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Not much time left to save the planet A global warming update here from London at the tail-end of June where the temperature has dropped to 14 C (57 F) and the forecast for tomorrow is heavy rain and possible flooding.
Proof that the world really is getting hotter! Curse you, man, and all your heavy industrial doings!
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
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But didn’t I read that warm-water dolphins are being seen further north in the northern hemisphere? Isn’t sea-water temperature another good long-term sign of a warming planet? (Good meaning reliable, in this case.)
A capable parody of global warming skeptics. Very nice.
– Josh
You show a wonderful ignorance of the current science of climate change.
“Global warming” refers to an average increase in temperature across the world and across the year. This does not mean that all temperatures will be uniformly higher. Some models predict greater extemes in both directions, which would certainly accord with low temperatures and rain in midsummer.
I love how there is so much “skepticism” about a very strong scientific consensus but so little skepticism about those with a direct interest in continuing to pollute at current levels, because they also happen to be free market capitalists.
“…those with a direct interest in continuing to pollute at current levels, because they also happen to be free market capitalists.”
You’re talking about me and my SUV.
You’re fuckin’-aye right.
“…those with a direct interest in continuing to pollute at current levels, because they also happen to be free market capitalists.”
And who would they be exactly, Patrick? I suspect that your answer will display a wonderful ignorance of free market capitalism.
“Global warming” refers to an average increase in temperature across the world and across the year.
An increase in temperature across the world? But any map will show that 2/3 of the planet’s surface is ocean — not many reliable temperature measurements there spanning the period of the last century or two. And much of the rest of the surface of the planet is unpopulated mountain & desert & jungle & polar caps — not too many reliable temperature measurements there from 100 years ago. Hell, 100 years ago no human being had ever set foot on the South Pole let alone measured its temperature! So how can some people be so sure that planetary temperatures are increasing?
While we don’t have good long-term surface temperature measurements over most of the planet’s surface, we do have a few decades worth of fairly reliable planet-wide satellite measurements of atmospheric temperature measurements — they show that the temperature of the stratosphere is trending lower. Which is not what most people understand by the term “global warming”.
The so-called “consensus” on this issue is a political fiction. The real scientists are still grappling with a series of very difficult issues revolving around the very sparse data set.
In the last week, the skeptics scored two goals.
The first was scored by a Canadian. Timothy Patterson, director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre at Carleton University in Ottawa, published an article conclusively demonstrating climate change is a permanent condition, that the Earth’s climate has never been stable.
Many times in the past the Earth’s climate has been far higher than it is today and, occasionally, temperatures were colder. As recently as 6,000 years ago, it averaged two degrees warmer than it does now.
Ten thousand years ago, mean temperatures rose as much as four degrees in a decade. That’s 100 times faster than the warming over the past century, which has so alarmed scientists who triggered the current hysteria.
What the sun does, rather than what man does with his carbon dioxide emissions, is what chiefly causes climate change, said Patterson.
He thereby ratified the theory of Russian scientists that global cooling and another ice age is a far greater threat than global warming.
Since carbon dioxide inhibits the escape of heat from the Earth, maybe the most environmentally friendly thing you could do would be to start each day by driving your SUV around the block four or five times to bolster carbon dioxide emissions and thus retard the Earth’s heat loss.
The second goal was far more devastating. It came with a book just published by Henrik Svensmark, director of the Centre for Sun Climate Research at the National Space Centre in Copenhagen. He calls it The Chilling Stars: A New Theory on Climate Change.
Like Patterson and the Russians, Svensmark contends the sun is a major factor in climate change, but he has been working for eight years to back this up with experimental proof.
He has established a laboratory in which the sun’s rays and Earth’s atmosphere have been set up in model, and the cosmic effects on the Earth thereby observed.
The results, detailed in the current issue of Discovery, the highly respected magazine of science, are startling. They show solar activity affects cloud formations on Earth, which in turn determine the Earth’s climate. Paradoxically, it seems meteorological conditions do not determine the cloud formations; rather, cloud formations determine meteorological conditions.
Since this gravely challenges the significance to the climate of man-made carbon dioxide, Svensmark found himself being assailed and deplored by his fellow-scientists, who accused him of being financed by “oil money.”
