as

Northern winters became ferocious: in particular, the rout of Napoleon's Grand Army during the retreat from Moscow in 1812 was at least partly due to the lack of sunspots.

If you read the history you will find that the Russians fought and killed the Grand army in the retreat.

One of the key engagements was the Battle of Maloyaroslavets on October 24th 1812. Napolean had just started the retreat from Moscow going South West after burning out the city. This forced Napolean to change direction and march back North along an already devastated track. A week before in the Second Battle of Polotsk October 18-20th the French lost and thus lost Vitebsk one of their 3 massive supply depots in Belarus and the line of communications for the Grande Armee, which was now marching north not knowing that they had lost their supplies and communications.

The Russians were able to out number the French at each battle from that point onwards and with no supplies the French had no chance.

It was not sunspots that killed the grand army but Russian cannons. The winter then finished them off.

There is an image of losses against temperature at en wikipedia org wiki Image:Minard.png

This shows that bulk of the losses occurred before the temperature dropped.

Glaciers are melting and the world is getting warmer, just accept it. I have.

I have skied in Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Japan, Europe and North America and the situation is the same on all the continents.

All the best
Ronald

 

[miranda2]

I don't fully agree

but there's a point:|

I do believe global warming is an issue, but there is no need to obsess just do

what u can.

But I believe in protecting the environment because we live in it and we need

it to be a healthy one.

 

[WhatManufacturersWant]

Ronald: However the viking didn't call Greenland because the were colour blind. Nor as for as I know is the viking for terribly cold and icy place - Green. So presumably at some time in the past there was a reason for it's name.

 

[dgl1001]

Don't get me started on this 'global warming' rubbish as it is impacting the housing building industry quite badly. I haven't read all of the postings on this board (so im sorry if you've heard this before) but......
1) the evidence is showing that the earth is cooling (by 0.7 degrees last year) not warming
2) The Ice Core samples show that CO2 FOLLOWS the earths temperature and does not lead it as suggested by Al Gore
3) The earths temperature has always fluctuated and its has been far warmer previously than it is now.

So why is this affecting the housebuilding industry. Well this government has come up with the idea to make all new homes by 2016 Carbon Zero. This means that all new homes must produce their own electricity and meet very strict performance targets for insulation etc etc. Sounds great but the cost per dwelling (just for this single improvement and nothing else) is about £30,000 and we don't even know if it can be done. Take a site of 100 homes and thats a cost of £3,000,000. £3m could be better spend on infrastructure, education or affordable homes rather than reducing CO2 outpoint.

 

[NewVix]

Global warming is something to take very seriously and I appreciate the updated info. It is our duty to protect and care for our planet

 

[TSx]

This may not quite be global warming related - but I wouldn't mind paying these green taxes, if they were ringfenced and used for green projects - like improving public transport, providing scientists & universities with more funding for research into alternative fuel technologies.

I don't know about global warming. The scientific consensus seems to be that it does exist, and I'm fine with that - I'm not scientifical enough to judge data for what its worth, and not just on face value. So for now, I'll presume that it does exist.

With that in mind, how does it affect me? Not at all - I'll still get taxis for unneccesary journeys, I'll still use carrier bags and I'll even still sometimes leave the computer on. However, something has to be done about the cost of fuel, energy and (with a knock on effect from the first two) food.

So I'm quite happy to pay these green taxes, if I knew they were going to be put to use finding a way to make the cost of living cheaper, I'd be prepared to make that sacrifice. Oil will almost certainly run out, so research into alternatives is very important - as it is, the green taxes you pay, will in some small way, fund the cost of chauffering ministers about london in their big cars (general taxation).

 

[Cornish Steve]

So I'm quite happy to pay these green taxes

I shall never be happy about paying any taxes!

On the other hand, if you believe it's worth paying a premium for something that's more green than the alternatives, you're free to do so. In a sense, that's paying a tax without inflicting it on everyone else.

 

[Cornish Steve]

Another interesting article on the topic.

