Video: Nats head in sand on environment

Written By: - Date published: 4:55 pm, September 9th, 2008 - 48 comments
Categories: climate change, national, youtube - Tags:

Boosting their green credentials is not proving as straightforward as National would like, as this video that’s doing the rounds shows.

48 comments on “Video: Nats head in sand on environment ”

  1. There really are some talented people out there. great vid. someone better email it to Tracy Watkins et al, otherwise they won’t see it… this interweb thing is beyond some of them.

  2. G 2

    Herald Sun

    Evidence doesn’t bare out alarmist claims of global warming
    THESE are the seven graphs that should make the Rudd Government feel sick.

    http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/files/080718%20oped%20bolt%20global%20c

    These are the seven graphs that should make you ask: What? Has global warming now stopped?

    Look for yourself. They show that the world hasn’t warmed for a decade, and has even cooled for several years.

    Sea ice now isn’t melting, but spreading. The seas have not just stopped rising, but started to fall.

    Nor is the weather getting wilder. Cyclones, as well as tornadoes and hurricanes, aren’t increasing and the rain in Australia hasn’t stopped falling.

    What’s more, the slight warming we saw over the century until 1998 still makes the world no hotter today than it was 1000 years ago.
    In fact, it’s even a bit cooler. So, dude, where’s my global warming?

    And so much for a consensus on the subject:

    http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2008/05/17/32-000-deniers.aspx

  3. randal 3

    the nats will never respond to environmental issues because they are the party of the short term. maximising profits and to hell with anything else. I want my home in the south of france, a pied a terre in London, matching his and hers bentleys and enough money in th ebank to go and terrify the bank manager by threatening to move it elsewhere. anything else is a figment of fevered imagination…now where did I put my chainsaw?

  4. yl 4

    G,

    what a stupid comment that you posted.

    Firstly, your link to the sun doesn’t work.

    Secondly, your story about scientists saying that global warming doesn’t exist was done back in 1992.

    It is well established now global warming does exist, it is a treat, and we do need to act.

    There is no point in me referencing this point, as there is so much proof out there.

    If you are going to make a point make sure your references a) work and b) arent 16 years old

    because 16 years ago most of New Zealand thought that the markets would sort us out, and they were wrong.

  5. It’s actually possible to argue that National has come a long way on climate change. It was only three years ago that party leader John Key labelled Kyoto a hoax and called the whole idea of climate change into question. “… The impact of the Kyoto Protocol, even if one believes in global warming—and I am somewhat suspicious of it—is that we will see billions and billions of dollars poured into fixing something that we are not even sure is a problem. ” (2005). (Not sure it’s a problem? Christ, what was he waiting for zero summer ice in the Arctic; longer droughts; another hottest year on record; another wiped out species?) The leadership has since cottoned on to the fact that New Zealanders will no longer tolerate this stance. However, the party’s environment and energy policies are a major step backward. They suggest National is living in an alternate reality in which there’s no such thing as climate change. The policies fail to acknowledge that climate change even exists, let alone recognise it for the crisis it is. Not that we would have expected much more from “sexy coal’ Brownlee (http://brownlee.co.nz/index.php?/archives/41-Video-Newsletter-5.html_). If Gerry thinks coal is sexy, I dread to think how he behaves around Huntly, or Solid Energy for that matter. On that note, last year Greenpeace also found some heads in sand: http://weblog.greenpeace.org.nz/climate-change/day-dreaming-heads-in-the-sand/#img

  6. G 6

    The link was working before. Try it again…

    http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/files/080718%20oped%20bolt%20global%20cooling.pdf

    … from this article:

    http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,,24036602-25717,00.html

    The report that 31,000 scientists (and counting) signed a petition rejecting anthropological GW is a fact, YL. Is this one recent enough for for you?:

    http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS186909+02-Jun-2008+PRN20080602

    As I said, there is NO consensus. The world isn’t even heating up anymore. The world is NOT going to end and you Warm-mongers should stop scaring the children.

  7. r0b 7

    Ahh G, haven’t seen you about since cynic gave you such an awful thumping. Glad to see you survived after all.

    Now, some of the graphs in the articles you cite are irrelevant, and some of them are too short to show the trends. You need to read the basics, where such arguments are refuted:

    http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/mg19426041.100

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/629/629/7074601.stm

    Re ice and melting, Arctic ice has retreated so much that new shipping lanes have opened up, and there are looming international debates over newly accessible mineral, oil and fishing rights:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/10/science/10arctic.html
    http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org/pages/arctic.html

    As well as Arctic (and Antarctic) ice melt, glaciers (one of the most sensitive indicators of global warming) are receding world wide – see dramatic images here:

    http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org/pages/glaciers.html

    Yes, cause and effect are difficult to prove conclusively, but the overwhelming body of scientific evidence is now agreed by the overwhelming majority of scientists:

    http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/globalwarming/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier

    On Feb. 2, 2007, the United Nations scientific panel studying climate change declared that the evidence of a warming trend is “unequivocal,’ and that human activity has “very likely’ been the driving force in that change over the last 50 years. The last report by the group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in 2001, had found that humanity had “likely’ played a role.

    The addition of that single word “very’ did more than reflect mounting scientific evidence that the release of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from smokestacks, tailpipes and burning forests has played a central role in raising the average surface temperature of the earth by more than 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1900. It also added new momentum to a debate that now seems centered less over whether humans are warming the planet, but instead over what to do about it.

    And as for your petitions of scientists alleged to have signed petitions, well sadly those who deny global warming have been known to fabricate evidence before:
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10508754

    Governments all over the world (and many individual states in America) are taking action to combat climate change. Either they are all fools G, or you are.

  8. G 8

    Cynic the laughing Hyena? Ha! He’s hardly a thumper and awfully unintelligent.

    Now, back to your warm-mongering.