Almost all his funding, Sevnsmark retorted, comes from Denmark’s Carlsberg Foundation, which is funded by Carlsberg brewery, which sells beer, not oil.
If anything, Carlsberg would surely have a vested interest in global warming. It’s on the hot days that we drink the most beer.
The chairman of the UN’s Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, irate because Svensmark was upsetting the established scientific orthodoxy, condemned his book as “extremely naive and irresponsible.”
But the IPCC was itself under attack by then, for not being sufficiently hysterical in depicting the hideous consequences of global warming.
It seems Greenpeace released a study by a German academic who said there will be 200 million climate refugees by 2040.
The IPCC had merely said: “Unless drastic action is taken, millions of poor people will suffer from hunger, thirst, floods and disease.”
http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Columnists/Byfield_Ted/2007/06/24/4285924-sun.html
Patrick you seem to take the position that Global Warming is a fact and furthermore is anthropogenic. Fine and all that. You could very well be right on both accounts. I honestly am not certain in either direction. Given the rather wide ranges in Earth’s climate before man or even mammals, please forgive me if I’m not entirely convinced, just yet.
However, the thing that really annoys the hell out of me is this talk of *consensus*. Science isn’t a democracy. Science isn’t a conclusion. Science is a *process* Policy decisions ARE NOT SCIENCE. So long as there are holes in the theory/model science is still being done. When anyone, whether funded by big oil, big beer, or Big Bird comes up with credible arguments
that are not accounted for in the current model(s), they deserve to be heard and their findings debated.
Heavenly spheres and epicycles once had a very strong consensus. In fact, geocentricism has had a longer record of strong consensus than does “modern” heliocentricism. Some time around 2,700+ AD heliocentricism will finally have put in more “consensus” time than did Ptolemy’s work. Are you suggesting we should revert to the earlier model which had (has?!?!) more consensus?
Still not grasped the difference between weather and climate, then?
Come on people Show some respect for Patrick Batemen’s religion. You don’t want to mess with people’s religion – or they’ll be jumping up and down with banners shouting stuff like “Death to the Deniers!!”
On a related note. 😉 How can you expect to predict the weather in 50 year’s time – and be believed – when you can’t even get it right over a month, or two. I seem to recall reading predictions a little while back for the UK of the ‘driest hottest summer in years’. Tell it to Glastonbury…
It’s the same as the difference between water and wetness isn’t it?
Look at this image and tell me which shows the greatest correlation with temperature: the Sunspot cycle length or the CO2 concentration? (Image taken from one of Dr Paterson’s presentations through the Hall of Record)
By the way, my Climate-Change-alarmists, do not start talking about “correlation does not prove causality”; the studies concerning the relationship between the Sun and Earth’s climate give you that (for example, the cloud cover-cosmic ray experiments done by the Danish National Space Center among others).
Also, Nate is right: Science (at least the kind Newton, Rutherford and Feynman did) is not a democracy or subject to the consensus of experts. Science is the dictatorship of experimentation.
PS: Hey, that last sentence sounds good; I think I will use it more often…
There may well be global warning. (Ohhh, what an excellent Freudian slip! I’ll keep it.) It may even be anthropogenic.
However, I fail to see why this should give a bunch of politicians and socialites the right to tell me what I must and must not do. They want me to wear a hair-shirt, but too many of their hair-shirts, under close inspection, are silk-lined.
I’ve lived a while. Hasty and drastic action always has side effects, some of them bad. So far, the worst side-effect of global warming that I have seen is the occasional opossum on the streets of Minnesota. Ugly beasts – almost as ugly as moralists.
What is clear is, regardless of the science, the motivation from Government is control and taxation. I regard climate change as likely happening, but not proven anthropogenic. If the indicators show climate is changing, the “worst case” scenario is that we cannot reverse it and so must prepare for significant population and agrigultural shifts. Is that the focus? No.
To me, this would mean a massive push to reduce subsistence and non-industrial farming in areas likely to be affected. Urbanisation would permit more flexibility and mobility in the population over time and by its very nature have the infrastructure to feed people.
Almost all his funding, Sevnsmark retorted, comes from Denmark’s Carlsberg Foundation, which is funded by Carlsberg brewery, which sells beer, not oil.
