Is global warming a scam?

The rules of OFCOM mean that Chanel 4 could not be judged on accuracy, that's all. It does not mean as Chanel 4 is claiming that they have been judged to be accuracte.

George Monbiot writes eloquently on this matter in today's Guardian.

I love this image. The people are protesting against global warming and it's snowing.

the group that forced Oftel to rebuke the "experts" documentary

You imply that you know better than the IPCC, and "popular opinion". Fine. But not once have you really cited a significant source to back up claims that clearly "go against the flow". In which case, fine. But if you're just going to sit their with your fingers in your ears going "lalalalala", how are we suppposed to respect that as being in any way "influential"?

Furthermore, I think it was you that said all science is theory (someone did in this thread). I suppose the phenomenon of water boiling at 100°C so you can drink tea is of course, merely an illusion. I suppose because science is theory and not at all fact, the existence of a computer for you to debate with on TT is of course, a figment of your imagination. Without the application of theory, we wouldn't even have the machines that could pump CO2 into the atmosphere. Such glaringly ignorant statements do not help your cause, which is to convince us that climate change is some sort of conspiracy. I'm not trying to cut you down, but rather call a spade a spade, as they say...

Based on the success of scientists over the years, I'm inclined to trust them, though of course, they have been wrong about a few things in the past. But not enough to tarnish their general reliability. Even if they're wrong - is it a bad idea to open up a new economic market and improve technology for future generations so that we live in better harmony with the natural resources of our planet? As well as fueling vehicles, petroleum is used to make plastic. Would you rather drive gas guzzlers so that we are one day without plastic? Think of the far reaching implications of that.

Another person (could have been you) also said something to the effect of good scientists doubt their results. I beg to differ - good scientists have (not always) instinctually known something to be true and set out to prove it. Einstein was one of them I believe, and Millikan was definitely one of them. If you remember high-school physics, he was the one who discovered the mass of the electron. He actually fudged a lot of data (omitting certain results as insignificant) because he was sure of the result. He omitted such dubious data, as he likely suspected that his crude experimental apparatus was the likely cause of this strange data. In later years, with better equipment he was categorically "proven" (quotes to satisfy your statement of science being only theory) to be true.

Learning the (accepted) science of climate change was one of the most interesting courses I have ever taken. I propose you take a course like that, and debate to your heart's content. If you are as correct as you believe, then you have nothing to fear. If you live in Berlin, PM me and I can tell you more about this course at the TU Berlin.

Cheers

First the rebuttal, and now my 2 cents:

I find it shocking how some people in this thread think global warming is some politically motivated scam.

CO2 has more to do with water vapour from the ocean? That's probably because the oceans are becoming saturated with CO2, and can't store as much anymore. (Climatologists amongst us, can you verify that?). Yes, that's right, oceans can absorb CO2 through various equilibrium reactions, but to a point. So, we also play a role in this carbon coming from the ocean.

The layman's version is simply, we are pulling a lot of carbon out of the ground (oil) and converting it into chemical compunds (Hydrocarbon molecules), and now putting it into the air. This is going to change the natural balance that existed before the industrial era, so the fact that scientists have come up with this "crazy theory" is not unreasonable.

But what's the point of debating if those opposed to the belief of climate change being caused by mankind have not got the scientific background? Then again, that's typical for most debates on TT. If you believe - you do, if you don't - you don't and rarely does somebody convince another of anything. People merely preach to the already converted of their side of the argument. Or am I wrong? Try the politics section. Equally funny.

North Pole to be ice free by 2013?

GLOBAL WARMING, GLOBAL MYTH

But what about this, scary stuff.

very scary indeed, how someone can "design" a website as bad as that is beyond a joke! Sent shivers up my spine!!

it sends shivers up my spine that folk have the time to time this shite instead of living

for those that don't know, the author in Liberty that djgrazy just posted is Edmund Contoski. He is a well known far right crank who has also campaigned on the basis that there is no evidence smoking causes cancer and trying to rescind legislation protecting endangered species. Doesn't surprise me that djgrazy is taken in by him though.

Um, the Earth has ALWAYS warmed and cooled over its entire existence in a cyclical pattern just like everything else in nature. What goes up must come down (und anders rum) and ALWAYS without the influence of humans. So why would it suddenly be due to human activity? Oh yeah, some people with an agenda want to "change" things. It's a boondoggle.

Is the Earth's climate left wing or right wing? Typical comment from someone who sees EVERYTHING in terms of partisan politics.

