Climate visions: a widening divide?
At the UN climate summit in Copenhagen
It's been two years minus just over a week since 192 governments agreed to formulate a new deal on climate change.
There are now just under two weeks left before they're due to conclude it.
As anyone who's employed builders will know, overruns and unanticipated problems are nothing new in many walks of life; so perhaps the already acknowledged failure to finalise a new treaty here shouldn't be regarded too harshly.
But at least if you know fundamentally in which direction you are walking, there's a chance of arriving at the same place eventually.
In the hours before the Copenhagen talks officially open, it appears that if anything, the paths of the industrialised and developing country blocs are moving away from each other.
Last week, the BASIC group of countries - Brazil, South Africa, India and China - put forward proposals (originating from China) detailing some principles they would like to see in any agreement here.
As I wrote in my last post, these included a rejection of binding constraints on emissions for developing countries, opposition to international verification of those constraints, and the continuation of emission reductions from developed nations under the Kyoto Protocol rather than any new framework.
As I also wrote, some of this was very much at odds with principles proposed by the Danish host government - presumably with the approval of all other EU states, and reportedly with the approval of the US.
As I write this post on Sunday evening here, the G77/China bloc - the disparate collection of 130 countries ranging in wealth from prosperous Kuwait to impecunious Togo, which acts as the developing countries' main forum - is holding a day-long meeting to agree its opening position.
The indications are that this will take the bloc even further away from the sort of thing favoured by the EU and US.
Steers I've picked up so far suggest that over half the countries in the bloc are now supporting the demand of small island developing states that the end goal of all of this should be to keep the rise in global average temperature since pre-industrial times to 1.5C, rather than 2C.
Translate this to greenhouse gas concentrations, and the demand is stabilisation at 350 parts per million (ppm) of CO2 or equivalent, rather than the 450ppm that's implicit in the proposals of Western countries and the declaration made in July by G8 members and a group of major developing nations.
Other delegates tell me the G77/China group is toughening other demands as the day progresses; we'll see.
Whatever emerges, the general move of toughening puts a different slant on things from the optimism expressed by Yvo de Boer, the UN climate convention's executive secretary.
He is of course factually correct in saying that more countries have put forward pledges on curbing emissions than ever before, and that the level of political commitment shown by heads of government to tackle the issue is unprecedented - as evidenced by the fine speeches made back in September at the UN secretary general's special session on climate change.
More than 100 heads of state and government are due in for the final days of this conference; and many of them could up their "level of ambition", as the UN tends to call it, with the strike of a decisive pen.
But will they? Or will the fundamental divide prove too wide to cross?
Is there yet - after nearly two years of talking - an agreement on how the world should move forward on climate change?
I'm Richard Black, environment correspondent for the BBC News website. This is my take on what's happening to our shared environment as the human population grows and our use of nature's resources increases.
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~47~RS~)
Comments
Sign in or register to comment.
Good luck! Watching closely!
Thank you for keeping us updated, Richard & Colleagues!
Godspeed! Here's hoping we have something to celebrate at the end!
Complain about this comment
Maria Ashot wrote:
"Good luck!"
Spoken as one advocate/partisan to another.
Richard Black is supposed to be a journalist who reports the news, but any pretence of journalistic integrity has long since been abandoned.
Complain about this comment
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
There is no way that mainstream journalists or politicians would support anything unless it was for the benefit of big business.
Complain about this comment
Maybe the talks could do with some razzmatazz, you know like a Z list Save the World concert from Wembly. Or how about a derogatory sermon from the multi millionaire Bono circling live in his private jet, telling us how much he cares.
The possiblilities to cash in one this are endless for our caring 'stars'.
Complain about this comment
Hmmm seems like some Turkeys do vote for Christmas after all!!!
Those politicians will be rubbing their hands with glee thinking of the feast in tax revenues coming their way, not to mention the financial interests with their carbon credit investments who back them.
Complain about this comment
MANN'S TRICK OR CHEAT
Complain about this comment
Copenhagen is deemed unimportant.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/6737353/Only-one-in-two-voters-accepts-man-made-climate-change-according-to-new-poll.html
Climate scepticism on the rise.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/environment_energy/americans_skeptical_of_science_behind_global_warming
It would seem being called a flat-earther is now a badge of honour.
Complain about this comment
Maybe Blue Peter could do a Coke can mountain appeal.
(Oops scrub that there's earth killing CO2 in coke, don't want the kiddies killing off the earth from opening Coke cans)
Complain about this comment
To Richard Black:
James Hansen's new book, "Storms of My Grandchildren", is timed to be released on December 8/09, as the Copenhagen Conference begins.
-----------
"In Storms of My Grandchildren, Dr. James Hansen — the nation’s leading scientist on climate issues — speaks out for the first time with the full truth about global warming: The planet is hurtling even more rapidly than previously acknowledged to a climatic point of no return.
http://stormsofmygrandchildren.com/
------------------------------------
Are you going to Copenhagen Richard?
Regardless, I look froward to your coverage.
Regards,
Manysummits
Complain about this comment
Re #10. At 8:14pm on 06 Dec 2009, manysummits
That will be the same James Hansen who has said that Copenhagen should fail as he is "vehemently opposed to the carbon market schemes currently proposed, where permits to pollute are bought and sold".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6713581/Copenhagen-climate-change-talks-should-fail.html
Complain about this comment
I can't respond to the threads of the last two days but in my quest for the truth, I did find out these things this weekend.
Has anyone heard of George Carlin? Many a true word spoken in jest.
Apparently al Gore is OK and those sniping his work are paid to do so. THERE IS GLOBAL WARMING. There is also information to verify this.
Wind vanes are not made with a balsa wood interior structure as I thought, they are made with carbon fibre. I have been told that wind vanes are a good method of generating electricity.
Talking to scientists face-to-face is a bit more believable than talking to bloggers who I don't know. Lets hope and pray our world leaders are led on the true path and not up the garden path over the next few days.
Complain about this comment
\\\ Hot Spots - Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa ///
The first glacier we visited in "Hot Spots" was the Chacaltaya Glacier in Bolivia, South America. (posts #82 & 159 - 'Copenhagen Countdown, 2 days')
We now move to Africa, and as time permits, I hope to visit all the continents. Lonnie Thompson and his high altitude drilling group have proven uniquely capable of obtaining intact ice-core records from the world's high mountain icefields and glaciers, and a brief excerpt from his latest publication follows:
From "Glacier loss on Kilimanjaro continues unabated"
by L.G. Thompson et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA); doi/10.1073/pnas.0906029106; PNAS early edition September 22, 2009.
"Regardless of the relative importance of the multiple drivers
responsible for the loss of Kilimanjaro’s summit ice fields, these
shrinking ice fields are not unique (12, 13). The remaining glaciers
throughout Africa (14–16) will soon disappear, most glaciers in tropical South America are in rapid retreat (12, 17–19), the few
remaining glaciers in Indonesia are rapidly disappearing (20), and
on balance most Tibetan glaciers, including many in the Himalayas,
are also retreating (21). Moreover, some of the highest glaciers in
the Himalayas are now wasting from the surface downward (22) just
like the ice fields on Kilimanjaro."
( see the 'pdf' file: Thompson, L.G., H.H. Brecher, E. Mosley-Thompson, D.R. Hardy, and B.G. Mark. 2009. Glacier loss on Kilimanjaro continues unabated. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, doi:10.1073/pnas.0906029106 )
Free on the internet:
http://bprc.osu.edu/Icecore/Abstracts/Publications.html
-----------------
Here is some background on Dr. Thompson and his group at Ohio State University:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonnie_Thompson
http://bprc.osu.edu/Icecore/front-page.html
- Manysummits -
Complain about this comment
I applaud the idea of the developing nations having real clout at COP15 - historically this is something that the developed world has done to them. But to oppose international verification? That surely indicates a wish to evade any standards agreed....
perhaps I read this wrong.
Complain about this comment
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
To #11:
Yes, the very same.
Dr. Hansen has testified before Congress that a carbon tax and dividend is to be preferred, as it is not a scheme available to Wall Street and company.
As a former stockbroker myself (for a year), I find his reasoning compelling. A carbon tax would work, which is why it is not being discussed in 'polite' circles.
I am glad to say I am not polite, and in my opinion, carbon trading scenarios are smoke and mirrors.
There are few human beings in the world today who think they understand the magnitude of the climate change underway.
As such this minority is scorned.
That is understandable, in light of human nature.
It is also irrelevant in the bigger picture, i.e., the natural world.
Humans are the small picture - but for us, it is most assuredly not irrelevant.
- Manysummits -
Complain about this comment
comment 2
Bowmanthe bard
brilliant comment sir
i would add however any journalistic intergrity by ANY BBC journalist on the subject of "climate change" has LONG SINCE been abandoned !!
every single report is done from a completely biased viewpoint
Complain about this comment
Read what a real scientist has to say
Richard Lindzen
WHO IS HE
WHAT HE SAYS
Complain about this comment
Slice your average environment correspondent through the middle and you're going to find a left-leaning liberal arts graduate who is utterly out of his/her depth.
Their world view is being swept from underneath them and they are being shown—in ways that they do not really and have never had to understand—that the guys they thought were the goodies are in fact "at it" and that those they have spent a decade disparaging as deniers were in fact spot on.
I would find that hard to report too.
// Quote from Devils Kitchen blog on ClimateGate
Complain about this comment
You are so right, manysummits, but isn't this why the politicians have bought into 'anthropogenic global warming', have spent many millions on research to try to prove it exists - so they can tax us.
Yet shouldn't we expect some global warming to occur now we are emerging from the Little Ice Age. Why are politicians so arrogant that they can claim to be able to 'manage climate' when Nature has been doing that for billions of years - why do they think they can suddenly take over.
Complain about this comment
It's far more likely that politicians fund climate research because they think it is something that needs to be investigated.
Complain about this comment
#2 #17 totally disagree. just because the the bbc reporting does not reflect your biases does not make that reporting biased. if anything i believe it gives far too much space to a miniscule group of vocal contrarians.
#18 gosh, you've come across lindzen's work. isn't it exciting, you've actually found a real scientist that is a contrarian.....oh dear, it appears that until fairly recently he was also saying smoking was not linked to lung cancer.....I wonder why he would say that?.....try digging a bit deeper sparklet, that's the sign of a true sceptic as apposed to a contrarian sheep.
Complain about this comment
Mean temperature anomalies for UK for 2009 so far (from Met Office)
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/anomalygraphs/index.html#
Give it a few seconds to load.
Also if you then click on the 1961 to 1990 anomaly button the difference is even more pronounced.
Complain about this comment
Re #22 Rossglory
#18 "gosh, you've come across lindzen's work. isn't it exciting, you've actually found a real scientist that is a contrarian.....oh dear, it appears that until fairly recently he was also saying smoking was not linked to lung cancer.....I wonder why he would say that?.....try digging a bit deeper sparklet, that's the sign of a true sceptic as apposed to a contrarian sheep."
Maybe because he likes to smoke, Ross. - but my 'digging' goes a little further than simply scanning Wikipedia - and why would you want to ask a Professor of Meteorology his views on smoking, I'm far more interested in his views on Climate science.
Complain about this comment
Those people criticising Richard Black's impartiality should ask themselves why it is that most of his reports seem to support the idea of man-made global warming. As the BBC's environment correspondent he talks to scientists and politicians day in, day out. Given that 97 percent of scientists who publish reports on climate change are convinced that humans are changing the climate [ http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus.htm ] -- and that the politicians are briefed by these scientists -- it should come as no surprise that most of what he has to report seems to reflect that overwhelming consensus of informed opinion. Indeed it would be most peculiar if he tried to sit on the fence.
Keep up the good work, Richard, and don't let the deniers get you down. Our children will thank you.
Complain about this comment
Re #21. At 10:17pm on 06 Dec 2009, infinity wrote:
"It's far more likely that politicians fund climate research because they think it is something that needs to be investigated".
