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Not As Environmentally Friendly As Promised

Mythopoekia,

..Wasn't there a controversy about that?..

Indeed, still is.

But I am interested in Zebra's interpretation of the subject.

(And yours if you care to post it)

INT21
 
Puts on safety helmet.

Zebra, have you heard of the Hockey Stick ?

If so, do you believe in the logic behind it ?

If not, why not ?

INT21.

Not sure why you need a safety helmet, but anyway. :)

I've heard of the hockey stick graph which I presume is what you mean - that's the one that was faked, wasn't it? Which was discovered (the fakery I mean) by leaked emails from some university or other.

I don't pretend to know much about it and I don't follow "climate science" so I've not heard of it in years frankly but from what I remember it was Al Gore's cronies telling us we were all going to be six feet under water by now *looks out of window* nope, all good - didn't they miss out some data or something? Or skew the data. Probably missed out bits that would show the earth has natural climate cycles.

I remember it being one of the reasons why I strongly distrust "climate scientists", and that's about it.
 
Mythopoekia,

..Wasn't there a controversy about that?..

Indeed, still is.

But I am interested in Zebra's interpretation of the subject.

(And yours if you care to post it)

INT21
Well, it's been completely discredited and the way the University of East Anglia climate 'scientists' sexed it up doesn't make me trust any of their conclusions.

This oft-repeated nonsense about 97% of scientists agreeing with the conclusions is a red herring. That's 97% of the climate scientists who were asked, not 97% of all scientists. The climate change science debate is not settled.

Here's an earlier post that I made on another thread, pointing out that, while the climate is indeed changing, it (a) cannot be used to accurately predict future climate because the sample is so small and (b) it can't be directly linked to human activity:
I realise there may be some contention over the accuracy of the fossil record, but it is certainly useful (and interesting) to see temperature vs CO2 plotted for the prehistoric era:

http://www.biocab.org/Geological_Timescale.jpg

If you look across this vast timescale, you can see that there isn't any clear correlation between CO2 levels and temperature. In fact, the only part where there does appear to be a correlation is in the most recent era (in the Quaternary).

CO2 levels are actually pretty low right now - 394.45 ppmv (0.039445%).
Levels of CO2 in previous geological eras have been much, much higher.

Current climate change models only take about 60 years of data into consideration.
I think it's simply not enough data from which to extrapolate long-term temperature trends.
In fact, the 60 years of data we are using may well be statistically insignificant.

But... what do I know, I am not a scientist or statistician. :)

Pic below:

Geological_Timescale.jpg
 
It might however be best practice to ask climate scientists about climate science. Rather than say...astrophysicists?

After all, if you need heart surgery you generally go see a heart consultant, not a garage mechanic, even though the consultant has a vested interest in giving you the heart operation required.

Pfft....experts eh? Tossers.
 
It might however be best practice to ask climate scientists about climate science. Rather than say...astrophysicists?

After all, if you need heart surgery you generally go see a heart consultant, not a garage mechanic, even though the consultant has a vested interest in giving you the heart operation required.

Pfft....experts eh? Tossers.

Well, depends. Part of my cynicism regarding experts in pseudo-scientific subjects is a lifetime of encountering experts in my own field who can spout a mind-boggling amount of jargon but don't actually know how anything works. Hence the endless sequence of disastrously-failing computer projects (although that's not the sole explanation).

And because climate 'science' , in the absence of being able to experiment on the entire Earth, is reliant on statistics and computer models, both of which I know a fair bit about, I am sceptical of their results too. But I decided to leave that debate alone years ago.

As for the chart Myth has provided, if anything it shows a reduction in CO2 causes warming, not the other way round. More fairly it might be said to show a very weak correlation if any. Which I believe was the scientists' conclusion as well.
 
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Well, depends. Part of my cynicism regarding experts in pseudo-scientific subjects is a lifetime of encountering experts in my own field who can spout a mind-boggling amount of jargon but don't actually know how anything works. Hence the endless sequence of disastrously-failing computer projects (although that's not the sole explanation).

And because climate 'science' , in the absence of being able to experiment on the entire Earth, is reliant on statistics and computer models, both of which I know a fair bit about, I am sceptical of their results too. But I decided to leave that debate alone years ago.

As for the chart Myth has provided, if anything it shows a reduction in CO2 causes warming, not the other way round. More fairly it might be said to show a very weak correlation if any. Which I believe was the scientists' conclusion as well.
Yes, if anything, it's methane that may be worse than CO2. But it's only recently that anybody's started to point at that and say 'that's the bad boy'.
 
If you are getting a government grant to investigate climate change and you want another you sure has hell better come up withe the result they are looking for.
 
The point of the hockey stick is that it shows an increase that is related to the last one hundred and fifty years.
The period of industrial revolution. Until that period started we were not pushing out all the pollution in it's various forms.

Other side tend to point to volcanoes etc. Which is fair enough if you are prepared to ignore the current situation.

INT21.
 
The point of the hockey stick is that it ...

Has been kebabbed.

People who know what they’re talking about concerning Really Hard Sums say that the numbers on which it was based were tortured relentlessly into the required shape, and that the algorithm used to produce the Schlocky Stick would generate hockey sticks if you fed into it data on Renaissance squirrel migration patterns.

maximus otter
 
So, Maximus otter, we can go on burning the millions of barrels of oil a day and the thousands of tones of Coal etc that we have mined since the revolution with no ill effect to our atmosphere ?