Thing is Socal, BTC and others can't see that, so everyone disagreeing with their obvious "superior" wisdom is therefor a crank in their eyes.

@BTC, please feel free to post respected sources for your claims that Edmund Contoski doesn't know his climate change from his cock. Something YOU however seem to have dificulty with.

It's a myth, humans are a very, very, very small factor in the large equation and changing ANYTHING we do will not slow down a natural phenomenon. It's been portrayed many times before and proven wrong time and time again. Check out POST 281 on PAGE 15 for past examples.

No doubt you'll ignore the evidence out there and stick to your guns with your Chicken Little attitude. The sky is falling, the sky is falling!!!

It's pretty scary when one thinks about how easily, through absolute fear mongering tactics, those behind the global warming hysteria have been able to mobilize all the "useful idiots" behind this cause although they will never profit from like it like Al Gore has to the tune of $100 million. Guess that's the definition of "useful idiots".

you don't have to scratch far in the journalists who express climate change scepticism to find links to either rightwing or far right groups or petrol dollars or both. By contrast the scientists on the IPCC come from all political backgrounds though I guess most are centrist rather than extremist.

You actually find a similar profile of rightwing extremists linked to the lobby that used to try and claim tobacco did not cause cancer though then they got their dollars from the tobacco industry.

Bell, you still haven't answered the question as to how humans are suddenly the culprit behind a natural phenomenon that is as normal as the tides rising and falling twice per day. The Earth wants what the Earth wants.

because its a stupid point. You could also say that forests have been burning periodically for millenia so that here is no reason to believe arsonists ever start fires.

Climate changes has been observed and measured and will threaten massive devastation as it progresses. The fact is that a substantial contribution to that climate change has been cause by human practices that we have in our power to change should be a call to action and not a call to inertia.

IPCC unbiased? You're having a Giraffe!

The UN IPCC's ARTFUL BIAS

No doubt you'll spend the rest of the day trying to doscredit the author as opposed to tackling the facts he raises, but it's worth the punt that reality may just for once sink in.

Massive Change? Jesus, you're a muppet. Man is responsible for less than 1% of the Greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, less than 4.5% IF you include Water Vapour. What about the 95%-99% of global warming gases we can't do anything about??

Read about absorption spectra, get an adult to explain to you.

or maybe not...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/15/go...ic_ice_mystery/

Fact1: There has been no global warming since the turn of the last century.

Fact2: Approx 32,000 scientists recently signed a petition rejecting the assumption that the human production of greenhouse gases is damaging the Earth's climate.

Fact3: The majority of Carbon Dioxide (one of the so called 'greenhouse gases') is naturally occurring and is not a result of oil & coal burning. Furthermore it is necessary for many vegetation on our planet (PHOTOSYNTHESIS)

Fact4: Since the 1950's the mean global temperature has perhaps risen by 0.5 degrees celsius (although there have been some difficulties in collating satisfactory global temperatures).

Fact5: The "hockey stick" graph representing global temperatures over the last 1000 years and uncritically displayed by the UN IPCC in it's 2001 report endorsing the 'man-made' global warming theory has been discredited - it is based on selective sampling and an incorrect statistical analysis (Records have only been kept since around 1880)(See my previous post).

Observation: It's a bit nippy for August. I think I'll put my fleece on.

Your analogy doesn't fit (like most analogies). A forest fire is an isolated incident. One forest fire in California has no effect on forest fires in Asia, natural or otherwise. The Earth's climate is one system. That's why the U.S. didn't sign the Kyoto protocol because it didn't require China or India or Brazil to participate, thus allowing their economies to continue to grow while others had to retard their growth. We aren't that Stoopid!

Which brings me to this point, the people behind global warming really just want to hurt or destroy the U.S. economy as well as Europe's. I call it eco-communist fascism. Kinda has a nice ring to it.

"useful idiots" will always cling to anything that requires a "call to action" especially if it involves fighting the evil doings of industry, capitalism or western civilization in general. It's just a fact of life. Sort of like hay fever in the spring time.

The author, Steven Goddard, writes clearly with an agenda tone and not fully explaining his points.
Who is he? He came up from nowhere.
http://www.layscience.net/?q=node/173

I think he covers his sources rather well, feel free to click on any of the links he provides throughout his article, he's telling it like it is with NO agenda. How do you get "an agenda tone" from something you read? Where he came from, where he's going and where he studied are of no relevance whatsoever to the points he raises.

Again, a nice attempt at discrediting the author whilst ignoring his very valid points.

