Trips this week, Global Warming

[johnmc]

Hi Folks,
I just got back from a lot of travelling around on business.

Guess what's missing? Snow. There was one one tiny flurry in Stockholm,
nothing on the ground. Munich has had nothing. Everywhere I went everyone was complaining about windy weather (except Sweden, seems to be just too warm) and a lack of winter. Temperatures are so warm that snow making machines are also not helping, what they make just melts in the resorts.

California have had significant and regular ice, causing accidents (unprecedented amounts of ice for that state). Many local drivers have no clue how to drive on ice. Reno ski resorts are running low on snow, especially off piste. The only exception seems to be Colorado where they had several months worth of snow in a couple of days. I narrowly missed the mid-west ice storms.

Climate changing? You bet it is. Anyone else noticing stuff on their travels around the globe?

Bye!
John

 

[Parrot of Doom]

Of course the climate is changing. Its always changing. Its been changing since the dawn of time, and will go on changing when we're all long gone.

The climate is warming. I'm of the opinion that its got feck all to do with mankind, but that its a convenient excuse to control people and raise taxes.

 

[turnipsock]

The guys that grit the roads are loosing a heap of money this year.

I had a run to work on Thursday on white roads, but it was gone by lunch time. Actually it took me the same time to get to work, even though I could only go at 60 mph, there was a lot less cars on the road.

When you see the wide shots of the biathlon, you can see that the trails are man made. There is no snow either side of the trails.

 

[davidsl500]

I shouldn't worry about it, give it another 4 or 5 billion years and the sun will have burnt all its fuel, expanded into a red giant and the outer layers will probably engulf the earth. If we survive that then the next 10 billion years will the see the sun contract into a white dwarf and there wont be a lot of heat there.....

Still, you've got to laugh.

 

[Hibbo]

I shouldn't worry about it, give it another 4 or 5 billion years and the sun will have burnt all its fuel, expanded into a red giant and the outer layers will probably engulf the earth. If we survive that then the next 10 billion years will the see the sun contract into a white dwarf and there wont be a lot of heat there.....

Still, you've got to laugh.

Yeah, it's hilarious :-?

 

[nialler]

Of course the climate is changing. Its always changing. Its been changing since the dawn of time, and will go on changing when we're all long gone.

The climate is warming. I'm of the opinion that its got feck all to do with mankind, but that its a convenient excuse to control people and raise taxes.

watch "an inconvenient truth" pointing out the dramatic rising of CO2 levels in the atmosphere, then research it, then say it's not mankind's fault.

 

[Hibbo]

Of course the climate is changing. Its always changing. Its been changing since the dawn of time, and will go on changing when we're all long gone.

The climate is warming. I'm of the opinion that its got feck all to do with mankind, but that its a convenient excuse to control people and raise taxes.

I hate to seem to be going on and on about it; yes, the climate has always been changing, but it's the rate at which it is changing now.

I very much doubt that throughout history anyone has ever seen the climate change so markedly during their own lifetime - which is a very short space of time in the grander scheme.

I've said it before on another thread, but surely no one can honestly say that they truly believe that the huge amount of crap we've poured out over the last 150-200 years or so, and the rate at which we are increasing doing so, has had NO effect on the climate whatsoever. Come on!

I am not an Al Gore fan, and I've not (yet) seen the filum, but it is a great title. An Inconvenient Truth. Very very true

 

[television]

I shouldn't worry about it, give it another 4 or 5 billion years and the sun will have burnt all its fuel, expanded into a red giant and the outer layers will probably engulf the earth. If we survive that then the next 10 billion years will the see the sun contract into a white dwarf and there wont be a lot of heat there.....

Still, you've got to laugh.

but then we will be burning more fuel to keep warm, and it will get worse.:-( :-(

Malcolm

 

[television]

and the rate at which we are increasing doing so, has had NO effect on the climate whatsoever. Come on!

