The Great Global Warming Swindle

[Manxman In Exile]

The point is this: The overwhealming bulk of the science so far suggests that a decsion must be made now. Yes more studies should be conducted, and yes we should not consider the present reports the definitive answer on the matter of mankind's contribution to global warming - no one is arguing the contrary of this- but that does not then imply that we should ignore the scientific evidence that says something needs to be done now just in case, as the current evidence suggests, the predictions turn out to be correct.

 

This reminds me of all the predictions and "scientific" studies of what was going to happen when the year changed from 1999 to 2000 - it was called the "Millenium Bug" at the time. All the serious scientific evidence and all the experts said that lights would go out, planes would fall from the sky etc, and look what happened. We spent millions globally doing Year 2000 testing, and for what? Joe Blogg's video recorder being unable to be programmed and bugger all else. The company I worked for spent £10,000 (ish) employing the services of a firm of specialist Year 2000 testers, a complete waste. Now "experts" are telling us the same sort of thing is going to happen with the climate unless we support the Global Warming Industry.

[Slim]

Yes, that's exactly the same thing. Not.

 

You're suggesting everything that's ever going to go wrong is projected by the same experts, no matter what it is> And if those predictions don't materialise, then all future predictions are bollocks.

 

You're a sharp guy surely, you can see the foolishness of comparing a computing issue (that was largely driven by paid consultants) and a climate issue (that's largely driven by independant scientists), right?

 

That's like saying your financial advisor predicted a stock market crash that didn't happen, so you've decided your doctors talking arse when he tells you about some treatment you urgently need...

[Chinahand]

Also - its a rather brave statement to say that nothing would have happened due to Y2K problems if all those IT consultants had been ignored.

 

Were millions really spent unnecessarily? Or was it that there were few problems because millions had been spent. In some cases the checks found no problems - in others problems were found and rectified - that is what precautionary checks are all about!

 

You are saying there were no Y2K issues in your company - are you sure - zero code altered in your entire system? And you are saying cos you had no problems no one else would have had any either.

 

That makes sense - not.

[VinnieK]

This reminds me of all the predictions and "scientific" studies of what was going to happen when the year changed from 1999 to 2000 - it was called the "Millenium Bug" at the time. All the serious scientific evidence and all the experts said that lights would go out, planes would fall from the sky etc, and look what happened. We spent millions globally doing Year 2000 testing, and for what? Joe Blogg's video recorder being unable to be programmed and bugger all else. The company I worked for spent £10,000 (ish) employing the services of a firm of specialist Year 2000 testers, a complete waste. Now "experts" are telling us the same sort of thing is going to happen with the climate unless we support the Global Warming Industry.

 

Firstly, the comparison doesn't really hold. The Y2K bug was based mainly on theoretic conjecture regarding programming, Global Warming on the other hand has a wealth of studies behind it providing a considerably more solid base of physical evidence for its hypotheses.

 

Secondly, it's not like the Y2K scare was, as you say, a complete waste. It acted as an impetuous for businesses and organizations to build greater redundancy and improvement of their systems that should have been in place anyway. During the U.S. blackouts a few years back, preparations for Y2K allowed power companies to re-establish supply quicker than they otherwise would have been able, and it's been suggested that similar preparations aided the U.S. government and global companies based in New York to limit the chaos (both logistical and physical) caused by 9/11. The same holds true for global warming: if in the eventuality that it turns out that the threat is overstated, we will at least have started valuable work regarding conservation and more efficient use of resources, as well as potentially providing the catalyst for worthwhile investment into diversifying our potential sources of energy.

 

The obvious contempt with which you regard expert opinion, quotation marks and all, is mystifying. Do you recommend that we instead ignore all such warnings and that our policy makers blindly mash out legislation at the last possible moment? If we are to ignore experts, or even if we just regard them with a kind of unyielding skepticism, that is the only alternative bar praying for guidance and casting bones.

 

At the end of the day, we cannot predict the future; we can, however, gather an indication of what the future may hold in store for us, as those scientists working on climate research have done, and in such cases where a threat is perceived it is simply common sense for society to seek some kind of insurance. On occassion we may find that such indications were, to a lesser or greater degree, inaccurate, but that is no reason to slouch into the grey, fatalist lethargy you recommend. To do so runs the risk of sacrificing the future for no better reasons than a curmudgeonly distrust of experts and a desire to save money in the short term. Were the fate of humanity left to such conservativism, civilization would never have risen beyond the dark ages.