It has been a tough year for the high priests of global warming in the US. First, NASA had to correct its earlier claim that the hottest year on record in the contiguous US had been 1998, which seemed to prove that global warming was on the march. It was actually 1934. Then it turned out the world's oceans have been growing steadily cooler, not hotter, since 2003. Meanwhile, the winter of 2007 was the coldest in the US in decades, after Al Gore warned us that we were about to see the end of winter as we know it.

In a May issue of Nature, evidence about falling global temperatures forced German climatologists to conclude that the transformation of our planet into a permanent sauna is taking a decade-long hiatus, at least. Then this month came former greenhouse gas alarmist David Evans's article in The Australian, stating that since 1999 evidence has been accumulating that man-made carbon emissions can't be the cause of global warming. By now that evidence, Evans said, has become pretty conclusive.

Yet believers in man-made global warming demand more and more money to combat climate change and still more drastic changes in our economic output and lifestyle. The reason is precisely that they are believers, not scientists. No amount of empirical evidence will overturn what has become not a scientific theory but a form of religion

[We] need to re-examine the superstition of global warming. Otherwise, the only thing it will melt away is everyone's civil liberty.

 

[jimfoxy]

I'm amazed by how many people on this forum readily quote the media so vehemently. Scientific publications are pier reviewed before publication and often take months to write. The same is not so of newspaper articles. Which are more likely to be closer to the truth?

Yes, scientific research depends on funding and is influenced by fashion, but newspaper and TV profits depend on funding, too. The more conflict, contradiction, excitement, shame and fear that can be 'exposed' then the larger the amount of money that comes out of our pockets and into the pockets of these businesses. Who claims that the media actually have factual information transfer at the top of their agenda? A scientist's long term career depends on integrity; can the the same be said for a journalist?

I would propose that journalists are more vain and care more about money, in general, than professional scientists (the latter generally get paid a lot less). When it comes to egos, perhaps they are about the same. On the whole, more scientists I talk to are concerned more about facts and take more care in their research. They are generally quite responsible people. They are also less confined by editorial requirements than the few journalists I have been unfortunate enough to come across.

It is, however, sad that some of the high profile science journals are now largely only interested in papers which have the same impact as the front page articles of a gossip magazine. There are also many media-whore scientists about.

Anyway, a bit off topic, sorry.

How much you 'believe' climate change is occurring or how much it is due to 'natural' causes (whatever that means) is not really the most important question; it is mostly a distraction for our own consciousnesses. If we keep arguing about that then we neatly avoid the obvious unfortunate truth.

The important question to ask yourself is, 'how quickly do you want our society and environment to change?' If you want it to change rapidly then we carry on as we are, the oil runs out, the population crashes, there is continued mass extinction, and we have great strife.

If you want it to change more slowly so that we keep a high level of biodiversity to allow the earth's ecosystems to have time to adapt, and a reasonably high quality of life then we need to be implementing more sustainability, population control and careful energy use.

Everything you know in our society, all our history, every famous person and civilisation you have heard about has happened in only the last 10,000 years or so. Not coincidentally, during the last 10,000 years global temperature has been remarkable static compared to the time before. This has been the luxury that has allowed our civilisation to develop. Sure, temperatures have varied all over the place before this time but that is pretty irrelevant to us now and to our future if we want it to resemble what we have now.

If there is a chance that we can influence our climate then it should be our responsibility to work out what is going on and to conserve and develop the biosphere we have.

The greenhouse effect is a fairly simple concept. If you think that the greenhouse effect is actually a valid mechanism and also accept that CO2 levels have been rising rapidly, then you should be in no doubt about the danger of the impact on our climate.

 

[Cornish Steve]

I'm amazed by how many people on this forum readily quote the media so vehemently. Scientific publications are pier reviewed before publication and often take months to write. The same is not so of newspaper articles. Which are more likely to be closer to the truth?

Your point is well taken, but do remember that most scientific research is funded by government. This means that a preponderance of work is focused on the assumption there is man-made global warming. The government, as much as any private company (you mentioned Exxon elsewhere), like to have results that match their agenda.

obvious unfortunate truth.

