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Global Warming Conference

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  • 29-11-2007 1:43pm
    #1
    PDN
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,686 ✭✭✭✭


    I thought some of you might be interested in this. Looks interesting. If I'm in Ireland in mid-February I plan to make the trip to Belfast.

    Ireland and Global Warming

    16 February 2008This conference, organised by Christians in Science Ireland, will be held on Saturday 16 February 2008 in the Spires Conference Centre in Belfast.

    Global warming has become one of the central scientific, political and ethical issues of our time. Nearly everybody in the world is contributing to it and everybody will be affected by it.

    The basic facts of global warming are now well established through the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Global warming is of great interest to scientists because of the complexity of the physical processes that govern global climate and the far-reaching potential ecological impacts.

    It is of great importance to public policy because the measures proposed to reduce its effects reach into nearly all aspects of the human economy and the costs of both action and inaction are high.

    It raises very serious ethical questions, because global warming will soon affect the lives of many people especially in poorer economies, but also because our sons and daughters will inherit the consequences of our actions or inactions.

    This conference, which should be of interest to Christians and non-Christians alike, aims to take a holistic approach to the problem of global warming. We want to look at the global issues raised by global warming, at the impact on the island of Ireland, and at what we can do as individuals to make a difference.

    Speakers & Subjects:
    Prof Sir John Houghton FRS - Global Warming: A Global Emergency
    (Former Chair/Co-chair of the Scientific Assessment Working Group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Chairman of the John Ray Initiative)

    Dr John Sweeney - Global Warming: It's Impact on Ireland
    (Director of Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units and Senior Lecturer in Geography, National University of Ireland, Maynooth

    Prof Bob White FRS - Global Warming: A Christian Response
    (Associate Director of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion and Professor of Geophysics, Cambridge University)

    More info from Christians in Science - http://http://www.cis.org.uk/ireland/


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    #2
    Scofflaw
    Registered Users Posts: 23,283 ✭✭✭✭Scofflaw


    You may also like to go along to the remainder of the EPA Climate Change Lecture series - link. I'm appalled to realise I have already missed the first two, which were extremely conveniently situated for me to go to.

    cordially,
    Scofflaw


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    #3
    Fanny Cradock
    Registered Users Posts: 10,245 ✭✭✭✭Fanny Cradock


    Very interesting...


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    #4
    PDN
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,686 ✭✭✭✭PDN


    Last week I was in Cameroon - quite high up in the mountains of the North Western Province. I noticed a lot of the houses had fireplaces, so I asked if they ever used them. They explained that years ago it used to get cold in the winter so they had to light fires, but that for a number of years it has stayed hot all year round.

    It reminded me of how, growing up in Ireland in the 1960s, we used to have sledges to ride down slopes in the local park each Winter when the snow came. I wonder how many kids in Ireland today have ever ridden on a sledge? I doubt that there would ever be enough snow to make the purchase of a sledge worthwhile.

    Global warming is a reality.


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    #5
    Fanny Cradock
    Registered Users Posts: 10,245 ✭✭✭✭Fanny Cradock


    PDN wrote: »
    Last week I was in Cameroon - quite high up in the mountains of the North Western Province. I noticed a lot of the houses had fireplaces, so I asked if they ever used them. They explained that years ago it used to get cold in the winter so they had to light fires, but that for a number of years it has stayed hot all year round.

    It reminded me of how, growing up in Ireland in the 1960s, we used to have sledges to ride down slopes in the local park each Winter when the snow came. I wonder how many kids in Ireland today have ever ridden on a sledge? I doubt that there would ever be enough snow to make the purchase of a sledge worthwhile.

    Global warming is a reality.

    Worrying times! There is so much noise being made that I fear there is actually very little in the way of progress.

    If the rising sea levels don't get us it will be the killer bees.


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    #6
    SubjectSean
    Registered Users Posts: 458 ✭✭SubjectSean


    Fanny Cradock wrote: »

    If the rising sea levels don't get us it will be the killer bees.

    Bees will murder us? Surely you are mistaken

    The rising heat and sea levels and the too much or not enough rain. That'll do the trick though. It's already hurting people in their millions. But not us. We're alright Jack, you may stick your heads in the sand until us rich folks start to suffer some.


