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jshell 333 posts |
Jun 07, 2009, 12:11
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............just becoming the new big industry! When I read about the accepted science and the doomsday scenarios I get rather concerned about the future, particularly for my children - I'll be gone! But, when I read some of the opposing articles I worry that we're being duped & led down the garden path. ie. the cooling during the last 7 years...etc, etc Where are the facts, how do I know it's not being used to make cash, line unscrupulous pockets and allow politicians to use the next great bogeyman to frighten and control our lives? I simply do not know which side to believe! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/5462580/Global-warming-and-a-tale-of-two-planets.html Another article: (not the link above) "By BJORN LOMBORG Some business leaders are cozying up with politicians and scientists to demand swift, drastic action on global warming. This is a new twist on a very old practice: companies using public policy to line their own pockets. The tight relationship between the groups echoes the relationship among weapons makers, researchers and the U.S. military during the Cold War. President Dwight Eisenhower famously warned about the might of the "military-industrial complex," cautioning that "the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." He worried that "there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties." This is certainly true of climate change. We are told that very expensive carbon regulations are the only way to respond to global warming, despite ample evidence that this approach does not pass a basic cost-benefit test. We must ask whether a "climate-industrial complex" is emerging, pressing taxpayers to fork over money to please those who stand to gain. This phenomenon will be on display at the World Business Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen this weekend. The organizers -- the Copenhagen Climate Council -- hope to push political leaders into more drastic promises when they negotiate the Kyoto Protocol's replacement in December. The opening keynote address is to be delivered by Al Gore, who actually represents all three groups: He is a politician, a campaigner and the chair of a green private-equity firm invested in products that a climate-scared world would buy. Naturally, many CEOs are genuinely concerned about global warming. But many of the most vocal stand to profit from carbon regulations. The term used by economists for their behavior is "rent-seeking." The world's largest wind-turbine manufacturer, Copenhagen Climate Council member Vestas, urges governments to invest heavily in the wind market. It sponsors CNN's "Climate in Peril" segment, increasing support for policies that would increase Vestas's earnings. A fellow council member, Mr. Gore's green investment firm Generation Investment Management, warns of a significant risk to the U.S. economy unless a price is quickly placed on carbon. Even companies that are not heavily engaged in green business stand to gain. European energy companies made tens of billions of euros in the first years of the European Trading System when they received free carbon emission allocations. American electricity utility Duke Energy, a member of the Copenhagen Climate Council, has long promoted a U.S. cap-and-trade scheme. Yet the company bitterly opposed the Warner-Lieberman bill in the U.S. Senate that would have created such a scheme because it did not include European-style handouts to coal companies. The Waxman-Markey bill in the House of Representatives promises to bring back the free lunch. U.S. companies and interest groups involved with climate change hired 2,430 lobbyists just last year, up 300% from five years ago. Fifty of the biggest U.S. electric utilities -- including Duke -- spent $51 million on lobbyists in just six months. The massive transfer of wealth that many businesses seek is not necessarily good for the rest of the economy. Spain has been proclaimed a global example in providing financial aid to renewable energy companies to create green jobs. But research shows that each new job cost Spain 571,138 euros, with subsidies of more than one million euros required to create each new job in the uncompetitive wind industry. Moreover, the programs resulted in the destruction of nearly 110,000 jobs elsewhere in the economy, or 2.2 jobs for every job created. The cozy corporate-climate relationship was pioneered by Enron, which bought up renewable energy companies and credit-trading outfits while boasting of its relationship with green interest groups. When the Kyoto Protocol was signed, an internal memo was sent within Enron that stated, "If implemented, [the Kyoto Protocol] will do more to promote Enron's business than almost any other regulatory business." The World Business Summit will hear from "science and public policy leaders" seemingly selected for their scary views of global warming. They include James Lovelock, who believes that much of Europe will be Saharan and London will be underwater within 30 years; Sir Crispin Tickell, who believes that the United Kingdom's population needs to be cut by two-thirds so the country can cope with global warming; and Timothy Flannery, who warns of sea level rises as high as "an eight-story building." Free speech is important. But these visions of catastrophe are a long way outside of mainstream scientific opinion, and they go much further than the careful findings of the United Nations panel of climate change scientists. When it comes to sea-level rise, for example, the United Nations expects a rise of between seven and 23 inches by 2100 -- considerably less than a one-story building. There would be an outcry -- and rightfully so -- if big oil organized a climate change conference and invited only climate-change deniers. The partnership among self-interested businesses, grandstanding politicians and alarmist campaigners truly is an unholy alliance. The climate-industrial complex does not promote discussion on how to overcome this challenge in a way that will be best for everybody. We should not be surprised or impressed that those who stand to make a profit are among the loudest calling for politicians to act. Spending a fortune on global carbon regulations will benefit a few, but dearly cost everybody else. Mr. Lomborg is director of the Copenhagen Consensus, a think tank, and author of "Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming" (Knopf, 2007)." |
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Lawrence 9547 posts |
Jun 07, 2009, 14:11
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Welcome back! Well I'm not sure if I'm worried yet, not that I'm ignorant of the situation. I'm pretty sure when the shit hits the fan so-to-speak someone's gonna come up with a solution, at least I hope...
