Global warming....

[Jeros]

Here are edinburgh we have one of the largest supercomputers in the world running global climate models in an attempt to better understand what is going on with the climate, and the results are very interesting and show we are about to enter a period of massive climate change, which, of course, we knew already, but allows us to predict a timescale of the changes that are coming. We are looking at some major changes in the next 50 years alone.

but there is a real nagging thing in the back of my head

People (politicians/academics/crazys, whoever) are argueing about the extent to which we are making a difference, rather than actually PREPARING for whats coming.

FOR GODS SAKE YOU FUCKERS, STOP ARGUING ABOUT WHAT PERCENTAGE IS OUR FAULT AND ACTULLY START PREPARING FOR WHAT WE KNOW IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN!

Morons!

 

[ECA]

We wont do anything until it's too late and hundreds of millions start dying in africa.

People want meat with every meal and we all want to drive a car each.

 

[ramathorn]

We deserve everything we get

 

[Embattle]

No matter what actually happens we will loose nothing if we err on the side of caution.

 

[Tom]

Here are edinburgh we have one of the largest supercomputers in the world running global climate models in an attempt to better understand what is going on with the climate, and the results are very interesting and show we are about to enter a period of massive climate change, which, of course, we knew already, but allows us to predict a timescale of the changes that are coming. We are looking at some major changes in the next 50 years alone.

but there is a real nagging thing in the back of my head

People (politicians/academics/crazys, whoever) are argueing about the extent to which we are making a difference, rather than actually PREPARING for whats coming.

FOR GODS SAKE YOU FUCKERS, STOP ARGUING ABOUT WHAT PERCENTAGE IS OUR FAULT AND ACTULLY START PREPARING FOR WHAT WE KNOW IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN!

Morons!

Supercomputers can only work on what they're fed. Anthropogenic Climate Change is by no means a certainty.

Its better and cheaper to spend the money dealing with any consequences if and when they happen, than trying to hold back the tide of human progress.

 

[chipper]

We deserve everything we get

what a very short sighted statement

its only in the last couple of decades we are truly starting to understand the damage we are causing to the planet and we are trying to rectify the problem that said you cant expect the world to stop turning over night.

we need industry we need commerce these are 2 very basic facts of life take away these and we are no better off than our ancestors 5000 years ago

seriously before coming out with silly statements like that consider how the world works and what its been built on.

scientists are working towards solutions for the climate problems we face but like anything it will take time till then its up to the individuals to do there part.

you can scream at the government all you like but the buck stops with us as individuals. industry is constantly been pushed to meet carbon quotas but solutions cannot be applied over night. and maybe by the time solutions are found it will be too late.

steps need to be and are been taken to deal with any major problems we face in the future

jeros it is important to know what sort of impact we are having on the climate this is an important issue how can you put things right if your not sure you doing anything wrong in the first place (obviously we are but to what extent is hotly debated)

 

[Scouse]

Anthropogenic Climate Change is by no means a certainty.

Tom, I know you insist on believing the 50% of press reports that hint that it may not even be happening rather than the 99% of scientists who say that their evidence shows uneqivocally that it is, how ever, I will agree with you!

Anthropogenic Climate Change is by no means a certainty. Indeed, the chances of us being responsible for climate change are about as remote as the sun coming up tomorrow.

 

[Scouse]

We deserve everything we get

Really? So, if you find out one day that something seemingly inoccuous, such as wearing shades, gives you eye cancer, you deserve it?

Never deal in absolutes

we need industry we need commerce these are 2 very basic facts of life take away these and we are no better off than our ancestors 5000 years ago

True, but to be fair, our ancestors of 5000 years ago probably weren't facing problems like this - and neither was every other living thing on the planet....

 

[Furr]

I'd rather they started focusing on planet engineering science, extracting carbon from the air and converting it into carbon holding material etc, probably best to use some genetically engineering organism to do that, but yeh, you get what I mean.

 

[Scouse]

Cool as that would be Furr, I have to disagree. To many of our geoengineering projects have ended in unexpected disaster.