You mean like WMD and the dodgy dossier?
Complain about this comment
Nor does this give me any confidence -
"Mr Pachauri ...said the IPCC was a "sober body" whose work was verified by governments".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8387737.stm
Complain about this comment
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
To JRWoodman #25:
Nice to see you again - on the last blog and this one.
Interesting link in #25.
- Manysummits -
Complain about this comment
RE:- 12. At 8:34pm on 06 Dec 2009, sensiblegrannie wrote:
Excellent comments but I hardly think the majority of bloggers here would. be supporting you.
"I have been told that wind vanes are a good method of generating electricity."
I gather there are many people in the state of Texas......where black gold was originally discovered.... who, contrary to the views of many bloggers here, would agree with you on that one! Did you know that Texas has leapfrogged over California as the state generating the most power from alternative energy and most of that comes from Windfarms!Quite a significant amount from what I hear.Must be a good reason for that.But then I am biased ..I (and several of my friends and acquaintances) have been using one for a long time.(not to mention my solar hot water heater and solar panels)
"Talking to scientists face-to-face is a bit more believable than talking to bloggers who I don't know."
Couldn't agree more.I doubt if there are ANY "climate scientists' (genuine ones that is) blogging on this site. Take Sparklets recent quote re Richard Lindzen (# 18)Certainly, Richard is a very reputable scientist but one who has published very little on "Climate Change". Note first of all they are always quoting someone else! Note they never quote someone who has a contra views to their own. Note the article he quotes was written for the Wall Street Journal which has published many other articles , all of a similar nature. About as biased as they themselves claim Richard and the BBC are!
So, I'm with you on this one.
Complain about this comment
Spot on, JRWoodman. It's no surprise that you can't find any column inches in any scientific journal or even popular science magazines that are devoted to disputing humanity's impact on the climate; the debate has moved on to what is the best way of dealing with it.
If anything, the BBC and other media give totally disproportionate coverage of the opposing arguments.
The studies that have contributed to scientists' consensus on the issue are in the public domain. Science magazines have been making these studies accessible to the general public for well over a decade, but there are still plenty of armchair contrarians complaining that the jury is still out, based on the strident shouting of that tiny 3% minority of scientists would don't believe in anthropogenic climate change.
What is astonishing is that people will devote an enormous amount of energy into objectively determining which mortgage suits them best, or even which plasma tv - but they will not exert themselves to read published articles by the overwhelming majority of scientists belonging to national academies all over the world.
Complain about this comment
Re- 24. At 10:39pm on 06 Dec 2009, Sparklet wrote:
"Maybe because he likes to smoke, Ross. - but my 'digging' goes a little further than simply scanning Wikipedia - and why would you want to ask a Professor of Meteorology his views on smoking, I'm far more interested in his views on Climate science."
Just how far did you dig and what else did you come up with?
Did you find out how much the Wall Street Journal paid him for his articles? After all, he did admit to being paid in other similar circumstances.
He who pays the piper......
(by the way....I think Richard Lindzen made his views on smoking for the very same reasons.....he who pays the piper! I doubt if he would offer his views to Rossglory just because Ross asked him which I very much doubt that he did but someone sure did!)
But then you are the young fellow that relies on hyperbole and snide one-liners.
Complain about this comment
Manysummits promotes James Hansen's new book.
I trust everyone knows that Hansen's ex-boss at NASA, John Theon, gave interviews this year in which he said that he never believed in Hansen's global warming findings. He further said that NASA cautioned Hansen to stop promoting his AGW theories.
Complain about this comment
The apparent lack of skepticism in major media outlets regarding the claims of the "Global Warming Cabal" worries me. The idea of turning over powers to regulate human behavior to "save" the planet to governments that so recently nearly destroyed the world economy terrifies me.
Complain about this comment
Richard, good luck for your efforts to cover a very difficult conference! I look forward to reading your analyses over the coming days.
Complain about this comment
Imagine 90 litres of rice grains - that is about 1,000,000 of the little rascals. Now gather up 385 and from that less than a handful, count out 4. That is how much CO2 mankind puts into the atmosphere - approximately.
Now take one cute little rice grain and try and cut off about 1.6% by volume, all the while looking back at the 90 litres of the original ~ 1,000,000.
That is the total contribution by the UK population and associated industries, Aviation/Shipping/Powewr Generation/Cars/Trucks/Trains/Humans. Are we really supposed to pay huge sums of money in taxes to assuage the misguided Green Religion that is Global Warming? Accurate Science does not play a part.
Where are the sea levels rising as per computer models? Why are the Maldives building new hotels if they expect to be inundated? Arctic/Antarctic Ice levels? The list of smoke and mirror situations is endless.
NoHopenHagen is a total waste of time and money. Unless you are a politician [lower case]
Globalclaptrap is upon us. Get your Carbon Indulgences here!
Complain about this comment
This has become a very political issue, the alleged mal-practices in Climate gate should never even arisen IF proper scientific principles had been applied and followed." There goes another beautiful theory about to be murdered by a gang of brutal facts" was a statement written by the Duc de la Rochefoucald ( 1613-1680 ) and the facts are far from fully understood as to how the climate works on a global basis however there are plenty of theories. As to 97% of scientists being in consensus over global warming, 1st. define precisely the scope of the word consensus ( e.g. is it that 97% of ALL scientists in ALL areas of scientific research agree that climate change will be catastrophic for humankind or more simply the scientists involved with directly measuring temperature and other direct aspects of climate monitoring ) and then PROOVE that this number is correct. From what I have read even in climate science there is no officially published peer reviewed paper that quotes anywhere near that high percentage of consensus. The worlds natural forests are being destroyed in a true and obscene disregard for the natural environment for profit, I would say that part of any policy to re-dress the negative impacts ( if any ) of long term climate change would be to stop this environmental pillage rather that try to place yet many more millions of people under greater financial hardship by CO2 capping and carbon credits.
Complain about this comment
globalclaptrap in post 23
Well said in highlighting all the hypocrisy.
When I was younger there was a common question -
"Who do you trust more, a politician or a used car salesman?"
and the answer was always the used car salesman, as the french would say "Plus ca change ............"
What I find MOST interesting about the AGW "debate", amongst my circle of aquaintances, is that only those without a single science based qualification believe what they are "told" about it, those with science or engineering qualifications don't believe a word of it and openly condemn the solutions that our ignorant politicians offer.
If I'd had the time and energy to go on a demonstration on Saturday (5th), my banner would have read -
"GET REAL, IT'S THE POPULATION, STUPID"
Complain about this comment
Re:-33. At 05:24am on 07 Dec 2009, Tony wrote:
Manysummits promotes James Hansen's new book.
I trust everyone knows that Hansen's ex-boss at NASA, John Theon, gave interviews this year in which he said that he never believed in Hansen's global warming findings. He further said that NASA cautioned Hansen to stop promoting his AGW theories.
Yes, Tony, you are dead right...everyone knows that John Theon gave interviews
And
Everyone who knows that also knows that pressure was put on NASA by the Bush Administration to try to muzzle Hansen.
If on the other hand you had claimed that some of his predictions are considered somewhat extreme, that might be a different matter.And...have you read this?
Gavin Schmidt writes:
Dr. Theon appears to have retired from NASA in 1994, some 15 years ago. Until yesterday I had never heard of him (despite working with and for NASA for the last 13 years). His insights into both modelling and publicity appear to date from then, rather than any recent events. He was not Hansen's 'boss' (the director of GISS reports to the director of GSFC, who reports to the NASA Administrator). His "some scientists" quote is simply a smear - which scientists? where? what did they do? what data? what manipulation? This kind of thing plays well with Inhofe et al because it appears to add something to the 'debate', but in actual fact there is nothing here. Just vague, unsubstantiated accusations.
Wiki tells you that Dr James Hansen has been Director of GISS since 1981
Got any more interesting "facts"?
Complain about this comment
Richard: Your statement about 1.5C, rather than 2C and greenhouse greenhouse gas concentrations of 350 ppm of CO2 or equivalent and 450ppm, is not based on any science. You shouldn't report such nonsense. Can you tell us what validated feedbacks were used to generate such numbers, or did they appear from a late night drinking session?
Despite Copenhagen, the sun refuses to play ball. Another two weeks have gone by without a sunspot. It is exceedingly worrying. Let's hope all that CO2 will help to stave off the next Little (or Big) Ice Age brought about by the sun.
Which reminds me. A few weeks ago Richard you said you would be doing an item about sunspots. What happened to that? Was it becoming too scientific for you, or were the politics far too important compared to the science?
Complain about this comment
30. At 04:20am on 07 Dec 2009, xtragrumpymike2 wrote:
On the contrary, XGM, I appreciated grannie's reference to George Carlin and "many a true word spoken in jest". So true!!
And did you know that Richard Lindzen was one of the lead authors on Chapter 7, 'Physical Climate Processes and Feedbacks,' of the IPCC Third Assessment Report on climate change?
Complain about this comment
"the aim is to keep the increase in pre-industrial temperatures to 2 rather than 1.5 degrees".
So the sun and other natural climate forcing factors will no longer have any influence? Amazing.
With people like this leading us, perhaps the Astronomer-Royal was right when he said that the human race may not survive the 21st century.
Complain about this comment
No. 36, Has anyone in your family ever suffered from cancer?
In this morning's New York Times, Nicholas Kristof reports on the latest medical thinking about rising cancer rates. What he has to say, and what is being argued by medical specialists, is very much relevant to our discussion here.
Unless you vividly remember your titration experiments from chemistry class, you ought perhaps to have a look at the two-minute Carbon Dioxide in a Bottle experiment that the BBC has thoughtfully posted on this site.
Your "grain of rice" analogy really does not hold up. You do not need a cup of sugar to sweeten a cup of coffee; you do not need a cup of salt to season a bowl of soup -- you do not need a tonne of nicotine, or estrogens, to succumb to cancer.
The myelosarcoma which killed my mother is associated with only trace exposures to dioxin.
And even if you are personally lucky to be spared any experience of cancer, you are paying (directly & indirectly) for the treatment of others less lucky.
Sp please do not dismiss the role played by Carbon Dioxide, or any other molecules present in the air you breathe -- the air that nourishes the plants & animals you consume, and precipitates into your water supply as well.
Ultimately, it is the precise allotment of Oxygen that the air you are inhaling contains -- and the specific, changing cocktail of non-oxygen molecules present at any given moment or breath -- that will determine your health status, and mine.
On the eve of 2010, and for some decades now, most of us have been inhaling air that is laden with all kinds of truly detrimental substances incompatible with human health.
There is simply nothing at all wrong with trying to ensure that as many of us as possible breathe tolerably healthy air for as long as we possibly can.
Complain about this comment
I'm sure all the delegates at the conference flew there first class.
I'm sure all the delegates at the conference are staying in the best hotels.
I'm sure all the delegates at the conference are being limo'd from hotel to conference venue.
Hypocrites.
All this conference will achieve is making the poorest people and nations worse off. It will give the green light for western governments to raise taxes to fill their black hole from bailing out their chums in the banks. The planet's climate won't change one bit from anything that is agreed in Copenhagen.
There are more important issues going on in this world than Climate Change. It's the biggest con in the history of mankind.
Complain about this comment
32. At 05:00am on 07 Dec 2009, xtragrumpymike2 wrote:
"He who pays the piper......"
Glad you brought that one up XGM, you might like to read the attached.
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=38D98C0A-802A-23AD-48AC-D9F7FACB61A7
and you probably missed this interesting WSJ article by Bjorn Lomborg
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124286145192740987.html
Complain about this comment
Open letter from a climate scientist to his fellows:
http://www.thegwpf.org/opinion-pros-a-cons/218-petr-chylek-open-letter-to-the-climate-research-community.html
Complain about this comment
"Now gather up 385 and from that less than a handful, count out 4."
