The Great Global Warming Swindle

[Stu Peters]

Lonan has made this point already (and better) but the fact is that most of us AREN'T scientists or climatologists and we need TV shows like this and the Gore film to inform us in easily digested chunks. What it comes down to - for me at least - is which group of white coats and politicians you believe. You can argue all day about whether CO2 levels cause global warming, or are a result OF global warming - fact is I don't have the smarts to interpret the scientific data available (despite having passed an aviation meteorology exam once, and knowing that bunsen burners can really hurt). And my gut instinct (which I trust more, the older I get) found lots in the programme last night that made me think there are lots of vested interests involved in distorting the facts to their own ends - and if that included the programme makers, I'm not surprised at all.

 

Like Lonan said, I worry that it's mostly a cynical attempt to create a HUGE perceived problem that only smart governments (an oxymoron?) can promise to solve with large amounts of OUR money - which will be spent less on solving the problem than in enriching the camp followers.

 

And Slim - it's a supercharged 4 litre Jag - so using F1 equivalence, that's SIX litres. Pffft...

[RC-Drift.com]

The good side of the green movement as far as I see it is that we seem to care more for the planet we infest, it's products many and varied aren't just for financial gain, but enhance the life we try to make the most of

 

I don't for one nanosecond believe we are solely to blame for the current trend in the Earths weather, it changes with the wind so to speak, it would change just the same if we were here or not

 

What I do believe in though, we are all entitled to breath clean air, so the likes of China belching out tons of shite into the atmosphere, because it's cheaper for other countries to do so, must be curbed, it is our right, but I don't think it has anything to do with imminent atmospheric doom

[Slim]

Stu: But don't you see that because we're not experts, we shouldn't even attempt to interpret the research and make an informed decision. What you can do is trust the numbers, look at those for, look at those against, then make your mind up.

 

If you think some people are biased: well your right. The bias and money is huge on the side against man made global warming. It really is a testiment to the sheer weight of evidence in favour of this effect that we're seeing it taken seriously despite the best efforts of the huge industries which would really like this to go away. This is going to hit everyone in the pocket, not just oil companies, manufacturing, aviation, transport and those industries and the politicians they lobby would do anything to make this issue go away. The general view of the uninformed here also shows what a challenge it is to get people to back this theory, people far more readily accept some sort of natural cycle, because it's what's easier to believe and understand.

 

Tin hatting it and suggesting that it's all some sort of conspiracy invented my Maggie Thatch is just absurd.

 

Stevie, you ought to listen to yourself. You're correct in what you say about pop culture science, but are then applying it incorrectly. The huge weight of research in favour of global warming eclipses the few outspoken detractors, yet you claim its the pro global warming folks that are pop culture scientists? Frankly that beggars belief.

 

I can't be arsed pulling apart all your ill informed examples, but lets look at the Mars one. What evidence are you using to suggest Mars is warming? What peer reviewed process has deduced that it's warming, and if it is, what it's caused by.

 

Do you have any? Or are you yourself just sprouting bollocks you found on the interwebnet, exactly the stuff you're claiming is what's forcing the global warming issue.

 

RC's stance is a good one though, even if you're too blinkered to believe the overwealming weight of opinion in favour of man made global warming, you have to accept that pumping evil shit into the air isn't desirable for anyone and banking your future on non renewable energy is folly.

[Utah 01]

'pumping evil shit into the air isn't desirable for anyone and banking your future on non renewable energy is folly' - absolutely correct.

 

'you're too blinkered to believe the overwealming weight of opinion in favour of man made global warming' - wrong. Perhaps you are too blinkered to believe that, actually, the 'overwealming weight' is wrong.

 

'bias and money is huge on the side against man made global warming'. If that really was the case then they would have won their arguement by now.

 

The CO2 lobby have carried the day (so far) using the classic political weapon, so brilliantly deployed (once) by New Labour and all the minority groups whose punch far outweighs their real support, of 'say it loud enough and often enough and it will be believed'.

 

This debate needs a new debate before we go too far down the road of unecessary restrictions on our everyday lives.

[Lost Login]

I was not going to rise to the bate on this thread but there is only so much drivel you can read..

 

The CO2 lobby has not carried the day because of New Labour and minority groups but because presently it is the makjority scientific view around the world. I am sure New Labour would love to believe taht outside the UK they have so much influence!

 

The debate that is being had is based on the majority scientific view. So you want to ignore what is deemed to be the major cause of global warming & start a new debate on something else. What about the effect of farting elephants on Global Warming?

 

I have posted what I consider to be a couple of good links that respond to the issue that are raised in the programme.