This is a big part of the problem: It's not obvious at all. It's generally acknowledged now that Al Gore's famous video was largely propaganda. Most of the examples he quoted have been shown to be in error. As I mentioned a while ago in another post, scientists have observed global warming on Mars, on the moons of Jupiter, even on Pluto - and man can't be responsible for that - so it seems the critical factor is our sun. And the delay in the sunspot cycle is the reason why temperatures have cooled quite substantially in the last decade. So, there's nothing at all obvious about man-made global warming.

The important question to ask yourself is, 'how quickly do you want our society and environment to change?' If you want it to change rapidly then we carry on as we are, the oil runs out, the population crashes, there is continued mass extinction, and we have great strife.

It's wise for any country to reduce its dependence on foreign oil, but research by independent scientists reveal clearly that solar, wind, and bio power are hopelessly inadequate as a replacement. One obvious solution is more nuclear power, but it was the parents of the current generation of environmentalists who blocked any progress there. Let's hope we have the wisdom not to be governed by interest groups like this.

 

[norton]

Not a unique situation here either. Glacial periods followed by dramatic increases in atmospheric temperatures are well catalogued in earth's recent history.

Ocean algae blooms are vast absorbers of CO2-cyclical releases of massive solar energy far outweigh the spurious theory of CO2 involvement.

But wait, if I, as polititan can manipulate a natural situation to my fiscal advantage in an attempt to counter this threat, I can raise the tax revenue with impunity.

Anyway, let's retrospectively raise the VED on old cars - that'll make me think greener and totally outweigh China's 50 new coal fired power stations being built this year...Brilliant!!

 

[jimfoxy]

This means that a preponderance of work is focused on the assumption there is man-made global warming.

I don't understand your logic here. Most private companies like to make money. Most governments want to stay in power. Most scientists want to explain something. Most people only hear about the particular scientific study results that the media wants to spin.

The unfortunate truth I was referring to is that we need to be implementing more sustainability measures, population control and careful energy use if we want a future resembling what we have now. This is staggering clear to me.

I don't acknowledge that Al Gore's film was largely propaganda. Sure, it exaggerated and simplified a lot of things but I think many of the underlying sentiments are sound. If you don't think that the greenhouse effect is a sensible theory or you don't accept that we now have more CO2 in the atmosphere than at anytime over the last 1 million years then I would be interested to know why.

For those interested in this, have a look at the IPCC webpages. Of course, you could claim that everything the IPCC produce is biased and has a hidden agenda. If the governments of that many countries have cooperated to form such a conspiracy then what a fantastic international achievement!

I agree with what you say about nuclear needed to bridge a gap between what we have now and some minimal fossil-fuel low energy usage, low population, efficient future. Unfortunately, I hear that there isn't much nuclear fuel available and we haven't made a stable nuclear fusion reactor yet.

As for warming of other planets in our solar system, I am interested to see where the temperature records have come from covering the last few hundred years. Anybody who even considers that climate change or 'global warming' can be proved or disproved from records from only the last decade or so is not thinking on the same time scale as I am. If you think we can work out climate processes on other planets anywhere near as well (and our models are still very poor) as we can with all the datasets we have from our own planet then I think you are being a little irrational.

Reading those links you gave, none of them suggest that there should be a common factor between the changes on Earth and the changes on any of those planets. For Pluto, the suggestion is that it is simply a result of its orbit (which takes 248 years) and a bit of lag. That Mars article only considers the last three years! Big whoop.

Stop posting links to half arsed media articles and then claiming that the government are responsible for them. It's the public who love the controversy and are responsible for promoting those articles; us!

Regarding energy usage, I find it hard to understand why other people can't appreciate the possibility that we have failed to anticipate the future and acted in a seriously short sighted and unsustainable manner over the last couple of hundred years and that it is going to cost developed countries if we want to bring things back to an even keel. It's how credit cards work with people who can't handle their own finances. It's how our government deals with just about everything.

But wait, if I, as polititan can manipulate a natural situation to my fiscal advantage in an attempt to counter this threat, I can raise the tax revenue with impunity.

Can't you say, equally, 'But wait, if I, as polititan can manipulate a historically man-influenced situation to my fiscal advantage in an attempt to counter this threat, I can raise the tax revenue with impunity.'?

