Climate Change or Global Warming as it used to be called.

Who all believes in this Climate Change idea? Seems that alot of people are split on it. We can't really call it Global Warming since the world was warmer in the late 90's but I've no idea what to believe really. I'm definately inclined to believe that it's lies. Ice Ages / Medieval Warm Period etc. show that things change of their own accord.

So post some proof and convince me that we're changing the world in a bad way.

I don't know for sure. I think the lack of sunspots has had a part to play in our unusual weather over the last couple of years. I'd say that we're causing some damage to the planet but it's not all man made.

Bob_Harris

Mankind, CO2, is not the source of global warming climate change.

The planet is so vast, the climate so complex, the effects on climate so numerous, that to pinpoint CO2 as the lone gunman is ridiculous.

There is no great war of our times, so a collection of society have created this war on global warming climate change to fill the empty void which is their lives.

Man-made global warming climate change is a huge money spinner. From companies guilting you into buying their product which will help save the world, from governments imposing unjustified and pointless carbon taxes.

There is as much, or more, evidence and statistics pointing to different sources for the recent global warming climate change as there is supporting the theory of man-made global warming climate change.

mp3guy

You shouldn't be allowed vote on this until you've seen an inconvenient truth (this will debunk your "it's cyclical and natural" claims). And come on, it's not like its a religion, it's scientific fact.

Mossy Monk

Climate change is a natural phenomenon but best to make it our fault so governments can make some money.

afatbollix

Look I dont know how man made CO2 is making a difference, If you put it into google the first link says that we only make 5% of co2 a year.

To be honest I think if it can be greener we should use it, but all the carbon taxes should be banned.

afatbollix

mp3guy wrote: »

You shouldn't be allowed vote on this until you've seen an inconvenient truth (this will debunk your "it's cyclical and natural" claims). And come on, it's not like its a religion, it's scientific fact.

Prove it

Bob_Harris

mp3guy wrote: »

You shouldn't be allowed vote on this until you've seen an inconvenient truth (this will debunk your "it's cyclical and natural" claims).

I've already seen that scaremongering piece of propaganda thank you very much.

mp3guy wrote: »

And come on, it's not like its a religion, it's scientific fact.

No it's not, it's statistical coincidence. I've created a graph which shows my masturbation habits closely mirroring the recent climate variations, therefore I must be the cause of global warming climate change.

dr.bollocko

mp3guy wrote: »

You shouldn't be allowed vote on this until you've seen an inconvenient truth (this will debunk your "it's cyclical and natural" claims). And come on, it's not like its a religion, it's scientific fact.

No it's not. It's applying an analysis or swapping a metric or outright ignoring collated data to prove your point.
An inconvenient truth?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7037671.stm
There you go.
Shoddy science. A poor movie. An unbalanced point. How can governments legislate based on such shoddy science?

mp3guy

I should've known better than to start a discussion with people in AH.

dr.bollocko

mp3guy wrote: »

I should've known better than to start a discussion with people who disagree with me.

FYP. I don't take too kindly to insulting comments about AH thanks all the same.

pablomakaveli

If always been cynical of this "man-made" climate change theory. The earth has warmed and cooled regularly millions of years.

Volcanic activity in the past has produced far more CO2 than humans have and the planet was not severly damaged for it.

I've not saying we should'nt be taking better care of the environment but there are a lot of people who are scaremongering and using climate change to justify raising taxes or promoting certain goods and these people need to be challenged.

My name is URL

My name is URL wrote: »

The problem is that the people in charge of stopping it have turned it into a bargaining chip to gain support

IMO,
only an idiot would say that Climate Change isn't happening..
only an idiot would say that it's the fault of humans for causing it..
and only an idiot would choose to ignore it because of that...

It's happening, whether it's natural or caused by man, and instead of arguing about it, we should be figuring out ways of dealing with it

.