 

http://reasic.wordpress.com/2007/03/10/the...tions-answered/

 

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archi...ndled/#more-414

 

http://www.jri.org.uk/index.php?option=com...7&Itemid=83

 

I am not saying they cover all the points but to quote the first guy "As always, research everything yourself, whether it’s claims made by people like Durkin or even if it’s the IPCC or leading climate scientists. I say this because I am convinced that if you have honestly looked at the facts, you will agree that human activities have caused global warming."

 

On a personnal basis I really wish that Global Warming was nt caused by Man & linked to CO2 emmissions and that this could be proved as like the majority I do not like the idea of increased taxes and other measures that will be brought in & personally affect me as a result. I can also understand why there is a natural reaction to jump on any theory however week which might argue that it is not a result of Man & CO2. There huge business and personal interests that would make many of us want it to be a natural cause. Unfortunatly I just can not see that this is the case from the current level of scientific knowledge

 

 

The CO2 lobby have carried the day (so far) using the classic political weapon, so brilliantly deployed (once) by New Labour and all the minority groups whose punch far outweighs their real support, of 'say it loud enough and often enough and it will be believed'.

 

This debate needs a new debate before we go too far down the road of unecessary restrictions on our everyday lives.

[Declan]

What I don't understand is if this is all a swindle who gains?

 

If the majority of scientists were deliberately misleading in order to get research grants, wouldn't the research grants be greater from people who wish to disprove Global Warming is manmade? Wouldn't the oil companies, the car manufacturers and governments around the world be throwing money at people who can say this (as the tobacco firms did at one time)?

[Slim]

'you're too blinkered to believe the overwealming weight of opinion in favour of man made global warming' - wrong. Perhaps you are too blinkered to believe that, actually, the 'overwealming weight' is wrong.

 

Sigh. This really is depressing. Do you know what blinkered means?

 

'bias and money is huge on the side against man made global warming'. If that really was the case then they would have won their arguement by now.

It really is the case. If you disagree, why dont you tell my why you disagree. Why dont you tell me where the money comes from in suport of man made global warming? They're 'winning the argument' because despite the pressure of many industries, the weight of evidence is overwealming. This is an issue most people would want to believe wasn't true, life is far easier that way. This isn't a decision people take lightly.

 

The CO2 lobby have carried the day (so far) using the classic political weapon, so brilliantly deployed (once) by New Labour and all the minority groups whose punch far outweighs their real support, of 'say it loud enough and often enough and it will be believed'.

 

Utter rot, show me even one jot of evidence of that.

 

 

This debate needs a new debate before we go too far down the road of unecessary restrictions on our everyday lives.

 

With that sentance alone, it's clear you're only interested in a debate if the outcome is in your favour. Well heads up mate, that's not a debate.

[Slim]

If the majority of scientists were deliberately misleading in order to get research grants, wouldn't the research grants be more greater from people who wish to disprove Global Warming is manmade? Wouldn't the oil companies, the car manufacturers and governments around the world be throwing money at people who can say this (as the tobacco firms did at one time)?

 

They are, as I said it's really a testiment to the weight of this evidence that a consensus has bee reached.

[Utah 01]

'The debate that is being had is based on the majority scientific view'. That is the mantra the 'majority' espouse BUT the majority scientific view IS NOT necessarily right. The majority view on any matter is not necessarily the correct one. If that were the case then many advancements in science made in the past 300 years would never have seen the light of day if, for a quiet life, the 'majority' view was gone along with. This maybe a cliched example but if Columbus had accepted the 'majority view' that the earth flat he wouldn't have gone off knowing that he'd fall off the edge. There should be no theory that is sancrosanct and we must be continuously question and examine.

 

I still suggest that ''say it loud enough and often enough and it will be believed'' is exemplified by the current blind acceptance by the 'man in the street' that Co2 is THE cause of atmospheric warming. As some of the contributors to the C4 programme quite rightly said, to express an opinion to the contrary is now deemd heretical and climate change isn't the only matter which the state would really not have to answer serious questions about.

 

stevie - very well put.

[Slim]

This maybe a cliched example but if Columbus had accepted the 'majority view' that the earth flat he wouldn't have gone off knowing that he'd fall off the edge. There should be no theory that is sancrosanct and we must be continuously question and examine.

 

Science is sometimes wrong. Science isn't perfect. So what you have is a system of peer review to help get the most out of scientific endevour. If we ignored a scientific consensus, a consensus that's been reached after a great deal of debate usually, we'd never get anywhere.

 

I suggest you read up the thread, the posts by Dr Dave in particular. You're just showing your ignorance of the process.

 

Debate and research should and continue, if anything new on the subject is discovered then opinion will be reviewed. Just because there's a consensus doesn't mean research stops. To ingore this massive evidence in favour of a theory which could result in the deaths of millions of people is stupid.

 

Stevie is a tin foil hat wearing conspiracy nutter. I suggest you read his blatant bullshit in the 9/11 thread before supporting him in any way!