I

This is the first year in my 72 years that it has been impossible to do any building work outside in Nov and Dec,and here we are half way through Jan with no let up. Last year was bad enough.

malcolm

 

[Parrot of Doom]

watch "an inconvenient truth" pointing out the dramatic rising of CO2 levels in the atmosphere, then research it, then say it's not mankind's fault.

Al Gore is a politician, not a scientist. 'An Inconvenient Truth' is about as scientific as 'Loose Change'.

Its laughably poor.

 

[Parrot of Doom]

I hate to seem to be going on and on about it; yes, the climate has always been changing, but it's the rate at which it is changing now.

What rate would that be then? And please don't reference the Mann Hockey Stick graph, because its been widely discredited.

I very much doubt that throughout history anyone has ever seen the climate change so markedly during their own lifetime - which is a very short space of time in the grander scheme.

Tell that to the people who lived during the Medieval warm period, or the ice skaters on the Thames in the 18th century (accepting the fact that the river iced over because of old London Bridge, the fact that there was a 'little ice age' is unquestionable).

I've said it before on another thread, but surely no one can honestly say that they truly believe that the huge amount of crap we've poured out over the last 150-200 years or so, and the rate at which we are increasing doing so, has had NO effect on the climate whatsoever. Come on!

On the global climate the emissions of mankind's activities have produced no observable effect whatsoever that is recogniseable from normal background variation.

I am not an Al Gore fan, and I've not (yet) seen the filum, but it is a great title. An Inconvenient Truth. Very very true

A more apt title would be 'Lets Join the Unscientific Bandwagon'.


I suggest you read this:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YmFiZDAyMWFhMGIxNTgwNGIyMjVkZjQ4OGFiZjFlNjc=

While I'm all for protecting our local environment by not introducing pollutants into ground water and our rivers and seas, or allowing the fall of acid rain, or destroying important wildlife habitats, I simply will not be swayed by evidence of human-influenced climate change alone. I require proof.

The atmospheric concentration of co2 is around 0.0383%. Mankind is responsible for only 3.5% of that figure. Mankind is responsible for 0.0013405% of the co2 in the atmosphere. Hardly headline stuff, is it?

There have historically been massive variations in co2 concentrations in our atmosphere, I'll spare you the numbers but heres a thought - rises in global temperature preceed by several hundreds of years subsequent rises in atmospheric co2 emissions. The inevitable conclusion is that co2 concentration does not cause global temperature changes.

I'm sick of hearing about it. Its the Emporer's New Clothes. Give Gordon Brown a fiver every time you fly, and he'll save the world. Of course.

 

[Hibbo]

While I'm all for protecting our local environment by not introducing pollutants into ground water and our rivers and seas, or allowing the fall of acid rain, or destroying important wildlife habitats, I simply will not be swayed by evidence of human-influenced climate change alone. I require proof.

There is clearly no point in trying to prove it to you as your mind is made up. Any proof that is offered you will simply dismiss. The overwhelming majority of scientists and people who know a lot more about this than me or you, are of the opinion that mankind's actions ARE causing our climate to change.

The atmospheric concentration of co2 is around 0.0383%. Mankind is responsible for only 3.5% of that figure. Mankind is responsible for 0.0013405% of the co2 in the atmosphere. Hardly headline stuff, is it?

That is a dismally cynical attempt to massage the stats to your own end (so to speak ).
Going by your figures, mankind is responsible for 3.5% of the CO2 in the atmosphere, NOT 0.0013405%

Incidentally, where did you get those figures from?


I am not a loony hippy tree hugger, far from it. I also hate the way the politicians use it as another excuse to tax us even more. But I do genuinely care about what is happening to our planet. There are several major "tipping points" that we are rapidly approaching that are irreversible (such as the North Atlantic conveyor stopping) and we may very well see in our lifetime.

Isn't it best to err on the side of caution?

 

[Parrot of Doom]

There is clearly no point in trying to prove it to you as your mind is made up. Any proof that is offered you will simply dismiss. The overwhelming majority of scientists and people who know a lot more about this than me or you, are of the opinion that mankind's actions ARE causing our climate to change.