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jshell 333 posts |
Jun 07, 2009, 15:09
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Lawrence wrote: Welcome back! Well I'm not sure if I'm worried yet, not that I'm ignorant of the situation. I'm pretty sure when the shit hits the fan so-to-speak someone's gonna come up with a solution, at least I hope... Thanks Lawrence! I'm pretty sure that the climate will be seen to change, but I do find many of the arguments and counter-arguments totally confusing. More and more scientists seem to say that things are changing, but they argue that the natural effects and CO2 emissions far, far outweigh anything that man does. But, and it's a BIG but, is the change being used to stifle 3rd world economies, or used to justify huge payouts to struggling economies, make money for certain industries or even as a way of justifying moving away from fossil energy..... I just don't think the truth is obvious. Another interesting article I found: 16/11/2008 A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore’s chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record. A sudden cold snap brought snow to London in October This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China’s official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its “worst snowstorm ever”. In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years. So what explained the anomaly? GISS’s computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running. The error was so glaring that when it was reported on the two blogs - run by the US meteorologist Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre, the Canadian computer analyst who won fame for his expert debunking of the notorious “hockey stick” graph - GISS began hastily revising its figures. This only made the confusion worse because, to compensate for the lowered temperatures in Russia, GISS claimed to have discovered a new “hotspot” in the Arctic - in a month when satellite images were showing Arctic sea-ice recovering so fast from its summer melt that three weeks ago it was 30 per cent more extensive than at the same time last year. A GISS spokesman lamely explained that the reason for the error in the Russian figures was that they were obtained from another body, and that GISS did not have resources to exercise proper quality control over the data it was supplied with. This is an astonishing admission: the figures published by Dr Hansen’s institute are not only one of the four data sets that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) relies on to promote its case for global warming, but they are the most widely quoted, since they consistently show higher temperatures than the others. If there is one scientist more responsible than any other for the alarm over global warming it is Dr Hansen, who set the whole scare in train back in 1988 with his testimony to a US Senate committee chaired by Al Gore. Again and again, Dr Hansen has been to the fore in making extreme claims over the dangers of climate change. Yet last week’s latest episode is far from the first time Dr Hansen’s methodology has been called in question. In 2007 he was forced by Mr Watts and Mr McIntyre to revise his published figures for US surface temperatures, to show that the hottest decade of the 20th century was not the 1990s, as he had claimed, but the 1930s. Another of his close allies is Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, who recently startled a university audience in Australia by claiming that global temperatures have recently been rising “very much faster” than ever, in front of a graph showing them rising sharply in the past decade. In fact, as many of his audience were aware, they have not been rising in recent years and since 2007 have dropped. Dr Pachauri, a former railway engineer with no qualifications in climate science, may believe what Dr Hansen tells him. But whether, on the basis of such evidence, it is wise for the world’s governments to embark on some of the most costly economic measures ever proposed, to remedy a problem which may actually not exist, is a question which should give us all pause for thought.
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Lawrence 9547 posts |
Jun 07, 2009, 15:32
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Well I think that's just the nature of capitalism to try to make money off of looming disaster. It's inevitable, I don't know if there's any solution for it...
