Given that we were able to profoundly affect the environment merely through the use of CFCs, it seems unlikely that our wholesale emission of greenhouse gases isn't also having an effect.

Yes there are lots of other things that affect climate, and it's terribly complicated, but to the extent that we can we'd probably be well advised to stop pumping shit into the atmopshere if we can avoid it. And whatever the causes, be it the solar cycle that caused the Victorian mini ice age or cows farting too much, it would be prudent to be planning for what will happen if things get worse.

You're conflating two very different things there, chap.

The depletion of ozone via CFCs is a straight forward, well understood catalytic process whereby only relatively minute quantities of the CFC catalyst (or more accurately, free atomic halogens that have been split from CFC molecules via the action of sunlight) are needed to do the job. Consequently, no-one has ever seriously disputed this and in fact, CFCs were banned from use in record time as a result of this unanimity, despite the financial cost of this.

The 'Greenhouse Effect' of CO2 is also very well known and understood, but this isn't a mere chemical catalyst needed to do a specific job, in tiny quantities - there is the whole question of precisely how much CO2 is needed before these warming effects become significant, within what is a hugely complex system involving the entire Earth atmosphere, its oceans, currents, land masses, the Sun - etc. (The alleged "safe limit" for atmospheric CO2 is a mere 350ppm I believe - 0.035% of the total atmospheric composition)

They are, I suggest, not in the least comparable.



Again, no-one is necessarily saying we shouldn't *plan* for climate change - this is happening regardless. It's the alleged principle *cause* that is the nub of the debate, and the suggested "cure".

I think the cure is giving me lots of money so I can organise a conference in the Cayman Islands to look to the future of things that might be important in twenty years as this sort of thing is all terribly accountable and productive.

I'm happy with the models they have made so far. So are 98% of climate scientists. if they sayy it is good, it's good until we make a better model. that is how science works. To the end that I don't understand that there is even a fucking debate over it.

The reason you don't understand is because, fundamentally, you appear to have absolute faith in Scientists, as a collective, whereas I don't. I am sceptical by nature.

Science is littered with disproved, previously very much 'in vogue' hypotheses of one kind or another, including in very recent times. (Don't even get me started on the veracity or otherwise of models; even the software which I routinely use - orders of magnitude less complex than that involved here, and for entirely understood, known parameters - is frequently shown to be wrong, sometimes catastrophically so).

That's the point.

Someone comes up with a hypothesis, then does everything they possibly can to disprove it.
When they've done that, they show it to other people who do the same.
After all that, it gets published. "We think that this is this ebcause of this because.."
Then, other people build upon it, and the finer details get drawn up, and something that people first thought (Proposition A) is thrown out the window as someone has drawn up Proposition B which better fits the model.
Propsition B can be a little bit different, or very different from A, due to better detection methods, new knowledge in or around the area or some other factor.

it isn't that the people that done A were wrong, they set up a falsifiable hypothesis, did their utmost to make it wrong and couldn't, then some other people tried it and they couldn't either, so we ran with that for a bit util something better comes along that we can't break.

Or other people try it and say "This doesn't work" and the author says "Oh. Bugger. [Found out / I wonder what I did wrong then]"

Absolutely knowingly, of course. But my basic point was that humankind's activities clearly can have very wide-reaching effects on the environment. The fact that the process for GHGs doing the climate change shuffle isn't as clear is true, but the argument against man made climate change seems to be "look, the climate changes all the time, how can little old us possibly effect something so big!!?!?!?", which is clearly a bollocks position.

The suggested "cure" is inherently a good idea even if man made climate change isn't a real thing.

It is? It's going to be really expensive, for a start, and money is tight - we can't be throwing it away on something we don't actually need.

Yes, as we're wasting a lot of our resources currently anyway, and those happen to be some of the resources of which our use is allegedly contributing to climate change.

Look at it this way - we need to save that oil for plastic. We'll find it hard to get plastic from elsewhere, whereas we can all stand to burn fewer hydrocarbons.

Nuclear power, for intance, is a fantastically good idea. And we need new power stations soon as a number of our fossil fuel based ones are coming up to the end of their lives and need replacing anyway.