 

In my mind, science has a track record illustrious enough for trust to survive whatever examples of previous error or inaccuracy may be thrown at it. Others will invariably disagree, to whom I ask: if we dismiss science and its experts out of hand, what are we then left with upon which to base our decisions? Nothing but glorified mysticism and knee jerk reactions.

[Manxman In Exile]

Oh come on Albert - you've plotted THREE met stations and are already claiming you've got a counter theory for global warming - is your increase statistically significant? what's your R-squared value. Have you done a t-test to see if there is a significant difference between earlier and later data sets?

 

As I've posted before The University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit has the world's most extensive and accurate database of metrological information. These people don't just take temperatures from the UK, but from around the world.

 

This is the undated info right up to the end of 2006:

 

 

This site give info on the time series:

 

The time series shows the combined global land and marine surface temperature record from 1850 to 2006. The year 2006 was sixth warmest on record, exceeded by 1998, 2005, 2003, 2002 and 2004.

 

The record is being continually up-dated and improved (see Brohan et al., 2006). This paper includes a new and more thorough assessment of errors, recognizing that these differ on annual and decadal timescales. Increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to human activities are most likely the underlying cause of warming in the 20th century.

 

I thought this series of graphics all from the latest IPCC report put things into context pretty well.

 

Most interesting for me were charts 8 and 9 giving changes in summer and winter rainfall - 20% changes for the UK. That's alot.

 

 

Can you just clarify some things for me? Your graph is of temperature anomalies against time, that is a variation from a normal, which is set as the reference temperature. Who decided what the normal temperature on which to calculate the variances should be, and how was this done? Also, according to the differences shown on your graph the earth would appear to have been too cold between 1850 and approximately 1978 and was just warming up to its normal temperature anyway. This process has continued, according to your data.

 

Finally, how accurate were the temperature measurements in the late 19th/early 20th century, give the instruments available and more obviously the lack of communications in those days - by that I mean the fact that traveling was restricted by the limitations of the time, so the sample of temperatures could not possibly be compared to the data instantly available to us, worldwide, today.

[b4mbi]

Oh come on Albert - you've plotted THREE met stations and are already claiming you've got a counter theory for global warming - is your increase statistically significant? what's your R-squared value. Have you done a t-test to see if there is a significant difference between earlier and later data sets?

 

As I've posted before The University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit has the world's most extensive and accurate database of metrological information. These people don't just take temperatures from the UK, but from around the world.

 

This is the undated info right up to the end of 2006:

 

 

This site give info on the time series:

 

The time series shows the combined global land and marine surface temperature record from 1850 to 2006. The year 2006 was sixth warmest on record, exceeded by 1998, 2005, 2003, 2002 and 2004.

 

The record is being continually up-dated and improved (see Brohan et al., 2006). This paper includes a new and more thorough assessment of errors, recognizing that these differ on annual and decadal timescales. Increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to human activities are most likely the underlying cause of warming in the 20th century.

 

I thought this series of graphics all from the latest IPCC report put things into context pretty well.

 

Most interesting for me were charts 8 and 9 giving changes in summer and winter rainfall - 20% changes for the UK. That's alot.

 

 

Can you just clarify some things for me? Your graph is of temperature anomalies against time, that is a variation from a normal, which is set as the reference temperature. Who decided what the normal temperature on which to calculate the variances should be, and how was this done? Also, according to the differences shown on your graph the earth would appear to have been too cold between 1850 and approximately 1978 and was just warming up to its normal temperature anyway. This process has continued, according to your data.

 

Finally, how accurate were the temperature measurements in the late 19th/early 20th century, give the instruments available and more obviously the lack of communications in those days - by that I mean the fact that traveling was restricted by the limitations of the time, so the sample of temperatures could not possibly be compared to the data instantly available to us, worldwide, today.

 

What he said, plus 150 years of data based around a spurious mean global temperature in a geological context is not convincing evidence in my book. Best guesstimates are that Earth is c. 4 billion years old, during which time it would be reasonable in my book to assume average global temperatures have been much higher and much lower than today (even without conclusive evidence)

 

I am drawn towards Gaia theory, which as I understand the basic premise of it, is that the Earth is a self-regulating complex eco-system, and over geological timescales fluctuations seen now in global temperatures / CO2 levels etc etc will even themselves out as the Earths eco-system adapts to the varying inputs.

