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'The Great Global Warming Swindle': Is Climate Change A Myth?

'Time will tell with this, nothing else.'
And therein lies the dilemma... Do you reject the consensus until it's too late? Or do you lobby for the minority view because it's vital to protect alternative opinions?
Surely doing our utmost to live sustainably is an incontrovertibly good thing?
We've already got a small resurgence of the isolationist far-right in Britain over current levels of immigration. Imagine the shit-storm that's going to take place in 2050 or 2150 when people in equatorial lands need to migrate, en masse, not for economic reasons but because they & their children, will die as a result of adverse climate conditions?
Will we have a referendum on who can come to Britain, Canada, etc? A poll of who'll be allowed to live?
 
Of course, the minority view is supported by some high-profile politicians...

BNP leader Nick Griffin threatens to expose 'dodgy science' when he represents Europe at climate change summit
By Kirsty Walker
Last updated at 7:38 PM on 29th November 2009

BNP leader Nick Griffin has sparked outrage after it emerged that he is to represent the European parliament at next week's climate change summit in Copenhagen.
Mr Griffin has vowed to use his place on the delegation to expose the ‘somewhat dodgy’ science behind the climate change movement.

The far-right leader is allowed to attend the crucial summit as a representative of the parliament's environmental committee.
But politicians and scientists reacted furiously to his presence at the meeting, which is hoping to forge a new global deal on cutting greenhouse emissions.

etc...

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z0YLArX4Qz

:twisted:
 
Liberals embrace spirit of kamikaze fundamentalism

Australia's climate change consensus has fractured spectacularly.

And the Liberal Party has decided that it's more important to be combative than to be electable.

By electing Tony Abbott leader, the Liberal Party has chosen to fight on climate change and to risk all on an unpopular cause.

This is a fundamental choice, and by the narrowest of margins. The Opposition will now block the Rudd Government's emissions trading scheme and campaign hard against it. The next election will be fought on it.

[...]

The Liberals' decision will unify the Coalition, bringing the Liberal policy in line with the Nationals in opposing the emissions trading scheme.

But it pits the Opposition directly against the will of the Australian people.

First, the Liberals chose the least popular of the three leadership candidates on offer, according to both the Nielsen poll and the Newspoll this week. Only one in five voters prefer Abbott as Liberal leader.

Second, the Liberals decided to support a policy that has slender public appeal.

Only 25 per cent of Australians oppose the emissions trading scheme, according to the Herald's Nielsen poll on Monday, while 66 per cent support the scheme.

The Rudd Government will have to decide whether it wants to call an early, double dissolution election on climate change.

Source: http://tinyurl.com/yev7mhw
 
Typical of the bloody Liberal Party, taking the support of substantially less than half the population as a mandate to do whatever the hell they want.

Oh, except about half of the Parliamentary party don't want Abbott as leader, either.

Sadly, I still think Turnbull is the best option they have as leader. Which says more about what I think of the Liberal Party than what I think of him.
 
If the answer is carbon trading or planting trees to offset your jet travel or the pollution from your factories. The question must be 'How can I, as a rich western fat cat, make money from global warming?' (Yes I mean you Zac Goldsmith!)
Sounds to me that the australian Liberals might be quite principled.
It strikes me that global warming's impact on political orthodoxy could be surprising. For instance, shouldn't leftist/labour thinkers be supporting manufacturing above all?
 
Climate change sceptics are 'muddled', says Lord Stern

From The Telegraph website

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/enviro ... Stern.html

I copied & pasted these from the comments submitted under the article linked above.

The Deputy Institute Director of the Grantham Research Institute is one Dr Simon Dietz.
Guess where he got his " first class honours degree in environmental science".
You're right.
The illustrious University of East Anglia.
That should guarantee a totally objective stance on climate change.
Charles Lee
on December 01, 2009
at 06:55 PM

Charles Lee: You've got it in one. The Grantham Institute which Lord Stern heads was set up in Feb 2007 by US billionaire Jeremy Grantham: http://www.innovations-report.com/html/ ... 79626.html

Mr. Grantham will sit on the management board of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change, along with Imperial's Rector Sir Richard Sykes who will chair the Board; Carter Roberts, President and CEO of World Wildlife Fund; and Fred Krupp, President of Environmental Defense.

At the same time, Grantham set up a sister institute at Imperial College, London. A common advisory board will oversee the work of both Institutes.

The Grantham's total investment of over £24 million, made through the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, is one of the largest private donations to climate change research.