I see the point you're trying to make, but 4% of 385 is closer to 15.
Ian Plimer says that human activities contribute 4% of the total carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere, and proponents of AGW reject that figure.
But what proportion do proponents of AGW say human activities contribute? Is there an "agreed figure"?
Complain about this comment
Again, No. 47, it is not only the Carbon Dioxide (and other molecules) humans are injecting into the air they depend on. It is also the Oxygen molecules they are inevitably reducing.
And the two numbers are not exact equivalents.
The best illustration I have for you this morning is on CNN: a report, with vivid photos, on the loss of vital forests in Indonesia: already gone.
That is not only CO2 added at the time they combusted, or were pulped and transported, or were converted into disposable chopsticks (yes) or -- equally dreadful -- more paper for all kinds of often frivolous uses (cheap print ads that are instantly transferred into the bin, or the kinds of fancy card stock popular with every single American who ever stands for even the least vital of municipal offices in any election; anyone who has lived in the US during an important election year -- and that would be every other one, because the Congressional terms are two years so there you are -- knows all about the mountains of shiny printed cards that plaster everything in sight during months of electioneering) --
-- it is also the Oxygen lost, permanently, because those destroyed plants are no longer releasing oxygen back into the air.
The reason you are right to ask about "an agreed figure" is that certain interests refuse to agree.
They would rather choke than sacrifice any fraction of a % of their share value.
Complain about this comment
To those pointing out that there are hardly any anti-AGW papers in the mainstream literature - well duh... didn't you notice that half the CRU time and energy seems to be devoted to leaning on journal editors and publishers to ensure they *don't* publish sceptic papers?
Some connection perhaps?
Anyhow, here's 450 peer reviewed sceptical papers - http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html - once again I heard the Miliband weasel on R4 this morning claiming the science was settled, there is no debate. It's a plain lie. When people lie to me, I always figure they have a reason. I wonder what reason the marxist Miliband might have... hmmmmmm
And no one can legitimately claim the CRU models are vlaid now, which means nothing that comes from them is valid, which means IPCC is tosh. It's not complicated. You dont' have to be a climatologist to understand GIGO.
AGW is just a scam job to impose some damn socialist global levelling-down scheme.
Complain about this comment
39. At 07:38am on 07 Dec 2009, xtragrumpymike2 wrote:
"Gavin Schmidt writes:
Dr. Theon appears to have retired from NASA in 1994, some 15 years ago. Until yesterday I had never heard of him (despite working with and for NASA for the last 13 years). His insights into both modelling and publicity appear to date from then, rather than any recent events. He was not Hansen's 'boss' (the director of GISS reports to the director of GSFC, who reports to the NASA Administrator). His "some scientists" quote is simply a smear - which scientists? where? what did they do? what data? what manipulation? This kind of thing plays well with Inhofe et al because it appears to add something to the 'debate', but in actual fact there is nothing here. Just vague, unsubstantiated accusations.
Wiki tells you that Dr James Hansen has been Director of GISS since 1981
Got any more interesting "facts"? "
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Interesting Facts -
Theon's actual words were -
“I appreciate the opportunity to add my name to those who disagree that global warming is man made,” Theon wrote to the Minority Office at the Environment and Public Works Committee on January 15, 2009. “I was, in effect, Hansen’s supervisor because I had to justify his funding, allocate his resources, and evaluate his results,” Theon, the former Chief of the Climate Processes Research Program at NASA Headquarters and former Chief of the Atmospheric Dynamics & Radiation Branch explained.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/27/james-hansens-former-nasa-supervisor-declares-himself-a-skeptic-says-hansen-embarrassed-nasa-was-never-muzzled/
so the quote from Gavin Schmidt is somewhat misleading.
But thanks to the CRU leak we now know some of the history behind Gavin Schmidt and Real Climate
HOW IT WAS SET UP BY THE TEAM
HOW THEY USED IT
Complain about this comment
Another good sign this morning: Paul Krugman's column in the New York Times.
Americans are coming around, quickly. And that means others (Chinese, Russians, Indians) can't be far behind... (I have listed them in the order in which they are likely to be influenced by what is adopted as the de rigeur position of elites in the USA. These are the biggest emitters -- and, with Europe & Japan, the biggest resources for funding, R&D, innovative intelligence, roll-out savvy.)
We have the momentum, we have more than the necessary critical mass, we can get this done.
Complain about this comment
Climate fundamentalists should hang their heads in shame.
http://www.sepp.org/Archive/controv/controversies/epavskrug.html
Complain about this comment
If you don't change your ways then something nasty will happen to you but if you do as we say, you will be alright. Proof isn't required, only faith in a bunch of people who earn their living by continuing the scarey stories. Questioning the faith is a bad thing that means you are evil.
Sounds pretty much like any other religion ever invented.
I'm still an Atheist
Complain about this comment
Copenhagen climate summit: 1,200 limos, 140 private planes and caviar wedges
"Ms Jorgensen reckons that between her and her rivals the total number of limos in Copenhagen next week has already broken the 1,200 barrier. The French alone rang up on Thursday and ordered another 42. "We haven't got enough limos in the country to fulfil the demand," she says. "We're having to drive them in hundreds of miles from Germany and Sweden."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6736517/Copenhagen-climate-summit-1200-limos-140-private-planes-and-caviar-wedges.html
Complain about this comment
Well, with any luck nothing will get decided and we can all get back to more pressing matters- like saving the rainforests and mass starvation / genocide.
Reducing pollution is very important, setting random targets that are unacheivable is less so. I also find the hubris of 'limiting the earths temperature rises to 2C' incredible. The arrogance of it.
Also- Re: the bbc coverage of copenhagen on this mornings news, the reported reffered to greenhouse gasses being emitted from powerstations and then showed pictures of what was clearly steam being ejected from 'stacks'. Is the BBC unable to distinguish between h20 and pollution? If not, i guess we'd best stop developing all these hydrogen feuled cars if h20 is going to be a new pollutant...
Complain about this comment
#55 LabMunkey :- "the reported reffered to greenhouse gasses being emitted from powerstations and then showed pictures of what was clearly steam being ejected from 'stacks'. Is the BBC unable to distinguish between h20 and pollution?"
Thing is Munkey, H2O is, by far, the major component of greenhouse gases, they haven't found a way to limit water vapour by taxation yet so it doesn't get a mention.
Carbon Footprint or taxman's fingerprints (on your wallet)
Complain about this comment
According to the Climate Action Tracker, the emission commitments and pledges put forward by industrialized and developing countries for the Copenhagen climate negotiations imply up to a 3.5 degrees Celsius increase in global temperature and concentrations of close to 800 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere.
See: http://www.climateactiontracker.org/
Complain about this comment
Re:-41. At 07:53am on 07 Dec 2009, Sparklet wrote:
And did you know that Richard Lindzen was one of the lead authors on Chapter 7, 'Physical Climate Processes and Feedbacks,' of the IPCC Third Assessment Report on climate change?
Yup..sure did! ...and his links to the Marshall Institute etc etc etc not to mention the links between that organisation and ExxonMobil and The American Petroleum Institute.
Got any more news?
And just to add..........Bjorn Lomborg...........not another article from the Wall Street Journal......just about as "un"biased as your claims re- Richard.
Do try to come up with something original or I'll have to get out my old copies of the "Beano" to read.
Complain about this comment
Richard's final sentence "Is there yet - after nearly two years of talking - an agreement on how the world should move forward on climate change?"
I'm in total agreement that the world should accept:
1 that climate change has always happened
2 that we mere humans have no significant impact on it on a global scale
3 that we should be preparing for all the problems that the end of the Holocene will bring (more energy will be needed; food production will fall; diseases will increase; millions will be killed by hypothermia; mass migration to warmer parts will occur).
Complain about this comment
For all of the non scientists and non technical folk,
INTERPOLATION: This is a fancy name meaning filling in missing details.
If you have a digital camera and read through the instruction book you will probably find this word. If you want to make you picture bigger than the file size allocated then the computer/printer will have to fill in pixels to the nearest match of existing pixels in nearby cells in order to make your over-enlarged image as clear as possible.
The HadCRUT3 data was originally based on raw data but has had interpolation done to it to make the image of what is happening as clear as possible. But......interpolation is not meant to amplify or make information bigger than the existing information.
Imagine your original digital image has a small file size.
Imagine you want to enlarge your image but keep the clarity.
You do your bit of interpolation to make up for the missing data as you expand the picture size. (A bit like blowing up a birthday party balloon, only to find that the original clear image on the balloon goes all fuzzy when the balloon is blown up. So you get your pen out and fill in the missing spots to make the image clearer again.)
Imagine what would happen to your original image if the interpolated data was amplified/made bigger than the original image.
You now have a strange final picture and not at all like the original image.
Complain about this comment
@ 56,
well yes- you know this and i know this. Shame the BBC don't.
Complain about this comment
Re my #57, I made a mistake. The last part should read "close to 800 parts per million of CO2 equivalent" as it refers to GHG not just CO2. The actual concentration for CO2 alone is projected at over 650 ppm.
Complain about this comment
Oh- apparently climategate was now staged by the russians, obviously due to their oil exporting buisnesses.
Sigh.
Complain about this comment
Good to see the debate alive and kicking - let's just all hope the Copenhagen event proves to have some positive outcomes - perhaps a cleaner, more just, prosperous and ethical world (by accident or design).
I'm glad 'we here' had this debate (even under such 'interesting' circumstances - 'ClimateGate') - amazing considering David Miliband was certain no more debate was to be had back in 2006:
http://www.skynewstranscripts.co.uk/transcript.asp?id=287
"Well I think that the scientific debate is now closed on global warming and the popular debate is closing as well."
"It think most people recognise that there is something funny about the weather even if they haven’t got a scientific degree."
"So I think the scientific debate is now clear that there isn’t really a debate; there is a reality of global warming."
I can't see why the govt. would be so scared of debate?
Complain about this comment
Maria:
If you are really worried about oxygen, read this from Wallace Broecker of Columbia University.
"AN OFT-HEARD WARNING with regard to our planet’s future is that by cutting back tropical forests we put our supply of oxygen gas at risk. Many good reasons exist for placing deforestation near the top of our list of environmental sins, but fortunately the fate of the Earth’s O2 supply does not hang in the balance. Simply put, our atmosphere is endowed with such an enormous reserve of this gas that even if we were to burn all our fossil fuel reserves, all our trees, and all the organic matter stored in soils, we would use up only a few percent of the available O2. No matter how foolishly we treat our environmental heritage, we simply don’t have the capacity to put more than a small dent in our O2 supply. Furthermore, the Earth’s forests do not play a dominant role in maintaining O2 reserves, because they consume just as much of this gas as they produce. In the tropics, ants, termites, bacteria, and fungi eat nearly the entire photosynthetic O2 product. Only a tiny fraction of the organic matter they produce accumulates in swamps and soils or is carried down the rivers for burial on the sea floor."
Full details at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/08/16/uk-gaurdian-one-more-thing-to-worry-about-the-oxygen-crisis/#more-2280
Complain about this comment
Standing wet and freezing at the bus stop this morning, I found myself wishing for global warming. Am I a criminal ? A climate denier ? Who do I turn myself in to ? Caledonian Comment
Complain about this comment
Maria Ashot #48 wrote:
"it is not only the Carbon Dioxide (and other molecules) humans are injecting into the air they depend on. It is also the Oxygen molecules they are inevitably reducing."
Suppose CO2 constitutes 400 parts per million or 0.0004 of the atmosphere, and each CO2 molecule contains a ratio by weight of 32:12 oxygen to carbon (in other words that CO2 is about 73% oxygen). Then the total amount of atmospheric oxygen locked up in the form of carbon dioxide is 73% of 0.0004, which is approximately 0.0003 of the atmosphere.