    Fabricating evidence? How about the 35 errors in The Inconvenient Truth:

    http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/goreerrors.html

    This, of course, includes the very inconvenient truth that the DVD is still being released with its cornerstone ‘fact’, the Hockey Stick, which the IPCC has conceded is bent and subsequently dropped from their reports.

    And now the founder of the Weather Channel is gathering 30,000 scientists to sue Al Gore to finally precipitate a debate on the subject. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfHW7KR33IQ

    But singularly the biggest nail in the warmist’s hoax is the fact that all their ‘bias in/bias out’ computer models are failing one-by-one to prove accurate as the Earth inevitably contradicts their predictions:

    http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTYwMjRiZjJhMmUxYWE2MmQ0NDZhOGM0M2Q3ZWUzMmE

    Have you noticed the Earth has cooled over the last few years with record lows recorded worldwide? Remember the silly bitches who made a trek to the North Pole to raise warming awareness only to be pulled out in a rescue mission and have most of their digits amputated from frostbite?

    Seriously, Rob, you’re all starting to look foolish. 🙂

    [G. This is a site for intelligent debate. Climate change denialism doesn’t fit meet that criterion, it hasn’t done so for the last 20 years at least. If you want to make silly arguments, go to Kiwiblog, you’ll have plenty of company. SP]

    [lprent: If you’re going to attempt to argue, then at least learn something about the topic. I’m tired of the fatuous fools like you who seem to think that the earth’s hydrosphere and atmosphere operate like a classic black-body. If you don’t know what I’lm talking about then I suggest you try some elementary physics. You should also have a look at the current sizes of the artic sea ice during summer compared to historical values, and the increase in speed of the west antartic (?sp) glaciers. Then contemplate what an increasing flow of cold water due to melting does to the temperate zones where the currents flow to.
    In the meantime don’t bother with fatuous arguments and links to publicity stunts.
    I think that there should be more compulsary science – and people aren’t allowed to leave school until they’re passed some level of competence. ]

  9. G 9

    This site wants to shut down debate more like.

    There is a growing stack of evidence to the contrary: starting with the fact that man-made CO2 contributes a gnat-sized 0.0054% of greenhouse gases (oh yeah, that’ll be the tipping point *phht*), the fact that CO2 levels lag temps by 200 years, the fact that the IPCC concedes it can’t explain why there was a spike in temps during the first 50 years of the 20th century, the fact that Earth’s temp tracks Sun Spot activity (who woulda thought, eh ~ it’s the Sun that controls our warming!), the fact that global temps have plateaued since 1998 despite CO2 continuing its climb, and the fact that more than 30,000 scientists now contradict anthropological global warming altogether… but carry on with your consensus cartoon if you wish. It’s your blog; it’s entirely your prerogative.

    Just don’t tell us you’re looking for any debate because that’s a lie:

    SP: “This is a site for intelligent debate. Climate change denialism doesn’t fit meet that criterion…”

  10. G 10

    What happened to the edit function? I can’t correct my italics….

  11. r0b 11

    Remember the silly bitches who made a trek to the North Pole

    Aaaand G jumps the shark. “Silly bitches” eh G – classy. Wrong blog you misogynist git.

  12. lprent 12

    G: You are full of crap and incredibly ill informed.

    Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change for the idiots guide to climate change.

    Some brief points on your evident lack of education.

    If you were correct about insolation effects, then the 11 year sunspot cycle would manifest in temps as a direct ratio of insolation energies. It doesn’t because those effects are buffered, largely by water and atmosphere.

    There is an influence from solar and that will affect gross temps – but it is a long cycle. eg the long cycle warming from the 13th (eg greenland settlement) to 17th century (when the thames froze) to the warm period at the start of the 20th. Although I’d tend to ascribe a high proportion of the latter spike to CO2 and other gases generated from some of the large volcano’s in the late 19th century.

    We are definitely on the peak (or just past it) of one of those cycles, but it is insufficent to explain the temp effects measured since geophysical year in 1957.

    BTW: Before you raise that press driven fear of an iceage in the 1970’s, I’d point out that was a local effect in the major industrialised areas due to dust. It did not manifest in readings worldwide. Boy, I get tired of idiots raising those press reports.

    The basic fact is that CO2 levels have risen dramatically. While it has a lower effect as a greenhouse gas than other gases, it is far an away the largest by volume which makes up for its limited entropic effect.

    This article will give you the link to the current NOAA figures on CO2.

    Scientists at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii say that CO2 levels in the atmosphere now stand at 387 parts per million (ppm), up almost 40% since the industrial revolution and the highest for at least the last 650,000 years.

    The annual mean growth rate for 2007 was 2.14ppm the fourth year in the past six to see an annual rise greater than 2ppm. From 1970 to 2000, the concentration rose by about 1.5ppm each year, but since 2000 the annual rise has leapt to an average 2.1ppm.

    That probably means that the buffering action for CO2 (mainly in the oceans from the recent acidity measurements) is starting to get less effective. That is bad news, and when the IPCC finally factors that in then you can expect their estimates of timelines to shorten massively. It means that they have been over estimating buffering

    Frankly if you could find say 200 working earth or climate scientists who disagree with climate change, then I’d be far more interested than having 30k random ‘scientists’ like metrologists, chemists, etc. If you haven’t dug extensively into paleoclimatology in depth, most scientists ideas are about as useless as yours are. Their timelines are too short.

    Suffice it to say I like debate on climate change. I just don’t like idiots debating. It really doesn’t matter if it is Al Gore or you or your 30k scientists. If they don’t understand enough about results from the icecores, O16/O18 isotope ratios, fossil tree rings, etc then it is rather pointless.

    I’d point out at this point that I did study climate change extensively in my first degree for 3 years. I’ve been reading the papers on it for about 30 years.

  13. G 13

    Such hubris, Iprent! You think man’s 0.0054% contribution to greenhouse gas is the difference which is creating global warming?

    Hilarious.