Beer? Pretty much CO2+H2O last time I tried it.
The planet is just fine and it wants me to tell you that smelly hippies annoy it too.
The only thing that really threatens the earth is when the Sun goes nova.
The problem with Patrick’s argument is that wildly contradictory weather can be blamed on the same thing: global warming. I think it was Karl Popper who observed that a theory that is used to explain everything explains nothing. So, if Britain gets very hot, blame global warming. If Britain gets wet, cold, or it snows hard, or it does not snow, or whatever, blame global warming.
I don’t think we know enough about the transmission mechanisms – assuming that mechanism is the right word – of global temperature and specific forms of weather. All I can say is that the wet June we are experiencing now is not unusual. I watched The Longest Day film about the D-Day invasion of Normandy in 6 June, 1944, and the weather was crap then.
those with a direct interest in continuing to pollute at current levels, because they also happen to be free market capitalists.
Um,
Patrick,
The countries which have achieved most in repairing environmental degradation in the last one hundred years are those which are , um, free market capitalist. Chiefly the United States, followed by Western Europe (note the use of the qualifier “western” and the developed Anglosphere.
Those societies which were not free market capitalist were filthy, even, and especially, those which were economically developed but not free market.
Free market economies, in order to work, require a free market in both thought and information, therefore people are free to point out what is happening. Other types of economy have no such requirement, so information and ideas can be actively suppressed and people are gagged. In fact, Germany was able to approach its Kyoto obligations CO2 emissions only because it inherited all those environmentally catastrophic factories in the East which it had to close down in order to protect the lungs of the local residents.
If you want a clean environment, then work towards making the society open and free market. The alternative is the Aral Sea, Eastern Ukraine and Linfen City.
“Global warming” refers to an average increase in temperature across the world and across the year. This does not mean that all temperatures will be uniformly higher. Some models predict greater extemes in both directions, which would certainly accord with low temperatures and rain in midsummer.
Now, am I being a little dim here, or is there a bit of a math problem here?
If the models are predicting greater extremes in both directions, then wouldn’t they also be showing a null effect on the total outcome? e.g. -10 + +10 = 0
I was also reading a great article from the people who actually know something about statistics and forecasting – (Link)
It is very interesting that the debating skills of the man made global warming lobby is so poor, that they have resorted to name calling and loose personal attacks or just plain censorship. However, even after proving that Gloomy warning (that one’s mine!) is actually a sun based issue, getting the politicians to remove their taxes might be impossible!
I’m absolutely speechless. Has Mr Bateman quit killing 1980s NYC hookers and decided to menace my Billy Goat Gruff.
I love how there is so much “skepticism” about a very strong scientific consensus
1, There is no scientific consensus. It is a myth, it doesn’t exist.
2, If it did, so what? Science does not work by consensus. consensus is not a scientific tool. Science works via question and observation, consensus has no role whatsoever.
3, Consensus is a tool of politics. On AGW there is a political consensus, but that is not a sufficient basis to convince me of the validity of the policies which are being put forward.
4, Georges Monbiot, Polly Toynbee, John Prescott, Tim Flannery, Phillip Adams and Senator Bob Brown wanting to control my life is just a fact of life, nothing surprising there. Given that controlling others is their raison detre, can you understand that I tend to be somewhat cynical about their latest bete noire. Especially given the quantity of evidence now emerging which tends to indicate they are increasingly in denial over the cause of climate change.
Patrick Bateman,
When Dubya became president US Gov funding for climate science was 200 million USD pa. It is now 8 billion bucks pa. Rearrange two words: “barrel”, “pork”.
Now, I dunno what you do for a living but if, in the space of less than eight years you could get a forty-fold increase in the funding for it wouldn’t you sing hosannas with the choir too?
Me, I’d almost be tempted to sing a whole Hallulujah Chorus. Because I fix computers and this is the equivalent of me being able to rake in 1600GBP for a bloody call-out because some daft bugger has wiped their C: drive.
What we have here is a convergence of interests, not a consensus (though I agree with Chris Harper et al on how that ain’t science).
You know how the Emporor was caught out for parading in the nip? I think a major part of that fable is lost on most folk. The little boy is the one who calls the Emporor for being in the buff, not any of the rest of the “consensus” because they all have vested interests and the kid doesn’t.