If we suppose that all of that oxygen was drawn out of the 20% or 0.2 of the atmosphere that is breathable oxygen, then we are talking about a ratio of 3:2000 of oxygen "lost" to carbon dioxide to oxygen not "lost" to carbon dioxide, or 0.15%. That is an absolutely negligible amount, surely?
sensiblegrannie #60 wrote:
"interpolation is not meant to amplify or make information bigger than the existing information."
Your analogy with artificially increased resolution of photographs is spot-on, and very helpful. When we further consider that the interpolated "data" (it does not really deserve the name "data" at all) is then used as the basis of a further EXTRApolation, you will see what a crazy voodoo conjuring trick this whole business is.
I've been calling it "inductivism", which is probably an overly-technical term, but as your analogy shows it's easy to debunk it with a bit of common sense and elementary arithmetic. Well done!
Complain about this comment
My # 36
Maria Ashot
Maths never was my good subject - I missed out ten grains!
However if you had lived in the 50's you would have known what pollution was!
As for scary stories about oxygen that really does make you a hysterical Alarmist at best.
BTW have a look at the NoHopenhagen Limo lineup! There's caring politicians for you!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/07/december-7th-2009-a-day-that-will-live-in-hypocrisy/
Complain about this comment
Climate change, Climategate, bank failures, bank bailouts, loss in revenue, more tax needed.
Copenhagen is a means to an ends for the UK & US in particular, a method of exacting more tax out of more people, but describing it as in a ‘good’ cause, so they won’t scream to much as you do it.
Whilst I did not know that scientists were deliberately manipulating data, oddly enough I was always very sceptical about the ‘climate change claims’.
If Government says it is so, then the chance of it actually being so is remote.
We in the UK of course believe that have abolished boom and bust, and there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and Dr David Kelly committed suicide.
Never before have the people of this nation lost so much faith in so many politicians in such a short space of time.
Perhaps it's a record.
So Mr Black, how much this is going to cost us tax payers per annum, because that’s all it’s about.
Complain about this comment
People are certainly getting the message from Copenhagen.
Over 1200 limos, hundreds driven from France, Germany, etc, to meet the demand.
Tens of private jets flying in.
Hundreds of eco-celebrities touting new books, CDs and DVDs, and new movies.
Photo opportunties at $400 upwards, get to shake the hands of the great and the good.
This DoomFest is just one big junket.
Complain about this comment
ah- the rigors of an oldgashioned debate.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/climategate-professor-to-skeptic-on-live-bbc-tv-what-an-asshle.html
If you can't defeat them with reason/logic/evidence, call them names, like assh#le, flat earther, denier....
Complain about this comment
The BBC is currently carryng a live feed from the opening session in Copenhagen. See - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7926658.stm
Complain about this comment
JR Woodman @ 25 & waterloosydney @ 31.
How naive can you be! After over 3 years of trying to get straight answers out of Mark Thompson & Sir Michael Lyons, I unearthed this little gem:
A BBC report; “From Seesaw to Wagon Wheel-Safeguarding Impartiality in the 21st Century”, commissioned jointly by the BBC Trust and Board of Management and published in June 2007 concluded;
‘There may be now a broad scientific consensus that climate change is definitely happening and that it is at least predominantly man-made… the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus'
So there you have it, damned by their own hand...yet STILL they refuse to admit it!
Complain about this comment
To Maria, #47 and more. I'm sorry for your loss, but I don't understand your point. Are you linking cancer to CO2? I'm all for reducing poluttion - NO2, sulphur, heavy metals, cyanide etc., but CO2? really?
The view of people who support AGW seems to be that if you disagree, you support the rape and pillage of the environment. I don't believe this is the case at all.
I'm pretty sure, based on measurements in reports I've read (I don;t take these things as gospel from the government mouthpiece - bbc)that the climate has changed and warmed recently.
What I have major problem with the claims it is due to human activity has not been adequately proven for me.
Why? I'm not a climate scientist, but and engineer and I remember one of my earliest maths lectures stating "if something cannot be modelled mathematically then we cannot understand it properly" - we then went on to prove that statement many times over in our work, especially with feedback systems for control systems.
We should be focusing our efforts and resources on coping with this change, not trying to be like Canute. We also need to stop deforestation, squandering of resources, overpopulation, species collapse, water shortages - these are the things that WILL happen in the next 10-20 years - NOT climate change - and it terrifies me that the AGW bandwagon has totally taken the sheeple's attention from these far more pressing issues.
Complain about this comment
Oh....and by the way....don't get all sanctimonious about interpolation because you and I are all guilty.
Every time someone puts some lipstick on; wears false eyelashes; tightens the waist belt; has liposuction; adds false bits of anatomy; uses hair dye; lies about age; wears high heels; sucks in stomach muscles; uses steroids to enhance muscles or buys a big car.
Glossy magazines and films all use devices for concealing the truth, trimming the fat, reducing the nose size, removing the double chin etc. Models on the catwalk have all sorts of devices to control contours.
I don't mind using a bit of hair dye or a bit of lipstick but you can keep all of the rest, (funny how one has to keep up with appearances to be accepted).
Those poor misunderstood scientists were just trying to keep up appearances but their interpolation of vital data has been found out and now they will have to explain themselves in order to regain credibility.
Complain about this comment
I'd love to see the individual expense accounts for this junket. And the carbonn footprints. I have a boatload of carbon offsets I am willing to sell. All those trees I planted are gulping in the CO2. Ebay anyone?
Richard Black, Roger Harrabin, David Shukman and the rest of the baggage carriers must be needing a load of offsets.
Gordon and Ed; on their expenses they can afford to pay over the odds for my offsets.
Complain about this comment
I have been thinking about the issue of climate change for some time, and I have suddenly discovered what it is that disturbs me most about the debate.
It is simply this:
There is far too much certainty on both sides, for a scientific discussion.
The practice of science is the practice of skepticism. The motto of the Royal Society is "Nullius in verba": on the word of nobody. The whole point of the scientific world view is to test theory, to try and fault theory, in the search for definite truth.
And whatever your position in the climate change debate, if you have even the faintest shred of intellectual honesty then you must admit that the two sides have become bogged down in their respective certainties.
For myself, I am deeply skeptical of the ultimate question of whether our politicians can do anything to help us EVEN IF everything the pro-climate change camp believe is true. But regardless of that skepiticism, I am not certain. How can I be certain? I have not tested the available data. With the greatest of respect to those who claim otherwise, I don't think anyone can test the data regarding whether our politicians can save us from ourselves.
And hence, the whole debate must be a matter of probabilities, and not certainties.
But it isn't. Those who question climate change are being called "irresponsible" and "flat earth-ers". Climate change is being touted as an indisputable fact by people who are frankly not in a position to know.
Gordon Brown is not a scientist. Milliband is not a scientist. Who are these people to tell me that I am a flat earther because I have my doubts about something as complex as the variation in climate?
It is this certainty from non scientists which makes me deeply, deeply skeptical of the whole debate. There may be a great deal of truth to what some of the climate change advocates are saying, but without any doubt whatsoever there is a large degree of hysteria.
That hysteria must have its origins. Furthermore, asking ordinary people to accept that hysteria without skepticism is beyond any definition of acceptable POLITICAL conduct.
This is precisely where the debate stops being scientific, and starts to be purely political: At the point where non scientists like Milliband and Brown are insulting ordinary people and lecturing them on science.
Once the politicians start preaching the scientific truth, the matter has ceased to be scientific, and has become political. And once it has become political, the science is a lost cause.
I predicted some weeks ago that there would be a savage backlash against those who promote climate change as some kind of "obvious truth". If it were obvious, it wouldn't be a matter of such profound debate. Those who stand tall and claim to understand the facts are merely betraying that they do not understand the complexities of the subject matter.
I suggest it has now become the duty of reasonable people to reject the arguments of the green fascists. The issue must be voted down by the public will, in order for the science to return.
If the issues are important, we need science to be brought to bear. The only way for that to happen is for the scientific community to reject association with the advocates who claim to know the future and the past with equal certainty.
In other words, it is high time journalists from the BBC and elsewhere took a long hard look at themselves.
Complain about this comment
Relax everyone! I just worked out that 'Copenhagen Talks' is simply an anagram of 'Planet changes - OK'. After the UEA e-mails scandal, I suspected that there would be a message being hidden from public view.
Complain about this comment
Stop breathing your noxious, polluting, poisonous CO2 on me!
Kill all plants! They pollute our atmosphere with deadly CO2 at night!
Something MUST be done!
Can someone not think of the children?
Complain about this comment
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Yertizz, at #73
You make your ‘discovery’ of the ‘wagon-wheel’ report sound like a dramatic revelation. But this report has been referred to repeatedly and links provided to it for a long time on the BBC pages.
You also distort the report’s message when you ‘quote’ it as follows:
‘There may be now a broad scientific consensus that climate change is definitely happening and that it is at least predominantly man-made… the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus'
What the report actually says is:
“Climate change is another subject where dissenters can be unpopular. There may be now a broad scientific consensus that climate change is definitely happening, and that it is at least predominantly man-made. But the second part of that consensus still has some intelligent and articulate opponents, even if a small minority. The BBC has held a high-level seminar with some of the best scientific experts, and has come to the view that the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus. But these dissenters (or even sceptics) will still be heard, as they should, because it is not the BBC’s role to close down this debate. They cannot be simply dismissed as ‘flat-earthers’ or ‘deniers’, who ‘should not be given a platform’ by the BBC. Impartiality always requires a breadth of view: for as long as minority opinions are coherently and honestly expressed, the BBC must give them appropriate space.”
Complain about this comment
@ #74
"We should be focusing our efforts and resources on coping with this change, not trying to be like Canute. We also need to stop deforestation, squandering of resources, overpopulation, species collapse, water shortages - these are the things that WILL happen in the next 10-20 years - NOT climate change - and it terrifies me that the AGW bandwagon has totally taken the sheeple's attention from these far more pressing issues"
couldn't agree more. well said.
Complain about this comment
75. At 10:35am on 07 Dec 2009, sensiblegrannie wrote:
Oh....and by the way....don't get all sanctimonious about interpolation because you and I are all guilty.
Every time someone puts some lipstick on; wears false eyelashes; tightens the waist belt; has liposuction; adds false bits of anatomy; uses hair dye; lies about age; wears high heels; sucks in stomach muscles; uses steroids to enhance muscles or buys a big car.
Leave Richard out of this
Complain about this comment
sensible grannie #75 wrote:
"Oh....and by the way....don't get all sanctimonious about interpolation because you and I are all guilty."
Maybe, but it really has no place in science. As we are using the word, it is "artefactual detail". The history of microscopy is almost a history of "the struggle against aftefactual detail". Every time someone comes up with a new way of seeing things at greater magnification, there is the danger that the detail one is seeing is merely the reflection of one's own eyelash, or a by-product of the staining process, or whatever.
When a computer increases the resolution of a photograph using "re-sampling", it can yield something that "pleases the eye" more, but only because it meets our expectations better. But we should never, ever allow our expectations themselves to be shaped by such re-sampling. That would be like failing to see that the "haloes" created by re-sampling are mere artefacts rather than magical "auras".
Let's call a spade a spade. Interpolation of data points is just fake data.
Complain about this comment
Dear Paul, No. 53: than you for providing your definition of Atheism: "No such thing as unethical or wrong action, followed by zero accountability."
I wonder if other Atheists would agree?
Complain about this comment
Would some proponent of AGW please be kind enough to volunteer a rough figure for "the proportion of CO2 released into the atmosphere produced by human activity"?
Complain about this comment
Richard
Being one of those people who will drive all over town to find haemorrhoid cream for sale at £1.99 rather than £2.00, I think you should seek to persuade the delegates in Copenhagen to keep the rise in global temperature to 1.99C. Looks so much better than 2C don’t you think?
Every little helps.
Complain about this comment
Photo in the news of demonstrators in Copenhagen carying a banner that reads: "Rich nations pay your climate debt": and I want to add: you won't get off so easy in my corner.