  14. lprent 14

    G. In other words you don’t know and are just pulling what other people say without understanding it. Educate yourself. Read the NOAA report.

    Scientists at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii say that CO2 levels in the atmosphere now stand at 387 parts per million (ppm), up almost 40% since the industrial revolution and the highest for at least the last 650,000 years.

    This is AFTER the majority of the CO2 has been adsorbed in buffers.

    What half-arsed report from some lame-arse are you picking that number from? Or is this just some figure you’re picking out of the air. Or are you considering that fossilised carbon being released is ‘natural’.

    You could also consider the evidence from the carbon isotope ratio’s in atmospheric carbon. There is a pretty clear trace back to fossilised carbon being burnt.

  15. G 15

    According to Wiki as of November 2007, the CO2 concentration in Earth’s atmosphere was about 0.0384% (which is even less than other reports I’ve read). Even if man was responsible for as much as 10% of the Earth’s CO2, his contribution to the atmospheric gases would be less than 0.004%.

    A gnat on an elephant’s arse, Chicken Little.

  16. r0b 16

    Not all gasses are greenhouse gasses you ninny. CO2 is a small percentage of all gasses, and a large percentage of greenhouse gasses. From later in the Wiki that you linked to:

    Increased amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere enhance the greenhouse effect. It is currently the majority scientific opinion that carbon dioxide emissions are the main cause of global warming observed since the mid-20th century.

    Should we get rid of all the Oxygen in the air? It’s only about 20% of the atmosphere – who’s going to miss it?

    A gnat on an elephant’s arse

    The only arse here is the one you have your head up.

  17. G 17

    Okay, so what is the actual percentage of anthropogenic greenhouse gases outside the 95% created by water vapor?

  18. r0b 18

    I can’t be bothered to look it up. Small. But small changes can have large consequences in complex systems (eg with multiple feedback loops and buffering – Earth’s ecology). You like Wikipedia, go look up “Butterfly effect”. Or ponder the consequence of adding just a tiny bit of arsenic to a nice big meal.

    Read the damn scientific literature critically, not just looking for factoids that support your point of view. There’s heaps of it linked above G – have you read any? Or even just take the word of the Wiki piece that you linked to, as quoted above.

  19. lprent 19

    G: It was in a link on your wiki link. Did you bother to read the page?

    Have a look at this page and the links off it… Skip water vapour until the end.

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

    Then look at the links from that for methane

    The abundance of methane in the Earth’s atmosphere in 1998 was 1745 parts per billion, up from 700 ppb in 1750. In the same time period, CO2 increased from 278 to 365 parts per million. The radiative forcing effect due to this increase in methane abundance is about one-third of that of the CO2 increase

    (please note the word billion rather than million there..)
    PFC’s

    PFCs are extremely potent greenhouse gases, and they are a long-term problem with a lifetime up to 50,000 years (PMID 14572085). In a 2003 study, the most abundant atmospheric PFC was tetrafluoromethane (PMID 14572085). The greenhouse warming potential (GWP) of tetrafluoromethane is 6,500 times that of carbon dioxide, and the GWP of hexafluoroethane is 9,200 times that of carbon dioxide.[24] Several governments concerned about the properties of PFCs have already tried to implement international agreements to limit their usage before it becomes a global warming issue. PFCs are one of the classes of compounds regulated in the Kyoto Protocol.

    (note that there are no natural sources of PFC’s)

    Nitrous Oxide

    Nitrous oxide is a major greenhouse gas. Considered over a 100 year period, it has 298 times more impact per unit weight than carbon dioxide. Thus, despite its low concentration, nitrous oxide is the fourth largest contributor to these greenhouse gases.

    You should also look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Major_greenhouse_gas_trends.png
    From NOAA

    Now water vapour is the biggest scattering agent – over 95%. However it is essentially reactive to temp’s. Look at the dewpoint at different temp’s. Higher temp’s allow higher humidity and therefore higher heat retention.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_vapour#Water_vapor_in_Earth.27s_atmosphere

    Water vapor is also a potent greenhouse gas. Because the water vapor content of the atmosphere is expected to greatly increase in response to warmer temperatures, there is the potential for a water vapor feedback that could amplify the expected climate warming effect due to increased carbon dioxide alone. However, it is less clear how cloudiness would respond to a warming climate; depending on the nature of the response, clouds could either further amplify or partly mitigate the water vapor feedback.

    So despite the other greenhouse gases being less than water vapour for greenhouse effects, it is less of a problem than the other gases. Increasing the amount of water vapor will simply cause rain/dew/etc. However raising the temp will increase the saturation level of water in the atmosphere. A small increase in overall temp due to man made gases can cause a MAJOR amplification due to its effects on water vapour. Adding even small amounts of something like PFC’s causes a ‘natural’ system to amplify it’s effect.

    Presumably there will be a top off effect at some point. However I’m not sure that human agricultural and cultural patterns can withstand the changes.

    Essentially you are right about volumes, and utterly wrong as to the level of effect that small changes will cause.

    Think of petrol being added to an engine. It is a very small amount, but causes a lot of effect when ignited.

    Have fun with your basic reading.

  20. G 20

    … thanks for that exhaustive explanation, Iprent. Still, I don’t see anywhere on those links, not anywhere here a definitive percentage attributed to the anthropogenic gases. As far as I’m aware it’s miniscule, and it’s hubris to think man’s fart in the global jet stream will have ANY effect whatsoever on the 99.99% of other gases which contribute to the greenhouse effect.

    If we indeed had a consensus on this – a lie Al Gore & Co. keep perpetuating – then I might have cause for concern, but we most certainly do not. The list of sceptics which include climatologists, geologists, metrologists, chemists, environmentalists (including the founder of Greenpeace), environmental journalists, media outlets, and heads of state are growing by the day.

    But the best news of all (that the world isn’t actually coming to an end) is the fact that world isn’t actually coming to an end: every single bias in/bias out computer model has missed their alarmist timetable! It’s not so much the scientists which are calling this theory a load of bullshit – it’s the Earth!