It’s a complete con. And the IPCC (which is spoken of in hushed tones of reverance) is so fucking far from being a proper scientific body that it is a sick joke. You do know that in order to get that “broad international consensus” they had to have delegates from all UN member states regardless of whether these folk knew the first goddamn thing about climatology, ecology or solar-system or fluid mechanics. Jesus Horatio Christ on a sodding hybrid-powered unicycle some of those people were probably only in it for a beany to New York in an aeroplane.
D’ya ever wonder why fuckwits in Islington or Berkeley seem to agitate more about the melting ice-caps than the Inuit? Do you ever wonder why these people are against nuclear power and think that not leaving the telly on stand-by will solve the whole mess?
I leave you with a final sobering thought. The USA consumes aproximately a quarter of the world’s power. Completely co-incidently the USA also generates about a quarter of the globe’s GDP. That’s money to spend, money to lend and schools, hospitals and not dying of those terribly amusing tropical diseases in your twenties. Wealth is good. Wealth requires energy because energy enables you to provide goods and services.
So tell ya what. You can either live in my world or you can fuck off to Somalia and make a living excising the external genitals of pre-teen girls with a broken Coke bottle. Cos ya know, that’s a deeply traditional and remarkably carbon-neutral existance. Hell, reusing that bottle is even better than recycling it. Or you could bunk-up with the Gorefice in his TN mansion though I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Even you.
For those who may be interested, a bit of reading I have been doing over the weekend –
I am not really in a position to judge the content of this, but I am reasonably impressed by the credentials of the authors –
http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/warmaudit31.pdf
If this is valid, it rips apart the IPCC forecasts.
The IPCC’s “broad international consensus” is less than it seems; Dr David Bellamy and others have tried to withdraw their names from the report but I believe the names still appear; one wonders whether there may be others who have severe reservations but have stopped short of publically disassociating themselves.
Totally off topic, but when I read American Psycho I came to the conclusion that Patrick Bateman was a fantasist; he didn’t really commit the murders etc, merely “dreamt” them (it does at least explain how he was able to escape his one close shave so easily, and the matter of the guy he killed who later had dinner with someone else).
Just for the sake of adding more links to this list of comments, here’s a great expose of the obviously flawed premise of GW: here. Mind you, this is might not be credible in itself because of the hosting or author, but the charts and facts reported are not by any means controversial, merely under reported. Why is no one talking about these obvious facts?
Oh please, please tell me global warming is true.
I am planning on retiring to New Hampshire.
I am COUNTING on global warming.
It is clear to me that Kyoto etc is just a variation of Directive 10289.
Awesomely literal, too; you couldn’t invent this.
As others have written, science does not depend on consensus — experiment rules. On the other hand, politics normally works by consensus — peoples’ agreeement over the EU excepted.
Also, markets work on consensus — and in particular the price of land. When speculators push up the price of land in the Antarctic region or the Falkland Islands to higher than that of Manhatten Island we can be sure that global warming is truely taking place. Until then, relax.
Nick M.- you are missing that they have been outflanking you since the ‘one world’ vomit of the 80s.
They would argue that your ‘consumption’ has an adverse effect on Somalia too.
(Help yourself to another guilt-trip baby).
The problem was that at the time, instead of the CIA/AFL-CIO getting the credit for icing communism in Eastern Europe, the one-worlders were allowed to claim the ‘people power’ card, so now they have a lot of ‘also-ran’ kudos.
We need to be reminded of this.
Any coherent Maggie/Ronnie types out there?
pietr,
I have to say I’m a bit vague as to what you’re getting at. For one thing I’m buggered if I know what the AFL-CIO is/was.
And the odds on me doing an Angelina Jolie are remarkably long.
Harm Somalia? I’d rather have my legs amputated with the rusty tin opener at the back of the drawer than even set foot there.
But I think essentially we’re singing from the same sheet.
Gawd dammit though, these people give me the right fucking hump.
That’s my reading of it too.
First of all, I am a statistician who gets paid a lot of money by the world’s largest telecommunication company to predict the future, so I know my principal components from Poisson distribution.