"Poor countries" bear some of the blame as well. Anyone who has allowed utterly mindless mushrooming population growth to take place in their own household -- worst of all, for a political or somehow ideological reason, such as "to assert our virility" or "because we love children" (but won't be bothered to provide them with working toilets or a future) -- should stop pointing the fingers of blame at others.
Everywhere where there is a television set in this world, the facts of life, and the decisions that determine how many human lives are created -- are well known. Certainly to the politicians and power figures.
So instead of just stepping forward asking for another generous infusion of aid -- which is to be rigorously accounted for, we expect -- they should be telling us exactly what they are prepared to do to help their women decide what is a safe number of children a household can support on its existing revenue stream.
Complain about this comment
democracythreat #77:
Excellent summary. Unfortunately the politicians on both sides, and the BBC in particular, won't listen to anyone with a contrary scientific/engineering view. Hence we are labelled flat-earthers.
Regards
flatearther
Complain about this comment
#77 democracythreat
nope. on the pro-agw side there is enough certainty to take the precautionary approach. on the contrarian side.....well i'll let them tell you how certain they are, but it;s definitely not scientifically based 'certainty'.
Complain about this comment
No. 68, What was the population of the earth in the 1950s? What was the standard of living of China, India, Russia, Japan, Brazil, Indonesia, the oil-rich Middle Eastern states?
Therein lies the answer to what unsettles you. Yes, the pollution then was considerable -- and there were the nuclear tests going on, on top of all that.
But these events have all been dwarfed, many times over, by the rapid rise in living standards of a human population that has tripled since the time you refer to... How many American households in the 1950s owned more than one car? How many American households today own JUST one car? These numbers have flipped, too.
No. 74, cancer rates rise as oxygen levels fall. The connection between the amount of oxygen a person carries in their blood and their survival rate in the presence of cancer (and also certain other serious illnesses) has been shown to exist. You can find this with a pretty quick search using your preferred search engines; there are books on this on amazon -- and I learned of this from the New York Times and Harvard Medical newsletter.
Complain about this comment
#52 what's a climate fundamentalist?
Complain about this comment
A disgusting start to Copenhagen at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8398510.stm
Politicians listen to (and even worse, use) indoctrinated children, but sceptical scientists are labelled flat-earthers.
Words fail me at this child abuse. Will these kids ever get over the trauma that they are being subjected to by politicians?
Complain about this comment
Climategate: More bully boy tactics
Another journalist threatened.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/12/7/another-journalist-threatened.html
Complain about this comment
simon-swede @ 81
The quote came verbatim from a letter I received from the BBC.
While I would agree that dissenting voices are allowed in the blogs (I wouldn't be here otherwise) it is only people such as you and I who have a deep interest in the debate who populate them.
Where the BBC has been singularly and unquestionably lacking (and so true to the quote) has been in its TV and radio news output where Joe Public most commonly gets his information. The most recent example was Climategate where it took 2 weeks for any coverage to be given through these outlets.
As far as its news coverage is concerned '... because it is not the BBC’s role to close down this debate....' is risible and, in my view, directly in breach of one of the prime requirements of its Charter.
Complain about this comment
Climategate: So far two journalists have been openly threatened by scientists.
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/12/climate-scientist-threatens-boycott-of.html
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/12/7/another-journalist-threatened.html
We know that Richard Black was mentioned in Climategate emails and that Paul Hudson was in receipt of some of these emails.
How many more journalists have been threatened over Climategate?
Scientists are on a slippery road here.
Complain about this comment
I will copy two links provided by 'simon-swede':
http://www.climateactiontracker.org/ (post # 57 & 62 - expected results if current cuts only are implemented)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7926658.stm (post # 72 - live feed from Copenhagen)
-----------------------
I will be looking to see if Canada's newspapers, the Globe and Mail or the National Post, are among the newspapers simultaneously printing the same editorial re Copenhagen and Climate Change:
"To stress the importance of the summit, 56 newspapers in 45 countries are publishing the same editorial on Monday, warning that climate change will "ravage our planet" unless action is agreed, the London-based Guardian reported."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8398510.stm
---------------
In the same article linked to above, I was pleased to see that discussion is underway to reduce the acceptable warming from two degrees C to one point five degrees C:
"However now the G77/China bloc - which speaks on behalf of developing countries - is discussing whether to demand a much tougher target of 1.5C."
----------
Now we are making progress!
The current reductions targets are woefully inadequate.
- Manysummits -
Complain about this comment
good review of a portion of the leaked data- from someone trying to be neutral. Worth a look
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/04/climategate-the-smoking-code/
Complain about this comment
I think it should be called creative explanation or creative interpolation. It is all a bit of advertising to promote the idea that man has control over his environment and that man is all powerful and able to control nature. Of course we all know the reality, really. It it is more comfortable to believe that we have control over nature because the alternative idea is rather unsettling.
There is no such thing as bad advertising. Perhaps it is all a ruse to make us take notice and remember what we are being manipulated to remember. If everything was accurate and done by the book, we would be bored and probably wouldn't bother to remember global warming. A bit of argument embeds the idea of global warming into the memory rather well don't you think?
Complain about this comment
We won't get anything sensible out of the licence-fee payers money being blown by the BBC in Copenhagen. The BBC reporters are true-believers in the religion of AGW. They will not be shaken from their belief (anyway it would not be a career-enhancing move).
Complain about this comment
One of the charges that the proponents of AGW level against their opponents is that the opponents don’t care about the environment. This does not appear to be borne out by the response to such allegations.
However, the thing that concerns me most is not the environment per se but rather the welfare of the people who live on this planet. As Larry Kealey has mentioned in a number of posts, there are millions of people who are living in conditions that we in the Western world would regard as prehistoric and the one thing that would transform their lives would be access to affordable energy.
For me the only glimmer of hope for Copenhagen arises from the comments of Thor Pedersen, the Danish Parliamentary speaker (see this link - http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/10506/53/) where he says “We should all shake hands and agree to do everything possible to create good living conditions. That has nothing to do with the climate debate, in which we try to determine the globe’s temperature. It is common sense,”
Regrettably I think me Thor and Larry are the only people who really care.
Complain about this comment
Richard Black wrote
Climate visions: a widening divide?
I write:
Climate visions: a widening tax base more like.
Complain about this comment
I attended the Earth Systems Governance conference in Amsterdam last week, many of the delegates there were moving on to Copenhagen this week. I have to say that the mood was quietly optimistic. Indeed there was even an argument being batted around the conference corridors that the more the world prepares for a failed agreement at Copenhagen, the higher the chances of success actually are. It is interesting to think about how the pressure on states to succeed might be counterproductive in actually achieving a consensus.
See this blog www.thebrokeronline.eu/Navigating-the-Anthropocene and in particular this video with Joyeeta Gupta for more: http://www.thebrokeronline.eu/en/regulars/blogs/Navigating-the-Anthropocene/video-Joyeeta-Gupta-at-the-Earth-System-Governance-conference
Complain about this comment
Let’s see if the BBC campaign has had any effect on the conference.
Complain about this comment
You know, once you start even discussing climate change, you fall into their trap.
Once they've got you discussing something, it gives them opportunity to fleece you for it.
How many different types of tax have already been brought in on the back of climate change?
What surprises me is why they bother, why not simply just tax everyone more and have done with it.
Oddly enough if they simply told the truth....... we want more money, then the public would probably have more repsect for them, and be more likley to part with their brass.
As it is, with an ever increasing number of lies being told about.....well just about everything there is to tell a lie about, no one believes anything about anything they say any more.
Complain about this comment
Mr #########
a response from the bbc re- bias coverage i recently received
Thanks for your e-mail. I understand d you were disappointed with the level of coverage we dedicated to the leaked Climate Research Unit (CRU) e-mails. I note you feel the reports failed to address key questions and were overly favourable to the CRU staff involved. Impartiality is the key cornerstone of all our news and current affairs output we're fully committed to balanced and impartial coverage of all stories including the hacking of the CRU e-mails and of climate change in general. We seek neither to promote nor denigrate any position, rather we aim to present the facts and allow our audience to make up their own minds independently. Choosing the exact content of our news bulletins, however, is often a difficult and complicated process. In making their decisions our editors need to take several different factors into consideration including whether the news is breaking and the perceived level of public interest in the subject matter. We appreciate that our audience hold a wide range of opinions, and this, coupled with the subjective nature of our editorial decisions means we'd never expect everyone to agree with every decision we take. With this subjectivity in mind I'd like to take this opportunity to assure you that I've recorded your comments onto our audience log. This is an internal daily report of audience feedback which is circulated to many BBC staff including senior management, producers and channel controllers. The audience logs are seen as important documents that can help shape decisions about future programming and content. Thanks again for contacting us.
Regards
####### ########
BBC Complaints
Complain about this comment
Man's greatest problem is overpopulation, yet it is rarely mentioned - Overpopulation is the root-cause of everything:
- starvation
- deforestation
- pollution
- wars
- habitat destruction
- climate change
- etc.
Climate change is just part of the jigsaw, it is NOT the underlying cause of our problems.
I think silly little taxes are meaningless when measured against the effect of an exploding population. The poor nations have a nerve asking for money when it is their exponentially expanding population that will be the death our planet.
Complain about this comment
When they finally have succesfully force fed us climate change, and how they need to tax us more because of it; we'll all have to work that bit harder to pay the tax, and emit more CO2 doing so.
Complain about this comment
Oh, really, Flatearther (No. 65): Have you traveled to Beijing lately?
"Enormous reserves" is not exactly words I put a lot of faith in, being a Yank. Kind of reminds me of the whole credit default swap thing (still ongoing, and unregulated, as you undoubtedly know...).
Neil M. (No. 74) and your friend at No. 82: the whole point about this litany of transgressions and neglect is that They Cause the climate change.
Not something "delightfully natural" that would have happened anyway, had humankind not polluted, overprocreated, raped the environment, deforested, etc. etc.
Look up the "mountaintop mining" story on AP. That's a current news report.
We have been calling attention to this for years. Only now are some of you beginning to notice -- when you fear you may be taxed, regulated or monitored in the future. If you had paid attention sooner -- if anyone in the establishment had joined a Kennedy or a Redford in stating, unequivocally: "it is lunacy to shear off a mountainside for the remaining traces of coal when what we actually need to do is upgrade power plant infrastructures and increase efficiency" -- maybe we would not have found ourselves in the present eleventh-hour situation.
Speaking of which, do watch Leonardo DiCaprio's The Eleventh Hour film. I mean it: a very worthy effort and not at all any kind of immoderate speech: just powerful footage. Do watch.
Complain about this comment
I wish people would stop going on about overpopulation, the latest UN figures predict the global population to peak at 9 or 10 billion this century instead of steadily doubling every 50 or 60 years as had been expected before. You can view their 2008 revised predictions here:
http://esa.un.org/unpp/
This Copenhagen conference sickens me. The science on AGW is in no way settled and for the likes of the CRU and the IPCC they advised to claim that they can predict anything is laughable.
Complain about this comment
The "Have your say" on climate change is astounding. Page after page after page of the most popular comments condemn the climate change issue as a fraud.
And yet..... and yet the BBC is publishing graphs showing that 61% of people want climate change taxes, regardless of whether they hurt the economy or not.
How can this be?
Either the survey is out of date and opinions have changed dramatically, or the "have your say" population is massive unrepresentative. Or, of course, the survey was not conducted honestly and the data is fudged.
There is evidently a HUGE backlash in the community on this issue.
Every day, in my normal life, I am meeting more and more people who are angry about the way the climate debate has been staged managed.
I think the backlash is going to be profound. It is not that the climate change advocates are wrong, it is that they have been so incredibly dishonest and patronizing with their deceit.
Mark my words, Mr Black, very soon it will be a mark of extreme dishonour to have been someone who put forth the arguments in favour of climate change.