It'd be a right own-goal if that happened on a global scale

 

[Tom]

I'm much more concerned about the destruction of our biosphere, then I am about the carbon dioxide emissions we generate as a species.

When you read continuous bullshit about the Maldives about to 'disappear into the sea' when sea levels have hardly changed in decades, and do not appear to be changing, it makes one somewhat cynical.

 

[Bodhi]

All I will say is "Oh god not this shit again".

Yes, the climate is changing. No, we are fuck all to do with it. Now stop taxing the fuck out of us for producing plant food and let's get on with feeding Africa, or curing AIDS/cancer, or actually doing something useful, rather than trying to stop Ice Ages.

THE CLIMATE FUCKING CHANGED BEFORE WE EVEN GOT HERE, NOW WE'RE HERE WE THINK WE'RE RESPONSIBLE? Fucking get over yourselves.

Oh and Scouse, 99% of scientists???? Fucking LOL. Most of the advocates of climate change have got a fucking nerve calling themselves scientists. Scientists should be giving us impartial information, not tailoring their research toward who is going to fund them the most. We're actually on a general cooling curve at the moment, yet this is ignored as it doesn;t fit the scientists gravy train. It's no wonder the proponents of Global Man Made Climate Change Warming are known as True Believers. It's faith, not science, and as such has no place in modern scientific research.

 

[Scouse]

I'm much more concerned about the destruction of our biosphere...

...and, aside from direct action by man, climate change is the single biggest factor in the destruction biosphere - outweighing all other factors combined.

[quoteWhen you read continuous bullshit about the Maldives about to 'disappear into the sea' when sea levels have hardly changed in decades, and do not appear to be changing, it makes one somewhat cynical.[/QUOTE]

Went to University with a guy from the Maldives. He wanted to study electrical engineering but was only allowed, by his government, to study Environmental Management & Technology - 'cause the government of the Maldives believe that they're going to 'disappear into the sea'...

 

[chipper]

.No, we are fuck all to do with it.

sorry but that is complete and utter bullshit

yes we are on a cooling curve and thankfully that theory is starting to rear its head more and more, but to say we are not a contributing factor is insane.

carbon emmisions from cars to bleedin rockets have dumped huge amounts of carbon into the air cant tell me thats good for the atmosphere. ok its only been around 100 years, but then you have to take into comsideration heavy industry in the 1800's to present day. they didnt know about alot of the shit we know today.

man made particulates have been found in the ozone layer holes and although its accepted we didnt create them we are partially responisble for making them bigger.

god if i really wanted to dig into this i bet it would be quite disturbing to find out just what shit we pump into our atmosphere and bury in the ground.

100-200 years is not alot in the grand scale of things but isnt it better to start curbing these bad habits and make things like industry cleaner for future generations?


as any doctor/scientist will tell you prevention is better than cure

 

[Scouse]

Oh and Scouse, 99% of scientists???? Fucking LOL. Most of the advocates of climate change have got a fucking nerve calling themselves scientists. Scientists should be giving us impartial information, not tailoring their research toward who is going to fund them the most. We're actually on a general cooling curve at the moment, yet this is ignored as it doesn;t fit the scientists gravy train. It's no wonder the proponents of Global Man Made Climate Change Warming are known as True Believers. It's faith, not science, and as such has no place in modern scientific research.

I personally know at least 6 environmental scientists who are as certain as scientists can be that global warming is real, man-made and dangerous. But that means fuck all...

However, the prevailing scientific view (and when I say 99%, I mean it) is of just this.

Just because George Dubya and his neo-con crone allies managed to turn the IPCC into a horribly politicised body doesn't turn scientists into ethically-compromised fuckwits. They're just badly-treated hard-working people - pretty much like the rest of us.

And if you noticed, scientists don't give anyone any information - it's the press that does. Point of note being the MMR vaccine fiasco - shame on the press for reporting like they did, shame on the legion of utter retards that make up 80% of the Great British Public for not understanding this...