You cannot prove it as thus far there is no proof. Proof of mankind influencing the global climate would come in the form of cause and effect, with accurate predictions and observable outcomes.

There is none of this, and there is certainly no consensus of opinion. Anybody who says 'the science is settled' is not a true scientist. Science is never 'settled'.

That is a dismally cynical attempt to massage the stats to your own end (so to speak ).
Going by your figures, mankind is responsible for 3.5% of the CO2 in the atmosphere, NOT 0.0013405%

Incidentally, where did you get those figures from?


I am not a loony hippy tree hugger, far from it. I also hate the way the politicians use it as another excuse to tax us even more. But I do genuinely care about what is happening to our planet. There are several major "tipping points" that we are rapidly approaching that are irreversible (such as the North Atlantic conveyor stopping) and we may very well see in our lifetime.

Isn't it best to err on the side of caution?

There is no massaging of statistics on my part. The figures I have quoted are quite correct, and your interpretation of the proportion of co2 in the atmosphere from mankind's activities is quite wrong. If you cannot get such simple mathematics correct, what hope do you have of actually constructing a persuasive argument for your theories?

What do you think the proportion of co2 in the atmosphere created by human activity is?

There may well be 'tipping points', but nobody has yet proven this. In fact, the evidence for this is based on computer models which have to be continually adjusted to swing the argument over to that of the climate-change 'believer'. The models are all used to present a worst-case scenario, just like the Mann hockey stick (a graph into which random numbers can be input to produce the same shape of graph, wow).

On the basis of poorly understood climate science, political influence, and environmental groups with a definite political agenda not dissimilar to that of Soviet Russia, why on earth would you be surprised if somebody like myself actually spent a significant proportion of their time examining the arguments for and against in detail, and came to their own conclusions?

As for the 'better safe than sorry' argument, well thats just tosh. Right now all around the world millions of people are dying in wars, droughts, famines, natural disasters, preventable diseases - these things happen all the time, and western governments pay only lip service to doing anything about it. So why on earth would governments be 'concerned' about the effects of climate change when in the main it will affect the same people? They're not. Its a system of control, and a means to raise more taxation.

If they truly believed in man-made climate change, they'd use an economic model that actually proposed to deal with the consequences, and not try to stop the inevitable. King Cnut standing by the ocean anyone?

http://www.cei.org/gencon/019,05642.cfm

 

[OmniCognateNeutronRangler]

nicely put parrot. This particular issue has already been through the ringer on the "chelsea tractors" thread. As I said there, its interesting how people believe a politician touting a movie but do not believe actual scientific evidence. People will believe what they want to, just look at religion. In fact in many ways this whole environmental crusade can be compared to religion. Many people are believing it "on faith" and what other people are telling them rather than by looking at the facts.

Neither issues stand up to much investigation but it seems to be the preachers with the most "pressence" that get listened to. Those that try to use the voice of reason get pushed into the side-lines.


I don't want to see power stations chugging out great clouds of fumes, and dont want to be stuck behind a bus with 3 people in it making me choke even when I'm inside my car. But I'm fed up with the doom mongers using this as an excuse to preach their holier than thou attitiude in the same way street corner preachers tell us we are all going to hell.

 

[RFdesigner]

Parrot

Ever read the manic sun?

somewhat more convincing... in case you haven't it states that global warming as a result of man made carbon dioxide levels is utter tosh, or at least it will be lost in the noise.

Derek

 

[Hibbo]

There is no massaging of statistics on my part. The figures I have quoted are quite correct, and your interpretation of the proportion of co2 in the atmosphere from mankind's activities is quite wrong. If you cannot get such simple mathematics correct, what hope do you have of actually constructing a persuasive argument for your theories?

What do you think the proportion of co2 in the atmosphere created by human activity is?

The atmospheric concentration of co2 is around 0.0383%. Mankind is responsible for only 3.5% of that figure. Mankind is responsible for 0.0013405% of the co2 in the atmosphere. Hardly headline stuff, is it?

I was hoping keep the tone of this debate slightly more mature and for it not to end up with childish sniping.