GLaDOS

Considering the vast amounts of CO2 we produce, I think we do have an effect on the climate. For me, the question is how much (I'm not particularly educated on this topic). The earth does go through cycles of climate change and I think we are accelerating it, but I am suspicious if it is as bad as goverments tell us and wants to tax us on. Though that may be more down to my feelings about governments

irish_bob

i dont know whether man is causing climate change but i tottally accept that its happening for the simple reason that i believe my eyes , we have had the three wettest summers on record in succession this past three years , thier are no light showers anymore , only deluges , ask any farmer in rural ireland whether or not its wetter now than it used to be and you will be left with little doubt about climate change

dr.bollocko

irish_bob wrote: »

i dont know whether man is causing climate change but i tottally accept that its happening for the simple reason that i believe my eyes , we have had the three wettest summers on record in succession this past three years , thier are no light showers anymore , only deluges , ask any farmer in rural ireland whether or not its wetter now than it used to be and you will be left with little doubt about climate change

But surely climate change should be studied in the context of the history of the climate rather than one farmer's view based on three wet summers?

irish_bob

dr.bollocko wrote: »

But surely climate change should be studied in the context of the history of the climate rather than one farmer's view based on three wet summers?

the past decade has been wetter than any other previously , i live in rural ireland , i talk to farmers on a regular basis , my brother is a full time farmer , farming has become increasingly difficult this past number of years due to the unprecedented levels of rainfall , year on year

dr.bollocko

irish_bob wrote: »

the past decade has been wetter than any other previously , i live in rural ireland , i talk to farmers on a regular basis , my brother is a full time farmer , farming has become increasingly difficult this past number of years due to the unprecedented levels of rainfall , year on year

But surely in the light of the vast amount of climate information we have, many hundreds / thousands of years and further, and change that has been affected in ten years is statistically irrelevant?
I mean you can't bury your head in the sand and say that CO2 levels are perfectly reasonable. But we have to accept that many of those claims about the level of impact on the climate are not accurately represented. You place an idea in the mind of the public about climate change. Then suddenly you have a rainy summer and climate change is upon us. It just is not that straight forward.

Diabhal Beag

Our solar system is changing so it's not just the Earth that has problems. The universe is changing at a rapid speed.

Kev_ps3

Its a fairy tale.. Like the 'War on Terror' and Religion. All about control, money and power.

Sam Kade

[QUOTE=My name is URL;62576975
It's happening, whether it's natural or caused by man, and instead of arguing about it, we should be figuring out ways of dealing with it].[/QUOTE]If it's happening because of natural causes how would you suggest we stop it?

Ciaran500

Sam Kade wrote: »

If it's happening because of natural causes how would you suggest we stop it?

He doesn't suggest we stop it.

Sam Kade

My name is URL wrote: »

.

Ciaran500 wrote: »

He doesn't suggest we stop it.

Ok if you want to be that exact how does he suggest we deal with it. If it is natural nothing we do will have any effect.

wudangclan

Originally Posted by My name is URL
The problem is that the people in charge of stopping it have turned it into a bargaining chip to gain support

IMO,
only an idiot would say that Climate Change isn't happening..
only an idiot would say that it's the fault of humans for causing it..
and only an idiot would choose to ignore it because of that...

It's happening, whether it's natural or caused by man, and instead of arguing about it, we should be figuring out ways of dealing with it

what are you doing quoting that idiot?

ScumLord

I drove to Belfast last week and when I got back it started raining, fact! Climate change, we're all going to die, 2012, the end.

ScienceNerd wrote: »

Considering the vast amounts of CO2 we produce, I think we do have an effect on the climate. For me, the question is how much (I'm not particularly educated on this topic). The earth does go through cycles of climate change and I think we are accelerating it, but I am suspicious if it is as bad as goverments tell us and wants to tax us on. Though that may be more down to my feelings about governments

In the grand scale of things we don't produce vast amounts of CO2, we contribute additional CO2 but we're nothing compared to oceans, decaying biological matter the list goes on. CO2 is not that big a problem there are other things we do that are far, far more damaging to the environment and while the world is focused on something we have absolutely no control over these ecological crimes go unchecked. The polluters get away with murder and all they need to do is buy carbon credits to get away with it.

mp3guy wrote: »

You shouldn't be allowed vote on this until you've seen an inconvenient truth (this will debunk your "it's cyclical and natural" claims). And come on, it's not like its a religion, it's scientific fact.

An inconvenient truth is a load of arse and has been shown to be arse by just about every scientist worth their salts. Big Al has been called out on it many times, his book has been banned from schools in the UK because it's bunkum and he lies about that fact whenever he's asked about it. And do you really trust an American politician to give you a straight honest answer?

mukki

Sam Kade wrote: »

Ok if you want to be that exact how does he suggest we deal with it. If it is natural nothing we do will have any effect.

we put up with it,


no more hay or turf.
Build Shopping centers with covered car parks.
kids get a lift instead of walking or cycling to school

in fact every thing i think of were already doing.