[Lost Login]

'The debate that is being had is based on the majority scientific view'. That is the mantra the 'majority' espouse BUT the majority scientific view IS NOT necessarily right. The majority view on any matter is not necessarily the correct one. If that were the case then many advancements in science made in the past 300 years would never have seen the light of day if, for a quiet life, the 'majority' view was gone along with. This maybe a cliched example but if Columbus had accepted the 'majority view' that the earth flat he wouldn't have gone off knowing that he'd fall off the edge. There should be no theory that is sancrosanct and we must be continuously question and examine.

 

The majority scientific view has resulted from questioning and peer review and stood up to questioning and interigation. Nobody says it is complete but it is the current accepted position. The minority view point has none of those things and most of the claims of the minority do not stand up to review as the majority of the TV programmes do not. I may be a maverick but I think I will go with the majority.

 

This does not mean though that research and questioning should not continue and models and nuinsces change over time. Invariably the scientific view is right.

 

Tell me though if on the odd chance that science turns on the hand and the majority starts arguing that Global Warming is natural and not to do with Man or CO2 will you be arguing that it is to do with Man and CO2 as this is the minority viewpoint

If that were the case then many advancements in science made in the past 300 years would never have seen the light of day if, for a quiet life, the 'majority' view was gone along with. This maybe a cliched example but if Columbus had accepted the 'majority view' that the earth flat he wouldn't have gone off knowing that he'd fall off the edge.

 

Totally cliched and unfortunately incorrect. When Columbous discovered America he was heading for India where the spices came from. India was difficult to sale to because Africa was in the way. Therefore he proposed to sale west to it. Problem was he bumped into America which he initially I think believed was India as he called the inhabitants Indians. The argument not to sail west to India was not that the earth was flat, it was generally know not to be but due to the bible and religeon many religeous leaders argued it was, but that the distance was to far. The arguments were in fact correct and Columbous would never have made it to India. fortunately instead he discovered land and America. If America had not existed and it had been purely sea he would have probably died at sea.

 

A nice simple link gives the relevant history of this

 

http://www.phy6.org/stargaze/Scolumb.htm

 

 

There should be no theory that is sancrosanct and we must be continuously question and examine.

 

I have already agreed with that. Infact virtually every scientist would. But there is a difference between questioning and examining to simply refusing to accept accepted theory despite the overwhelming evidence being for that theory in favour of another view point which is not supported by the evidence.

 

 

I still suggest that ''say it loud enough and often enough and it will be believed'' is exemplified by the current blind acceptance by the 'man in the street' that Co2 is THE cause of atmospheric warming.

 

That is exactly what the energy lobby etc are doing through programmes such as these. The science does not back up what they so nor does research and scientific argument so lets run to the press and make a big noise. There is a vested intest in us all in believing CO2 & Man has not serioulsy influencing or is causing Global Warming so they have a natural "constituency" of "believers"

 

As some of the contributors to the C4 programme quite rightly said, to express an opinion to the contrary is now deemd heretical and climate change isn't the only matter which the state would really not have to answer serious questions about.

 

The State or Government would really love to have a reason not to act in respect of Global Warming and especially CO2. It is the simple option. Do you think that increasing taxes, potentially putting restrictions on buisness and individuals re travel, cars, power etc is going to win them many votes! If it does I seem to have missed the recent rise to power of the Green Party in the UK etc

[VinnieK]

'The debate that is being had is based on the majority scientific view'. That is the mantra the 'majority' espouse BUT the majority scientific view IS NOT necessarily right. The majority view on any matter is not necessarily the correct one.

 

No, it's not necessarily right. But is this really a reason for public resistance to scientific opinion? After all, even if manmade global warming turns out to be a flawed hypothesis, it's very likely that this view will again be the result of majority scientific view (in that they've been convinced otherwise). Since we as a populace are incapable of estimating the evidence scientists present us in a meaningful way, we're still going to just be adopting the majority view - what makes it more acceptable to do so in one instance and not the other?

 

The fact of the matter is that scientists perform work that we cannot understand unless we are scientists (and working in a relevant field) ourselves, thus the very best we have to go on is majority opinion of the scientific establishment. Sure there's always some element of dissent, with a few scientists putting foward contrary arguments and hypothesis, but given that we cannot evaluate how valid these are to any degree of accuracy greater than we can the majority's arguments, how justified are we in adopting the minority opinion in these circumstances? I would suggest that we are not: in fact, what we do in such an instance is closer to finding an opinion that tallies with our own and hoping that history will prove us right, in which case we may as well rely on voodoo or tealeaves to back up our opinion, given that the sole criteria that has influenced our assesment of the debate is but our personal preferences for an outcome. On the other hand, in adopting the view of the bulk of the scientific establishment we at least have the virtue of following the broad concensus of experts.