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    #7
    JimiTime
    Registered Users Posts: 7,418 ✭✭✭JimiTime


    Pangs of Distress my friends. Let those who have ears listen. Man will govern himself to his injury. All the things prophesised about the world must and will come to pass. Global warming seems to be the means in which all the things Jesus told us would happen are happening. Earthquakes, natural disasters etc. Don't misquote this though, I'm not saying God is causing it, rather God knew that this would happen when Man seperated himself from him.


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    #8
    BrianCalgary
    Registered Users Posts: 3,196 ✭✭✭BrianCalgary


    PDN wrote: »

    Global warming is a reality.

    True enough, it is the cause that is in question.


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    #9
    Scofflaw
    Registered Users Posts: 23,283 ✭✭✭✭Scofflaw


    BrianCalgary wrote: »
    True enough, it is the cause that is in question.

    A question to which there are solidly established answers. Don't make me come over there, Brian.

    wearily,
    Scofflaw


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    #10
    PDN
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,686 ✭✭✭✭PDN


    BrianCalgary wrote: »
    True enough, it is the cause that is in question.

    I think that depends on whether you listen to:
    a) Scientists who are knowledgable on the subject or
    b) A President in the pocket of the oil industry.


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    #11
    JohnnyBravo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 537 ✭✭✭JohnnyBravo


    JimiTime wrote: »
    Pangs of Distress my friends. Let those who have ears listen. Man will govern himself to his injury. All the things prophesised about the world must and will come to pass. Global warming seems to be the means in which all the things Jesus told us would happen are happening. Earthquakes, natural disasters etc. Don't misquote this though, I'm not saying God is causing it, rather God knew that this would happen when Man seperated himself from him.

    But isnt the country most responsible for it (US) governed by a self confessed christian


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    #12
    PDN
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,686 ✭✭✭✭PDN


    JohnnyBravo wrote: »
    But isnt the country most responsible for it (US) governed by a self confessed christian

    The country that releases the most carbon dioxide in total (China) is actually governed by a self-confessed atheist. The country that releases the most per capita (USA) is governed by a self-confessed Christian. The country with the second highest emissions per capita (Saudi Arabia) is governed by a self-confessed Muslim. None of which has any relevance whatsoever.


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    #13
    SubjectSean
    Registered Users Posts: 458 ✭✭SubjectSean


    JohnnyBravo wrote: »
    But isnt the country most responsible for it (US) governed by a self confessed christian

    Ya that's his opinion but somehow I can't see Jesus sharing it.


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    #14
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,399 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    What would Jesus drive?


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    #15
    PDN
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,686 ✭✭✭✭PDN


    I've actually been feeling a bit guilty recently about my frequent flyer elite plus status. Basically I get access to VIP lounges and priority boarding and check in because I have a bigger carbon footprint than other passengers. That just seems wrong somehow. :(


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    #16
    Scofflaw
    Registered Users Posts: 23,283 ✭✭✭✭Scofflaw


    PDN wrote: »
    I've actually been feeling a bit guilty recently about my frequent flyer elite plus status. Basically I get access to VIP lounges and priority boarding and check in because I have a bigger carbon footprint than other passengers. That just seems wrong somehow. :(

    True - your carbon footprint must be enormous! How many miles a year are you doing (at 0.177kg/mile)?

    cordially,
    Scofflaw


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    #17
    PDN
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,686 ✭✭✭✭PDN


    Scofflaw wrote: »
    True - your carbon footprint must be enormous! How many miles a year are you doing (at 0.177kg/mile)?

    cordially,
    Scofflaw

    I flew 120,000 miles last year. I guess that makes me a bigfoot, ecologically speaking.


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    #18
    Scofflaw
    Registered Users Posts: 23,283 ✭✭✭✭Scofflaw


    PDN wrote: »
    I flew 120,000 miles last year. I guess that makes me a bigfoot, ecologically speaking.