Of curse it does.
He says A is wrong, he does not explain why and he is nobody. 0 Credibility.

Please supply an example of a claim he makes with no back up or evidence.

You can't?
No wonder.

This is a perfect example of how and why humans are so easily lead. If someone is "known" they can then project credibility and that is why the most important thing in any political campaign is name recognition, not who the person actually is or what their ideas for leadership are.

What I want to know what are these oil companies doing with their billions of dollars? How may scientists could they fund if they wanted to?

The same thing that any profitable company does, pay dividends to its shareholder, invest in R&D and throw really cool Christmas parties at the end of the year (oh, I'm sorry, I meant Winter Holiday parties, don't want to offend anyone).

Unfortunately we are not talking about politics but science and the word of Albert Einstein about physics is worth a little more than mine, because I am nobody in the field.

Not if Einstein was wrong about something. After all he said himself that "imagination is more important than knowledge" I'm sure there are unknown scientists today that have a better understanding about certain things than Einstein did in his time.

I said: Please supply an example of a claim he makes with no back up or evidence.
You Said "The problem is that this graph does not appear to be correct."

our survey says...UUUUHH UUUUHH!!

Sentences belonging to the same paragraph usually relate to the same topic, changing track would be extremely bad grammar.

The Whole Paragraph in it's entirity EXPLAINS QUITE CLEARLY why he believes it to be wrong.

True, even the most stubborn CEO gives up on funding junk science eventually.

BTW Ice has a 3rd dimension.

?!?!? What is so difficult to understand?

If a renown expert in X says A and I come with no background about X and say A is wrong and provide no proofs, no one should waste his time reading me. 0 credibility.

entirity no. What's wrong with the graph?

You REALLY need to believe you're right don't you?

The graph is wrong because as he states quite clearly, that several other data sources such as the NASA Marshal Space Flight Center & the University of Illinois show that the Arctic Ice made a nice recovery this summer, something the NSIDC graph doesn't show (In fact it shows the opposite)

Clear as ice now?

That coming from you is hilarious


Lier!

Glad to be of help, but you've still to point out all these unfounded claims he made in the document.


Seriously? not only can't you spell the word LIAR, but you have the audacity to claim I'm lying when everyone and their dog can see the fudged results in the graph.

I have one word for you, DENIAL.

Show me SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE that man is responsible for more than 5% of the Greenhouse gases in our enviroment and I'll eat tofu-burgers, wear crocs, ride a bike and hug trees for a week.

Sorry, I was writing in German and I did not switch context successfully.
If you care about spelling (which does not look like, according to your previous posts) I can fix it:

LIAR!

No one is claiming that.
Intellectually dishonest (oh, and you cannot spell environment, much less understand it)

Environment is a typo, the letters are together on the qwerty keyboard. A & E aren't. I'm sure you'll find the correct spelling in my earlier posts.

Ok, you accept that we're a small factor in this problem, now we're getting somewhere... So please explain how us reducing our contribution of 1%-5% of current greenhouse gases by say 50% (This would be a massive achievement!!) is going to make an iota of a difference to the overall effect. This will be good, it's like trying to stop a runaway train using a beach ball.

We are not going anywhere, you simple returned from your fantasies.
If you did not understand that no one is claiming that you have a severe comprehension problem.
The same with that simple graph.

But if you insist, the explanation to your question is in this very thread many pages ago (by me and other posters)
Please do your homework and dig for it.

Seriously Dude, do you have Mong-Related issues? Am I typing too fast for you or in Chinese?

I wrote..


To which you answered...


I Then replied, "GOOD now we're getting somewhere."

So if no one is claiming that, then where is this man-made disaster going to come from? At present we contribute around 0.85% of the Greenhouse gases not including water vapour, so I ask you again, How exactly is man responsible, and how will changing course affect the 99% of greenhouse gas we have no control over?

Bit of a no brainer really. But feel free to keep insulting rather than argue the fact. The truth is, you can't.

We may well be responsible for climate change and the world maybe getting warmer or cooler, it changes on a weekly basis. My point is this, even if mankind stopped using fossil fuels completely by tomorrow, nature will continue to do what it's done for millions of years and we'll still be fucked.

You are the one insulting.
I just told you to look for the answer in an older post of mine to you in this very same thread.
I am not going to answer you twice the same thing.

Here is the graph:


everyone and their dog can see the NSIDC graph shows the Arctic Ice made a recovery this summer (in fact it does not show the opposite).

Liar