Professor Sir Brian Hoskins, CBE, FRS is the Director of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College, London

"Committed to ensuring that climate research is used to advise governments and influence policy, Sir Brian was a member of the Royal Commission that first proposed a 60% target for reduction of UK carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. He also acted as a scientific advisor to the Stern Review, credited with pushing the issue of climate change to the centre of the political agenda in the UK, and was a member of the IPCC assessment team recently awarded the Nobel Prize."

Most of the members of the UK Climate Change Committee are based at or associated with Imperial College and LSE and many of them with the World Bank and IPCC. Their powers of control over UK emissions targets will soon be enshrined in law.

So UK Climate Policy is now directly influenced by WWF International and Environmental Defense and cross-linked to IPCC.

Lord Stern is heavily involved in carbon trading advice via the company IdeaGlobal, and its offshoot IdeaCarbon, which he helped to found:
http://www.ideaglobal.com/products/info/about.html

Established in 1989, IDEAglobal is an independent, global research organization, with its headquarters in Singapore, and subsidiaries in New York and London.

IDEAglobal has over 80 full time research staff as well as access on an exclusive basis to a group of expert academics at the London School of Economics, as well as an active Advisory Board of former central bankers and former CEOs of investment bank.

IdeaCarbon:
http://www.ideacarbon.com/advisors/index.htm

Lord Nicholas Stern,
Advisor to IDEAglobal Group, parent company of IDEAcarbon

Author of the seminal Review on the Economics of Climate Change and former Chief Economist at the World Bank, currently the IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government at the London School of Economics, heading a new India Observatory within the LSE's Asia Research Centre and also a Visiting Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford. He was Adviser to the UK Government on the Economics of Climate Change and Development, reporting to the Prime Minister from 2003-2007.

Dr. Samuel Fankhauser is a Principal Research Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics. He also serves as Chief Economist at Globe International, the international legislator forum.

He just happens to be a member of the climate change committee and sub-committee on mitigation, (ie Carbon trading).

In 2007/08, Fankhauser was Managing Director at IDEAcarbon:
http://www.ideacarbon.com/advisors/index.htm

IDEAcarbon’s premier strategic advice service has been created to give senior decision makers tailored intelligence about key developments in climate change policy and the evolution of the carbon markets.

There is more, much, much more.
DennisA
on December 01, 2009
at 07:56 PM
 
Johann Hari: How I wish that the global warming deniers were right
Are you prepared to take a 50-50 gamble on the habitability of the planet?
Friday, 4 December 2009

Every day, I pine for the global warming deniers to be proved right. I loved the old world – of flying to beaches wherever we want, growing to the skies, and burning whatever source of energy came our way. I hate the world to come that I've seen in my reporting from continent after continent - of falling Arctic ice shelves, of countries being swallowed by the sea, of vicious wars for the water and land that remains. When I read the works of global warming deniers like Nigel Lawson or Ian Plimer, I feel a sense of calm washing over me. The nightmare is gone; nothing has to change; the world can stay as it was.

But then I go back to the facts. However much I want them to be different, they sit there, hard and immovable. Nobody disputes that greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere, like a blanket holding in the Sun's rays. Nobody disputes that we are increasing the amount of those greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. And nobody disputes that the world has become considerably hotter over the past century. (If you disagree with any of these statements, you'd fail a geography GCSE).

Yet half our fellow citizens are choosing to believe the deniers who say there must be gaps between these statements big enough to fit an excuse for carrying on as we are. Shrieking at them is not going to succeed.

Our first response has to be to accept that this denial is an entirely natural phenomenon. The facts of global warming are inherently weird, and they run contrary to our evolved instincts. If you burn an odourless, colourless gas in Europe, it will cause the Arctic to melt and Bangladesh to drown and the American Mid-West to dry up? By living our normal lives, doing all the things we have been brought up doing, we can make great swathes of the planet uninhabitable? If your first response is incredulity, then you're a normal human being.

It's tempting to allow this first response to harden into a dogma, and use it to cover your eyes. The oil and gas industries have been spending billions to encourage us to stay stuck there, because their profits will plummet when we make the transition to a low-carbon society. But the basic science isn't actually very complicated, or hard to grasp. As more carbon dioxide is pumped into the atmosphere, the world gets warmer. Every single year since 1917 has been hotter than 1917. Every single year since 1956 has been hotter than 1956. Every single year since 1992 has been hotter than 1992. And on, and on. If we dramatically increase the carbon dioxide even more – as we are – we will dramatically increase the warming. Many parts of the world will dry up or flood or burn.

This is such an uncomfortable claim that I too have tried to grasp at any straw that suggests it is wrong. One of the most tempting has come in the past few weeks, when the emails of the Hadley Centre at the University of East Anglia were hacked into, and seem on an initial reading to show that a few of their scientists were misrepresenting their research to suggest the problem is slightly worse than it is. Some people have seized on it as a fatal blow – a Pentagon Papers for global warming.

