Politics.ie
Advertise on Politics.ie

Go Back   Politics.ie > Topical Discussion > Environment

Hey there!

It looks like you're enjoying Politics.ie but haven't created an account yet. Why not take a minute to register for your own free account now? As a member you get free access to all of our forums and posts plus the ability to post your own messages, communicate directly with other members and much more. Joining Politics.ie is completely free. Register now!

Already a member? Login at the top of this page to stop seeing this message.

Global Warming Denial in a Nutshell

This is a discussion on Global Warming Denial in a Nutshell within the Environment forums, part of the Topical Discussion category on Politics.ie. Originally Posted by ibis There's nearly 40 years worth of evidence and scientific investigation, starting back with some very fumbling ...

Reply
 
LinkBack Thread Tools Display Modes
  #21 (permalink)  
Old 11th February 2009
Politics.ie Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Dublin
Posts: 1,631
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by ibis View Post
There's nearly 40 years worth of evidence and scientific investigation, starting back with some very fumbling stuff right back in the early 1970's. That people don't know that indicates they haven't bothered informing themselves properly, not that the science isn't there.
There is not one shred of evidence that I and I'm sure YOU are aware of that positively proves that the phenomena known as "climate change" is occurring. I challenge you to post links to any source you have.
Reply With Quote

Advertise on Politics.ie

  #22 (permalink)  
Old 11th February 2009
Politics.ie Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 308
Default

Apparently the planet has been cooling for the last 10 years which is a bit of an inconvenient truth for the global warming zealots.
Reply With Quote
  #23 (permalink)  
Old 11th February 2009
fionnmccool's Avatar
Politics.ie Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Posts: 1,864
Default

Mother Nature herself is denying Global Warming, having the nerve and absolute cheek to freeze our asses off this winter and soak us with rain last summer instead of obeying the religious dogma of 'trendy', 'with-it', 'insider' Eco Fascists and baking us.
Reply With Quote
  #24 (permalink)  
Old 11th February 2009
Politics.ie Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Dublin
Posts: 17,704
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hazlitt View Post
There is not one shred of evidence that I and I'm sure YOU are aware of that positively proves that the phenomena known as "climate change" is occurring. I challenge you to post links to any source you have.
It's not mathematics - there's no equation that simply 'proves' climate change.

What we have instead is observed changes in the climate, and a bunch of climate models that show the best fit to those observations as being the greenhouse effects of anthropogenic emissions. That's what we've got - what we don't have is any remaining good explanations for those observations that don't involve our emissions.
__________________
Never let the best be the enemy of the good.
Reply With Quote
  #25 (permalink)  
Old 11th February 2009
Politics.ie Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 308
Default

The anthropogenic proportion of all the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere is miniscule. Coupled with that, (although admittedly a powerful one), CO2 accounts for about 5% of all the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. There is scientific evidence found in ice cores which shows that dramatic and rapid climate change, over a period of mere decades, is nothing new.
Reply With Quote
  #26 (permalink)  
Old 11th February 2009
Politics.ie Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Dublin
Posts: 17,704
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Easy Tiger View Post
The anthropogenic proportion of all the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere is miniscule. Coupled with that, (although admittedly a powerful one), CO2 accounts for about 5% of all the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. There is scientific evidence found in ice cores which shows that dramatic and rapid climate change, over a period of mere decades, is nothing new.
All of which means exactly nothing, because nobody claimed that any of that was not the case.

Yes, the proportion of our emissions compared to natural emissions is small (not miniscule) - but the difference is that the rest of the natural emissions are balanced out by natural disposal, while ours isn't. So ours accumulates, whereas the rest is disposed of.

Yes, CO2 is less than 5% of the greenhouse gas in the atmosphere (it's not a particularly powerful one, though). However, the majority of the greenhouse effect is provided by water vapour, which has an atmospheric residence time of ten days. That means that the water vapour in the atmosphere is a result of the planet being warm. That means that while water vapour contributes to a greenhouse effect, it cannot drive it - fortunately, since if that were possible, water vapour in the atmosphere would have led to a feedback effect that would have boiled off the oceans several billion years ago.

Yes, significant climate change can take place over a couple of decades, and has done so at the start of ice ages. However, we know why those shifts have happened - they're the result of planetary cycles like the Milankovitch cycle. None of those causes are currently operating sufficiently to produce the effects we're seeing.

All of this stuff has been studied. It may be new to you, but it's not new to climate scientists, geologists, palaeoclimatologists, and the others who have studied it over the last 40 years.

The reason you don't see climate skeptic bloggers coming out with detailed models of how the current solar changes produce the observed current changes in climate is because they don't. It's a hand-waving explanation - "look, solar changes - ergo, they must be the cause!". The solar changes have been factored in. The water vapour has been factored in. Volcanic emissions have been factored in. Ozone has been factored in. Sulphates have been factored in. The modelled effects of greenhouse gas forcing is the best explanation for the majority of the effect we observe.

Here's the picture of the attribution of the effects:



You only have two rational choices here - either the consensus of climate scientists is false (they're either lying, or there is some completely mysterious mechanism they've totally failed to spot which exactly mimics the expected effects of greenhouse emissions), or there's a 95%+ (IPCC probability level) that anthropogenic emissions are causing rapid climate changes unprecedented in human history. There is no middle ground of 'insufficient data' left. That's why governments have finally got up off their arses and are actually doing something - if little, and late.
__________________
Never let the best be the enemy of the good.