Rightly so, people who have rushed into the debate with their certainties and their contempt for the "flat earthers" are going to be ridiculed by the majority.
The debate is just incredibly dishonest. It is lie after lie after lie. People are begining to peel back the lies, and all they see is more lies, more self interest, and more contempt for their intelligence.
The backlash is going to be severe.
You see if I am wrong, Mr Black, and see what people think of your integrity in a year from now.
Complain about this comment
Labmunkey @ 106
Thank you for this post.
It is identical to all the replies I have received from BBC Compolaints (aka Propaganda Directorate) for the last 3 years) in its absolute sophistry and obfuscation.
The '..audience log..' is a euphemism for the shredder.
Now everyone reading this blog can see the extent of the BBC's extreme bias!
Complain about this comment
Man Made climate change is an hoax of mammoth political proportions.
Climate has always changed and done so quite naturally within the earths chaotic evolution.
The present solar cycle 24 shows how unpredictable the universe and everything in it really is.
Copenhagen is a farce which has unleashed tonnes of CO2 into the very atmosphere they pretend to worry about.
The recent leaked e.mails from the CRU show how far the politicians and the 'scientists' in their control will go to fool us all.
Carbon taxes are the aim of this great swindle, they could not care less about the environment, it all about taxes and global domination.
Complain about this comment
#95, yertizz
But since you "unearthed" the report, shouldn't you be quoting first-hand from that and thereby giving the full picture?
Complain about this comment
22 rossglory
my argument is the way "CC" is reported on the BBC-The corporation are ramming this subject down peoples throats morning, noon and night-when was the last time an indepth report about crime or education was featured on the ten o clock news-but climate change-there is a weekly now almost daily report from somewhere-
the more the Corporation goes on about this-the less people will believe
less is more !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Complain about this comment
The more I hear the views and objections of skeptics the more they start to sound like conspiricy theorists. I'm not including everyone in this, but there are a tiny minority of people making relevant and reasoned arguments against the science or measures being proposed. The rest seem to be objecting because they don't want their lives to change.
There was a similar skepticism around the link between smoking and lung cancer etc. It's actually quite a good comparison as tobacco makers had a huge amount of money to spend and a massive amount of influence against the measures proposed and the science behind them.
It's very similar to the oil and coal companys of today protesting against climate change science and proposed measures.
Complain about this comment
Colonicus42:
You should check how much the oil companies and other major polluters gave the CRU for their so-called research. Personally I am skeptical because the the "science" we are all supposed to swallow sounds like absolute nonsense and the climatologists' funding would vanish if they came out with anything other than nightmare predictions. Their perversion of the peer-review process will do irreparable damage to science.
Complain about this comment
@Colonicus42 Please don't fall into the trap of lumping sceptics into one camp - it is not an 'Us & Them' issue or a winner takes all and condemn the losers debate! Agreed though - best keep vested interests and politicians at arms lengths from science.
Complain about this comment
Colonicus:
It's very similar to the oil and coal companys of today protesting against climate change science and proposed measures.
Oil and energy company's are doing no such thing, they are lapping it up it is all a new gold to them. If you are in the UK then you will not see the level of energy companys advertising on the BBC. ExxonMobil/GE/EDF and so on and so on.
Dear old Auntie is in the pay of big oil.
The strangest thing though why did Warren Buffet put $30 Billion into USA coal produces last month when he is so pro-agw
Complain about this comment
simon-swede @ 114
Like '...the full picture...' we get from the BBC?
Complain about this comment
If you want to stop something you pass laws. For example drink driving.
If you want to raise revenue, you find something that people want and tax it.
Problem with climate change is getting people to believe its real and getting them to want you to do something about it.
It doesn’t have to be climate change, it could be a Tsunami tax.
Or a ‘Volcanic eruption duty’.
Or a loss of the magnetism of the earth’s core revenue.
Oddly enough if they hadn’t decided on Climate Change, they’d all still be in Copenhagen trying to think up some other way of stiffing us out of our money.
Complain about this comment
#120. Yes.
Complain about this comment
c watkin #113 wrote:
"Carbon taxes are the aim of this great swindle, they could not care less about the environment, it all about taxes and global domination."
I can see why people say this, but I think it's a mistake. We are always tempted to call our opponents and enemies "insincere", as if they're only in it for profit. But in fact, both sides to almost every passionately-fought battle are completely sincere.
I think the real reason why all of the establishment figures -- from the Daily Telegraph and the Guardian to Sting and Bono -- agree on this issue is that they are swept up in a highly emotionally charged "moral" fever. From cloying ads -- that are already embarrassing and will be hilarious in ten years' time -- asking us to "think of the children", to the BBC's shameless abandonemnt of responsible journalism, everyone's going around the place thinking of themsleves as a saint out to "save the planet".
It's ridiculous, of course, as we're all doing what we think is best, but moralistic thinking has a unique the power to "suspend disbelief". Only the narcissistic mantra that "I am a morally good person" has the power to completely suspend critical judgement on scientific matters, and throw common sense to the winds.
Complain about this comment
FergaIR, No. 110: the reason global population is expected to peak within the next half-century, and may actually peak sooner than that, is precisely because of the degradation of the air, the death of marine resources -- and declining human fertility.
It is not peaking because people are doing the right thing: it is bound to peak, in an unpleasant way, because we persist in doing the wrong thing.
What we ought to be trying to do is face the facts about excessive population growth. I am not a Malthusian; I do not believe we need to promote abortions right and left. Abortions are also unpleasant, expensive, often traumatic events.
What needs to happen is a determined stand against polygamy in places where it is the prevailing lifestyle; a scaling-back on "fertility assistance" to those who are finding it difficult to conceive; widespread promotion of voluntary sterilisation of women free of charge for those who have every reason to believe they cannot handle any more pregnancies -- and an end to the culture that regards every girl ever born as having some kind of "duty" to bring forth life, regardless of the risks, costs, or consequences.
For many of you -- including my friend democracythreat, and many of those who reside in the UK and are writing in to Have Your Say -- my message is simply: the world does not have enough moderate, reasonable people like yourselves in it. It really doesn't.
I can agree with some of you, disagree with others. Maybe many of you find me incredibly annoying.
We Are Still of the Elite: All of Us. Just by virtue of having access to these tools of communication, and the time to exercise our freedom of speech.
We are the people occupying the upper two decks of the metaphoric luxury liner that is our Civilisation -- that I hope is not about to follow the example of the Titanic.
But go out into the favelas of Rio, or South Central LA, or Tijuana, or the Appalachians where the mountains are being razed as if they were "merely trees", or into Mexico City or Manila, or the dilapidated Stalin-era "unsafe to occupy" housing still in use across the entire ex-USSR, or any number of places in Asia and Africa, and an entirely different reality appears.
We need to engage with these communities and really move forward on changing how our lives are organised, what the "lifestyle dreams" are, what the messages of the Hollywood/Bollywood programming are.
We need to get serious because we cannot just detach the upper decks (as that silly movie "2012" attempts to demonstrate) and relocate "somewhere else."
Everyone in some way contributes to the problem -- whether you wish to define it as "climate change" or "overpopulation" or "corporate irresponsibility" or "a decline in American education leading to a decline in the competence of far too many Americans in positions of responsibility" (including quite a few in Congress, by the way, and I would add Inhofe in that) -- and there is no way to address it except as some kind of comprehensive redirection of our collective goals as Humankind.
Because delightful news stories about 87-year-old Muslim fathers working on fathering their 100th child from a flock of wives are not conveying the right message. Neither are the ones about wealthy African celebrities marrying four wives at once -- so they can sire four children (or maybe more, if they are lucky to beget multiples) every year.
A couple of decades ago, people once too squeamish to discuss sexual matters openly confronted the AIDS epidemic and put effort, money & publicity into helping stem its rise.
I put it to you that exactly the same kind of effort, and quite possibly more effort, needs to be put into ending the excess procreation that goes on in many parts of the world. Because, at this point in time, it does affect all of us.
Complain about this comment
Colonicus42 #116
My backers at Big Oily Tobacco have suggested I ask you to answer the following questions:
1. which person or persons have the right to decide what an optimal mean global surface temperature is or ought to be? What are the criteria for establishing the optimal? Is it possible to identify which regions will be winners and losers if it were possible to achieve an optimal? Do the losers have any say in the argument?
2. what is meant by global surface temperature and how is it measured? What changes to the measurement methods have been made over the time span of the records? How do those changes affect the record? Is the raw data adjusted? If so, what adjustments are made and what is the affect of those adjustments? How accurate and reliable are the measurements? Is there any evidence that policy has influenced the record? Is it in fact possible to measure the global surface temperature with any degree of accuracy? What is an acceptable error bar for current records?
3. if it is accepted that humankinds activities are adding to the CO2 in the atmosphere what is the evidence that this is leading to dangerous climate change/global warming? Is there any empirical evidence to link manmade CO2 and changes in global temperatures? How is the natural variability of the climate distinguished? Are feedbacks positive, negative or neutral?
4.1 we are told many times that the warming at the end of the 20th century is ‘unprecedented’. To what extent can this be explained by, or within the margin for error of, the temperature measurement methods referred to at 2 above?
4.2. to the extent that reconstructions of past global temperatures are relied upon:
4.2.1 how can reconstructions based on proxies override the historic record of warm (Medieval Warm Period) and cold (Little Ice Age) (which are known to have affected certain regions of the earth) in purporting to show global temperatures?
4.2.2 are there not peer-reviewed papers which show the earth was warmer in the MWP than in the current period? If so, why are these ignored?
I am not expecting an answer. The point is that everyone should be asking questions. That is how progress is made. That is how we come to any form of real consensual understanding. Shutting down the debate prematurely inevitably leads to cries of 'conspiracy'. Many of the people who the AGW proponents accuse of being anti AGW actually accept the basic proposition - an increase of CO2 in the atmosphere will lead to some warming. What they are not willing to accept is the exaggerated claims based on 'projections' and 'scenarios'. This is not science. It is politics and propaganda. And in the end it is counterproductive. It has produced the current state of affairs - us and them - polarised views with no middle ground.
The one thing that believers in science will wish for as a result of the investigations into CRU is that science will be re-established as a pursuit of truth irrespective of ideology
Complain about this comment
One thing worth reminding ourselves, on the sceptical side anyway, is that nothing much turns on Copenhagen. If they miraculously reach some sort of agreement, which eventually turns into comething "legally binding", such "internationally agreed laws" can easily be broken. They hardly count as "laws" at all. Look at all the mighty punitive measures taken against those who neglected to meet their "obligations" at earlier "international agreements".
Another decade of falling temperatures and the whole thing will look as ridiculous to everyone as the Colorado law that makes it illegal to light a fire under a donkey. And it will get as little attention.
Complain about this comment
# 122 Ho!ho!ho!
Complain about this comment
@116 colonicus
re: 117, 118, 119. Please don't try and lump all sceptics into the same bandwagon. Some are just out for the politics (as are some of the pro-AGW camp) some are just concearning themsleves with the science.
Also, to suggest that some/all are in the pay of the oil companies is, frankly, bad taste. I'll happily link the amount of money the climate scientists get/will get should their 'theories' be listened too. It'll make you blush.
For me, i gues i am as davblo said, anti-agw. I used to be meerley sceptical, but the more i look into it, the less sense it makes. But please note, this does not mean i'm denying the earth WAS warming, because it did (it's also cooling at the moment). I'm also not denying (in fact i'm actively encouraging) the search for alternative energies, lowering our reliance on Oil, drastically lowering pollution etc etc.
I just do not agree that the science backs Man Made Climate Change. MMCC.
There's a coincidental link, not causal.
On the subject of Copenhagen, i think that suggesting limiting the worlds temperature rises to 2C, when the earth is already starting to cool is, well, a political masterstroke that should supply a massive tax revenue for generations to come.