  21. Matthew Pilott 21

    G, I understand the difficulty in accepting that our CO2 release will have a tangible effect, given that a volcanic eruption can account for, say, the US’ output for a year, easily.

    One thing to consider is the fragility of the system – don’t think of it as fixed, or a constant. Changes in the past have had a huge effect on the world’s climate. If a volcanic eruption can cool the planet, why can’t we?

    The other way I think of it is that there is a natural system, and it was in pretty good balance. Our impact, over two centuries, has injected a massive amount of CO2 into the atmoshpere. Two salient points – the time scale is tiny – a huge change in a comparitively small time, even if the overall percentage isn’t changing too much.

    The other point is that we’ve interrupted the natural carbon cycle. Greenhouse gasses are emitted naturally, say, by gasses bubling to the surface, & geothermal activity. That’s after millions of years in a deep cycle (carbon based life forms get buried, turn into fossil fuels over a long period, and return to the surface to decompose, to put it simply). We’ve dug and drilled the stuff out, and put into the atmosphere what would have taken millions of years to occur naturally.

    We need a specific set of conditions to thrive – a very specific set of conditions. It’s not impossible that we’re upsetting those conditions.

    And on the brighter side, climate change got people off a court charge. Fantastic.

  22. G 22

    I like your manner, Matthew, very civilized! 🙂

    Yes, I was going to get to the volcano dilemma, which goes to prove just how resilient the planet really is. It really doesn’t matter what we throw at it, the power of nature is greater than us all!

    Here’s one of my favourite debunkers with a poetic rave on that very subject:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozO4YB98mCY

    Of course the whole CO2 debate is predicated on CO2 actually having an effect on temperature, when in fact there is evidence to suggest the latter precedes the former by as much as 300 years.

    And then there’s this:

    If greenhouse warming were presently occurring you would get more warming in the troposphere, because greenhouse gases trap heat from escaping the atmosphere in the troposphere. However, that is just not the case. The data collected from satellites and weather balloons show that the earth is in fact warmer than the atmosphere. This evidence damns the theory of greenhouse effect upon climate through CO2.

  23. lprent 24

    G: I’m not civilised, I’m a sysop.

    It really doesn’t matter what we throw at it, the power of nature is greater than us all!

    Don’t be a dickhead. The last time that volcanic eruptions probably sent out the volume of CO2 etc for a duration that we’re emitting was probably the Deccan Flats about 65M years ago.

    Most volcanic events that affect the climate are rhyolitic or andesectic (?sp) events. But they are of short duration usually only running for a few years. The basaltic eruptions run for longer but (by comparison) do not do much out-gassing. The gases tend to get bound up far more strongly into the rock structure because of mantle temps and pressures.

    Consequently the buffering that has been sucking up our emissions of CO2 mops up those easily. It is relatively easy to see over the recent geological history in carbon isotope levels.

    What we’re doing is having a sustained and increasing release of greenhouse gases. Consequently we’re effectively running a vast experiment on the earths buffering systems. If you’d actually read the NOAA data, they’re showing the the buffers are running out of buffer space.

    So basically your analogy of looking at volcanic buffering is fundementally flawed because it is geologically rare to have a continuous stream of volcano’s going off in sequence and massively in paradel (?sp) for 50+ years.

    Of course the whole CO2 debate is predicated on CO2 actually having an effect on temperature, when in fact there is evidence to suggest the latter precedes the former by as much as 300 years.

    Yes correct. BUT where there is a normal gradual rise in CO2 levels, and typically when there is significant glaciation. What you have to remember is that far less then a third of the CO2 emmissions is showing in the atmosphere. The rest is being buffered.

    However you’re arguing from a different circumstance. Occassional volcanic events don’t stress the buffering as much. The 300 year lag is most likely from the CO2 going into the cold current water at the poles and then getting released hundreds of years later. There are a number of other possibilities like calcium carbonates etc, but they all act as a sink with eventual release.

    But you should (for the 3rd time) read the NOAA numbers. It is showing that buffering is accepting about half the CO2 as it did 10 years ago. Moreover the emmissions are still rising. What that means is that it it is likely to showing strongly in your lifetime if you’re younger than I am. I think that we’ll see significant effects within the next 30 years.

    If greenhouse warming were presently occurring you would get more warming in the troposphere, because greenhouse gases trap heat from escaping the atmosphere in the troposphere.

    Read Draco’s links. The people whose work you’re basing that claim on have a few wee problems with their methodology.

    How about reading enough to make it worth while discussing it with you…

  24. G 25

    … and one more time… what percentage of the Greenhouse gases is Man supposedly responsible?

    And while you’re at it, do you have one single climate model that’s come close to accurately predicting the average global temperature this year?

  25. T-Rex 26

    G, you’re making an idiot of yourself.

    Championing those graphs that the polar bear was teaching you about does your credibility no good at all. “ooh, look, the sea ice went up last year after falling for ages, that’s a trend!”

    Go and look here for a trend.
    http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

    “If greenhouse warming were presently occurring you would get more warming in the troposphere, because greenhouse gases trap heat from escaping the atmosphere in the troposphere. However, that is just not the case. The data collected from satellites and weather balloons show that the earth is in fact warmer than the atmosphere. This evidence damns the theory of greenhouse effect upon climate through CO2.”

    That is completely retarded. Of course the earth is warmer than the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases don’t absorb infrared radiation, they reflect it. It doesn’t get “trapped it the troposphere”. Arguing that CO2 does not have a significant impact on global temperature isn’t “skepticism”, it’s “retardacism”. It is a proven fact, it’s not up for debate. The debate is over “how much” and “what caused it”.

    As for your obvious lack of faith in models – I can only assume you’ve had very little experience with them. Models are, generally, not that good at predicting the very near future accurately. There are too many little difficult to model bits that mess things around. They can still be quite good in the long term.

