eh! dont you know that all this freak flooding could have been avoided if all the panigales ever made had the euro 4 twin exhausts? !!!!!
So we are saying that extremes of weather is proof that there is no climate change? And that if the climate didn't change, it would be proof that there is climate change? :Jawdrop: It's going to take me a while to get my head around the science of this.
You might be saying this Loz but I certainly wasn't. It would be hard to find proof of no climate change given that the climate clearly is changing, it always has and it always will. Variation, with extremes, is to be expected, chaos is the norm. Going from 370ppm to 400ppm CO2 in the atmosphere over the last 50 years will have an effect but I remain to be convinced we can accurately predict what that effect will be, in that sense I am most certainly a sceptic. The whole emphasis is upon CO2 and fossil fuels when there are a host of other variables being fed into that chaotic system. Methane and water vapour are both significant greenhouse gasses. Maybe we should tax beef as contributing to global warming ?
Tax *beef*? Are you out of your mind? Next thing you'll be advocating a bacon tax ... at which point, you are removed from my Christmas Card list and get added to my other list.
given that fossil fuels are a finite resource .you aint sounding to conservative there jv. if the climate is changing shouldn't we be doing summit about it? thats the bit i am struggling with. i am not sure what your saying it's out of our control so why bother or it's within our control but i aint prepared to pay for it?
According to Nasa, the Co2 concentration has never changed this rapidly or by this much in 650,000 years. Look at the RATE of change in the human epoch: Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet: Carbon Dioxide Saying 'extreme climate changes are the norm', and weather is chaotic is simply a red herring argument. Either that or you're missing the subtleties involved. Its the rate of change that's the problem. I agree that randomness is not the same thing as chaos and climate is not random. I think you're possibly clouding the debate by confusing what the measured data shows and what the political solutions to the human problem might be. Disagreeing about those or noticing that the situation can be exploited for personal/corporate gain is different to the science of whether AGW is happening.
My point is that the climate will change no matter what we do. We can attempt to control the climate but at what cost and with what effect. We should protect habitat, use finite resources carefully and adapt to change rather than make the grand gesture of sacrificing ourselves at the altar of global warming. The is a lot of overlap between that simple statement and what the green lobby would have us do.
Effectively John, you are suggesting that by following a strictly Green philosophy, we will be certain to harm ourselves, in terms of reduced industrial-based benefits true austerity, lowered wealth or increased squalor, population crash and such ... ... whereas by largely ignoring the issue of AGW, we are rolling the dice. We might be OK or we might be doomed no matter what we do. That about it?
I am not clouding the debate at all and have conceded that human activity is contributing to climate change, to claim otherwise would be barking. The question is definitely political and what should we do about it, if anything. You can't run a modern economy without lots of energy. Where we going to get our energy from is much more important than climate change.
the fact that i already live in a cave beyond the wall suggests i have nothing to lose by a bit green philosophy. :smileys:
That is pretty close, but I think the dice are loading in our favour. There are real environmental problems that need addressing, water being a major one yet we keep banging on about CO2 as if is the only thing that matters.
the weegies can try. i might sound like a pacifist from time to time but if they cross my boundary. hell mend em
OK I think I understand your position better. But its taken a while to extract it. I kind of agree with you. AGW is real, we are the cause (background climate changes notwithstanding) but the greenie fervour is misplaced. Have your read Bjorn Lomborg (Skeptical Environmentalist and Cool It)? might be up your street.
The debate is often (or usually) clouded by confusion between the fundamental primary question of where we get our energy from, and the secondary question of the methods we utilise for storing, transporting, and applying energy. Stuff about battery electric cars and hydrogen cars is focussed entirely on the secondary question and disregards the primary one. This is why I am not very impressed by the proposed shift to battery electric cars and bikes; it says nothing about the important question, which is: where is the energy coming from in the first place?
Man made global warming yawn yawn.....don't believe it, too many idiots in the world, I believe it. Could we start switching off all the street lights please?
Yet the tertiary question of what to do with the waste heat from a global economy growing at n% irrespective of the energy used doesn't even factor in the debate. Can't simply radiate it into space you know...