    Impressive. You're doing as much climate damage every year as 100 Ghanaians, 150 Cameroonians, 330 Ethiopians....and two-thirds of that is just by flying.

    cordially,
    Scofflaw


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    #19
    BrianCalgary
    Registered Users Posts: 3,196 ✭✭✭BrianCalgary


    Scofflaw wrote: »
    A question to which there are solidly established answers. Don't make me come over there, Brian.

    wearily,
    Scofflaw

    And increase your ecological footprint? I'd be disappointed in you. :D


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    #20
    BrianCalgary
    Registered Users Posts: 3,196 ✭✭✭BrianCalgary


    PDN wrote: »
    I think that depends on whether you listen to:
    a) Scientists who are knowledgable on the subject or
    b) A President in the pocket of the oil industry.

    Or a Nobel Peace prize winner who is firmly entrenched in the business of anti-carbon use. Who aslo operates a huge house and himself has a bigger ecological footprint than some small countries.


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    #21
    Scofflaw
    Registered Users Posts: 23,283 ✭✭✭✭Scofflaw


    BrianCalgary wrote: »
    Or a Nobel Peace prize winner who is firmly entrenched in the business of anti-carbon use. Who aslo operates a huge house and himself has a bigger ecological footprint than some small countries.

    Who is entirely irrelevant to the science. That's like claiming that Fred Phelps invalidates Christianity.

    cordially,
    Scofflaw


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    #22
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,399 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Brian wrote:
    Or a Nobel Peace prize winner who is firmly entrenched in the business of anti-carbon use. Who also operates a huge house and himself has a bigger ecological footprint than some small countries.
    Which would be frightful hypocrisy, if the insinuations you are repeating were very accurate, which they're not.

    The original press-release was made by a group calling itself the Tennessee Center for Policy Research who issued it the day after Gore won an Oscar earlier in the year. Either the people there wrote the press-release real fast, or else they'd done it earlier and kept their mud dry until they found an opportunity to sling it. The TCPR is a right-wing policy outlet which obsesses about fuel prices and free markets. To judge from much of the content on the site, it looks like it receives money from oil companies. It shouldn't surprise many that it's not a fan of Gore.

    Subsequent investigations by journalists and utility employees showed the initial press-release to be completely inaccurate -- see the NY Times with straightens out some of the very bent facts from the TCPR's press-release. As Gore's spokeswoman is quoted as saying, "Sometimes when people don’t like the message, in this case that global warming is real, it’s convenient to attack the messenger".

    And just out of interest since the figure's fresh, PDN travels 120,000m per year which is 193,000km, and at a fuel consumption of 1.4 MJ/passenger-km, that gives an annual spend of 270,000MJ. At 3.6MJ/kWh, PDN's flying uses up around 75,000 kWh, or around 40% of the footprint for Gore's family home which costs Gore $16,300 (NYT again) to power. In contrast, the electricity bill in 2006 for Dick Cheney's official 33-bedroom mansion was $186,000 last year, up from $84,000 in 1999.

    To offset PDN's travel, and at a rough rate of 45gC/km, the 193,000km will generate 8700kg of carbon. At 12kg per tree per year, we see that PDN must plant over 700 trees per year to maintain his carbon neutrality.

    The calculations are rough and ready (but reasonably accurate, I hope; corrections welcome), but I hope this puts Gore's, Cheney's and PDN's relative energy consumption in a few separate areas into some kind of perspective.

    Get out there and start planting trees, PDN! :)

    .


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    #23
    Run_to_da_hills
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,009 ✭✭✭✭Run_to_da_hills


    Invoking September 11 has officially been succeeded by a new mantra and an excuse for the global powers to be to unleash a fresh tyranny no matter how offensive and damaging to individual liberty it may be, Global warming has now replaced 9/11 as the justification for the global elite to do anything!

    The denouncement of the strategies implemented on us by the same world powers by sceptics is been tarred akin to holocaust deniers and is beginning to mirror what happened after 9/11, when anyone who criticized the Bush's agenda was lambasted as a traitor, a terrorist. Politicians are professional liars, they make careers out of deceiving people and twisting reality to fit pre conceived agendas.

    What is more dangerous? A temperature fluctuation that has been mirrored in the past or an excuse for western governments to tighten the shackles of fascism around our ankles in the name of saving the planet?


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    #24
    Fanny Cradock
    Registered Users Posts: 10,245 ✭✭✭✭Fanny Cradock


    Run_to_da_hills wrote: »
    What is more dangerous? A temperature fluctuation that has been mirrored in the past or an excuse for western governments to tighten the shackles of fascism around our ankles in the name of saving the planet?