Well, yes, of course. I guess any number of Mankind's activities qualify on that front, from nuclear bombs to oil spills. But we're talking about a very specific effect on the environment here - climate change - and to that end, I don't think yours was a very good analogy at all.

Like I said, CFCs are a catalyst for ozone molecule decay, and thus, by the very definition of the term "catalyst", they are only needed in minute quantities to have this effect and, crucially, are not actually directly involved in the reaction, or changed by it. I mean, this is A-Level chemistry type stuff, fully and unequivocally empirically validated by actual, unambiguous observation, such that no-one in right mind would take issue with it.

That's very different from alleged CO2-induced catastrophic and profound climate change; in this instance the CO2 is itself the agent, not a mere catalyst; the system (entire atmosphere/oceans/planet/Sun etc.) involved is infinitely more complex than mere ozone molecules in isolation and is not chemical in nature. There are vastly more complexities, variables and outright unknowns. Our understanding of basic ozone chemistry is well established and predictable, formed as it is on relatively simple principles of mere Chemistry, whereas our understanding of the entire ecosystem and the Sun is anything but. I mean really, your comparison is surely spurious?



The models that underpin the whole GHG global warming hypothesis are, by their very definition, a gross approximation of "the real thing", given the complexities and unknowns involved. In my profession, as well as many others, we have occasion to use complex, proprietary modelling software costing tens of thousands of pounds, for something so narrow field, mundane and predictable by any standard - sound waves only, and their propagation. And yet, even here, the number of times I have seen the results of "garbage in, garbage out"?

At least in the case of acoustics, we can be confident of the veracity of the basic 3D models underpinning such calculations, yet we by no means have such a luxury in the case of global warming *and* the data could be wrong.

I have an interest in Astronomy; in that field there are "burners of stars" - simplistic, virtual computer models to attempt to simulate the life cycle and behaviour of a single star, of varying mass. Despite all that we know, or think we know, we cannot get these models to replicate what actually happens in even common stars (let alone the more exotic types), even in very basic terms. By comparison, the complexity of these models pale to insignificance compared to global warming predictive models. To my mind, the eventuality that these could be wrong, and in fact very likely *are* IMO, does not seem like a "bollocks position".

And anyway, your parody of the sceptic position is just that mate - a parody. No-one has said that Mankind cannot affect the environment, as I've said, because to do so would clearly be bollocks.

[/quote]

Is it an inherently good idea though?

Imagine if actually, the relatively miniscule amounts of CO2 we're talking about, actually had bugger all climatical effect and the scientists were wrong. That would mean that actually, there would be no need to limit CO2 production - we could burn coal to make cheap energy (NB - I am ignoring *proven, genuine* pollutants such as SOx, NOx, these would obviously need to be cleaned up at source to avoid acid rain/smog, but not Global Warming in this example).

We could forget all about punitive CO2 limits on our industries and businesses (that the Chinese et al choose to ignore anyway - as if we weren't already uncompetitive enough anyway). We could stop "carbon trading" and all the cost, gravy train etc. that this entails. Car engines could be more *energy* efficient and cheaper to produce. Scientists could then devote their careers (and our money) on stuff that actually really did matter, instead of what is, to my mind at least, an unstoppable academic bandwagon?

It's fair to say that if the scientists ARE wrong on this, then that itself would prove to be an economic catastrophe in its own right. Which I guess is yet something else to consider.

Says who?
In yours and others' opinion, maybe so. Personally however, I think it's a good idea to have a basic decommissioning strategy and the required technologies in place etc. before committing and burdening future hapless generations with a deadly, costly, toxic mess. And that's assuming nothing goes badly wrong during the lifetime of each reactor.

Still, we've done that one.

Well, the alternatives are:

(a) run out of stuff to burn, or
(b) feck all, as renewables can't provide the baseload due to the massive variability of supply

so yeah, I says it's a good idea.

I don't disagree we need a decommissioning strategy (we need one pretty sharpish anyway as a number of the nuke plants are running out of lifetime soon), but the alternatives are currently short term to non-existent.

