http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4660938.stm

Perpetuating the lie of 'global warming'

Clearly just more piffle and propaganda to back up the state move toward carbon control and punative taxation for all. And then...

...finally removes any credability this document might ever have had.

And today: the UK Met Ofiice announces this is already the COLDEST winter for 10 years, with even colder to come before it ends

Global warming? My firm but pliant.

Alcazar

'Global warming' is a poor term; but 'climate change' is happening. Supply of oil will outstrip demand within 30 years. Burying our heads in the sand will not help. I was told all that in a lecture by a professor who works for Shell.

I also did a literature review (for uni) on future transport fuels and am confident those statements are true.

But when at least one country, China in this case, is bringing online a coal fired power station at the rate of one a week; unless we all pitch in and develop a means of cleaning them up, then we may as well go down the pub and get pi55ed.

As for the UK, when the government starts to set rules and regulations to promote energy efficient houses for example, then I know they really do care. But at the moment, they and everybody else in the world, who could make a difference is just paying lip service.

"Climate change" has always happened.

Imagine 10,000 years ago during the Ice Age a couple of environmentally aware peasants having a conversation.

"We've got too many cows. All their farting is causing a hole in the ozone layer."

"So what?"

"Well, it's global warning, innit?"

"Wot's that then?"

"Well, it's like all this ice is going to melt and the sea's gonna rise. Mark my words, but one day England'll be cut off from France!"

"Naaahhh!"

I wonder how they work that out? Our garden pond hasn't frozen over at all this winter, yet a couple of years ago it was frozen every day for weeks. I think we've only had a couple of days below freezing so far.

We certainly have had a pretty mild winder so far down here in Swindon...

I love the Google ads for this one: Primary School Science, lol, I think that's what they used for this report.

Obvious, innit? It's been cold in the SOUTH EAST
They don't give e toss for anywhere else, it's not even a "White Christmas" unless it snows in fekkin London


As far as climate change goes, can anyone else explain why, 30 years or so ago, the same scientists were predicting the next ice-age? Especially since THEN we had LOADS of little coal fired power stations, that were very inefficient? And hardly anyone had home insulation? And cars and other vehuicles were inefficient too?

Couldn't be owt to do with the sun, and it's cycles then? Like it's going through a period of intense activity now, and wasn't then??

Alcazar

Ice Ages are caused by periodic oscillations of the Earth's orbit. Nowt to do with carbon emissions. The Earth's climate is in a constant state of flux. Change has never been, as Blair and his team of 'scientists' would have you believe, caused by man's activities.

Why poor countries be most vulnerable? surely countries at see level will be most vulnerable! like the Dutch for example!! just imagine in 1000 yrs there will be no more Amsterdam what will all the Brit batchelors do for their stag nights then

Nobody is denying that there are natural climate change cycles. The question is if man's activities might be contributing to a change in the natural cycle. Denial is not plausible, big or clever.

I don't have any magic answers about climate change, but don't believe that excess pollution is good for the planet. Reasonable initiatives to reduce the quantity of pollutants e.g. Kyoto should be supported and not ignored.

So we should pollute as much as we like because it just doesn't make a difference then?

Suresh
Just off to de-cat my car

The key word here is CONTRIBUTING. This is NOT the same as CAUSING. Man's activities of course contribute but to such a small amount in the whole scheme of things. That's not to say we should do nothing about about it, however if the government were REALLY serious about it, they should have cats (or suchlike ) fitted to aircraft. These pollute far more than cars.

Yes, we should all do our bit if we want to, however it's not gonna change things that much. The world aint gonna collapse unless it wants to. Ice ages etc. will come around again which isn't caused by pollution.

Climate change has been happening for the last 4.5 billion years and will continue long after we have gone. The globe has been far warmer in the past and the water levels much higher. It's only an issue because humans are living on the coasts and if we do enter a dry spell we may not be able to support the numbers of people on the planet - which suggests we are over-populating it anyway.

What everyone appears to be missing is not that the climate has changed in the past (not denying that), but that the pace of change is now increasing rapidly. As for us only contributing slightly, there's plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise. e.g. Atmospheric carbon dioxide at the start of the Industrial Revolution was about 290ppm (parts per million). By 2000, it had risen to around 360ppm, with around 80% of that change happening between 1960 and 2000.

Have another go.

But what do those numbers actually mean? What real tangiable differences have they been proven to make?

After all the average height of a human has risen quite a bit over the years. However it doesn't mean that we're in danger of growing so tall that our heads will pop through the atmosphere.

Based on what? Your own opinion of things or credible statistics, which you can link to?

But CO2 is a "minor" greenhouse gas - water vapour is a bigger issue. Have a look at "Water vapour feedback"

Some believe that the increase in water is currently adding to the greenhouse effect, however as the air becomes more saturated and more clouds form they start to reflect more of the radiation back out in to space and this will in turn reduce the heating effect.

In short it's all guess work, nobody knows and the definitive data they have accounts for only 50-100 years out of 4.5 billion. All the rest is guesswork based on ice cores and tree rings. The model is not very good at the moment which is in part why the "guesstimates" of how things will go are so wildley different.

So based on the fact that we now spew more into the atmosphere than at any other time in the history of the planet, we should all just continue to sit on our hands, convince ourselves that it's all guesswork at the end of the day, deny that major environmental changes are occurring, and hope for the best?

No, but the government must not be allowed to introduce punitive taxes on joe public on the basis that our cars are killing the environment, while the real villian of the "man made" contribution to so-called greenhouse gasses (which are predominantly natural in origin if I understand it correctly) i.e. those originating from industry gets away with being dirtier than George Gallloway!

Ns04

BTW Let's not artifically polarise the debate people; you can be environmentally conscious without living in a mud house at this point in time. At greater epense to myself, I got a Sports cat for my Scooby, rather than a Decat. Every little helps ;-)

I think you're wasting your time trying to convince these knuckleheads.

Suresh

God no, don't just sit there. We need a proactive campaign to convince people it's a Stalinist plot for the government to take control.

NS04, what's the difference between the carbon monoxide emitted by industrial chimneys and the carbon monoxide emitted by your car? Sorry, didn't understand the point you're making.

I blame NL myself.

Not to mention methane which is 20 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. If they want to make an impact on emmission they should cut down massively on the beef and diary industries worldwide by banning the sale of burgers and other industrial beef products.

Or stop cows farting

What proof do you have that doing something is gonna make a difference?

I'm all for making the planet a better place etc. but I want to know
- the real evidence that man made environmental change is happening
- what the implications of this change are. Could be for the better for all we know.
- where best to channel our efforts.

If man is really has a massive impact on undesirable climate change then I suggest a mass cull of humans, after all that'd solve the problem. We eat, we breathe, we consume. The planet itself may kill off humans in time if we are a major problem. After all, the planet has been around FAR FAR FAR longer than humans have and will still be around far long after humans have disappeared.

At the end of the day, this is all about humans preserving a quality of life that we are happy with and that our kids are happy with etc. It's not about 'saving the planet'. The planet will save itself in the long term.

Tel, and everyone else, interesting read:

http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVF...ouse_data.html

I'm not saying that we stop doing our bit to reduce the crap we put in the environment. I'm just saying that taxing joe public when we represent such a tiny part of the claimed problem is unfair and non-productive. Industry should be held much more accountable as it represents a far greater proportion of the contribution (and has more money than us poor scooby owners) :-)

Ns04

The State is using the myth of man made 'global warming' to justify the introduction of control systems Europe wide. The UK is in the vanguard of this with Tony at the helm. People should indeed be told the truth instead of a steady diet of spin and lies, which as we can see on here they are only too willing to swallow.