    In it's rapidity this temperature rise hasn't been mirrored before. Describing global warming and all it multifarious detrimental effects as a mere 'temperature fluctuation' undermines the gravity of the situation. Taking off your sceptics hat for a moment and accepting the overwhelming scientific consensus, this could mean untold hardship and death for countless organisms over this planet. I see the efforts being made by governments - however half-assed - as an attempt to correct this massive problem.


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    #25
    Run_to_da_hills
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,009 ✭✭✭✭Run_to_da_hills


    Fanny Cradock wrote: »
    In it's rapidity this temperature rise hasn't been mirrored before. Describing global warming and all it multifarious detrimental effects as a mere 'temperature fluctuation' undermines the gravity of the situation. Taking off your sceptics hat for a moment and accepting the overwhelming scientific consensus, this could mean untold hardship and death for countless organisms over this planet. I see the efforts being made by governments - however half-assed - as an attempt to correct this massive problem.
    As someone had already mentioned on this thread these are just "birth pangs". I can see much of this as what was spoken of by Christ in Matthew 24 as one of the signs of the great tribulation period just before his return. What I cannot stand is much of the hypocracy that is going on in the world by the very ones that are attempting to correct the problem. The same powers have for the last fifty years been accumilating nuclear weapons that have the potential to annihilate this planet several times over.


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    #26
    Fanny Cradock
    Registered Users Posts: 10,245 ✭✭✭✭Fanny Cradock


    My bad. I was mistakenly about to post about the same conference.


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    #27
    Húrin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,045 ✭✭✭Húrin


    BrianCalgary wrote: »
    Or a Nobel Peace prize winner who is firmly entrenched in the business of anti-carbon use. Who aslo operates a huge house and himself has a bigger ecological footprint than some small countries.
    Al Gore (it sounds like him you're talking about) is not the icon on this side of the Atlantic that he is in America. Nobody cares. His hypocrisy, if hypocrisy it is, is irrelevant to us. and anyone else who takes climate change seriously.


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    #28
    Húrin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,045 ✭✭✭Húrin


    Did anyone else go to this conference and think it was rubbish? John Haughton came across as a fraud.


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    #29
    Hero Of College
    Closed Accounts Posts: 930 ✭✭✭Hero Of College


    Fanny Cradock wrote: »
    In it's rapidity this temperature rise hasn't been mirrored before. Describing global warming and all it multifarious detrimental effects as a mere 'temperature fluctuation' undermines the gravity of the situation. Taking off your sceptics hat for a moment and accepting the overwhelming scientific consensus, this could mean untold hardship and death for countless organisms over this planet. I see the efforts being made by governments - however half-assed - as an attempt to correct this massive problem.


    Question: What made all the ice melt during the last ice age???

    "overwhelming scientific consensus"....:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:..tunrs out to be pretty bloody underwhelming!!!!

    EVERYBODY should have a look at THIS:-


    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Global_Warming_Swindle

    http://video.google.fr/videoplay?docid=-4123082535546754758


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    #30
    Hero Of College
    Closed Accounts Posts: 930 ✭✭✭Hero Of College


    Húrin wrote: »
    Al Gore (it sounds like him you're talking about) is not the icon on this side of the Atlantic that he is in America. Nobody cares. His hypocrisy, if hypocrisy it is, is irrelevant to us. and anyone else who takes climate change seriously.

    He is a fat loafer- he'll never rob my rights with his lies.


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    #31
    Tim Robbins
    Registered Users Posts: 8,960 ✭✭✭Tim Robbins


    Sorry to bring up an old chessnut, but I can't understand how Christians can accept anthropogenic global warming and not accept Darwinian Evolution.

    The IPCC 4th report concluded 90% probability that global warmin was anthropogenic. Most Scientists, would say the probablity of all life evolving through natural selection from a single ancestor is far higher than that.

    There is a huge amount of complicated Maths and Science in Global warming, much more complicated than anything in Evolution. So for most people who accept anthropogenic global warming, it's an act of faith in Scientific authority.

    Whereas evolution is much easier to understand, it doesn't even require an act of faith in Scientific authority.


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