Complain about this comment
"It is not peaking because people are doing the right thing: it is bound to peak, in an unpleasant way, because we persist in doing the wrong thing."
The population of every species has been at 100% since the emergence of life on Earth. It goes up or down mostly as a result of changing food supply.
Complain about this comment
@124 Maria,
No, you're wrong, the population is going to peak solely because of falling fertility. I hate waste myself and if that is why you think CO2 emissions should be curbed then I respect that. Anyone who claims that CO2 causing global warming is settled science is totally crazy through brainwashing. The carbon trading schemes being suggested are a perfect recipe for unprecedented corruption on a global scale.
Complain about this comment
"If you don't change your ways then something nasty will happen to you but if you do as we say, you will be alright. Proof isn't required, only faith in a bunch of people who earn their living by continuing the scarey [sic] stories. Questioning the faith is a bad thing that means you are evil."
Paul, maybe you meant to say:
If we collectively don't change our ways then we will with high probability suffer adverse and probably severe climate change, but if we act according to the evidence, then we should be able to greatly reduce those impacts and the long-term costs of adaptation. Proof isn't possible in any area other than mathematics and formal logic, but in the real world multiple independent lines of evidence from instrumental records, climate proxies, and theoretical knowledge of physics and astronomy show clearly that the world is warming by 0.2 °C/decade, and that the only plausible explanation for this is anthropogenic CO2 emissions. We would have ample evidence for this even if the Climatic Research Unit at UEA was exposed tomorrow as Al Gore's secret underground bunker from which he controls TEH W0RLDZ (mwahahahaha!!). Questioning the pronouncements of scientists or politicians is your right in a free country, but continuing to question the validity of the mountain of evidence on climate change in 2009 is no longer scepticism but an indication of either scientific illiteracy or prejudice against those advocating action.
(Sorry it's a bit longer, but you'd missed out some important points.)
Complain about this comment
Labmunkey and Yertizz;
Virtually identical to the response I got from BBC complaints. They obviously just change a word here or there.
The BBC is patently biased (this lunchtime news for example, both national and regional, and the multitude of CC programmes this week). Fewer and fewer people tust the BBC anymore than they do the incessant preaching from Brown and Miliband. I agree with otheres, being preached at by politicians and self-styled enviros is counter-productive.
Complain about this comment
Whilst I believe that one cannot rationally dismiss the impact of human activities on the earth’s natural processes including climate, I remain concerned that society is too often coerced into taking action, based on so called ‘settled science’, that can have unintended consequences that can worsen the overall situation.
In this regard, it will be remembered that the Montreal Protocol, signed in 1987, led to the world wide phasing out of CFCs and HCFCs on the grounds that they were depleting the ozone layer with dire consequences for life on earth. However, according to Dr. Marco Tedesco, Assistant Professor of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences at The City College of New York (Published: Thursday, December 3, 2009 - 11:41 in Earth & Climate), “during the past 30-40 years, the SAM” (Southern Hemisphere Annular Mode) “has gradually strengthened during austral summer, due mainly to human-caused stratospheric ozone depletion…. However, as the hole is repaired as a result of compliance with the Montreal protocol, the winds will weaken and Antarctica will be subject to more warming air”. This appears to correlate with your recent posting on the subject of the loss of ice at East Antarctica.
If Dr Tedesco is proved to be correct, human action to fix one problem, although well intentioned, now appears to be contributing to accelerating the loss of ice in an area that had, until recently, been gaining ice.
Another example is the action taken to reduce the emission of pollutants, particularly sulphates, since the 1970s. These pollutants were subsequently found to have played a significant part in moderating the earth’s temperatures, (‘global dimming’) and the reduction now appears to have contributed to the current warming. In this regard it is interesting to note that in one of the now infamous CRU e-mail exchanges, Mike MacCracken, Chief Scientist for Climate Change Programs, Princeton University, indicates that “there is a large potential for a cooling influence is sort of evident in the IPCC figure about the present sulfate distribution most is right over China, for example, suggesting that the emissions are near the surface something also that is, so to speak, 'clear' from the very poor visibility and air quality in China and India. So, the quick, fast, cheap fix is to put the SO2 out through tall stacks. The cooling potential also seems quite large as the plume would go out over the ocean with its low albedo and right where a lot of water vapor is evaporated, so maybe one pulls down the water vapor feedback a little and this amplifies the sulfate cooling influence.
Now, I am not at all sure that having more tropospheric sulfate would be a bad idea as it would limit warming. I even have started suggesting that the least expensive and quickest geoengineering approach to limit global warming would be to enhance the sulfate loading or at the very least we need to maintain the current sulfate cooling offset while we reduce CO2 emissions (and presumably therefore, SO2 emissions, unless we manage things) or we will get an extra bump of warming”.
Within this context and having regard to growing calls, from the UN itself, for an independent investigation of the issues that have been raised following the leaking of the CRU e-mails and data, would it not be prudent to learn from history and avoid committing substantive financial resources to the reduction of CO2 emissions at the Copenhagen Conference without fully understanding any possible unintended consequences or considering other possible alternatives to moderating temperatures?
In this regard, within the context the dynamic natural processes affecting both the earth and the universe, is it possible to determine what is the appropriate level of CO2 in the atmosphere for the earth’s current and future situation?
What happens if we get it wrong, do we create a reverse tipping point by reducing too much CO2 and accelerate the onset of the next ice age which is likely to have a greater impact on the sustainability of life than the projected warming?
Complain about this comment
The billions of tons of varying chemicals and other polluants spewed into the air and water every year cannot be viewed a neutral. Greater efforts should be made in the development of alternative fuels, non-fossil. The cap and trade system will only prolong environmental degradation. The bankers have run off with billions while funds are needed for alternative fuel development. The big business, big investor cabal will try to maintain the status quo. Because the regulatory process has been controled by coal and oil the conditions are what they are. Countries such as China and India have restless populations seeking employment in the new economies and these governments will trade environmental health for political stability. When the crisis comes, things will change because that is how governments work. Hydrogen is creeping into the system and is a readily available technology for transportation but gas and oil will prevent large scale adoption even though this is readily adaptable to the existing infrastructure. This is not about moving toward alternative fuels it is about maintaing the present profit system for coal and oil and who will control the price of those alternative fuels and the potential for political graft. The political system is: Pay as you go. Keep your expectations low to avoid great disappointment. The politicians will produce a half of bowl of rice and present it as a banquet.
Complain about this comment
Re my comment at 116 and responces.
If you look at what I actually wrote you will notice that I did not suggest that 'all' skeptics were conspiricy theorists or attempt to put them all in one basket. I included the phrase 'I'm not including everyone in this'. I pointed out that very few make constructive arguments/objections and alot do seem to view climate change as a conspiricy.
I did not suggest that 'all' oil and coal companys are against climate change or 'fund/back the skeptics'. They are acting very similarly to the way the tobacco industry have over the last 20 years or more, many funding research and wanting to change to limit the negative effects, but also more than a few objecting to changes and activley lobbying against the science or proposed measures.
Complain about this comment
Re #58. At 09:50am on 07 Dec 2009, xtragrumpymike2 wrote
"And just to add..........Bjorn Lomborg...........not another article from the Wall Street Journal......just about as "un"biased as your claims re- Richard."
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Glad you enjoyed it, XGM, thought you'd appreciate another WSJ article.;)
Such a refreshing change from the media here where so many have bought into the AGW orthodoxy.
And Bjorn Lomborg too is an interesting guy. You may have heard of his book "The Skeptical Environmentalist" - well worth reading- it put's much in perspective. He was a former member of Greenpeace but became very critical of the way in which it (& other environmental organizations) became politicised with their propensity for making selective and misleading use of the scientific evidence. Depressingly familiar!!
Complain about this comment
Check out some sceptics:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk8SSqc7ekM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zOXmJ4jd-8
Complain about this comment
Colonicus42:
You should check how much the oil companies and other major polluters gave the CRU for their so-called research. Personally I am skeptical because the the "science" we are all supposed to swallow sounds like absolute nonsense and the climatologists' funding would vanish if they came out with anything other than nightmare predictions. Their perversion of the peer-review process will do irreparable damage to science.
What reason would "oil companies and other major polluters" have for funding any research to point the finger at fossil fuel use (and by implication, them) as a cause of potentially severe disruption of global climate? The only possibilities I can think of are:
(a) that their PR departments have told them supporting climate research would be good for enhancing their corporate social responsibility image - which is possible, but they blew that one long ago by their extensive funding for astroturf groups which sought to undermine that research and smear the researchers; or
(b) that a global cap on CO2 would make fossil fuels an expensive luxury product and drive up prices. This is silly on two fronts: firstly, the reason for the expense would be the extra taxation, and under a serious deal on greenhouse gas emissions, they wouldn't be getting much of it back in tax breaks; or
(c) that they have bought up the IP on a wide range of alternative energy technologies and will make even bigger profits as they move away from oil and coal. Fine, but given their enormous financial and political clout, they hardly need to engage years of soul-destroying climate negotiations. They could just claim dwindling reserves (not difficult, since governments essentially take their word on this), gradually cut production to make it look convincing, and sell us all loads of windmills, solar panels, batteries and fuel cells (which as any good climate "sceptic" will tell you are awfully expensive ways of generating electricity); or
(d) that if they kept up the funding long enough, researchers might eventually make ill-advised comments about deleting e-mails or "hiding the decline" (i.e. hiding it in a Nature paper eleven years ago) that they could use to discredit climate research from within. This seems a plausible, but extraordinarily expensive way of achieving their aims. Surely this would indicate desperation on the polluters' part.
In my opinion, none of these possibilities holds any water. But if your suspicions are justified, then surely climate "sceptics" like you should be getting angry at the oil and coal companies - but they are the very businesses which have so extensively funded the "sceptical" commentators with whom you agree! Aren't you tying yourself in knots to avoid the obvious conclusion - the conclusion which corroborates the polluters' public statements - that they don't want a strong deal on CO2?
PS. A lot of science sounds like "absolute nonsense" - quantum mechanics being a good example. And we all know that quantum mechanics didn't lead to any tangible benefits in the 20th century...
Complain about this comment
Maria Ashot@ 144 Copenhagen Countdown: 2 days
“When the concentration of oxygen in the blood falls between 88%, hypoxia sets in. This can have, for example, a devastating effect on a pregnancy even if the period of low-oxygen is not prolonged.”
“This is not an area that has received sufficient attention: it warrants greater interest.”
( I assume you mean below 88%)
There has been a lot of research done in this area particularly in the military and civil aviation sector relating to human respiratory needs at high altitudes.
The following is from a UK parliamentary Select Committee on Science and Technology Report on Air Travel and Health, September 2000.
“At 6,000 feet, a common effective cabin altitude where the amount of oxygen per lungful of air is about 80% of sea level values, the blood oxygen level is about 97% of that at sea level.”
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldselect/ldsctech/121/12107.htm
To compensate for the microscopic decrease in oxygen levels as a result of higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere perhaps wearing stiletto heeled footware might help.
Complain about this comment
Ach, I have this nasty feeling that I left Colonicus42's name in my comment, which is meant to be directed to FergalR. If so, apologies to Colonicus42.
Complain about this comment
Re #94. At 11:45am on 07 Dec 2009, minuend wrote:
Climategate: More bully boy tactics
Another journalist threatened.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/12/7/another-journalist-threatened.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------
A lot of this is now being exposed by Climategate and a good thing too.
We have seen one string of e-mails which threatened Paul Hudson and another separate incident involving Roger Harrabin and did anyone pick-up on his phrase in an interview on the Today programme re. Climategate when needled he responded "I just have to be careful about how I talk about it, alright" (think it was 4th Dec).
I think the BBC should come clean as to exactly what pressures they are under to report as they do.