"Advocates of climate change"?! Yep, there's loads of them - doesn't mean they are scientists. They could be religious pressure groups or batty environmental activists or financially interested parties/politicians or somesuch shit. It's our job to be educated enough to know the difference.

IIRC we all took "science" to at least 16, so a basic understanding of how science works is a minimum - although I freely admit it's a hard ask to filter out the shit...

 

[Tom]

What I object to most is those who are sceptical of the theory of anthropogenic climate change being labelled as 'deniers'.

Oh and Chipper, you'd do well to examine what percentage of the atmosphere is made up of carbon dioxide, and what percentage of that is from man-made sources. I think the only irrefutable fact everyone can agree on is that nobody really has any idea what's going on. The climate is just too complicated a mechanism for us to understand at this time.

 

[DaGaffer]

Supercomputers can only work on what they're fed. Anthropogenic Climate Change is by no means a certainty.

Its better and cheaper to spend the money dealing with any consequences if and when they happen, than trying to hold back the tide of human progress.

Nevertheless, what he said was we need to start preparing. Contingency planning for a warmer, wetter world (like, stop building on flood plains you fucking morons) makes a degree of sense no matter what the cause.

...and, aside from direct action by man, climate change is the single biggest factor in the destruction biosphere - outweighing all other factors combined.

When you read continuous bullshit about the Maldives about to 'disappear into the sea' when sea levels have hardly changed in decades, and do not appear to be changing, it makes one somewhat cynical.

Went to University with a guy from the Maldives. He wanted to study electrical engineering but was only allowed, by his government, to study Environmental Management & Technology - 'cause the government of the Maldives believe that they're going to 'disappear into the sea'...

Climate change will not "destroy the biosphere". It will change it, certainly, and we may not like it, but the world will merrily go along anyway. However, environmental destruction through fertiliser damage, PCBs, processed heavy metals, and all the rest, not only destroys wildlife but you also can't get rid of the stuff and nothing bigger than an extromophile can live in those kind of toxic environments. One of my biggest concerns about the cult of carbon is that its taken the collective eye off the ball when it comes to that kind of damage, and don't politicians and big business love that?

 

[rynnor]

I think the case for global warming might be more compelling if it hadnt been cooling for the last 11 years.

The climate is a chaotic system - as soon as a super-computer can accurately predict the stock market (another chaotic system) then we might look at predictions with less amusement.

Its also funny to see how bad the long range weather forecasts made by super computers have been recently - this is probably largely due to the inflated role that CO2 has on these simulations.

Anyway - all bets are off - we may be looking at a maunder minimum type event at the moment - little ice age here we come...

 

[ramathorn]

what a very short sighted statement

its only in the last couple of decades we are truly starting to understand the damage we are causing to the planet and we are trying to rectify the problem that said you cant expect the world to stop turning over night.

we need industry we need commerce these are 2 very basic facts of life take away these and we are no better off than our ancestors 5000 years ago

seriously before coming out with silly statements like that consider how the world works and what its been built on.

scientists are working towards solutions for the climate problems we face but like anything it will take time till then its up to the individuals to do there part.

you can scream at the government all you like but the buck stops with us as individuals. industry is constantly been pushed to meet carbon quotas but solutions cannot be applied over night. and maybe by the time solutions are found it will be too late.

steps need to be and are been taken to deal with any major problems we face in the future

jeros it is important to know what sort of impact we are having on the climate this is an important issue how can you put things right if your not sure you doing anything wrong in the first place (obviously we are but to what extent is hotly debated)

I dont think its short sighted in the slightest, but perhaps I should have made my point clearer. Yes I do respect and acknowledge that people are working very hard to find ways to counteract what is a relatively "new" problem. I understand that industry / commerce are the foundations of our society, but when society is built upon such corrupt, selfish systems, it doesnt bode well for the rest of the planet.