Last edited by ibis; 11th February 2009 at 01:48 AM.
Reply With Quote
  #27 (permalink)  
Old 11th February 2009
Politics.ie Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 308
Default

Anthropogenic CO2 is miniscule, I could google it but I won't bother. Also why is CO2 the baddie of all the greenhouse gases, when a cow produces more greenhouse gas in a day than your average car? How is the cow's emmissions balanced out? Why has the planet been cooling for the last decade, contrary to global warming forecasts? There is an industry of globall warming science, driven by a political agenda, doing very nicely out of this. As you mentioned it, solar flares have better predicted climate change than global warming science.
Reply With Quote
  #28 (permalink)  
Old 11th February 2009
Politics.ie Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Dublin
Posts: 17,704
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Easy Tiger View Post
Anthropogenic CO2 is miniscule, I could google it but I won't bother. Also why is CO2 the baddie of all the greenhouse gases, when a cow produces more greenhouse gas in a day than your average car? How is the cow's emmissions balanced out? Why has the planet been cooling for the last decade, contrary to global warming forecasts? There is an industry of globall warming science, driven by a political agenda, doing very nicely out of this. As you mentioned it, solar flares have better predicted climate change than global warming science.
Variously:

1. CO2 isn't the 'baddie' - other greenhouse gases are expressed in CO2 equivalent, so that's the unit used
2. The cow's emissions aren't balanced out - there's just no political will to tackle agricultural emissions.
3. The planet hasn't been cooling for the last decade - where are you getting that claim from? It's expected to plateau for a while, because the current expected natural climate cycle is a decadal cooling one - so, with warming, we plateau for a bit.
4. As I mentioned it, solar activity has no such "better predicted climate change". They have an effect, which has been taken into consideration, and which doesn't explain the observed changes.
5. There is a growing industry taking advantage of the need to shift to greener power, and to reduce emissions - it's a byproduct of the now 10-15 year old policy changes, which are a byproduct of the now 40 year old scientific research.

It's impossible to convince people who want to think it's a scam. I wish they were right, but the chance of that being the case is about 1 in 100 at this stage. The scientific community was aware of what was probably happening long before either policy-makers accepted it, or industry saw value in it - anyone is welcome to order themselves some back-issues of something like New Scientist from 20 years ago - they are full of complaints from the scientific community that their warnings are being ignored, and that they needed proper funding. You want to continue to ignore the warnings until you're "convinced" that we're up the creek, but the argument has moved on to finding paddles.
__________________
Never let the best be the enemy of the good.
Reply With Quote
  #29 (permalink)  
Old 11th February 2009
Politics.ie Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Dublin NSide and Belfast 15
Posts: 17,517
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by ibis View Post
It's impossible to convince people who want to think it's a scam. I wish they were right, but the chance of that being the case is about 1 in 100 at this stage.
Where are you getting this statistic from?


Quote:
Originally Posted by ibis View Post
The scientific community was aware of what was probably happening long before either policy-makers accepted it, or industry saw value in it - anyone is welcome to order themselves some back-issues of something like New Scientist from 20 years ago - they are full of complaints from the scientific community that their warnings are being ignored, and that they needed proper funding.
It wasn't much longer ago than that we were being treated to global freezing doom mongering by the self-same cohort.
You've grudgingly admitted that all your 'evidence' is based on modelling. It's demonstrable that the planet is not warming currently even as output of anthropogenic greenhouse gases grows.
I echo the sentiments quoted in the first post.
__________________
Please sign the petition to establish a national day of celebration in honour of the vision of the United Irishmen!

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.


To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.


To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Reply With Quote
  #30 (permalink)  
Old 11th February 2009
Politics.ie Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Dublin
Posts: 17,704
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by JCSkinner View Post
Where are you getting this statistic from?
The IPCC's 95%+ probability, assumed to be conservative. because of the way the IPCC process works.

Quote:
Originally Posted by JCSkinner View Post
It wasn't much longer ago than that we were being treated to global freezing doom mongering by the self-same cohort.
It was the 1970's - and consisted of one researcher and a whole lot of journos.

Quote:
Originally Posted by JCSkinner View Post
You've grudgingly admitted that all your 'evidence' is based on modelling.
I've grudgingly admitted to myself that what people want is an equation or something equally simple that "proves" climate change.

Quote:
Originally Posted by JCSkinner View Post
It's demonstrable that the planet is not warming currently even as output of anthropogenic greenhouse gases grows.
It's demonstrable that it is - that's what all the data shows.

Quote:
Originally Posted by JCSkinner View Post
I echo the sentiments quoted in the first post.
There's a shock. Your "skepticism" is unassailable by mere science.
__________________
Never let the best be the enemy of the good.
Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
environmentalism, green fascism

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
What Global Warming?. Champa Environment 11 9th December 2009 02:17 AM
Global Warming descartes Environment 33 6th December 2009 06:13 PM
Global warming?....global cooling actually DS-09 Environment 110 22nd October 2009 04:37 PM
Global Warming miki Environment 4 25th February 2008 12:34 PM
Should Global Warming/Climate Change denial be a crime?. Champa Environment 35 25th October 2007 01:27 PM


Advertise on Politics.ie

All times are GMT. The time now is 03:48 PM.