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Merrick 2148 posts |
Edited Jun 07, 2009, 17:42
Jun 07, 2009, 17:38
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There are going to be a lot of articles on any subject that tell you opposite positions as fact. The thing is to check the sources. Whilst the article is correct in saying that Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, is a 'former railway engineer', they are clearly trying to denigrate him. He was an engineer and also a professor of economics. It is absolutely true that he has no qualifications in climate science. However, the IPCC is a body of thousands upon thousands of scientists from around the world who do. Pachauri does not formulate policy, he is more of a figurehead and spokesperson. (Meanwhile, the other article you pasted is by Bjorn Lomborg, is a political scientist and statistician with no scientific qualifications and who, unlike Pachauri, represents nobody who does). If you're going to cite an article here, it would be good to tell us where you got it from. The one you just cut and pasted contains blatant falsehoods common to the climate-denier perspective. The article cites "Steve McIntyre, the Canadian computer analyst who won fame for his expert debunking of the notorious “hockey stick” graph". The 'hockey stick graph' (showing global temperatures suddenly rising in the shape of a hockey stick) has not been debunked. The original findings have been vindicated by subsequent studies. http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter6.pdf Climate-deniers like to confuse weather with climate, but it is essential to differentiate. Yes, as the article said, there were unseasonal cold snaps in the US and Europe last year. Yet still, the global climate was warmer than any time since before 1997. (Even with localised temperatures, our grey washout summer in Britain was above average temperatures). It's also important to distinguish between local and global averages. When you read the common claim that '1934 was the hottest year on record', that's a figure for 48 American states, not the globe. They claim that temperatures "have not been rising in recent years and since 2007 have dropped". That is just wrong. Here's a graph of annual global temperature since 1850. http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2008/pr20081216.html The fifteen hottest years are in the last 20 years. Temperatures dropping 'since 2007' means one year. And that is the tenth hottest year on record, still above anything since 1995. jshell wrote: is the change being used to stifle 3rd world economies, or used to justify huge payouts to struggling economies, make money for certain industries or even as a way of justifying moving away from fossil energy Quite the opposite. The vested interests are trying to ensure we keep using fossil fuels. They denied climate change was happening for years, then they tried to say that scientists were undecided, now they say that there will be magic ways of making fossil fuels low-carbon - all of these things are stalling tactics to keep us burning fossil fuels. As for the effect on poorer nations, climate change is already impacting. Rainfall patterns have moved in eastern Africa, forcing Ethiopian farmers off their land. Parts of Bangladesh that used to flood every 20 or 30 years now flood every 2 or 3, making them unfarmable. It is literally taking the food away from the poorest people on earth. Those concerned with poorer nations - Oxfam, Christian Aid, War On Want, World Development Movement - all devote a lot of energy to climate change campaigning precisely because it will hit the poorest hardest. Christian Aid's report 'The Climate of Poverty; Facts, Fears and Hope' says it is likely to kill 180 million people this century in sub-Saharan Africa alone, if emissions aren't reined in. jshell wrote: I just don't think the truth is obvious. I think it is. All you have to do is answer four simple questions. 1. Does the atmosphere contain carbon dioxide? 2. Does atmospheric carbon dioxide influence global temperatures? 3. Will that influence be enhanced by the addition of more carbon dioxide? 4. Have human activities led to a net emission of carbon dioxide?
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rojo 433 posts |
Edited Jun 07, 2009, 21:01
Jun 07, 2009, 21:00
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All I know is that when you check these climate change denial articles they are more than often written or sponsored by those with interests in the existing fossil based fuel economy. I remember some guy came into work spouting forth about the impact of carbon dioxide being solely generated from cow flatulence cos he had read it in The Sun. He wasn't having it when I pointed out the article was not to be taken seriously since it had been written by one Jeremy 'Petrolhead' Clarkson and that he was clearly representing the motor industry
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jshell 333 posts |
Jun 08, 2009, 11:51
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Merrick wrote: Lots of good stuff..... Good reply Merrick. I'm not a 'denier', tbh I really don't know who to believe. The links and articles I suppose were mostly from the 'Torygraph', but you can only identify a potential/actual crisis by knowing both sides - as long as there are 2 sides. Any disbelief that I may have or foster in future would be related to how much we as man effect the cycle of warming. And, of course, can we do anything about it???? Suggestions are that it'd cost the destruction of every economy on Earth to make and noticeable change. Perhaps it would even be worth that with a 'reset to zero'!.
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jshell 333 posts |
Jun 08, 2009, 11:54
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rojo wrote: All I know is that when you check these climate change denial articles they are more than often written or sponsored by those with interests in the existing fossil based fuel economy. I remember some guy came into work spouting forth about the impact of carbon dioxide being solely generated from cow flatulence cos he had read it in The Sun. He wasn't having it when I pointed out the article was not to be taken seriously since it had been written by one Jeremy 'Petrolhead' Clarkson and that he was clearly representing the motor industry oooh, never take Clarkson seriously, but he can be funny! The cow-phart thing I always took with a pinch of salt, but the volcano contribution seems to be much more serious..... I'll see if there's any accurate figures to be 'googled'!!!
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Lawrence 9547 posts |
Jun 08, 2009, 17:02
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090608/sc_afp/climatewarmingtransportcarbonlifestyle
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jshell 333 posts |
Jun 09, 2009, 07:57
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Lawrence wrote: Now you begin to understand some of my confusion at all of this...... :wibble:
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