 

If that were the case then many advancements in science made in the past 300 years would never have seen the light of day if, for a quiet life, the 'majority' view was gone along with. This maybe a cliched example but if Columbus had accepted the 'majority view' that the earth flat he wouldn't have gone off knowing that he'd fall off the edge.

Firstly, the majority scientific view in the 1700's was not that the Earth was flat. In fact, by the first century AD it had been generally accepted that the Earth was spherical, and there's plenty of evidence that this was the majority view throughout up until our own times. In short, the flat Earth myth is a myth not simply in its hypothesis but also in the popular view that it was the dominant one until recently.

 

In any case, we're not living in the 1700's. We're living in a period where science has advanced to the point where our scientists are now operating on a scale running from the subatomic to the universal. In other words, scientific expertise has reached such a level that consensus amongst the scientific community is more powerful and reliable, if scientifically naive, a measure of the likelihood that a hypothesis is valid than it ever has been. Also, it has to be said, again, that the romantic idea of there being some period where trailblazers upturned the scientific establishment is somewhat flawed. The examples people have given in prior discussions of this topic, usually Einstein and Galileo are based on faulty history - Galileo was prosecuted not for his research, but for teaching theories of heliocentricity that had already been accepted in the scientific community (but not some elements of the church), whereas Einstein's theories came during a period where there was no concensus (experiments had already invalidated a number of alternate theories his work was related to). In short, even where there has been a massive breakthrough, it typically tends to already agree with the existing concensus, or comes at a time when there is no real consensus.

 

There should be no theory that is sancrosanct and we must be continuously question and examine.

 

Perhaps. But a better rule is that:

 

There's no theory so sacrosanct that those qualified to question and examine it are prevented from doing so.

 

Seriously, what's the point in me questioning, say Evolutionary biology, you examining the Riemann hypothesis, Chinahand probing theories in neuroscience, and so on? It would not simply be a waste of time, it would potentially be foolish as our ignorance of those subjects may lead us to draw false conclusions of which we are then convinced because we don't even truly understand the arguments against them. Again, we are back to the issue of trust. We should rely only on the opinions of those qualified to examine these questions. As discussed above, it's my view that if we care more about subject than we do what we'd like the outcome to be, the reasonable choice is going to be to tentatively adopt the majority opinion.

 

Some may view this as patronising, or as some endorsement of herd mentality, but the fact of the matter is that as members of the public our knowledge suffers from vast limitations in a whole variety of areas. This is why society has a place for experts. We go to lawyers to advise us of how to conduct our legal battles, to doctors for advice on what procedures to undergo when we're sick; from mechanics and architects to engineers and chemists, when our knowledge is lacking we turn to experts to guide us and in doing so tacitly entrust our fate to the principle that majority expert opinion is right more often than it's wrong. Of course there's the chance that in one instance or another it might be wrong, but we are prepared to risk, say, even misdiagnosis or mistreatment of health conditions because we accept that we don't know enough to asses the situation ourselves and are reassured by the existing medical consensus that this risk is minimal.

 

Why is this generally accepted situation different for the issue of global warming? After all, in a sense the risks of following the scientific majority are far, far less than those of siding with the minority. In some corners skepticism has become enshrined as some kind of guiding principle, as a badge of individualist objectivity, and taken to unrestrained extremes. The majority of us, however, cannot afford to be skeptics for the simple fact that when skepticism is accompanied by the ignorance that plagues all of us in one field or another, it is less a virtue and more a danger that allows our opinions and decisions to be guided more by what we wish to be truth than an interest in the truth itself. If we turn out to be right, it will more likely be down to lucky coincidence than design, and if we are proven wrong we then had better hope that the consequences of our decisions are not so severe as to inspire regret, or worse.

[Slim]

Couple of great posts there, thanks for them.

 

Let's try a very simple analogy:

 

If you go to ten doctors and nine of them say you need a particular treatment or you'll die by the end of the week, and one says your fine. What would you do?

[Declan]

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.

[RC-Drift.com]

Slim, just because there are inummerable 'experts' (mainly with vested interests, re: their livelyhood) say "we can prove scientifically/statistically/politically that unless we act now, we're doomed", doesn't mean they are correct, there was a time not long ago when experts 'knew for a fact' the Earth was flat, and if you travelled too far, you would fall off the edge (to where I doubt ever crossed their blinkered minds)

 

You are only an expert if you claim to know more than most, or if that majority choose to believe you

 

The programme on ch4 showed me how illogical you can be to make people follow your every word, and how much you can twist the actual truth and still get away with it

 

I prefer to see facts on the table not heresay and projections, we can see history, mother nature has left all the evidence I need to see

 

What pisses me off more than anything, the same type of people are pro smoking/shooting/no speed limit/etc. always shout the loudest trying to force their own self interests down everyone elses throat - like I said a few days ago, the Global Warming Nazis