Second, the earth has warmed 0.6C in 100 years. The standard deviation of global temps is 0.7C. So the warming is within the margin of error. Amazing how a politician who is behind by 2 points in a poll with +/_ 3 points margin of error says no big deal, but when temperature change is within the margin of error, we must destroy our economy.
Finally, my new ride, Mercedes CLK55AMG is only getting around 14MPG around town, so my carbon footprint has exploded. I am so happy!!
“Science is a dictatorship of data” has illiteration that might make it catch on more.
Nick M-‘10289′(I hope I remembered the number correctly)was the government directive in Atlas Shrugged which attempted to dictate that business activity levels would be forever frozen at the previous years’.
AFL-CIO is an American trade union.
In partnership with the CIA in the 80s it flooded Poland with smuggled printing presses to enable Solidarity to reach the general population.
“…those with a direct interest in continuing to pollute at current levels, because they also happen to be free market capitalists.”
As contrasted perhaps with “those with a direct interest in expanding governmental powers in response to imaginary threats because they also happen to be socialists.”
Global warming doesn’t just cause *warming* you know. It also causes puffed up retarded fat men to visit your city selling books.
Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. — Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.
So much for “consensus.”
And full marks to all above who pointed out that one man with dispositive data trumps 100,000 men with opinions, the consensus notwithstanding.
From their website “American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) is a voluntary federation of 55 national and international labor unions.”
Jerry, does your Mercedes CLK55AMG have a 5.5 liter engine in a 2 door model? Beats my VW Jetta TDI 5 speed stick. If your ever in South Jersey (New Jersey, USA) and want to trade, let me know.
As climate changes and the waters rise, how is the Corps of Engineers going to keep New Orleans’ nostrils above water?
Change “If your ever in South Jersey” to “If you are ever in South Jersey”.
As climate changes and the waters rise, how is the Corps of Engineers going to keep New Orleans’ nostrils above water?
Looking over some of the comments posted here, perhaps we should be more concerned with Global Dumbass than anything else.
Global dumbass never changes. Fifty percent of everybody is always below average.
Porkov, 2:32 and 2:37 “As climate changes and the waters rise, how is the Corps of Engineers going to keep New Orleans’ nostrils above water?”
About half of the population has already left as a result of Katrina/Rita, so this problem is partly solved. The rest could be evacuated in a week or so. Why our tax dollars are squandered to keep piling dirt around that city to keep it dry is a mystery to me, anyway. Better to move the whole place upriver to higher ground (meaning above current sea level.)
Difference between weather and climate: When it is hot, it is climate, when it is cold, it is weather.
“Global warming” refers to an average increase in temperature across the world and across the year.
Well, if this statement is true, then rejoice. Global warming has stopped.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/obsdata/globaltemperature.html
This is why you never hear anything more about global temperatures. Now the melting Arctic gets all the attention.
Just odd, that’s all, how the warmers keep changing the specific topic for discussion, but their conclusions never change. They always “move on” (remember the Hockey Stick?) when their latest claim gets debunked.
BTW, we ignorant people are still waiting for the ozone hole to heal.
As you recall, the Montreal treaty to ban chemicals causing the ozone hole was to serve as a model for other climate treaties, to fight climate change for example.
Regarding the ozone hole, like any good religion, we are told to wait. Rapture is coming soon, but, not in the lifetime of anybody reading this blog.
Difference between weather and climate: When it is hot, it is climate, when it is cold, it is weather.
Don’t forget its trendy corollary: When it is hot, it is global warming. When it is cold, it is global warming.
Well, I’m convinced!
At one time there was concluded a consensus on how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. When the ‘global warming’ fanatics announce that there is now a consensus, I can envision them all wearing priestly robes and making somber assessments on angels and pins.
Porkov @2:37
The waters aren’t rising. The IPCC has apparently been cherry picking the data to make it look like they’re going up.
Bunch of crooks if you ask me.
Another factor in this might be that a lot of the temperature stations are now located in urban “heat islands” and show the rise in temperature of those specific areas due to “micro-site conditions.
More here and here.
I always try to overcome my own biases when faced with complex issues like this (sure, I have my own instincts as to who is right, but who am I to trust instinct?), and am always slightly annoyed when one side repeats something that the other has addressed. It’s probably worth skimming lists like this to make sure your favourite sceptic position isn’t an old, debunked one (or at least, what the counter-arguments are).