But then I looked at the facts. It was discovered more than a century ago that burning fossil fuels would release warming gases and therefore increase global temperatures, and since then, hundreds of thousands of scientists have independently reached the conclusion that it will have terrible consequences. It would be very surprising if, somewhere among them, there wasn't a charlatan or two who over-hyped their work. Such people exist in every single field of science (and they are deplorable).

So let's knock out the Hadley Centre's evidence. Here are just a fraction of the major scientific organisations that have independently verified the evidence that man-made global warming is real, and dangerous: Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, L'Academie des Sciences, the Indian National Science Academy, the US National Academy of Sciences, the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina, the UK's Royal Society, the Academia Brasileira de Ciencias, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the US Environmental Protection Agency... I could fill this entire article with these names.

And they haven't only used one method to study the evidence. They've used satellite data, sea level measurements, borehole analysis, sea ice melt, permafrost melt, glacial melt, drought analysis, and on and on. All of this evidence from all of these scientists using all these methods has pointed in one direction. As the conservative journalist Hugo Rifkind put it, the Hadley Centre no more discredits climate science than Harold Shipman discredits GPs.

etc...

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/co ... 33728.html
 
[http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=930142&highlight=#930142] P_M



... or even the Climate Change deniers
Click to expand...

Slightly off topic I know, but I'm becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the use of the word "deniers" to describe anyone who expresses even mild scepticism about some of the claims made by the pro-global warming lobby.

It's a clear attempt to link scepticism about global warming with denying the Holocaust. A cheap shot and an apparent attempt to shut down debate on the topic.

What's wrong with "sceptics"? Or even "non-believers"?
 
Quake42 said:
or even the Climate Change deniers
Click to expand...

Slightly off topic I know, but I'm becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the use of the word "deniers" to describe anyone who expresses even mild scepticism about some of the claims made by the pro-global warming lobby.

It's a clear attempt to link scepticism about global warming with denying the Holocaust. A cheap shot and an apparent attempt to shut down debate on the topic.

What's wrong with "sceptics"? Or even "non-believers"?
Click to expand...
I used the term, 'denier', for exactly the same reason that the term has come to be used in relation to Creationists. Both Climate Change and Creationist deniers attempt to deny the very real scientific work and results underpinning the theories. They are mostly not sceptics, or even skeptics, because many of them are using fudged statistics, wilfully bad science, or even downright nonsense, to undermine those theories. They have been at it for more than twenty years, putting tremendous pressure on real scientists, over that period.

As to, 'non-believers', that suggests, in a similar way to its iniquitous introduction into the Creationist v. Evolutionist debate, that belief in one, or the other, relies on similar levels of 'Faith' of a more, or less religious variety, rather than on the ascertainable facts of the matter.

Yes, there is a similarity to 'Holocaust Denial'. That is also based on the most monstrous attempts to deny the true facts, as far as they can be ascertained.
 
I used the term, 'denier', for exactly the same reason that the term has come to be used in relation to Creationists...

[rant snipped]

Yes, there is a similarity to 'Holocaust Denial'. That is also based on the most monstrous attempts to deny the true facts, as far as they can be ascertained.
Click to expand...

So, in other words, you (and others) say "denier" and "denial" to try and smear people who disagree with you. :?

There is a huge difference between claiming that an extremely well documented HISTORCAL EVENT never happened and expressing scepticism about some of the wilder claims about potential FUTURE EVENTS being made by some in the environmental movement.

For the record, my view is that climate change is a reality and that much of it is probably due to CO2 emissions. However, there is a sense that the debate is no longer about impartial scientific inquiry and that an almost religious fervour has taken hold of some scientists involved with this - as the leaked emails from UAE would tend to support.

Fatuous comments from climate scientists such as last year's "Just because it's getting cooler doesn't mean it's not getting warmer" don't inspire confidence and neither does hysterical "burn the witch" type invective such as that in your post.
 
Quake42 said:
...

Fatuous comments from climate scientists such as last year's "Just because it's getting cooler doesn't mean it's not getting warmer" don't inspire confidence and neither does hysterical "burn the witch" type invective such as that in your post.
Click to expand...
Since you wished to censor my use of language, Quake42, I felt that i had a right of reply. The fact that you do not understand the difference between concepts like 'Global Warming' and 'Climate Change', shows how far climate scientists are from communicating real depth and seriousness of the problem to the general Public.

You are of course welcome to disagree.

-- -- --

Off Topic Climate Posts moved and merged.