 

Well, what do I know, or for that matter, does anyone know for sure about historic (>200 years) global temperatures

 

If the latest eco-mania drives us forward in space exploration and colonisation / utilisation of the solar system then all good in my book.

 

I really should get on with writing "my book" as I seem to refer to it quite a lot

[Albert Tatlock]

Your graph is of temperature anomalies against time, that is a variation from a normal, which is set as the reference temperature. Who decided what the normal temperature on which to calculate the variances should be, and how was this done?

It's obviously just another government target: like the 'rural community vibrancy' index, 'the level of birdsong' and 'reducing global conflict by six percent' etc.

 

You should stop thinking so much, refer back to your self-diagnosis checklist, and perhaps take a couple of Prozac.

[Chinahand]

Can you just clarify some things for me? Your graph is of temperature anomalies against time, that is a variation from a normal, which is set as the reference temperature. Who decided what the normal temperature on which to calculate the variances should be, and how was this done? Also, according to the differences shown on your graph the earth would appear to have been too cold between 1850 and approximately 1978 and was just warming up to its normal temperature anyway. This process has continued, according to your data.

 

Finally, how accurate were the temperature measurements in the late 19th/early 20th century, give the instruments available and more obviously the lack of communications in those days - by that I mean the fact that traveling was restricted by the limitations of the time, so the sample of temperatures could not possibly be compared to the data instantly available to us, worldwide, today.

 

The "norm" as you put it is the 1961-90 mean. Yes its arbitary, but that doesn't matter in the analysis. Put the norm 10 degrees higher if you want - its the trend which is important - no matter how complicated the change if you move the base level all you are doing is adding or taking away a constant amount from the trend.

 

In discussing errors and accuracy this graph shows the scientific uncertainty (the gray areas around the trend line) and how we've much better information in the 19th/20th century than earlier.

 

 

This graph comes from the 2001 IPCC report - the 2007 report confirms and updates the data with 6 more years of research. They say:

 

Paleoclimate information supports the interpretation that the warmth of the last half century is unusual in at least the previous 1300 years. The last time the polar regions were significantly warmer than present for an extended period (about 125,000 years ago), reductions in polar ice volume led to 4 to 6 metres of sea level rise.

 

The latest research shows we are warmer than the Medieval warm period and globally warmer than in the holocene. IE this is much more than 150 years b4mbi - its 125,000 years.

 

The only explanation as to why this is so is man made warming - if you only consider natural effects like the orbit of the earth about the sun, the sunspot cycle, aerosols, volcanoes, etc etc you cannot model the current warming - add in man made CO2 and the models start to match reality.

 

This issue is entirely one of scientific trust - the scientific evidence is there - but it hasn't been communicated properly or believed generally.

[Manxman In Exile]

This is not meant to sound facetious, so please don't take it that way, but:

 

How does the massive increase in the population over the period of your graph correlate to the increase in CO2 levels? Surely there are more people breathing, and therefore chucking out more carbon dioxide?

 

And surely the burning of fossil fuels is simply returning all that carbon back to where it came from? The trees etc grew, then became coal, which we burn to release the organic compounds back into the atmosphere. Ditto the dead organisms in the oceans becoming oil.

[VinnieK]

This issue is entirely one of scientific trust - the scientific evidence is there - but it hasn't been communicated properly or believed generally.

 

This is a fairly interesting issue, and is really of central importance to the debate. When scientific work is met with popular disbelief and scepticism there is a tendency to blame those communicating to the public; although this plays a part, I don't believe that (in this case at least) it bears the greater part of the responsibility for the resistance it has met.

 

Consider for a moment instances where science is largely trusted: popular accounts of cosmology or evolutionary biology are both examples of faily complicated science which the majority of people are happy to accept without question (despite the fact that both could be criticised, albeit weakly, as drawing conclusions that are as hypothetical and uncertain as global warming), and even unscientific claims regarding the miraculous health benefits of whatever supplements or superfoods are being promoted by a flavour of the week nutritionist meet with approval if sufficiently dressed up in scientific jargon (which suggests that the idea of scientific authority as a whole isn't being rejected).