 

[Cornish Steve]

I agree with what you say about nuclear needed to bridge a gap between what we have now and some minimal fossil-fuel low energy usage, low population, efficient future. Unfortunately, I hear that there isn't much nuclear fuel available and we haven't made a stable nuclear fusion reactor yet.

You can rest easy. There's enough thorium around to meet the world's energy needs for over a thousand years, existing technology is stable and more than adequate, and that's before we perfect the next generation of fast breeder reactors. Nuclear is there waiting for us.

 

[Cornish Steve]

Regarding energy usage, I find it hard to understand why other people can't appreciate the possibility that we have failed to anticipate the future and acted in a seriously short sighted and unsustainable manner over the last couple of hundred years and that it is going to cost developed countries if we want to bring things back to an even keel. It's how credit cards work with people who can't handle their own finances. It's how our government deals with just about everything.

In the US, the problem is with the politicians who point-blank refuse to drill for oil off the coast or in Alaska. The oil deposits are huge, and drilling there ten or more years ago would have solved our current problems. Playing politics can sometimes cost us dearly.

 

[jimfoxy]

You can rest easy. There's enough thorium around to meet the world's energy needs for over a thousand years, existing technology is stable and more than adequate, and that's before we perfect the next generation of fast breeder reactors. Nuclear is there waiting for us.

Goodo. We just need some nuclear engineers in the country now, then, and a government with a backbone.

 

[ngarama]

Surely global warming is there but the way politicians and businesses use it is wrong.

 

[piague]

I strongly agree it is happening but believe that mankind has made a difference and speed up the warming process.

 

[easyasit]

As an astronomer, and scientist myself i question what i am told, take nothing for read

This threat is not media hype, it is real and its here.

Sorry

 

[Dawg]

Hi Easy. What sort of scientist and astronomer? My niece has a first in astro- physics but wants to go into the City as she thinks there is no well paid work in Astronomy.

 

[Chris Nowak]

As an astronomer, and scientist myself i question what i am told, take nothing for read

This threat is not media hype, it is real and its here.

Sorry

Absolutely it is... but that won't stop the in-denial types Sleasyjetting off to their Costa apartments 3 times a year and driving their 4x4s 100 yards to the supermarket to buy air-freighted-from-Chile strawberries.

It's almost pointless arguing with the kind of self-centeredness which insists on seeing 30 metres of North Sea above its head before it will consider a change in behaviour...

 

[Cornish Steve]

30 metres of North Sea

Have you any idea how much water it would take to raise the North Sea 30 metres (or about 100 feet so the rest of us can understand)? I suspect you'd need a few tens of thousand times more icebergs than exist in the world today and have them all melt completely! And all because some of us like strawberries?

 

[stockdam]

I'm not an expert and am generally a sceptic (sorry that's just my nature).

I'm not convinced that mankind has caused or contributed to any of the global warming.

However that's not really important as I've always been anti waste.

So yes I believe in doing all the things that may reduce the problem but I think that it's good practice anyway.

Take cars for example. When I ask a lot of women why they drive big 4x4s they always say the same thing......cos they feel safer. Err if they all drove much smaller and lighter cars then they wouldn't worry about somebody in a 4x4 driving into them. Besides why don't they worry about a truck driving into them? Another example......many of us only need 1 seat for 90% or so of our journeys. We'd use a much smaller vehicle if we felt safe in them.

Sorry I'm rambling.

I don't call myself "green" but being an engineer I agree with a lot of the principles. However what I don't like is the "false" people who call themselves "green" because it's either trendy or else it suits them.

 

[Dawg]

A small point on big cars, the SUVs.
The EU has made it compulsory to have child seats if kids are being transported. It is virtually impossible to get 3 child seats into the back seat of a small or medium car, so people with families of 3+ kids are forced to consider the SUV/4x4 ranges.
Also:
Smaller cars are made from thinner steel and are generally lighter. If you do have an accident in one you are more likely to be injured, with all the attendant medical and emergency services activities. I wonder what the footprint of those activities would be, and how it would compare to the larger footprint of the SUVs, with their higher fuel but lower emergency services costs?