Hurricane Sandy has prompted a take-no-prisoners cover from Bloomberg Businessweek:



Scientific American has a look at the argument that climate change worsened Hurricane Sandy. Interestingly, joining in with the scientists are insurance firms:



Neat video that succinctly captures exactly why I think we, as a species, should be acting on climate change: because the risk of acting and then climate change not happening is far less than the risk of not acting and climate change being real:

Have I posted this yet?



I have now.

http://www.londonreconnections.com/2012 ... derground/



So at least some parts of our government think climate change is real...

Is the government not on the boat with it?

Coming next year! A new "climate change" clause next to "act of God" in your buildings, contents, car, travel and health insurance policies!

And a 20% premium hike despite it, obviously.

The insurance industry has long been aware of climate change, and has already been pricing for it for some time. It will, quite obviously, push up property insurance prices in areas susceptible to wind/flood/quake damage, etc, but large claim years will happen more often, making the insurance cycle (shit happens, prices go up, shit calms down, prices go down) have a greater frequency and adding volatility to the mix.

The main thing pushing insurance premiums up is the failure to get return on investment income. When the markets were booming the insurance companies could write their business at an actual loss, because the profit made from the premium investments more than offset it. Now, not so much.

Stop jumping to conclusions.

Yeah. It was an odd storm made worse by two COMPLETELY SEPARATE odd weather conditions.

Definitely nothing in that.

An analogy I liked: without steroids, Lance Armstrong was still a kick-ass cyclist, but he got even stronger when he took steroids [1]. We can't tell for sure how many seconds he shaved off his times, but it seems pretty reasonable to assume the answer was "an appreciable amount".

For extreme weather conditions -- floods, droughts, hurricanes, fires -- climate change is steroids for the weather. It doesn't create them, but it does exacerbate them.

[1] Unless you're a doping denier. Don't be that guy.

Which is why he said it warrants further investigation. Fucking hell.

Terrible analogy. The effects of steroids are entirely understood and predictable. The effect of CO2 and other GHGs in the Earth's atmosphere (in tiny ppm concentrations)? Not so much, especially when a whole bunch of other potential variables and unknowns are chucked into what is an already inordinantly complex mix beyond our full understanding, comprehension and most especially prediction - such as possible solar variability, opacity of the atmosphere, the actions of oceanic currents and all the rest.

Few would deny that climate change is upon us, but *it always has been*. The Earth's climate is, by its very definition, significantly variable over time and this well predates the industrial revolution, in fact mankind full stop. People who talk as though it is an *absolute indisputable given* that this climate change is wholly due to man made effects and specifically GHGs, simply do not have an intellectual mandate so to do I'm afraid.

Whereas you have proof that it is not appreciably due to man's activities because of....? Anything other than "Stands to Reason Dunnit"?

Well, I'm not the one making the assertion, but I'll be absolutely clear: I have no idea! However, surely it is for those who are making this (pretty unequivocal, absolute) claim to produce such hard evidence, not me. After all, they're the ones who are driving all this taxation and suffering on people as a direct result of their apocalyptic "we're all doomed" claims, through the imposition of "green taxes" and the massive rising costs of energy, in order to finance upteen noisy, inefficient, expensive windmills across our green and pleasant land, and various other (IMO highly dubious) so-called green techs.

But Cavey, surely the entire point of the steroids/EPO analogy was that storms and the like are not entirely caused by man and his emissions; instead they exacerbate them?

I know Curio, but the point I am trying to make/claim is that actually, we really don't know even if such storms etc. *are* exacerbated by man-made emissions, do we? (Unlike the effects of steriods etc., which *are* entirely knowable/known/understood).

I agree it sounds intuitively correct, but fuck me. We need more than that. As Perkies' earlier post demonstrates, it doesn't look like there's unanimity even within the mainstream scientific community on this point.

So no, then.


Isn't that precisely what a large number of scientists have done, though? Shown that man's activities have had a noticeable effect on the climate?

The alternative, that this is all some huge conspiracy cooked up by governments, their mates in the renewables industry and the IPCC in order to make more wind farms, is literally hysterical.

