Global Warming

Tumbleweed [email hidden] opined the following...

Quoted message said:

What about the downside of significantly reducing C02 emissions (hint, Kyoto
isnt even close)?Would cause a massive economic upheaval which would impact
many people negaively. Why not apply the precautionary principle to that?

Because economics is an intangible abstract thing that we can survive
easily without, where as a stable environment to which we are suited is
not.

Jon

in message <ZRQKc.56884$Mr4.25377@pd7tw1no>, graham ([email hidden]'😉

Quoted message said:

"James Annan" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Tony Raven said:

That CO2 is causing it is a hypothesis but it is
by no means proven and natural climate variation, for example the
recent studies on sun spot activity and climate, are alternative
hypotheses
being studied. It may even be the other way round that global
warming brings CO2 out of solution in the oceans so that CO2 rises
are effect and not cause.

That is nothing more than ignorant nonsense.

No it isn't!!

I think you should pay some attention to what James does for a living
(and for whom he does it) before taking issue with him on this.
Otherwise you're likely to sound a little like the curious doctor
lecturing us all about FTTP.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; my other religion is Emacs

graham said:

"James Annan" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

"Human activities are increasingly altering the Earth's climate.

The principal spokesman for climate change in the US said, a few years ago,
that after reviewing all the data, he FELT that human activities were the
cause. This "gut feeling" has mysteriously changed into a fact for most of
the public.

It's changed into "beyond reasonable doubt" for the scientists, by the
natural process of increased research and development in the area.

I was quoting the AGU, by the way. Maybe you should take the trouble to
find out who they are before sticking your other foot in your mouth.

James

--
If I have seen further than others, it is
by treading on the toes of giants.
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/julesandjames/home/

James Annan said:

Quoted message said:

Do you disagree with the proposition

The proposition being that some GW sceptics can apparently find no
better outlet for their pontification than op-ed pieces in oil
industry-funded disinformation sites?

Or did you mean something else?

You know I did and you ducked the question.

Tony

James Annan said:

Tony Raven said:

That CO2 is causing it is a hypothesis but it is by no means proven
and natural climate variation, for example the recent studies on sun
spot activity and climate, are alternative hypotheses being studied.
It may even be the other way round that global warming brings CO2 out
of solution in the oceans so that CO2 rises are effect and not cause.

That is nothing more than ignorant nonsense.

"Human activities are increasingly altering the Earth's climate. These
effects add to natural influences that have been present over Earth's
history. Scientific evidence strongly indicates that natural influences
cannot explain the rapid increase in global near-surface temperatures
observed during the second half of the 20th century.

Which bit of "strongly indicates" not equalling "proven" do you not
understand?

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I prefer to keep an open and questioning mind.

If only. Your inability to see the reams of evidence on one side of the
argument, and gullible reliance on industry-funded op-ed junk on the
other, gives the lie to your "open and questioning mind".

Reviewing all the arguments or stating that there are other views is not
being gullible. Ignoring them because you have decided that one theory
is the absolute truth is being gullible. I was gullible on helmets
until I started reading the research and made my own mind up even though
my conclusion was totally inconsistent with what the media and the
medical fraternity were saying. In a week where Steven Hawking has
announced that he was wrong on an earlier theory that had wide
acceptance it demonstrates what having an open mind really means.

Tony

Jon Senior said:

Tumbleweed [email hidden] opined the following...

Quoted message said:

What about the downside of significantly reducing C02 emissions (hint, Kyoto
isnt even close)?Would cause a massive economic upheaval which would impact
many people negaively. Why not apply the precautionary principle to that?

Because economics is an intangible abstract thing that we can survive
easily without, where as a stable environment to which we are suited is
not.

Economics may be abstract, but the market is all too real. See the Great
Depression, for example. Nothing fundamental about the world had really
changed, but that didn't stop people starving, and it took a scatter-gun
policy of massive government spending and a World War to drag the world
economy out of the slump. Given a big enough drag on the economy, we
could see it again.