P_M.
 
Exquisite irony. There seems to be about 90/10% of agreement between PM & Quake, yet they seem to be bickering.
Now that's the way science is conducted in the real world ;)
 
shruggy63 said:
Exquisite irony. There seems to be about 90/10% of agreement between PM & Quake, yet they seem to be bickering.
Now that's the way science is conducted in the real world ;)
Click to expand...
I have to agree with you. In fact, just to be sure, I actually checked your calculations with Wolfram Alpha, to see if my outcome agreed with yours.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=90/10%+=+

Yes, Quake42 and I, are indeed, probably, about 9% in agreement. The devil is in the detail of the remaining 91%.

;)
 
The fact that you do not understand the difference between concepts like 'Global Warming' and 'Climate Change', shows how far climate scientists are from communicating real depth and seriousness of the problem to the general Public.
Click to expand...

Cheap shot, and, if I may say so, typical of the style of argument you tend to use to respond to posters who disagree with your pronouncements. I note that, as usual, you have failed to engage with any of the points I made and instead made a sneery aside implying I'm not intelligent enough to understand the difference.

I started typing out a detailed rebuttal but decided that it really wasn't worth the effort.
 
'Worst episode ever!'
Such an important debate but you guys have to act like overgrown children?
Frankly, you just make yourselves look silly. You devalue the forum & your own online identities. 100% pitiful!
 
Quake42 said:
Slightly off topic I know, but I'm becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the use of the word "deniers" to describe anyone who expresses even mild scepticism about some of the claims made by the pro-global warming lobby.
Click to expand...

Given that it's the fate of the planet we're talking about, it's understandable that you would get this sort of polarisation.
I'm not convinced that it's directly linked with Holocaust denial (which is much more complex than simply saying that there was no Holocaust), but in FT a while back was suggested that climate change denial might also be made a crime in the same way. And perhaps with better reason.

Can we risk it?
 
It is not the fate of the planet. It will still be here going through cycles. It is possibly the fate of humanity.
 
Pietro_Mercurios said:
Quake42 said:
or even the Climate Change deniers
Click to expand...

Slightly off topic I know, but I'm becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the use of the word "deniers" to describe anyone who expresses even mild scepticism about some of the claims made by the pro-global warming lobby.

It's a clear attempt to link scepticism about global warming with denying the Holocaust. A cheap shot and an apparent attempt to shut down debate on the topic.

What's wrong with "sceptics"? Or even "non-believers"?
Click to expand...
I used the term, 'denier', for exactly the same reason that the term has come to be used in relation to Creationists. Both Climate Change and Creationist deniers attempt to deny the very real scientific work and results underpinning the theories.
quote]
Click to expand...

As indeed many attempt to deny the very real scientific work and results underpinning the natural climate change theories.
Are you a Natural Climate Change Denier?
 
Scunnerlugzzz said:
...

As indeed many attempt to deny the very real scientific work and results underpinning the natural climate change theories.
Are you a Natural Climate Change Denier?
Click to expand...
Some details, perhaps? Which, "very real scientific work and results underpinning the natural climate change theories." do you mean?
 
Pietro_Mercurios said:
Scunnerlugzzz said:
...

As indeed many attempt to deny the very real scientific work and results underpinning the natural climate change theories.
Are you a Natural Climate Change Denier?
Click to expand...
Some details, perhaps? Which, "very real scientific work and results underpinning the natural climate change theories." do you mean?
Click to expand...

There are a host of papers from independant scientists online, and some very good blogs. All available to those with a modicum of googling ability.
It really is worth being proactive and tracking some alternative viewpoints down rather than waiting for the IPCC, or indeed me to spoonfeed you with graphs and links.
Of course if you don't look for it you wont find it.

Are you a Natural Climate Change Denier?
 
Scunnerlugzzz said:
...

There are a host of papers from independant scientists online, and some very good blogs. All available to those with a modicum of googling ability.
It really is worth being proactive and tracking some alternative viewpoints down rather than waiting for the IPCC, or indeed me to spoonfeed you with graphs and links.
Of course if you don't look for it you wont find it.

Are you a Natural Climate Change Denier?
Click to expand...
No mate. If you have something in mind, you spit it out. I don't see why you should be able to make insinuations and then ask me to do all the work.

:lol:
 
I can't recall making any insinuations.
I asked you a question which so far you have chosen not to answer.
Any insinuation drawn from that is down to you.

If you are a Natural Climate Change Denier then would there be any point in presenting any viewpoints contratry to the one you hold? :D


Actually (and this is a general point, not aimed specifically at you) this attitude of "give me a link that encapsulates your whole point of view in one handy page" is rather ridiculous.