Complain about this comment
Oh well it looks like AGW theory is about to get flushed round the u-bend. CNN are reporting directly from UEA, normal stuff about the emails being out of context but poor old Phil Jones is hung out to dry on avoiding FOI requests mentions pretty much everything. It appears it has gone main stream in the USA this morning.
Complain about this comment
That BBC poll about climate fears do you think they used "Mike's Nature Trick" in order to hide the decline?
For UK readers this poll story was brought to you via "Therefore Suzlon" wind power of the future and "GE imagination at work" our trusty sponsers for this article
Complain about this comment
Colonicus42 #135
I speak only for myself, but when anyone attacks the man, or the team he plays for, rather than addressing the issue, then that person has no credibility in my eyes.
You need only read the posts on Richard's blog to see that it is regrettably very common practice.
It is something that is very common in litigation. Always a sign that the culprit's case is lost. Totally counter-productive.
Sparklet #136
By coincidence I have just been reading about Patrick Moore, the co-founder of Greenpeace, who resigned for the same reason as Lomborg. I am not sure that true environmentalists realise the extent to which their cause has been hijacked by extremists. I would expect a bit if a backlash at some time in the future. A 'Real Greepeace' springing up. So it goes.
Complain about this comment
A few weeks ago I wandered into an old 14th Century church in the Yorkshire Dales to get out of the driving rain. On the wall was a 15th C carving showing the local monks cultivating vines in the local abbey. I recently read a book detailing the ups and downs of a family in the northern Scottish highlands where the author describes his poaching apricots from the local castle grounds in the 1820s. So we have apricots in the north of Scotland, 300 years earlier grape vines are growing in the Yorkshire Dales.
Now, I have no informed opinion on climate change – I read the various articles with due suspicion but cannot find anywhere any real proof that these presumably natural cycles of cold and hot weather since man started recording such things, have suddenly become man made, rather than the earth’s natural cycles.
It’s just a thought…
Complain about this comment
RedGreenInBlue:
I believe quantum physics because it has produced results, AGW theory is based on the predictions of people who have a financial interest in coming up with horrifying predictions. None of them have come true. If CO2 causes measurable warming in the tiny concentrations that exist in the atmosphere then why hasn't the world warmed in the last 10 years? Why does the IPCC and NASA claim the Sun can't be the cause of GW when low solar activity is clearly related to cooling of the Earth?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/28/Sunspot_Numbers.png/800px-Sunspot_Numbers.png
Complain about this comment
I am still fascinated by the whole focus on CO2 and doubling to approx 750ppm.
"RF [relative forcing] of +3.7 W m–2 for a doubling in the CO2 mixing ratio....Note that for CO2, RF increases logarithmically with mixing ratio [ppm]". IPCC AR4 (2007).
"Without any feedbacks, a doubling of CO2 (which amounts to a forcing of 3.7 W/m2) would result in 1°C global warming" S. Rahmstorf (2008)
So relationship is not linear; more CO2 does not promote same temp. jump as previous increase since 1750.
Is Copenhagen then more about the possibilities of 'feedbacks' in the climate system? Are these feedbacks scientifically 'proven' and reliable concepts or not? Are they being (too) precautionary?
If not CO2 - why the massive 'public' focus? Surely HFCs are more problematic?
Complain about this comment
Just carrying on the BBC polling figures for a bit the decline seems to be hidden as follows:
Off 59 people questioned in the last 15 minutes showed
75% opposed to the that man is a major factor in global warming
22% for those who agree
3% who were undecided
survey conducted 7/12/09 from research carried out on this blogg. Margin of error I think I counted Labmunkey twice and one of the undecided could be pro-AGW.
How much should I charge the BBC for this as my sponsor is really mean as it is a can of beer and I seem to paying for it.
Flatearth Power at Work Inc, all rites who cares
Complain about this comment
Re #52. At 08:56am on 07 Dec 2009, CharlesUUFarley wrote:
Climate fundamentalists should hang their heads in shame.
http://www.sepp.org/Archive/controv/controversies/epavskrug.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------
I couldn't agree more, Charles, thanks for this - it is one of the factors in this dreadful scandal that makes me very angry - the fact that many of those scientists (some of the most renowned and best able) who refused to follow the dogma have had their careers trashed by these charlatans (and some of their followers, or should I say 'disciples').
They are the men (and women) to be most admired in this whole sorry incident for steadfastly standing by their principles no matter the pressure.
Some of them are listed in the attached, and far from being the badge of shame that some have portrayed it, I really do think it's more A
ROLE OF HONOUR
Normally I don't like quoting from Wikipedia knowing that at least one member of the Team skews the articles in favour of AGW however it is useful to note that Wiki. provides both a discussion forum and a history so any amendments can be taken into consideration.
Complain about this comment
Bowman, No. 129, Are you seriously telling us that you believe the population of the human race has been at 6.8 billion "since the emergence of life on Earth?"
Because that is what you have typed.
Complain about this comment
FergaIR, No. 130, I have it on very good authority from China that while they are not experiencing much in the way of a decline in human fertility, they are experiencing a serious rise in respiratory impairment, especially amongst the most vulnerable populations, in the densely-populated and highly industrialized areas.
Some indications suggest the fertility of human males is declining an average of 35% every decade -- at least in some parts of the world. (Those are European sources from the past five years or so that I draw upon.)
However, these projections are not based on a comprehensive study, for example, of fertility in Africa, Asia or South America.
WHO projections from the latest population research are also not entirely satisfying. I looked at them very closely. They had some very strange numbers tucked in here and there. For example, they suggested the population of the USA would grow naturally by 17 million over the next five years. That is simply an error of some kind, as it does not correlate at all to the known birth rate (within margins of error) plus immigration.
At the same time, advances in life expectancy in the better-advantaged societies will offset some decline in human fertility. But not enough (I have crunched these numbers repeatedly) to make up for the continuing rapid birth rate at the global level.
We simply cannot take air & water quality for granted as something that can be allowed o continue to deteriorate without consequence.
Complain about this comment
Re:140
Thats ok, was fairly obvious where your comments were directed. I always try to read a post properly before jumping to a conclusion about it, unlike alot of people posting here.
Re:146
I used to think there was a potential for the effects on climate to be caused by solar fluctuations. However, when you look at the numbers and the science behind them it doesn't add up. Most solar activity such as sunspots and solar flares etc have relativly little effect on the electromagnetic energy that is being produced by the sun as the vast majority of this is emitted from below the suns surface.
Its the electromagnetic radiation that causes the greenhouse effect on the inner planets making them much warmer than they would be without it.
Complain about this comment
"Bowman, No. 129, Are you seriously telling us that you believe the population of the human race has been at 6.8 billion 'since the emergence of life on Earth?'
"Because that is what you have typed."
Oh really, and where did I type that? -- My exact words, please, that you interpret as if you cannot read?
Complain about this comment
Re:152
My last point isn't very clear there. Basically the electromagnetic radiation is absorbed by the earth, the energy is then emitted at Infra-red wavelengths where the atmosphere is relativly opaque due to greenhouse gases.
Complain about this comment
Maria,
I don't envy your detailed analysis of population, fertility and health statistics and I bow to your superior learning.
Colonicus,
Thank you for being willing to discuss things rationally. You must know that water vapour can be up to 40,000ppm of the atmosphere and could only ever be less than the CO2 concentration in the most (thankfully rare) arid and cold parts of the world. For anyone to say that an increase from 250ppm to even 800ppm of CO2 could make a significant difference is suspect when you consider that H2O is opaque to a much larger range of IR than, and completely overlaps the absorption of, the AGW bogeyman.
I've read that the rise in sea level is accelerating but this simply isn't true. They shouldn't just lie. The seas have been rising, with rare interludes, since the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago and many of the most recent measurements show the rate of acceleration slowing and that sea level rise has now reached a peak.
Warm is always better than cold; during the 70 year Maunder minimum harvests failed repeatedly many people starved to death, millions more died from cold and disease. People should watch the Sun rather than the CO2 concentration.
In 2006-2007 NASA were predicting the most active solar cycle ever observed, they've had to change their prediction more than a dozen times since and now the weakest cycle in living memory is forecast and the weakest ever recorded seems more likely. According to the 2006-2007 models we should have 2 or 3 sunspots a day right now. None have been observed in the last fortnight.
You should take another look at the Sun's effect on the Earth's climate, NASA have dismissed its electromagnetic radiation as the cause of GW because it varies by much less than 1%. But the lack of coronal mass ejections in recent years has weakened the heliosphere's magnetism such that 20% more galactic cosmic rays are reaching the Earth than have been seen in the space age. Beryllium isotope analysis from ice cores suggest that 200-300% more GCR's reached Earth during the Maunder minimum.
One possible and compelling explanation of the Sun's effect on the Earth's climate has been suggested (and ignored due to the AGW "consensus") by Henrik Svensmark; please take 50 minutes to listen to his theory here (only the introduction is in Danish): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKoUwttE0BA
Whatever way solar activity influences our climate it's an understatement to say that if the Sun doesn't perk up soon we will be glad of any warming caused by CO2.
Complain about this comment
Maria Ashot at 124, that was extremely well said.
I think you correctly identified the moral issue of our time, which is the protection of the global environment through the export of fundamental human rights.
Indeed, I believe that anyone who really cares about the environment, or even about the plight of other people, must be hopping mad with the climate change fantasy bandwagon.
When there is so much that needs doing, and so many serious issues which need attention, it is a profound disgrace that so many people are blathering on about global warming.
I think the crucial hypocrisy and the most telling disgrace is summarized perfectly by Al Gore. This wretched pig of a man travels the world, lecturing and preaching his favourite version of doom, and yet all the while he has invested in carbon trading scheme corporations, so that he stands to gain vast wealth from the legislation he wishes to create.
I suppose it is no worse than the church taking money from the poorest of the poor in return for their own doom fantasies, but in Gore's case there is no excuse of tradition.
As for the party hacks who think they are entitled to lie and steal taxes from people who work in the free market, I have nothing but increased contempt and rage for them. Whensoever I meet someone who is a party member these days, I ridicule them openly, and savagely. Happily I am not often in the UK, so my exposure to that increasingly morbid society is limited..
Sooner or later the UK is going to have to face up to what it has become: a stifling orgy of governmental rules and regulations, reaching into every corner of everyones lives. It is the USSR on a bad day, and without the safety valve of rampant corruption. At least in the USSR, a person could bribe their way out of harassment from government employees.
Complain about this comment
Dear Mr Moderator
You have sent me an email saying that I cant use the screen name Coldplay I emailed you to ask for an explanation but the email was bounced back.
Cold and play are common english words there is no impersonation so please can you explain.
I assume this will be premoderated hence the request here.
Complain about this comment
# 157 U13253228 wrote:
"You have sent me an email saying that I cant use the screen name Coldplay"
Maybe someone from the band Coldplay was lurking and didn't want his band to be associated with the views you have expressed!
In which case, wow, you're moderately famous (sort of), because you've annoyed someone moderately famous!
Now maybe you could adopt the name "Gordon Brown" or "Ed Miliband" and start annoying them?
Complain about this comment
Instead of worrying about miniscule changes in the temperature why dont we have a summit on the massive increases in human population
Complain about this comment
The most economic solution to reducing carbon emissions as proved in a recent paper from London School of Economics is population reduction and management-including birth control.The world's population has grown unsustainably in the past 50 years along with carbon emissions.Population management policies are something all countries can implement and sign up to. Why is the population issue not being given greater prominence at Copenhagen? It should be the top item of the agenda given it is the least cost option.
Complain about this comment
Recent research in London has identified the least cost option for reducing carbon emissions as reducing/controlling the unsustainable surge in populat5ion which has parallelled the growth in emissions.Why is this then not the top of the agenda for the Copenhagen summit?
Complain about this comment
Re 160/161
Agree 100% the priority for the future is to control the population an ever increasing population demands energy food,water and land all of which can only become more strained unless this tide is stemmed it has to be the main agenda
Complain about this comment
View these comments in RSS