    Take flipping a coin. You could have a model of a fair coin, and it would only be 50% accurate in telling you whether the coin was going to land heads or tails. Flip the coin 1000 times though and you’ll find that your model is pretty damned good at telling you whether the number of heads will be between 480 and 520.

    Good on you for reading around, but read around BOTH sides of the argument, don’t just look at the skeptics views.

    It might interest you to know that in the IPCC’s reports they are required to consider ALL opposing submissions, and in those cases that they chose to ignore them they have to say why, and on what evidence. It’s not some bunch of global warming alarmist hacks.

    Also, since you keep on ridiculing the possibility that small concentrations can have big effects – look up the ozone hole causes and results. How many CFC’s do you think were up there?

    Finally, and in closing, as I’ve said many times before: It doesn’t matter whether CO2 is causing global warming. CO2 intensive technologies are crap for thousands of other reasons anyway, so we should move to abandon them regardless. Do you have any idea how many of the proposed emissions reductions schemes have been shown to have a significant net economic benefit? Net, in this instance, means “economic benefit for most people, just not coal power companies”.

  26. G 27

    … and still no answer! Iprent, Rob, Matthew, Draco and now T-Rex — do none of you ‘experts’ know what percentage of the greenhouse gases can be attributed to mankind? Or is it that our contribution is so flipping small you’re all too embarrassed to admit to it?

    T-Rex: “Arguing that CO2 does not have a significant impact on global temperature isn’t “skepticism’, it’s “retardacism’. It is a proven fact, it’s not up for debate.”

    Is that right, Mr Rex? Then how do you explain the debate ensuing over the 1.5 million hits on Google for the search “CO2 does not cause global warming”?

    As for short-term charting, you’re right — the period of industrialisation in modern history is indeed just a blip in the Earth’s lifespan. Let’s have a look at what eminent marine geologist and climatologist Professor Robert Carter has to say about that:

    Part One
    Part Two

    In this succinct lecture he demonstrates that over the last 3.5 million years, the last 400,000 years, the last 10,000 years, the last 2,000 years and the last 700 years the Earth has been cooling! The spike of the latest period of the current holocene period is, wait for it, NORMAL in both rate and change!! In fact the rate of change in the last century is actually relatively slow compared to the Ice Age when there was a 1 degree shift per decade!

    In the other two parts he uses empirical science to torpedo some of the really big floaters in the warm-monger’s argument:

    Part Three (This part is particularly good; at the end of it we see sun spot activity laid over the global temp – almost a perfect match. Coincidence? I don’t think so).
    Part Four (You’ll love this part: “NOAA’s National Climate Data Center is in the middle of a scandal. Their global observing network, the heart and soul of surface weather measurement, is a disaster. Urbanization has placed many sites in unsuitable locations — on hot black asphalt, next to trash burn barrels, beside heat exhaust vents, even attached to hot chimneys and above outdoor grills.” – and he has photos to prove it!)

    Phew. Nothing like a good night sleep knowing the sky isn’t falling. 🙂

    [P.S. I’ve seen Al Snore’s alarmist doco… have you guys bothered to watch the counter-argumentative docos? The Great Global Warming Swindle is one you should all watch. The latest version, which – unlike The Inconvenient Truth – has the integrity to have been re-released with its original inaccuracies corrected.]

  27. Draco TB 28

    G said: (This part is particularly good; at the end of it we see sun spot activity laid over the global temp – almost a perfect match. Coincidence? I don’t think so).

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/mar/13/science.media

    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.

    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”. The real data for recent years show the opposite: that the length of the sunspot cycle has declined, while temperatures have risen. When this error was exposed, Friis-Christensen and his co-author published a new paper, purporting to produce similar results. But this too turned out to be an artefact of mistakes – in this case in their arithmetic.

    G said: The Great Global Warming Swindle is one you should all watch.

    The problem with The Great Global Warming Swindle, which caused a sensation when it was broadcast on Channel 4 last week, is that to make its case it relies not on future visionaries, but on people whose findings have already been proved wrong.

    If they’ve removed all the inaccuracies then can’t possibly have released anything.

  28. Draco TB 29

    Gah, stuck in the SPAM trap again?

    Actually, why am I even trying to correct G anyway? – he obviously doesn’t believe in actual science.

  29. T-Rex 30

    He is, ironically, adopting pretty much the same mentality as the “WTC1 & WTC2 were bought down by controlled demolition” crowd.

    G, I’ll reply to you later if I am sufficiently drunk and accommodating. Probably I won’t bother, because I get really really bored of refuting the arguments of crap science.

    Such as this one: “Is that right, Mr Rex? Then how do you explain the debate ensuing over the 1.5 million hits on Google for the search “CO2 does not cause global warming’?”

    Yes, that’s right. And it’s SIR Mr Rex to you. I think it’s great that 1.5 million people are researching the issue, although I hope their research is a little more balanced than yours. However, research is not the same as belief (at least it shouldn’t be), and even if it was all it would prove is that 1.5million people can’t grasp basic science. CO2 IS a greenhouse gas – anyone who argues otherwise is wrong. It MAY not be resulting in abnormal and significant warming of our planet at PRESENT levels (though I’d love to know why the icecap is melting if not), but it’s sure as hell a greenhouse gas. If you don’t believe me, check out the weather on Venus. Or you think that’s just because it’s closer to the sun?

    Has anyone read any analysis of the stabilisation effect of the icecap? I mean the phase change from ice to water consumes enourmous energy – I’d expect that to stabilise the temperature.

    Think about it G – where is all the energy that’s melting the ice coming from?

    Natural cycle or not, it’ll still f*ck us if we don’t prepare for it. You think the ice age/desertification will care whether they were caused by people or not? Answer is robust system. Fossil fuel dependency is anything but robust.