Recycling instead of landfill is still good

Mike 1972

So the general consensus around here seems to be

“Man made climate change doesn’t exist (or doesn’t matter) because there is a certain amount of naturally occurring climate change anyway”

By the same logic one might as well argue

“Smoking never killed anyone becauses sometimes non-smokers get cancer too” :rolleyes:

wudangclan

the question shouldn't be are we causing it/is it natural?
the question should be how do we stop it cause it's gonna fuck us up.

espinolman

I think climate change is caused by man , but it is not caused by CO2 , no they are doing with HAARP and chemtrails .

Mike 1972

I think climate change is caused by man

I blame the wimmen myself

bleg

I'm no expert on it. The vast majority of the scientific commuity support the view that humans are causing climate change.

Your natural inkling would lead you to believe that the world is so vast and how could humans have such a big effect but most physics is completely counter intuitive.

Good introductory article here http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9903-instant-expert-climate-change.html

Yakult

I think we are just speeding up the process of climate change, either way it was gonna happen, just maybe not this fast.

bleg

OP, you also might like to learn the difference between weather and climate.


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

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

Venom

ScumLord wrote: »

An inconvenient truth is a load of arse and has been shown to be arse by just about every scientist worth their salts. Big Al has been called out on it many times, his book has been banned from schools in the UK because it's bunkum and he lies about that fact whenever he's asked about it. And do you really trust an American politician to give you a straight honest answer?

Not to mention the fact his own home (huge ass mansion) uses about 5 times the power of similar homes in the same area but its ok as he buys "carbon credits" from one of those Eco feel good about yourself by writing a check companies he happens to own.

Hybrid cars like the prius have a bigger carbon footprint than a range rover due to how the batteries are made. It take more power to recycle plastic goods that it does to make new ones from scratch. The Green movement is just another multi-billion dollar/pound/euro money making caper.

Human activity does have an effect on the local climate, that is clear.
for example when large areas of land are ploughed before sowing the crops, the (now) dark land absorbs more heat from the sun raising the temperature a degree or so.

Urban areas have a similar effect all year round. these are examples of man made (local) climate change.

Airlines flying at high altitude are causing the atmosphere to "fog up" slightly reducing the amount of sunlight to reach the earth's surface, it has been claimed that this has already affected the weather causing monsoons to fall in slightly different places to where it historicaly fell, this is an example that could be man made.
The day after 9/11 when aircraft were banned from the skys of the USA solar radiation reaching the ground reverted to their pre 1950 levels for a couple of days.


I believe that the biggest driver of the climate is the sun!

One thing to consider is what effect did WWII have on the climate, military action caused huge amounts of CO2 to be released when cities were bombed etc, farming was disrupted in many areas of Europe.

Look at the first Gulf war, half of the oil wells in Kuwait were torched, just before a period of warmer temperatures AND increased sunspot activity, easy to link it to the fires while ignoring the effect of the sun.

Solar activity has dropped in recent years and so have global temperatures.

I'm inclined to believe that man's activities have a small part to play in the local climate, but changes in solar activity contributes 99.5% of the global climate change.

The link in post #2 has charts that correlate the sun's activity with global temperatures quite well.

TheZohanS

Deleted User wrote: »

Human activity does have an effect on the local climate, that is clear......

....The link in post #2 has charts that correlate the sun's activity with global temperatures quite well.

Impressive...

Mike 1972

bleg wrote: »

Your natural inkling would lead you to believe that the world is so vast and how could humans have such a big effect

The fact that some people have difficulty getting their heads around such a possibility is a bit strange given that for the past 50~60 years humans have had the capability to kill most of the higher forms of life on earth over a relatively short period (and have come scarily close to it on a couple of occasions) .

IM0

mp3guy wrote: »

And come on, it's not like its a religion, it's scientific fact.

two words which dont belong in the same sentance

Dudess

http://assets.panda.org/img/original/victoria_nile.gif

randylonghorn

dr.bollocko wrote: »

Then suddenly you have a rainy summer and climate change is upon us.

Have a look at Arctic ice-melt patterns though, Doc.

My own view is that part of the change is natural, but accelerated by a combination of factors over a longer period than is normally cited ... that it's coming to a head now, in other words.