“The waters aren’t rising. The IPCC has apparently been cherry picking the data to make it look like they’re going up.”
But its the UN! What else would you expect?
Are we dead yet?
That “How to talk to a global warming skeptic” link is little more than a collection of rhetorical answers to real questions, IMHO.
Unless it has been greatly improved since the last time I looked.
I won’t respond to the whole site, but will be happy to respond to any particular arguments from the site that any of the “flat climate” believers here choose to advance as particularly compelling.
A “flat climater” by the way is somebody who believes either that were it not for mankind, climate would be unchanging, or that climate change is a property of the past and that the present is “priviledged” and cannot change without human intervention.
Danny, you’d do better to read the posts at overcomingbias, unless you’re looking for a good laugh at gristmills list of goofy rhetorical arguments.
I guess it took me an hour longer to get to the bottom of the thread than moptop. I did read the forcasting paper though. It’s what I would have predicted.
Surely, Blackminorca, that is ‘are we nearly dead yet?”
And the answer is, ‘not quite!There is hope!Kyoto-Man is on his way!’
There really isn’t much more anyone can say about global warming, or climate change for when it’s cold. The deniers will point out that the argument it is all our fault (“the consensus”) has more holes than a net and therefore Case Not Proved, while the ones claiming we are all doomed if not later today then certainly tomorrow will continue on their way regardless.
So here’s the choice, folks: you can either be miserable and anxious and agitating for more taxation and passing blame around for the state of the planet while sitting in the dark, or you can simply enjoy life.
After all there’s a fair chance whatever happens, Momma Earth will carry on.
So here’s the choice, folks: you can either be miserable and anxious and agitating for more taxation and passing blame around for the state of the planet while sitting in the dark, or you can simply enjoy life.
Here! Here! Exactly why I have my 5.5 litre 2 door Merc. I fart in that Prious’ general direction!
probably worth skimming lists like this to make sure your favourite sceptic position
Funny stuff. Seriously. I loved this:
That is the biggest bunch of contradictory mismash
I’ ve ever read.
But then again, when you put your faith in models which are being fed incorrect data on purpose, what would you expect?
Presumably most of you would agree that a man can kill himself by running his car engine and piping the exhaust in to the cabin.
Presumably most of you would accept that a gas leak inside a building can also kill people.
You will probably recall the terrible Union Carbine accident in Bhopal, India, which killed many people in the surrounding area.
No doubt many of you are aware of smog and the severe impact on health and the environment it can have in a regional area.
So why, when your senses tell you that we have the capability to significantly degrade the ability to sustain life of a small space (car), large space (building), city (Bhopal), and region (around LA, Hong Kong, Sydney, just about any big city), do so many of you have absolute faith in the notion that we could not possibly do the same to a planet, and not a particularly big planet at that?
I am not referring to whether or not climate change is currently happening. I am referring to this rather alarming streak of supposed skeptics who seem to hold the dogmatic belief that the Earth is somehow “so big” that we couldn’t possibly damage the global climate if we tried. Why the hell not? Is is not a finite size? Does it, unlike every smaller system, have the ability to sustain infinite pollution with no effect?
Furthermore, I am yet to hear a compelling socio-political argument as to what the “agenda” of people falsely claiming that climate change is happening is supposed to be? I can identify a clear motive for denying that there is a problem (fewer environmental restrictions = greater profit) but I do not see what anyone gets out of pretending there is a problem when there is not. It is noteworthy in my opinion that those politicians most fond of employing the scare tactic have been amongst the last to acknowledge this issue (e.g. George Bush, John Howard).
There it is ! You “have faith”, you “believe” that man can do harm. Maybe your belief is correct. Maybe man can do harm.
But the question is not what CAN happen, but what IS happening. It’s not a question of beliefs, but of facts; facts are things that are measured, not believed.
Climate predictions 100 years ahead can be debated ad infinitum (like the thread the other day that debated whether there is an afterlife).
Climate change, as measured SO FAR, is well within normal, recorded, past fluctuations, and there is no factual indication (as opposed to belief) of impending catastrophe.