  30. G 31

    1) Still no answer on the definitive percentage of AGW gases.
    2) I’ve not said CO2 isn’t a greenhouse gas; I’m saying Man’s contribution to it is negligible to the point of insignificance, and it may be that CO2 isn’t even the key contributer to GW.
    3) You said the debate on that subject was over when it is clearly not.
    4) Your precious NOAA is riddled with crap science, not Carter’s charts — nobody here or in the science community is refuting their validity.
    5) Given today is 9/11, your allusion to me being a WTC conspiracy theorist is not only mean spirited, it’s actually quite distasteful.
    6) As Carter observed, once again the warm-mongers inevitably resort to attacking the man.

    As least one of us isn’t losing any sleep over this. 🙂

  31. T-Rex 32

    “The Earth’s atmosphere is a layer of gases surrounding the planet Earth that is retained by the Earth’s gravity. It contains roughly (by molar content/volume) 78.08% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.038% carbon dioxide, trace amounts of other gases, and a variable amount (average around 1%) of water vapor. This mixture of gases is commonly known as air. The atmosphere protects life on Earth by absorbing ultraviolet solar radiation and reducing temperature extremes between day and night.”

    So, the % of AGW gases in the atmosphere is, approximately, “sod all”, but as I mentioned earlier the absolute concentration considered alone is basically irrelevant. Notice you’ve totally failed to address your arguments flaws in light of the Ozone issue btw.

    The reason nobody is responding is not because they’re embarassed, it’s because it’s commonly available knowledge already exhaustively considered and they can’t be bothered. You’re not deciphering the rosetta stone here, you’re just applying crap arguments.

    You said this: “Is that right, Mr Rex? Then how do you explain the debate ensuing over the 1.5 million hits on Google for the search “CO2 does not cause global warming’?”, a statement clearly trying to discredit assertions that CO2 causes global warming. The debate is NOT over, but only because people who don’t know what they’re talking about keep on debating it. If CO2 is a greenhouse gas then it causes global warming. You ADMIT it’s a greenhouse gas, therefore you’re admitting it causes global warming. So any reference to google searches along the lines of “CO2 does not cause global warming” is just, at the cost of repeating myself, retarded. Negligible – maybe – I haven’t got a model of the climate available so I can’t tell you, but the fact that some very well informed people who DO think it’s not negligible holds some significance.

    My precious NOAA? I haven’t even referenced them yet – though interestingly your friend Carter did. And I’m not saying the data is invalid, I’m saying that it’s poorly applied in this context. Look at his sea level plot and use your BRAIN. Sea ice spiked for one year. That is not a trend. That is an outlier. Note the fact that THIS year it’s possibly going to hit a new lowest ever value.

    Oh god it’s september 11 oh how terrible clearly my comments denigrating conspiracy theorists is actually an attack on the memory of the victims! Don’t get all Godwin on me you whiny little sap. How many 9-11 conspiracy theorists do you know who died in 9-11? Oh wait, the answer is none. Allow me to make this perfectly clear – people who think that the twin towers were bought down by controlled demolition are morons, and the fact that they waste their lives making videos about missiles being fired etc rather than doing something productive to improve the world (socieoeconomic imbalance being the ACTUAL cause of 9-11) is, itself, more of an affront to the memory of those who died than anything I could say.

    The reason we end up attacking the man is that we get so BORED attacking “The Man”‘s stupid arguments. The good arguments I don’t mind, and there are several though they are, as I keep pointing out to you and you keep ignoring, irrelevant as we should reduce CO2 emissions anyway just because they’re associated with lousy backward processes.

    Some of your arguments are good – like “causality has not been conclusively proven” etc – but mostly they’re extensively rebutted in the public domain. The impact of water vapour and associated feedback mechanisms, for example, are widely accepted as being poorly understood. The responsible course of action in those circumstances is, however, to do more research and err on the side of caution. YOU, however, appear to be advocating that we abandon the whole thing and burn some motherfu*kin’ COAL baby.

    That may not be the case however. What DO you think we should be doing G?

    I never lose sleep. I always know exactly where my sleep is.

  32. r0b 33

    Okay, so what is the actual percentage of anthropogenic greenhouse gases outside the 95% created by water vapor? … Still no answer on the definitive percentage of AGW gases

    Don’t get your undies in a bunch G. 5.53% is one figure I’ve seen. Are you going to argue that that’s too small to make any difference? If so, then you’ve read none of the excellent material linked to above.

    In the period since 1750:
    – human activity has increased greenhouse gasses
    – significant warming has occurred
    – no natural process has occurred to account for the warming (the only relevant natural process is a slight increase in solar output, the effect of human activity is estimated to be 15 times greater).

    Can’t you do the math from there?

    Other possible explanations (like sunspots) have been considered and discarded by the significant majority of the scientific community (sunspots make the wrong predictions about which parts of the atmosphere will warm).

    T-Rex has likened the denier literature to the Sept 11 conspiracies, I think it’s more like the smoking cancer link that the tobacco companies managed to deny for so long with their shonky science and willing shills. That’s the league that you’re playing in G.

    But if you don’t want to believe all those boring old scientists, how about serious business people? Read the report by the Association of British Insurers, planning for how the industry should deal with the expected increasing costs from climate change effects:

    The Earth’s climate is changing and will continue to change over this century.The 1990s were the warmest decade globally since records began, with the four warmest years all occurring since 1998. In 2003, Europe experienced its hottest summer for at least 500 years, with temperatures more than 2°C warmer than the average. In the UK, temperatures reached a record-breaking 38°C.Temperatures could increase by a further 6°C by the end of the century if there is no action to tackle climate change.

    Business people still not worth listening to? How about the American Military:

    FINDINGS
    Projected climate change poses a serious threat to America’s national security. The predicted effects of climate change over the coming decades include extreme weather events, drought, flooding, sea level rise, retreating glaciers, habitat shifts, and the increased spread of life-threatening diseases. These conditions have the potential to disrupt our way of life and to force changes in the way we keep ourselves safe and secure.