 

A small point on big cars, the SUVs.
The EU has made it compulsory to have child seats if kids are being transported. It is virtually impossible to get 3 child seats into the back seat of a small or medium car, so people with families of 3+ kids are forced to consider the SUV/4x4 ranges.
Also:
Smaller cars are made from thinner steel and are generally lighter. If you do have an accident in one you are more likely to be injured, with all the attendant medical and emergency services activities. I wonder what the footprint of those activities would be, and how it would compare to the larger footprint of the SUVs, with their higher fuel but lower emergency services costs?

Utter rubbish.

Even a modern small car has bags of room for a child seat.

I recently had a Vauxhall corsa on hire and was amazed at the space inside more than enough for 3 kids.

Safety I think not You are 127 times more likely to be killed in an accident involving a 4 x 4 than a conventional car.

There is no place for this type of vehicle on our crowded roads.

Hazards include poor visibility for other drivers.Unstable handling.inferior braking,lack of impact safety features especially in regard to young children.

In all inferior vehicles made for people who feel inferior.

Earl

 

[Dawg]

Earl,
I'm sure I could find a small modern car to show you are wrong, but individual examples are facile and useless. My original argument stands.
Where does your 127 x argument come from? Can you back up such a specific claim? Or are you projecting?

 

Earl,
I'm sure I could find a small modern car to show you are wrong, but individual examples are facile and useless. My original argument stands.
Where does your 127 x argument come from? Can you back up such a specific claim? Or are you projecting?

Here's some to get on with ,I will try to find the report about 127 x more likely to be killed .

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/article1336504.ece

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4043959.stm

I take it you have one.?

Well if you really need a fashion accessory , buy yourself some new earrings.

Earl

 

[Dawg]

Here's some to get on with ,I will try to find the report about 127 x more likely to be killed .

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/article1336504.ece

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4043959.stm

I take it you have one.?

Well if you really need a fashion accessory , buy yourself some new earrings.

Earl

The first article shows that SUVs are more likely to topple over, which will come as no suprise to anyone who can see that an SUVs centre of gravity is higher than that of a normal car. The amount this matters is minimal overall as shown by the fuss made about the Merc A class and the Moose test: sure, if you had to swerve on an icy road at 60mph, and swerve radically to avoid a semi stationery object, a vehicle with a higher centre of gravity is more likely to topple over. This doesn't happen a lot.

Your second citation comes from a bunch of loonytoons; probably very nice people but economically illiterate, so why they call themselves The New Economic Foundation is a slight puzzle to anyone who has the time to give a ferk.

To give you more information about a point I raised, (and which you didn't question, merely skirted around), that of injury being more likely in a smaller car:
"Our data show, for instance, that when the larger vehicle is twice the mass of the other, the percentage of deaths in the lighter vehicle is about six times that in the heavier "
(Grime & Hutchison, Transport Studies Group, University College London. Link)

Your statement about needing a fashion accessory is laughable coming from a man who has a history of refering to past ownership of a Ferrari. For what it's worth I own a very mundane Volvo V70.

This is however all getting away from the point that perhaps not all eco-costings have been included in establishing the precise cost of SUVs. I personally dislike SUVs and think they are wasteful and a menace. I am however still interested in facts rather than blather, and like a (real) economist said: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir. " (Keynes).

 

Your statement about needing a fashion accessory is laughable coming from a man who has a history of refering to past ownership of a Ferrari. For what it's worth I own a very mundane Volvo V70.

This is however all getting away from the point that perhaps not all eco-costings have been included in establishing the precise cost of SUVs. I personally dislike SUVs and think they are wasteful and a menace. I am however still interested in facts rather than blather, and like a (real) economist said: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir. " (Keynes).

Oh I sit around picking me toes talking a load of bullsh*t.:|

Apologies for the fashion accessory comment ,as you obviously use a sensible vehicle.

But the quote about 4 x 4 being a fashion accessory still holds good.

And the dangers to users and other road users are irrefutable.

More here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4900000.stm

P.S with age comes wisdom hence ditching Ferrari's and getting something sensible.