However it is you my friend who has failed to grasp the mathematics of your own argument. Read your quote again. Mankind is responsible for 3.5% of the CO2 in the atmosphere. What the overall concentration is is irrelevant as far as your argument is concerned - mankind is responsible for 3.5% of it. So before you (embarrassingly childishly) accuse me of lacking the mathematical intellect to understand the argument, maybe understand your figures that you have posted.

This is going round and round in circles and I know I am pishing in the (gale force) wind by trying to discuss this on a Mercedes-Benz forum.

The thing that annoys me most about the deniers is that so many of them don't disagree on grounds of science, they won't accept it purely because of their politics or it may slightly impinge on their lifestyle.

However, credit where credit's due Parrot, you have more time on your hands than me and certainly know how to search the web! (ThisIS meant as a genuine compliment)


Do you also deny that fossil fuels will one day run out?

Omni............. Interesting comparison to religion, especially as the religious right in the US are some of the biggest deniers about. (not to mention all the other trouble they cause.............. )

 

[Myros]

I remember my Physics teacher

showing us a graph of fossil fuel consumption vs known reserves. We should have run out well before the mimellium, according to that.( back in 1979)

Does Donald Rumsfelds " known knowns and unknown knowns " come into this anywhere.

I am a scientist by training, and a Merc owner by choice, and I think the jury is still out, and for a long time yet.

 

[OmniCognateNeutronRangler]

oh hibbo old buddy old pal, I would like to point out that my doubts are completely scientitfic. They certainly aren't political. The biggest vocal doubter of mans effect on global warming is our mate in the White House and I have similar feelings towards him and his political views as I have for testicular cancer.

your comment about not expecting anything more when posting on a Mercedes forum is also a good bit of stereotyping. It does seem to me that there have been quite a few people that have expressed views different to yours and you are refusing to accept them in any way. So as we are apparently ignoring evidence and public opinion it does seem to me that you are doing the same.

I think, on the whole, there have been some very well thought out attempts on this forum to make people question what they are being told about global warming and the reasons for which they are being told. It does sound to me that you have already made your mind up and will not be swayed and will not even consider the evidence against.

This goes back to my comments about religion. If you "have faith", no amount of scientific evidence will make you believe otherwise.

oh, and Hibbo, as you may have guessed I tend to consider organised religion (NOT people's personal faiths), especially those in the US, to be on a par with my views on George Bush.

 

[Hibbo]

oh hibbo old buddy old pal, I would like to point out that my doubts are completely scientitfic. They certainly aren't political. The biggest vocal doubter of mans effect on global warming is our mate in the White House and I have similar feelings towards him and his political views as I have for testicular cancer.

your comment about not expecting anything more when posting on a Mercedes forum is also a good bit of stereotyping. It does seem to me that there have been quite a few people that have expressed views different to yours and you are refusing to accept them in any way. So as we are apparently ignoring evidence and public opinion it does seem to me that you are doing the same.

I think, on the whole, there have been some very well thought out attempts on this forum to make people question what they are being told about global warming and the reasons for which they are being told. It does sound to me that you have already made your mind up and will not be swayed and will not even consider the evidence against.

This goes back to my comments about religion. If you "have faith", no amount of scientific evidence will make you believe otherwise.

oh, and Hibbo, as you may have guessed I tend to consider organised religion (NOT people's personal faiths), especially those in the US, to be on a par with my views on George Bush.

That's more like it! Let's not call each other names, let's all be friends!

You do give a well balanced view Neil, and I wasn't insinuating that everyone who is a climate sceptic is so because of their political views. There has been good discussion and intelligent debate on this subject on here, and as long as those involved (myself included) remain mature there is nothing wrong with people arguing different sides and points of view.


Oh, please stop comparing this issue to that of religious faith - no matter what side of the climate argument you're on, there is at least SOME science involved - not just fairy-stories.

 

[OmniCognateNeutronRangler]

Oh, please stop comparing this issue to that of religious faith - no matter what side of the climate argument you're on, there is at least SOME science involved - not just fairy-stories.

lol ..... I like that line.