    So how about the Pentagon G – “warm mongers”? Got it wrong have they?

  33. T-Rex 34

    “I think it’s more like the smoking cancer link that the tobacco companies managed to deny for so long with their shonky science and willing shills. That’s the league that you’re playing in G.”

    That’s a much better example in terms of the industry mentality, although I think the poor science and selective use of evidence employed by the amateur deniers almost exactly parallels that of other conspiracy theorists. And I’ve still got a grudge against 9-11 conspiracy theorists.

    There are levels of denial too. It IS hard to tell exactly what the degree of impact will be – I don’t mind people who say “we don’t know for sure”. The people who piss me off are the ones who go “Man is not, can not, and will never have an impact on the global climate”. Those are the same people who say “There are too many trees in the amazon basin for the lumber/farmin industry to have an impact (in fact I believe the same argument was applied to Kauri’s in NZ), too many fish in the sea for fisheries to have an impact, too much water in the world for DDT to have an impact” etc etc. They have been almost universally wrong so far, and they are almost universally pushing some alternate agenda.

    Watch what you argue and how you argue it G, it’s the difference between being an intelligent skeptic displaying caution in the face of public sentiment and being a corporate tool.

  34. Matthew Pilott 35

    G, this is from memory and may be entirely wrong, but I understand CO2 was below 200ppm in the pre-industrial revolution era. It’s now 350ppm and forecast to hit 550ppm by 2050.

    We’re looking at a doubling, or more, in the volume of airborne CO2.

    Interesting that you commented (relating to volcanic events) that earth is very resilient. That, G, is spot-on. The last time something like this happened, the dinosaurs were thoroughly wiped out, yet the earth was fine; it recovered no worries.

    Now how is it you find that of comfort? I bet a T-rex (picking a dinosaur at random…or am I?) is more resilient than us wimpy homo sapiens.

    T-rex: “And I’ve still got a grudge against 9-11 conspiracy theorists.

    You sure do! heh. I studied holocaust denial at one stage, and have noted that the style used is oft repeated (disclaimer: please note all, that this has nothing to do with the holocaust specifically. I’m simply talking about the methods used to discredit any idea; using said method does NOT equate one with being a holocaust denier in terms of how evil you are).

    It is very simple – you discount one part of an idea you don’t like, and suddenly the whole concept must be wrong. A fascinating example was the “there were no Nazi gas chambers” concept. Someone studied old gas chambers and found two points – there weren’t the correct type of rubber seals on the doors, and the walls did not contain a remnant of the zyklon-b gas used.

    Therefore, the Nazis were misunderstood, and the Evil Jews are taking us all for a ride with Holocaust(TM).

    Such methodology is used to a remarkable degree – it’s not hard to imagine a scenario in which those two issues identified could be explained away – one must ask where the weight of evidence lies, even if specifics aren’t as expected.

    Something to consider. I found that with 9-11 stuff. One or two facts don’t fit right, so it was a Vast Conspiracy. I just can’t see it. Same with climate change. Sure – the models aren’t perfect, but where’s the real eight of evidence?

  35. Matthew Pilott 36

    5) Given today is 9/11, your allusion to me being a WTC conspiracy theorist is not only mean spirited, it’s actually quite distasteful.

    It was actually the 12th for us NZ-based fellas.

  36. G 37

    Hands up who still believes in the Hockey Stick?

    You see, this one piece of genuine junk science says it all. Everyone was sucked in back then, all the way up to the heads of state, and now all those state-sponsored scientists are desperately holding on to their jobs by perpetuating the myth.

    AGW is a T.H.E.O.R.Y… it hasn’t been proven ~ not here, not anywhere ~ and there’s a huge number of genuine scientists who are now rejecting it outright. If it was fact why don’t the IPCC just accept the call for an independent debate and get on with it? Answer: because denying is heresy, they have a vested interest in the warm-mongering, there’s a stack of contrary evidence that would throw doubt into the minds of too many people, and they need to have a consensus for the gravy train to keep on rolling.

    I note that none of you has refuted Prof. Clarks charts that prove we’re in actually in cooling trend since way back.

    The day climate models start hitting their marks, let me know. In the meantime relax… it’s all gonna be okay. 🙂

  37. Matthew Pilott 38

    The day climate models start hitting their marks, let me know.

    It will be a bit too late by then, I’m afraid, given that the same models generally say that if we act now, we’re only fairly screwed, not goneburger.

  38. lprent 39

    Quantum theory is just a THEORY. It doesn’t stop an entire industry being based on it – most CPU’s rely on quantum effects these days.

    etc… Everything is a theory – NOTHING can be ‘proved’ unless you want to rely on faith.

    Since that is where you seem to want to be, then we’ll just have to file you under “Idiot with faith and no real knowledge” along with many others.

  39. T-Rex 41

    “You see, this one piece of genuine junk science says it all.”

    No, it doesn’t. Give me a single example of a field of scientific endeavour where the answer was perfect first time round? Quantum physics is a great example Lynn.

    Who the f*ck cares that it’s been warmer in the past? Like Matt says, there have been mass extinction events in the past. By your reasoning, if a giant asteroid was going to hit the earth we should worry, because asteroids have hit the earth in the past. If you accept that there is likely to be a global temperature rise of a couple of degrees then you have to accept ALLLL the drama that comes with it, no matter how many such rises there have been previously.

    Global warming would not cause the “end of the world”. It just might make things pretty freaking difficult for those who have adapted to the status quo.

    For now, G, I’m concluding that you’re actually some 16yo web-warrior who reads too many Michael Crichton books, so I can’t be bothered arguing the point – given most of your arguments are irrelevant. But whatever, you stick at it, I guess at least you’re doing SOME quasi-research, it’s probably better for you than playing grand theft auto all day.

    Adios.

  40. G 42

    “It will be a bit too late by then, I’m afraid, given that the same models generally say that if we act now, we’re only fairly screwed, not goneburger.”