The population on this planet has grown immensely; apart from just the increase in the number of humans, this has led to both a growth in herd animal numbers for food and a huge clearance of the earth's forests for crops; we've been pumping ever-increasing pollution into the atmosphere, especially since the industrial revolution, and the sheer variety of pollutants we've added to the atmosphere has risen sharply in the last few decades; as someone pointed out, a series of wars especially in the last century have added an extra layer to that pollution; and so on ...

db, I definitely agree that solar activity patterns are a factor ... 99.5% though? I'm skeptical.

To my mind, it would be stretching coincidence to the limits to suggest that human activity isn't at least a contributing factor to the changes which are taking place.

The main reason, I suspect, why that isn't a popular view is because accepting it demands that we change how we do things ... and people generally don't like change, especially if it's change which may involve giving up some of their luxuries.

Here is a lecture by a climate sceptic..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOLkze-9GcI

There is another video (that I can't find right now) that shows a good chart with recent global drops.

banshee_bones

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5682887.ece

Did you know the exhalations of breath and other gaseous emissions by the nearly seven billion people on Earth, their pets and livestock are responsible for 23% of all greenhouse gas emissions? If you add on the fossil fuel burnt in the total activity of growing, gathering, selling and serving food, all this adds up to about half of all carbon dioxide emissions. Think of farm machinery, the transport of food from the farms and the transport of fertiliser, pesticides and the fuel used in their manufacture; the road building and maintenance; the supermarket operations and the packaging industry; to say nothing of the energy used in cooking, refrigerating and serving food. Like it or not, we are the problem.

http://www.ipcc.ch/

The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change is the leading body for the assessment of climate change, established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to provide the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic consequences.

The IPCC is a scientific body. It reviews and assesses the most recent scientific, technical and socio-economic information produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of climate change. It does not conduct any research nor does it monitor climate related data or parameters. Thousands of scientists from all over the world contribute to the work of the IPCC on a voluntary basis. Review is an essential part of the IPCC process, to ensure an objective and complete assessment of current information. Differing viewpoints existing within the scientific community are reflected in the IPCC reports.

brianthebard

Bob_Harris wrote: »

Mankind, CO2, is not the source of global warming climate change.

The planet is so vast, the climate so complex, the effects on climate so numerous, that to pinpoint CO2 as the lone gunman is ridiculous.

There is no great war of our times

wrong tbh. Cold war, followed by the 'global war on terror'. You're welcome.

dr.bollocko

I think you'll find the great war of our times is mafia wars.

bleg

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sciencetoday/2009/0319/1224243062528.html

UNDER THE MICROSCOPE: DAVID BELLAMY, well-known presenter of TV nature programmes over the years, was interviewed about climate change on The Late Late Show on January 23rd. Bellamy believes that current global warming and climate change is a natural phenomenon and not significantly affected by man-made emissions of greenhouse gases (anthropogenic climate change).

He made his case vigorously and was interviewed gently by Pat Kenny. The only reaction I saw to Bellamy’s performance came from the Greens, and this mostly confined itself to protesting that Bellamy was interviewed alone and unchallenged by an expert representing the majority side of the argument.

Little attempt was made to counter the scientific claims made by Bellamy. I believe that these claims should be answered on scientific grounds and that we should not simply rely on dogmatic assertion against them. In my opinion Bellamy’s arguments against anthropogenic climate change, although drawing on scientific evidence, are also heavily informed by intuition. Although I am not an expert in this area, I will attempt to refute Bellamy’s main claims in this article.

Bellamy’s principal claims were, (a) carbon dioxide doesn’t drive current global temperature rise because historical records show that global temperature increase is followed, not preceded, by a rise in carbon dioxide levels; (b) temperature patterns on earth are driven by the sun’s activity. He also claimed that he has been shunned by the BBC since he criticised wind farms on the Blue Peter programme in 1996.

As I described in a recent article, over the long term scientists have detected cycles of ice ages separated by brief warm periods called interglacials. This pattern is triggered by Milankovitch cycles, regular changes in the earth’s orbit and axis of inclination that change the incoming pattern of sunlight received on earth. When the southern hemisphere starts to receive more springtime sunshine, temperatures rise there, melting Antarctic sea ice and glaciers. As the temperature rises, atmospheric carbon dioxide also rises but lags behind temperature rise by 800 to 1,000 years. The carbon dioxide is emitted from the oceans as they warm – carbon dioxide is less soluble in warmer than in colder water.