PB,
I gave you a socio-political “agenda”. Follow the money. Look at what tax-breaks companies get for investing in “renewables”. But as I also said there isn’t a single agenda here. It is a convergence of interests. Climatologists and allied scientists have had a huge hike in funding, “Greens” are no longer seen as whacked-out hippies with dubious personal hygiene but are now valued advisors to the great and powerful, the old left use it as a stick to beat the Great Satan, America, vacuous agnostics use it to fill their “god-shaped hole”, posh folk see a grand justification to prevent plebs from being able to afford hoildays the same places they like to go, Al Gore (who is basically a failed politician) sees it as a way to remain important, more succesful politicians see it as a way to rake in tax yet still seem benevolent. And of course there is the lunatic fringe of neo-primitavists.
Osama bin Laden even cited the US’s failiure to ratify Kyoto as partial justification for 9/11.
It’s a cause we can all believe in regardless of what we believe. It can be justified by worship of the Earth Mother and it can be justified by worship of the Koranic Allah despite the fact that if you locked a muslim fundy and some Wiccan GROLIE in a lift together for long enough blood would hit the ceiling.
Now, in principle, I do appreciate that we could screw the environment globally. I just don’t believe the standard CO2 “we are all doomed” line. I just don’t buy it. Your progressive argument from analogy (sometimes a fruitful way to think but bear in mind it proves zilch by itself) is all over the place. CO is toxic in an enclosed space (although since the introduction of catalytic convertors it’s actually quite difficult to off oneself in the way you describe), methyl isocyanate is also toxic and diesel particulates and assorted other products of combustion aren’t good to breathe but quite what any of that has to do with a theory of global warming is beyond me.
A bullet can kill a man, a hurricane can devestate a city and a big earthquake can flatten a region. A meteor strike can cause a mass extinction and a nearby supernova would be game over but so what – they’re all different things. All you’re saying is that chemicals can be harmful. Well, yes, obviously, and your point is? I’ve known PhD level chemists and they were clever people who spent years learning the job because you know what? Chemicals are all different from each other. Chemistry – there’s a whole helluva a lot of it. I’d be a lot more impressed if you’d stuck to the same chemical and taken it from mere murder to flat-out genocide. As it is your argument sounds like something EL Wisty might spout under the blanket title of “Interesting Facts”.
I do not see what anyone gets out of pretending there is a problem when there is not.
Sigh,
So when all environmental problems are solved Greenpeace, FOE and all the various Green Parties will take down the whiteboards, sell off the computers, close the offices, cease cruising the international meeting circuit and retire into satisfied obscurity?
Really?
Sorry, but I ceased to believe anything Greenpeace had to say, on any topic, when they blew the non issue of Brent Spar into an international call for action for no better reason than they were short of cash and a pointless campaign over a nonexistent problem was a fine antidote to this, what with all the publicity and gullible little old grannies thereby scratching a couple of pennies from their pensions to give to these lying, dishonest, deceitful examples of female genitalia.
Do you really believe that there are no people out there who would not hijack an existing movement and infrastructure in order to get a bit of power?
Hasn’t every Australian and British party leader in the last one hundred years done precisely this?
How about –
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken
“Osama bin Laden even cited the US’s failiure to ratify Kyoto as partial justification for 9/11.”
This is just part of the jihadi radicals playing to the American left, to win a political victory in America that will hopefully lead to the appearance of an Al-Qaeda victory in the Middle-East.
Imagine, all of my John Lennon lovers out there, America pulls troops out of Saudi Arabia (already done), pulls out of Iraq (working on it), supports Hamas and the Palestinians (they’re getting aid, no? gotta love the non-militant militants), disses Israel (getting there), only to find that none of it matters, Al-Qaeda has numerous new grievances, a list which we know will never shrink or disappear.
And about Global Warming ~ it exists, but which came first, the chicken or the egg? The Temperature Rise or the CO2? Mars is getting warmer too; I think Martians need to stop driving SUVs and building multiple homes, each new one being bigger and less efficient than than the last. And it’s okay Martians, as long as you have carbon off-sets, making you relatively “carbon nuetral,” perhaps even “negative.” But if you’re an American Patriot who cares about the environment, you can’t build an expensive but environmentally friendly home without taking fire and being a hypocrite ~ and I’m not talking about Gore (search the Texas White House). What a ZOO we have here.