    Thing is, Matthew, if the models are inaccurate, they’re inaccurate. Why give them any credence? Pascal’s wager is no reason to introduce yet another tax.

    “Quantum theory is just a THEORY.”

    Ahhh, Iprent (or is it Lynn?), but unlike climate modeling, Quantum mechanics are reliable, otherwise they’d be entirely useless…

    “Everything is a theory – NOTHING can be ‘proved’ unless you want to rely on faith.”

    … and there it is: faith and AGW; the new religion for which skeptics are brandished as heretics.

    “Who the f*ck cares that it’s been warmer in the past?”

    You should care, T, because as soon as you get your head around the idea that it was warmer in the past – thousands of years before industrialisation – it’ll dawn on you that this is simply part of Earth’s natural cycle. Take another look at those charts. The long term trend is indicating a gradual cooling. If anything we should be pumping more greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.

    Sleep tight. 🙂

  41. T-Rex 43

    “Thing is, Matthew, if the models are inaccurate, they’re inaccurate.”

    Hey everybody, look! It’s a climate change denier with a black and white view of an issue! Come quick, bring your camera!

    “Ahhh, Iprent (or is it Lynn?), but unlike climate modeling, Quantum mechanics are reliable, otherwise they’d be entirely useless “

    Look, they don’t understand quantum mechanics either!! They’re only reliable on AVERAGE G, much like most… oh, what were we talking about a moment ago? Oh yeah, models.

    “and there it is: faith and AGW; the new religion for which skeptics are brandished as heretics.” said the annoying Troll, deliberately misinterpreting what had just been suggested.

    “You should care, T, because as soon as you get your head around the idea that it was warmer in the past – thousands of years before industrialisation – it’ll dawn on you that this is simply part of Earth’s natural cycle. Take another look at those charts. The long term trend is indicating a gradual cooling. If anything we should be pumping more greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.”

    …Actually I think I’ll just leave that. Your reasoning is GOD. AWFUL. However it might interest you to know that one of the possible results of significant GHG emissions is another ice age. Though not in the “Day after tomorrow” sense. Not that that is remotely pointed to by any of your data.

    Meteor strikes and supervolcanos are part of the earths natural cycle you gumby, it doesn’t mean we should aim to artifically recreate them.

  42. r0b 44

    Take another look at those charts. The long term trend is indicating a gradual cooling.

    G you’re the biggest fool I’ve ever seen on this blog, and that is against some very stern competition. Congratulations.

    You cling to these charts to claim that the climate is cooling when all other sources cited above say it is warming. You believe these charts compared to all other sources because you think they tell you what you want to believe. Well, you have a problem. The charts are based on data from the Hadley Center – the UK Met Office (see the bottom right of graph 1). So what do the Hadley Center have to say? Let’s start with an introduction on a climate science blog:

    http://climateprogress.org/2008/05/09/hadley-center-to-deniers-we-are-still-warming/

    The top climate scientists at the UK’s Hadley Center for Climate Prediction get no respect. No matter how many times they try to explain that their data clearly shows the world is warming (see “Hadley Center to delayers: We’re warming, not cooling”), people, including those commenting on this very blog, keep insisting their data shows otherwise (see here).

    http://climateprogress.org/2008/03/18/hadley-center-to-delayers-deniers-pielke-global-warming-not-cooling/

    The deniers/delayer-1000s cite recent UK Hadley Center data to promote their “climate is cooling’ disinformation. … It is only fair to ask what the Hadley Center thinks its data shows (much as we’ve heard NASA explain that its data shows unequivocal warming). Answer: they believe it unequivocally shows we are in a warming trend, including this decade.

    Let’s check out the Hadley Center themselves – they put together some resources just for people like you G:
    http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/myths/index.html

    Fact 1: Climate change is happening and humans are contributing to it
    Fact 2: Temperatures are continuing to rise
    Fact 3: The current climate change is not just part of a natural cycle
    Fact 4: Recent warming cannot be explained by the Sun or natural factors alone
    Fact 5: If we continue emitting greenhouse gases this warming will continue and delaying action will make the problem more difficult to fix
    Fact 6: Climate models predict the main features of future climate

    Check out some of the underlying data:
    http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/obsdata/

    So there you go G, you say the Hadley Center data shows cooling, the Hadley Center (you know – professional meteorologists, the people who publish the data) say it shows warming.

    Who should we believe G – you or the Hadley Center?

  43. T-Rex 45

    OH NOES GUYS!

    G is fully right for realz on teh cooling trend.

    I just checked, and according to SCIENCE the average temperature of the universe 300,000 years after its formation was 3000 degrees kelvin. It is WAY colder than that on earth now! Look out! Spread the truth!

    Gotta go, I haven’t twittered on myspace for like 8minutes and my livejournal is way out of date plzkthanks.

  44. T-Rex 46

    It always makes me laugh how the fossil fuel lobby is always pushing the line that “those damn paleoclimatologists are just trying to keep themselves in a job” and keeping a straight face.

    Damn paleoclimatologists. Always looking out for number one they are. Unlike the fossil fuel industry, which is famously altruistic and is just after what’s best for humanity as a whole…

  45. Pascal's bookie 47

    T-Rex

    It always makes me laugh how the fossil fuel lobby is always pushing the line that “those damn paleoclimatologists are just trying to keep themselves in a job’

    Oath. It’s an astoundingly paranoid worldview. There is a conspiracy of tens and hundreds of thousands, lasting decades. The conspiracy consists of scientists who set out to learn about the world, but are deliberately lying about what they have discovered in order to hold on their enormous government pay checks. Even though there are many private sector companies that would actually pay them more money to tell the truth, these scientists continue to lie because, ummm, they want gov’t grants to continue studying things they know are false. Or something.

    Retards.

  46. bill brown 48

    Same can be said for those damn evolutionists.

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