The continuous exuberant draining of our aquifers and fresh water lakes to supply the likes of coca cola (at massively discounted prices, one of many rediculous uses) so they can then go to Africa and sell their product cheaper than an equal amount of bottled water, offering the poor population no choice in what they drink. These concessions are given to these private company’s by governments who make token aid gestures and claim they want to rid the world of poverty, which is bs of the highest order. It suits them to keep a large proportion of the worlds population in poverty. Privatisation of water is the privatisation of the right to live.

The destruction of 60% of the world wetlands over the past 100 years (some of the most life rich area’s in the world), a similar figure for the worlds rainforests. Almost all animal populations in serious decline, funnily coinciding with a continious increase in the human population. Intensive farming, human expansion, deforestation, nuclear testing and disposal, sewage, excessive hunting.....blah blah I’m sure you’ve heard it all before.

Never has there been a single species that has caused so much death and so much destruction to our planet, call it human nature, a sick evolved version of natural selection or maybe (to quote Mr Run DMC) “its like that, and thats the way it is.” – what I said wasnt in direct relation to global warming itself, its just one of the many things we are going to fuck up the planet. I’m sure we’ll get through it and get another chance but I don’t think we deserve it and I’m sure it will just be a matter of time until we find a new way to fuck it up. We’re always talking about pest control, well why are we any different? Maybe thats just what we are and something like an ice age is just whats needed to keep us in check.

 

[old.Tohtori]

The planet cools, it heats up, we might have some effect, but it would happen anyway.

A LOT of hoopla about nothing.

Pollution cools the planet down(blocks sun...it actualyl snowed in london during the ww-mega-pollution era(if i remember correctly)), now that we're cutting down on pollution, the planet heats up.

Gee, i see a pattern

 

[Zenith.UK]

The bottom line is there are too many people living on the world.
Yes, I am advocating the removal of a proportion of the human species.
A natural cataclysm would be best as no blame can be attached.

In the end, it doesn't matter what we do. We'll be the planet's next generation of oil in 150million years.

 

[Ctuchik]

actually if my memory serves me its about time for another iceage soon*


*soon being relatively loosly worded since were talking roughly 400 million years since the last one, and they seem to happen at around those intervalls

so with that in mind, the earth shouldn't heat up, it should start to get cooler.

and it isnt.

Gee, i see a pattern

 

[Tom]

Nevertheless, what he said was we need to start preparing. Contingency planning for a warmer, wetter world (like, stop building on flood plains you fucking morons) makes a degree of sense no matter what the cause.

I completely agree. That's the kind of sensible planning however which is sadly lacking. Our glorious leaders seem to think that merely taxing us on our carbon dioxide emissions will solve everything.

Oh, and that's something else that annoys me—calling carbon dioxide, carbon. I take a bath in water, not hydrogen, you dicks.

 

[Wij]

I think what causes most people to become 'deniers' is the fact that the True Believers seem so happy to back-up their theories with lies and half-truths. Most of the stuff in Al Gore's 'I am Jesus' movie was claptrap but it was claptrap that was sounded cool and was easier to understand than 'we ran an insanely complex simulation on a super-computer and were given a range of values as a result...'

Similarly there was something on the Reg recently about the way someone had calculated temperatures from measuring tree-rings. They claimed to have lost the raw data when asked to stump it up for independant analysis but someone found the raw data on an FTP server and it showed that they'd cherry-picked the trees that showed the coolest temperatures in the middle-ages to make recent warming more dramatic.

None of this means that Climate Change isn't happening but it shows that a lot of climate scientists believe that it is but that their proof won't look convincing enough without a helping hand. Clever nerds will find this out though quite reasonably conclude that things aren't as certain as we are being told to believe. Nobody likes to feel misled. It's like believing the results of NuLab policy 'consultations'

 

[rynnor]

None of this means that Climate Change isn't happening but it shows that a lot of climate scientists believe that it is but that their proof won't look convincing enough without a helping hand. Clever nerds will find this out though quite reasonably conclude that things aren't as certain as we are being told to believe. Nobody likes to feel misled. It's like believing the results of NuLab policy 'consultations'

People will find out in the end - probably within the next 5 years I imagine.