 

Now consider where science has met with distrust and even resistance, the two major examples being Global Warming and MMR. The media has played its part inventing both controversies by distortion of research and portraying unpublished papers, flawed studies and opinion by non-expert scientists that contradict the broader body of legitimate work in the field as if they carry the same weight, but even so there is still the matter of why people might be more willing to accept these more readily than they are the view of the scientific establishment.

 

The main difference between the two sets of examples, which leads to this apparent double standard in the popular acceptance of scientific authority, is that the latter is associated with the establishment (in the political sense of the word) and the exercise of government authority, and both can be seen as intrusions that directly offer little to the individual, whereas the former are either concerned with matters that are irrelevant to day to day life or offer something for nothing (i.e. they're either so beneficial or inconsequential to the individual that it's deemed acceptible to trust their sources without a second thought). In short, the problem is perhaps not so much one with science as it is with government's direct involvement in people's lives, which over the years has been viewed with an ever greater distrust, and which taints anything with which it is associated. Given the incidence of scandals that marked the end of the Conservative's reign, as well as the controversies Labour have brought to the public sphere, there is a certain amount of justification in such a view (although I believe that it's misapplied in this case since the Government line follows the scientific concensus, not the other way round), and of course it's simply human nature to resist change when the status quo is relatively comfortable.

 

Thus the difficulty has less to do with communication of the science, which you've done as well as anyone, than it does demonstrating that the science is not a consequence of Government opinion, and that the change it recommends is necessary. How difficult this is, I haven't no idea: it may simply come down to a matter of enforcing the legislation regardless and letting the course of events speak for themselves. Of course, there will always be a minority of arrested development cases who are less interested in the issue than they are imagining themselves at the spearhead of some improbable and relentless crusade against The Man, and little will shake their quixotic stance, but I suspect they are mercifully as few in numbers as they are vociferous

[Chinahand]

Manxman In Exile - prehistoric carbon in coal and oil have been outside the carbon cycle for millions of years. The earth is out of equilibrium and cannot absorb the large amounts of CO2 produced by buring fossil fuels. Hence the levels increase and increase greenhouse gas levels which are the most significant cause of global warming.

 

Population growth and land use change also affects it - but this is less significant - as its swapping the natural environment to a farmed human one. The IPCC says this contributes 5.9 Giga tonnes of CO2 per year to the atmosphere compared to 26.4 Giga tonnes due to fossil fuels

 

What the IPCC says about carbon dioxide levels increasing.

 

Carbon dioxide is the most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas. The global atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has increased from a pre-industrial value of about 280 ppm to 379 ppm3 in 2005. The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide in 2005 exceeds by far the natural range over the last 650,000 years (180 to 300 ppm) as determined from ice cores. The annual carbon dioxide concentration growth-rate was larger during the last 10 years (1995 – 2005 average: 1.9 ppm per year), than it has been since the beginning of continuous direct atmospheric measurements (1960 – 2005 average: 1.4 ppm per year) although there is year-to-year variability in growth rates.

 

The primary source of the increased atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide since the pre-industrial period results from fossil fuel use, with land use change providing another significant but smaller contribution. Annual fossil carbon dioxide emissions increased from an average of 6.4 [6.0 to 6.8]GtC (23.5 [22.0 to 25.0] GtCO2) per year in the 1990s, to 7.2 [6.9 to 7.5] GtC (26.4 [25.3 to 27.5] GtCO2) per year in 2000–2005 (2004 and 2005 data are interim estimates). Carbon dioxide emissions associated with land-use change are estimated to be 1.6 [0.5 to 2.7] GtC (5.9 [1.8 to 9.9] GtCO2) per year over the 1990s, although these estimates have a large uncertainty.

[VinnieK]

How does the massive increase in the population over the period of your graph correlate to the increase in CO2 levels? Surely there are more people breathing, and therefore chucking out more carbon dioxide?

 

Is this an argument against cutting down CO2 emissions? If we assumed you were right, and humans were naturally emitting a considerable amount of CO2, and that CO2 is responsible for global warming, surely the justification for cutting down emissions as much as we can where we can (i.e. from industrial and mechanical sources) would be all themore urgent. As it is, it's been shown by the research that the vast majority of the rise in CO2 levels is due to non-natural sources.