The fact seems to be that the best theory to explain the observations (i.e. the things which aren't up for serious debate outside the proper nutjob arena) is that our CO2 emissions are causing the climate to warm up. This isn't to say that there aren't other theories it's just that none of them are really any good when it comes to explaining the data. Obviously I am placing my faith for all this in the scientific community, but I literally cannot conceive of a more sensible way for anyone who isn't a climate scientist to form a view on the matter. But it's not just climate scientists who seem convinced, every scientific institution I have any respect for seems to be of the same view and quite forthright in their certainty over it. But they could all be wrong I guess.

Regardless of climate change, aren't our options along the lines of:

1. Put a fuck-load of effort into switching to green fuels and nuclear, using what oil's left for other purposes;

2. Don't do 1, then essentially end up completely screwed when 'things to burn' run out, probably a lot sooner than anyone thinks?

3) Colonize mars.

Or, as the video I embedded a few posts back says, the other way to look at it is to examine the worst case scenarios for each option:

1. We do stuff to prevent climate change and we didn't need to do stuff -> we spend so much money we cause a global depression that makes the '30s look like a cakewalk

2. We don't do stuff but did need to do stuff -> countries are decimated by flooding, famine, drought, and rising sea levels; oh, and also, a side order of a global economic depression that makes the '30s look like a cake walk.

For its imaginary oil reserves?

No, because there are women there with three tits. Right?

Details, mere details. If we set out to colonize mars as a national priority the benefits are:

Science and engineering sectors get a boost of resources.
Spaceships.
This will draw talent to the UK.
More spaceships.
This will improve the UK economy.
Awesome spaceships.
Deprived areas become developed as more emphasis is put on education to be part of this project.
Moral behaviour becomes the norm.
Spaceships.
The booming economy promotes internal and external investments in regions.
Foreign governments tender for contracts.
More spaceships.
Spin off tech reduces carbon dependency.

Basically, we can solve many social and economic problems by moving now to colonize mars. And then the uk will have mars. And spaceships.

It's a shame no one ever consults me on this.

You'd want it to be like EvE, though, with space-chavs scramming and ransoming each other.

Still, there does seem to be an awful lot of redheads in EvE's vision of the future, so carry on.

I dream of a future where my will be done. A utopia.

Your will will be done?

And women with three boobs.

I'm benevolent. A guiding hand to shepherd my people in the time of crisis. The phrophies say so.That, and I've actually come up with a workable solution to galvanize the world together in a spirit of love and cooperation. I'm doing something about these problems. Are you?

Total Recall... excellent stuff! I watched it again the other night, having bought it and a whole bunch of other cheesy Arnie films off Amazon for about £3 a pop for my sorry collection (the film buffs here would be distinctly unimpressed I feel, as indeed is Mrs C). I reckon JohnnyCabs on Mars are deffo the way forward.

"See you at ze party, Richter!11!"

Cavey is on board! Hurrah! With my brains and looks and Cavey's totally efficient moat we will go on to solve this terrible, terrible, blighted future.

First steps! Cavey, we need to go to the Bahamas and then to Vanuatu to investigate the problems they will face, show them our projections (i've done the slides) and then we will have an army if pe- i totally mean the full support of the kingdoms. We'll go to other places but only if BA fly there. But not Ipswich.

Saddle the horses, tonight we begin the fight!

Club World okay for you bro'? Soz, but I couldn't run to First Class likes.

I'll make it up to you when we get to Phobos, yeah?

any self respecting film buff loves Arnie, you big fool.

GET TO ZE CHOPPAH.

LET OFF SOME STEAM, BENNETT!

Well, the annual pre-budget report has canned the 3p fuel duty rise in January and has announced that there will be a consultation into offering tax incentives for Shale Gas mining. That's going to piss off the Green lobby.

ROYAL

BABY

WILL

SAVE

US

ALL

No one ever consults the Stainless Steel Rat.

Source: http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/11/15/wh ... -pie-chart

That just proves there's a cover-up in operation. You'd expect a higher proportion of dissenting papers than that due merely to statistical flukes in measurements and so on.

I'm always hugely amused by the way the government bigs up the UK "space economy", given that they include in their numbers all the downstream users of stuff in space. Consequently some daft proportion like 80% of what they're claiming as being our "UK space economy" is actually just Sky TV's turnover rather than English boffins making satellites and SABRE engines.