I do like the basic oxymoron of the term 'climate change' as though the climate was a fixed thing and that we can pick an arbitrary point in time and say anything different is climate change when it has so many embedded cycles that run from dozens to thousands and even hundreds of thousands of years - great work pseudoscience

 

[Embattle]

A couple of simple facts:

1. Climate change has and always will happen which isn't something the scientists have denied, a lot of them are saying is that it has never changed so fast in Earth terms.
2. The Earth will survive no matter what we do, it'll be us who end up paying and probably just shrug it off either way.

The fact is myself I still think we should try harder but quite frankly I don't tend to think the governments actually care that much.

 

[`mongoose]

Tom, I know you insist on believing the 50% of press reports that hint that it may not even be happening rather than the 99% of scientists who say that their evidence shows uneqivocally that it is, how ever, I will agree with you!

Anthropogenic Climate Change is by no means a certainty. Indeed, the chances of us being responsible for climate change are about as remote as the sun coming up tomorrow.

Actually Tom is right on this one scouse. If you ask any of the scientists on climate change they will tell you that none of the models currently in existence can correctly map/predict or model the environment on daily basis let alone on a yearly/10 yearly cycle.

Add in the fact that there are no reliable records before the late 1800's and early 1900's and you really do get an idea of just how little we know about the way the earth's climate works.

Follow this up with il nino effects over the last 20 years and the multiple volcano eruptions in the last 40-50 years + the effects of conflicts in Europe, South East Asia, the middle east and you have a plethora of things that may or maynot have adversely effected local weather conditions and thus further muddy the waters. I.e. every volcano eruption throws tons of dust and ash into the upper stratosphere, whilst it's invisible after the initial effect it can float about up there for a good 3-5 years before dissipating enough to allow temperatures to return to normal. The same is true of atomic bomb explosions and certainly some of the larger conventional warheads being deployed today.

I think a good proportion of the "evidence" into these changes is heavily skewed. Alot of it is funded by the very people who don't want Global Warming to exist (Oil Companies, Car manufacturers), the stuff that proves it is funded by people with a green agenda (The Green Party, Greenpeace etc)

What I'm more concerned about are tangible things that we KNOW are happening. The destruction of the Ozone layer, things that we can ascribe the route cause of and do something about.

It's positive that we're concerned about the environment, it's not good that so much of it is panic reporting. We should be investigating better, more efficient ways of doing things anyways and should certainly be looking at cleaner and greener ways of getting energy but the panic reporting and rubbish that scientists have reported is just not helping.

Bear in mind as well that when I studied global warming was considered a fantastic cash cow.

I'm not saying it isn't happening, I'm not saying we don't have an effect. What I'm saying is that the facts surrounding it are myriad and nobody has yet managed to map them into anything resembling an accurate model.

M

 

[rynnor]

Another amusing thing about the believers is their idea that science is some kind of popularity contest - if the majority of scientists believe something thats wrong its still wrong.

I also think they massively overplay support in the scientific community although this is rather skewed by the fact that global warming = funding for whatever you like

 

[Talivar]

I cant remeber exactly but i think we are still in whats classed as an ice age, we just in a period of glacial retreat while the weather is warmer. Eventually it will cool and the ice will advance again and then retreat then advance ect ect. I think the ice last retreated at about 10,500 BC so the process isnt exactly fast

 

[old.Tohtori]

actually if my memory serves me its about time for another iceage soon*


*soon being relatively loosly worded since were talking roughly 400 million years since the last one, and they seem to happen at around those intervalls

so with that in mind, the earth shouldn't heat up, it should start to get cooler.

and it isnt.

Gee, i see a pattern

I don't think we've gotten over the last cooling period yet. Not to mention that those happen in so un-noticable levels that i'd rather put it on removing pollution then ice age

Just check how much we've cut on pollution and we're still warming up. Yet, there was no "planetary heat problem" during the industrial age.