If you anyone is intersted in alternative viewpoints they are very easy to find.
If this "work" is all too much trouble then thats ok with me, no point debating with anyone who can't be bothered to gen up, even slighty, on alternative points of view.
 
Scunnerlugzzz said:
If you are a Natural Climate Change Denier then would there be any point in presenting any viewpoints contratry to the one you hold? :D
Click to expand...

Is there such a thing as a 'Natural Climate Change Denier'? I thought the whole argument was that a natural cycle is being disrupted by atmospheric pollution. That's why the pace of climate change appears to be accelerating.
 
Cavynaut said:
Scunnerlugzzz said:
If you are a Natural Climate Change Denier then would there be any point in presenting any viewpoints contratry to the one you hold? :D
Click to expand...

Is there such a thing as a 'Natural Climate Change Denier'? I thought the whole argument was that a natural cycle is being disrupted by atmospheric pollution. That's why the pace of climate change appears to be accelerating.
Click to expand...


Is there such a thing as a Climate Change Denier?
 
Scunnerlugzzz said:
I can't recall making any insinuations.
I asked you a question which so far you have chosen not to answer.
Any insinuation drawn from that is down to you.

If you are a Natural Climate Change Denier then would there be any point in presenting any viewpoints contratry to the one you hold? :D


Actually (and this is a general point, not aimed specifically at you) this attitude of "give me a link that encapsulates your whole point of view in one handy page" is rather ridiculous.

If you anyone is intersted in alternative viewpoints they are very easy to find.
If this "work" is all too much trouble then thats ok with me, no point debating with anyone who can't be bothered to gen up, even slighty, on alternative points of view.
Click to expand...
By asking, "Are you a Natural Climate Change Denier?" you are insinuating that I may be close minded in some way similar to Anthropogenic Climate Change Deniers, in respect of alternative theories.

But, I have no idea, which particular form of "Natural Climate Change" you are on about. You say yourself, such theories are apparently legion.

Is it Sunspots? Cosmic Rays? Volcanos? Some combination of similar factors? Put your cards on the table.

However, I could point you to pages that make the case for Anthropogenic Climate Change, fairly easily. Nor, do I have to link to press releases from dodgy right wing think tanks to do it.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11462
http://www.realclimate.org/

I will leave it to others to decide how serious your imprecations actually are.

:rofl:
 
Pietro_Mercurios said:
Scunnerlugzzz said:
I can't recall making any insinuations.
I asked you a question which so far you have chosen not to answer.
Any insinuation drawn from that is down to you.

If you are a Natural Climate Change Denier then would there be any point in presenting any viewpoints contratry to the one you hold? :D


Actually (and this is a general point, not aimed specifically at you) this attitude of "give me a link that encapsulates your whole point of view in one handy page" is rather ridiculous.

If you anyone is intersted in alternative viewpoints they are very easy to find.
If this "work" is all too much trouble then thats ok with me, no point debating with anyone who can't be bothered to gen up, even slighty, on alternative points of view.
Click to expand...
By asking, "Are you a Natural Climate Change Denier?" you are insinuating that I may be close minded in some way similar to Anthropogenic Climate Change Deniers.

But, I have no idea, which particular form of "Natural Climate Change" you are on about. You say yourself, they are apparently legion.

I will leave it to others to decide how serious your imprecations actually are.

:rofl:
Click to expand...

It seems that you are happy to use the term "Climate Change Denier" towards those with an alternative viewpoint on the subject to your own and also to attempt to justify the terms use when challenged, but come over all affronted when its turned on you and bluster rather than answer the simple question, are you a Natural Climate Change Denier.

:?
 
You seem to have added some other points to your original post (which I quoted above).

Why on Earth can it not be a combination of natural factors?

Here is work on one factor, which I posted last week, well worth consideration.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... &aid=10783

Dodgy right-wing think tanks? Are they the ones who have been committing the cardinal sin of Science, fixing data to fit your theory, or was that AGW scientists?

:rofl:
 
Scunnerlugzzz said:
You seem to have added some other points to your original post (which I quoted above).

Why on Earth can it not be a combination of natural factors?

Here is work on one factor, which I posted last week, well worth consideration.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... &aid=10783

Dodgy right-wing think tanks? Are they the ones who have been committing the cardinal sin of Science, fixing data to fit your theory, or was that AGW scientists?

:rofl:
Click to expand...
Dodgy right-wing think tank is how The Heartland Institute could be described, with which Prof. Don J. Easterbrook, author of the above article, has previously been associated.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Don_Easterbrook
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heartland_Institute

That ice is still melting.
 
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