Now, the environment is important, of course. We need to sort it out. We
don't need to do it, however, at the expense of another
depression (Or, indeed, at the expense of a command economy. urc would
get a little boring as we all discussed the two available government
issue bikes)

--
Keith Willoughby
Welcome to the police state - http://tinyurl.com/3cptb

Simon Brooke said:

I think you should pay some attention to what James does for a living
(and for whom he does it) before taking issue with him on this.
Otherwise you're likely to sound a little like the curious doctor
lecturing us all about FTTP.

I'm sure you saw this, anyway, but for those who didn't, I think
there's a bit of humble pie to be eaten. Imagine thinking he was
talking about the obselete File Transfer Protocol.

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/19/2027219&tid=95&tid=1

A

Keith Willoughby said:

Everything on techcentralstation is suspect. It's not just funded by
industry; it's published by a lobbying firm. It's a professional
Astroturfing operation.

Everything in every publication is suspect - vide Crook and Feikh - so I
agree you need to read the content critically. But I notice no one has
addressed the content preferring to rubbish the medium instead. Bit
like the mandatory helmet lobby rubbishing the CTC, NCSB,
cyclehelmets.org rather than addressing the issues raised therein (well
I had to get back on topic somehow ;-)

Tony

Just zis Guy said:

Ah, well, that's a different matter. Whether anybody will respond before
ten minutes after the last possible moment, if there is no widespread
discussion of the worst-case scenario, is a question to which I suspect I
can guess the answer :-)

If we're talking worst-case scenarios lets start talking about the
Yosemite super-volcano which is due to go any century now based on past
records. http://amos.indiana.edu/library/scripts/volcanoes.html

Tony

Simon Brooke said:

He who pays the piper calls the tune. Everyone who has worked as an
academic researcher knows that. Yes, I too have worked on a study where
the parameters of the study had been set in order to produce an outcome
favourable to the funder.

....or to generate more funding. Anyone remember the start of the global
warming story?

Tony

James Annan said:

The last IPCC report was published in 2001, and largely written some
time before, based on peer-reviewed research which was performed more
than 5 years ago.

The world has moved on since then, although I am not surprised that you
prefer to live in the past.

If you get your information from the media or Hollywood you might think
I live in the past. When I'm not being the sixth Beatle ;-), I am
fortunate to have acquaintances who are peer leaders in the field of
climate change and sit on or chair a number of the international
committees. They tell me that it is unknown at present whether the
measured global warming is due to man's activities but it is the
currently favoured hypothesis. That's 2004 data first hand.

Tony

Tony Raven said:

James Annan said:

Quoted message said:

Do you disagree with the proposition

The proposition being that some GW sceptics can apparently find no
better outlet for their pontification than op-ed pieces in oil
industry-funded disinformation sites?

Or did you mean something else?

You know I did and you ducked the question.

?

You did not propose anything, as far as I can see. You just referred to
the above-mentioned op-ed piece in an oil industry-funded disinformation
site.

As for your suggestion that the rise in atmospheric CO2 is due to
outgassing from a warmer ocean, that is particularly risible even by the
standards of the "sceptics", failing on at least 3 of the most
elementary reality checks. Of course, your mind is sufficiently "open"
to this nonsense that it doesn't seem to occur to you to even give it
the most cursory validation.

James
--
If I have seen further than others, it is
by treading on the toes of giants.
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/julesandjames/home/

Tony Raven said:

I was gullible on helmets
until I started reading the research and made my own mind up

So read the research on climate change!

James
--
If I have seen further than others, it is
by treading on the toes of giants.
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/julesandjames/home/

According to a documentary I saw the other night, at the current rate the
ice is melting North of Norway, in 20 years the gulf stream will come to a
stop.

Meaning that the UK will have the same climate as Moscow does, if not
colder.

Don't know if anyone else seen it, can't remember the name sorry. Scary
though.

James Annan said:

You did not propose anything, as far as I can see. You just referred to
the above-mentioned op-ed piece in an oil industry-funded disinformation
site.