Something we were not doing a hundred and fifty years ago.

INT21
 
I didn't say that humans were incapable of causing environmental changes - I think it's pretty obvious that humans pollute the planet. But I don't think they are the sole cause of climate change. As someone upthread mentioned (sorry, not sure who it was) it's more likely that the climate was heading that way anyway, and we've possibly accelerated it. Or that it was heading that way anyway, and nothing we can do will stop it.

And I will re-iterate what I said previously: no amount of tax increases will fix it.

First up, in terms of what is the sole cause of climate change, you are correct, but only up to a point. It is true that there are methane pockets that slowly release gas into the atmosphere that help warm the planet, and indeed living creatures that fart also contribute to methane buildup, BUT... their contribution in megalitres of emissions is utterly negligible in comparison to what human based transport, agriculture and industry produce. Note that I consider farmed animals like cattle to be a part of the human emission as they are integrated into the human economy and exist because we allow them to.

As to your claim that increased taxes will not fix it, let's examine that claim. Taxes raise money. Money funds research. Research solves problems we face. Now I agree that in general governments are pretty dishonest about spending, but if the taxes were spent honestly towards funding research into finding better answers to the problems our civilization faces and cleaning up after ourselves, that would be a huge step in the right direction. I disagree with your blanket statement that no tax will fix it, but I think given the general incompetence of governments in doing more that treading water and praying these days, creating a tax is less likely to work than some other economic levers that can be pulled.
 
I thought that the point was that burning fossil fuels led to an increase in CO2 which led to an increase in overall temperature. That rise in temperature then leads to the release of methane which has been previously trapped beneath permafrost or beneath ocean sediments. And methane, as has been previously stated, is a lot more greenhouse gassery than good old CO2. So maybe it wouldn't be such a good idea to raise the temperature in the first place.
You see, everything is connected.

Wonder how many Storegga Slides are just waiting to tip over? That could be fun. Get your surfboards ready!
 
The point of the hockey stick is that it shows an increase that is related to the last one hundred and fifty years.
The period of industrial revolution. Until that period started we were not pushing out all the pollution in it's various forms.

Other side tend to point to volcanoes etc. Which is fair enough if you are prepared to ignore the current situation.

INT21.
And also the Industrial Revolution has been going on for at least 250 years, including the Victorian cold period.
 
So, Maximus otter, we can go on burning the millions of barrels of oil a day and the thousands of tones of Coal etc that we have mined since the revolution with no ill effect to our atmosphere ?

Something we were not doing a hundred and fifty years ago.

INT21

Yes we were. Coal in particular.
 
But in the sixties there was a massive move away from coal, particularly in the UK.

steam locomotives were phased out and the clean air act stopped most of the pollution from factories. Also, many factories that had used steam for power were by then going all electric.

Also locally produced town gas derived from coal was replaced by natural gas.

There are very few homes burning coal these days.

But the weather still changes.

Observe Portugal and Spain at around 48C.

INT21
 
The Earth as been warming since the ice age and will carry on doing so until it reaches the point
were we will start to go into another ice age, nothing much we can do about it except change the
taxes for warming to cooling and carry on paying them.
This minus the tax opportunity as been going on long before anyone remotely involved with the industreal
revolution was even swimming about in their father's ball bag.
This does not mean we cant clean up our act I can remember the times were we did well to see across the
road and rivers were so polluted nothing lived within 6 ft of them, I can now often see the IOM 70/80 miles
away and we have fish even Dolphins at times in the river, I know which I prefer.
This site may be of interest at least I find it so.

http://gridwatch.co.uk/
 
But in the sixties there was a massive move away from coal, particularly in the UK.

steam locomotives were phased out and the clean air act stopped most of the pollution from factories. Also, many factories that had used steam for power were by then going all electric.

Also locally produced town gas derived from coal was replaced by natural gas.

There are very few homes burning coal these days.


INT21

Yes Steam Locomotives were phased out and replaced with Diesel and electric ones, the first burns a fuel extracted from fossil fuels, the second relies on power stations that relies on fossil fuels.

and while not many houses burn coal anymore, allot burn gas and also relies on fossil fuel burning power stations for electricity...........


Wm.
 
But you will agree that the overall pollution is dramatically reduced ?

Anyway, the electric car saga appears to have gone very quiet. Not as quiet as the driver less cars though.

INT21
 
Just because factories are chucking out pollution in China or Bangladesh rather than here, doesn't mean it isn't going into the same atmosphere/rivers. Plus back in Victorian times, people didn't get to work in their factory by burning fossil fuels. Nowadays, a lot of people can't seem to go anywhere at all without doing that, especially when it is raining. Combine that with the enormously increased population, plus the fact that factories are churning out more and more stuff all the time and you have a lot more pollution overall. The sooty black stuff you can see may be getting produced somewhere else but we are all still going to the lavatory in the same paddling pool.
 
Yes Steam Locomotives were phased out and replaced with Diesel and electric ones, the first burns a fuel extracted from fossil fuels, the second relies on power stations that relies on fossil fuels.

and while not many houses burn coal anymore, allot burn gas and also relies on fossil fuel burning power stations for electricity...........


Wm.

I burn coal.Smells great.
 
Yeah, for you.

I'm quite busy, better book in advance. I can bring the logs.

Pretty much everyone round here has coal or wood fires. We're off the grid for mains gas and electric is too expensive by itself.
 
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