When carbon dioxide is emitted from the oceans into the atmosphere, it enhances the greenhouse effect and warms the earth. It mixes through the earth’s atmosphere and amplifies and spreads to northern latitudes the warming that began in the southern hemisphere. The temperature forcing effect of the Milankovitch cycle alone is relatively weak, but amplified by carbon dioxide release, the overall warming effect becomes strong enough to bring the entire earth out of an Ice Age.

It is well understood scientifically how carbon dioxide warms the world. Human activities have significantly increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere since the industrial revolution. Science clearly tells us that this must contribute to world warming. To claim, based on the historical record, that carbon dioxide cannot drive world temperature change is like claiming that guns cannot increase murder rates now because historical studies show that knives were usually the cause.

Climate change sceptics frequently claim that the sun is the sole cause of global warming. They point out that the sun was more active over the past 60 years than during the previous 1,150 years and there has been a steady increase in sunspot numbers over the past few hundred years. All scientists, of course, agree that the sun strongly influences earth’s climate and many studies have examined the connection between global temperature and solar variations. These studies generally conclude that the correlation between the sun and climate ended in the 1970s, whereas global warming continued. Even the study most cited by the sceptics (IG Usoskin and others, Proceedings 13th Cool Stars Workshop , Hamburg, July, 2004) , concludes that global warming over the past 30 years cannot be attributed to the sun. The great majority of scientists attribute this warming to a rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide.

It would be fantastic if mainstream science had overlooked the effect of the sun on global warming. The sun is the earth’s only external source of energy. Without the sun the earth would be a frozen, dark wasteland. The effect of the sun and variations in its output on earth’s climate has been extensively investigated by mainstream science.

Finally, David Bellamy claims that the BBC no longer commissions him to make TV programmes because of his sceptical views on anthropogenic global warming. This is, of course, entirely a matter between himself and the BBC. However, some commentators point to the apparently poor correlation between his parting of the ways with the BBC and his public pronouncements on anthropogenic climate change – he last worked for the BBC in 1994, but his public sceptical utterances on global warming don’t seem to have begun until 2004.

bleg

I'd be inclined to believe the findings of the scientific community on this. I trust the scientific method has been properly applied and the conclusions drawn from it are correct (i.e. that human activities are causing climate change).

I fail to see how people can ignore the scientific community's findings on one matter but completely trust them on another (such as healthcare). Honestly people there is not some scientific elite out there that are hiding facts and trying to trick you.

ravima

we've had bad summers, no sun lots of rain since the Greens came to power.

If we stop using Oil, Electricity, coal and turf and if we all live in houses, eating whatever we grow ourselves and all become unemployed due to not using fuel, will the world be a better place?

KYOTO will do nothing at all for us here in Ireland, except reduce our standard of living further as the main burners of fossil fuels, US, China, India can keep pumping the stuff into the atmosphere.

bleg

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sciencetoday/2009/0820/1224252939867.html


I quite like Reville's articles on climate change I must say.

The Mad Hatter

George Monbiot on the Sun Spot myth:

The film’s main contention is that the current increase in global temperatures is caused not by rising greenhouse gases, but by changes in the activity of the Sun. It is built around the discovery in 1991 by the Danish atmospheric physicist Dr Eigil Friis-Christensen that recent temperature variations on earth are in “strikingly good agreement” with the length of the cycle of sunspots - the shorter they are, the higher the temperature(2).

Unfortunately, he found nothing of the kind. A paper published in the journal Eos in 2004 reveals that the “agreement” was the result of “incorrect handling of the physical data”(3). The real data for recent years show the opposite: that temperatures have continued to rise as the length of the sunspot cycle has increased. When this error was exposed, Friis-Christensen and his co-author published a new paper, purporting to produce similar results(4). But this too turned out to be an artefact of mistakes they had made - in this case in their arithmetic(5).

Source (with footnotes)

A newspaper correspondence between Monbiot and David Bellamy.

And all you deniers know, don't you, that most climate scepticism is generated by large PR companies funded in large part by oil and coal lobbies?

Bob_Harris

brianthebard wrote: »

wrong tbh. Cold war, followed by the 'global war on terror'. You're welcome.

They are hardly "great" wars, such as WWI and WWII.

Bob_Harris

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

And all you deniers know, don't you, that most climate scepticism is generated by large PR companies funded in large part by oil and coal lobbies?

The conspiracy forum's that way -->