 

 

And surely the burning of fossil fuels is simply returning all that carbon back to where it came from? The trees etc grew, then became coal, which we burn to release the organic compounds back into the atmosphere. Ditto the dead organisms in the oceans becoming oil.

 

Not quite. When in the form of trees, organisms, oil and coal carbon is locked in a particular state and is not a part of the atmosphere. When we burn it the carbon is then released into the atmosphere which is where the problems begin. Put it this way, stand over a chimney and breath in all the smoke coming out of it, then sniff a lump of coal, which makes you feel worse? Obviously the former, because in the latter the various substances constituting coal are all locked in a stable, solid form.

[Lonan3]

Whatever the degrees of accuracy and and inaccuracy in the programme that ignited this thread, what cannot be denied is that it has brought the subject of climate change into the lives of many who would have simply let it drift by them. In that respect, it was possibly a far more successful than all the doom-laden proclamations that went before it.

There is (and probably always will be, due to their track records for truth-telling), concerns about the accuracy of statements being made by governments on one side, and vested interests on the other. Scientists, of course, will also have to learn how to swallow their pride and admit that, despite the best research techniques available, there are still no certainties about future predictions in what is still a relatively new area of study - a process that might, strangely enough, encourage more people to listen to what they have to say.

Personally, I would be more encouraged if the major governments were prepared to massively fund research into alternative sources of renewable power - particularly with regard to transport.

 

In the meantime, however, I will try not to feel too guilty about using an open coal fire as a supplement to my central heating on particularly cold nights. I will try to remember to switch my engine off when I'm sitting on the rank (provided that the temperature is reasonable)..... etcetera, etcetera, etcetera......

[darmah]

How about looking at it this way? What are the outcomes of various positions? (I'm basing this on the current position that the naysayers are propagating that Global Warming is caused by natural phenomena, not their previous position that there is no such thing)

 

We choose to believe the concensus - and it turns out to be correct

 

Global Warming : Assuming we act, the impact is much less.

Environment : Less polluted, cleaner.

Social Effect : Higher taxes, fuel costs, possibly some impact on personal choice (car use/air travel etc)

 

 

We choose to believe the consensus - and it turns out to be wrong

 

Global Warming : no impact - the World continues to get warmer, sea levels rise, extreme whether increases

Environment : Less polluted, cleaner.

Social Effect : Higher taxes, fuel costs, possibly some impact on personal choice (car use/air travel etc). Mass refugee problem caused by people being displaced.

 

We choose to disbelieve the consensus - and the consensus turns out to be wrong

 

Global Warming : no impact - the World continues to get warmer, sea levels rise, extreme whether increases

Environment : Unchanged or worse

Social Effect : Mass refugee problem caused by people being displaced.

 

We choose to disbelieve the consensus - and the consensus turns out to be correct

 

Global Warming : no impact - the World continues to get warmer, sea levels rise, extreme whether increases

Environment : Unchanged or worse

Social Effect : Mass refugee problem caused by people being displaced.

 

 

A human takes 15 days to produce a tonne of Co2 just by breathing so global warming nazis had better stop those Chinese breathing eh? I know the Uk government consistently lies to us as their natural reaction - Iraq war WMDs why suddenly start believing them now just as they conveniently find a new way to tax and control us

[VinnieK]

A human takes 15 days to produce a tonne of Co2 just by breathing so global warming nazis had better stop those Chinese breathing eh?

 

Read the thread. That's already been talked about.

 

I know the Uk government consistently lies to us as their natural reaction - Iraq war WMDs why suddenly start believing them now just as they conveniently find a new way to tax and control us

 

Control us? It's a pretty lame conspiracy that seeks to assert control over which lightbulbs we use and whether or not we leave the tv when we're not watching it. Apart from that, an excellent point raised.

 

As for the example:

 

Iraq war - Expert opinion was unsure whether or not Iraq held substantial quantities of WMD or, if so, what quantity or state of readiness they were in. Government contradicted them.

 

Global Warming - Expert opinion has reached a broad concensus that global warming is real and needs to be tackled. Government agrees.

 

As such there's a good chance that those fiendish scoundrels who want to take your pennies away and make you use the bus now and again are telling the truth.