Earl

 

[Chris Nowak]

Have you any idea how much water it would take to raise the North Sea 30 metres (or about 100 feet so the rest of us can understand)? I suspect you'd need a few tens of thousand times more icebergs than exist in the world today and have them all melt completely! And all because some of us like strawberries?

You just don't get it, do you?

Icebergs are the least of our worries. It's the so-called land based 'permanent ice' which will get us.

The Greenland ice sheet alone is enough to raise world sea levels by 7 metres if it all goes - and it's going fast NOW.

If Antartica goes, that's the end of the human race. No ifs, no buts... and definitely no strawberries.

 

You just don't get it, do you?

Icebergs are the least of our worries. It's the so-called land based 'permanent ice' which will get us.

The Greenland ice sheet alone is enough to raise world sea levels by 7 metres if it all goes - and it's going fast NOW.

If Antartica goes, that's the end of the human race. No ifs, no buts... and definitely no strawberries.

Would you like to provide some facts for these statements.?

Earl

 

[Dawg]

Would you like to provide some facts for these statements.?

Earl

Cor Earl, you don't have say some daft things sometimes..
Statements of the New Religion don't have to be proven, just accepted, then followed by the prayer:

Aaiiieeeee! We are all gonna die-a!
But, man ,don't you cry-a
Smoke this 'n' get high-a
And hug old Mother Gaia

 

[Ashley_Price]

As someone once said: If we follow what the Greens would like us to do and it turns out the anti-greens were correct, at least we will have a better world to live in.

However, if we follow those who believe nothing is going to happen and then it turns out the Greens were right... Oh dear!!

 

[Dawg]

As someone once said: If we follow what the Greens would like us to do and it turns out the anti-greens were correct, at least we will have a better world to live in.

However, if we follow those who believe nothing is going to happen and then it turns out the Greens were right... Oh dear!!

If "someone said" it, it doesn't necessarily make it true or even helpful.
Someone once said I should have a full service on my car every 25 miles. It goes very well but the expense has meant my children went to school barefoot and hungry.

 

[Chris Nowak]

Would you like to provide some facts for these statements.?

Earl

Sure, not that it will impress those who will not see... I'm not allowed to post external URLs, as I have not made enough posts on the site yet... but google 'Greenland/Antarctica melting' and you'll get any number of scientific papers and news reports.

The basic point here is that the precautionary principle - making decisions on the environment so as to be on the 'safe side' - is not accepted by those who believe they have some sort of divine, unchallengable right to a wasteful and polluting lifestyle.

Whenever I consider debates, I always look first to see whether one side or the other has some kind of vested, personal interest in maintaining their side of the argument, over and above the intrinsic 'value' of their arguments... here, the situation is pretty clear cut on that score.

 

[Dawg]

Sure, not that it will impress those who will not see... I'm not allowed to post external URLs, as I have not made enough posts on the site yet... but google 'Greenland/Antarctica melting' and you'll get any number of scientific papers and news reports.

The basic point here is that the precautionary principle - making decisions on the environment so as to be on the 'safe side' - is not accepted by those who believe they have some sort of divine, unchallengable right to a wasteful and polluting lifestyle.

Whenever I consider debates, I always look first to see whether one side or the other has some kind of vested, personal interest in maintaining their side of the argument, over and above the intrinsic 'value' of their arguments... here, the situation is pretty clear cut on that score.

I just luurve the moral high ground being taken here; and people wonder why a lot of the green argument is derided as religious...
So those who do not accept you are totally right "believe they have some sort of divine, unchallengeable right to a wasteful and polluting lifestyle"? Patronizing codswallop.
And as for the intrinsic pomposity of "I always look first to see whether one side or the other has some kind of vested, personal interest in maintaining their side of the argument, over and above the intrinsic 'value' of their arguments... here, the situation is pretty clear cut on that score."...people have reasons to believe, and how they do it huh? Also known as Cognitive Biases. Which you, natch, are free of.
As to the actual arguments: they are huge, varied, complex and multifaceted. Saying "I'm a scientist, believe me" has the same intellectual force as the man in the sixteenth century dress talking about the arcane attributes of his invisible friend.