The article states that the correction method used in the Nature paper
will, based on the authors own experience of trying that method some 13
years ago, would give erroneous results. Do you agree or disagree with
his analysis?

Quoted message said:

As for your suggestion that the rise in atmospheric CO2 is due to
outgassing from a warmer ocean, that is particularly risible even by the
standards of the "sceptics", failing on at least 3 of the most
elementary reality checks. Of course, your mind is sufficiently "open"
to this nonsense that it doesn't seem to occur to you to even give it
the most cursory validation.

Do tell what the elementary reality checks are

Tony

James Annan said:

Tony Raven said:

I was gullible on helmets
until I started reading the research and made my own mind up

So read the research on climate change!

I do and I talk to the people leading that research. That's why I am
familiar with some of the range of other possibilities other than CO2
and/or human activities being responsible for GW.

Tony

On Tue, 20 Jul 2004 17:38:31 GMT, "A. Paterson"
<apsw07048<spam>@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
<[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

According to a documentary I saw the other night, at the current rate the
ice is melting North of Norway, in 20 years the gulf stream will come to a
stop.

Weel, it was more of an op-ed piece if it was the one I saw, but they
did have some reasonable looking evidence.

I liked the idea that we should hope the gulfstream kees going until
global warming kicks in :-)

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

On Mon, 19 Jul 2004 08:43:50 +0100, Tony Raven <[email hidden]>
wrote (more or less):

Quoted message said:

James Annan said:

Yes, all the climate scientists are either incompetent or dishonest, or
both, and it's only due to the brilliance of a couple of usenet pundits
that the Truth is Revealed.

Not at all. That the world is warming is generally accepted although
how quickly is still a topic of debate between the earth station and
satellite observers. That CO2 is causing it is a hypothesis but it is
by no means proven and natural climate variation, for example the recent
studies on sun spot activity and climate, are alternative hypotheses
being studied. It may even be the other way round that global warming
brings CO2 out of solution in the oceans so that CO2 rises are effect
and not cause.

Of course those of the church of CO2 global warming don't need to look
at alternative hypotheses because they know they are right. However
there are plenty of examples that litter science - Helicobacter Pylori,
Cold Fusion, Delta-rays - where the community has got it wrong for some
time while attacking the questioners.

I prefer to keep an open and questioning mind.

I don't see why you have H. Pylori in that group.

The gap from first mention of H.Pylori's possible role in stomach
ulcers in New Scientist to the introduction of Zantac was very short,
iirc.

--
Cheers,
Euan
Gawnsoft: http://www.gawnsoft.co.sr
Symbian/Epoc wiki: http://html.dnsalias.net:1122
Smalltalk links (harvested from comp.lang.smalltalk) http://html.dnsalias.net/gawnsoft/smalltalk

On Tue, 20 Jul 2004 10:18:41 +0100, Tony Raven <[email hidden]>
wrote (more or less):
....

Quoted message said:

Which bit of "strongly indicates" not equalling "proven" do you not
understand?

Hmm - depends on whether you are in a civil or a criminal court.

....

--
Cheers,
Euan
Gawnsoft: http://www.gawnsoft.co.sr
Symbian/Epoc wiki: http://html.dnsalias.net:1122
Smalltalk links (harvested from comp.lang.smalltalk) http://html.dnsalias.net/gawnsoft/smalltalk

Keith Willoughby [email hidden] opined the following...

Quoted message said:

Economics may be abstract, but the market is all too real.

Nah. The market is economics. In a time when we have the ability to
transport goods around the world in the blink of an eye it is farcical
to believe that economics is actually necessary.

Quoted message said:

See the Great
Depression, for example. Nothing fundamental about the world had really
changed, but that didn't stop people starving, and it took a scatter-gun
policy of massive government spending and a World War to drag the world
economy out of the slump. Given a big enough drag on the economy, we
could see it again.

Ecomonics works on relative wealth. If everyone gets poorer then the
relative situation is the same. The only reason that _everyone_ could
starve would be a genuine shortage of food.

Jon