Maybe the ABC board did push management to show this “controversial” documentary about global warming. Maybe they didn’t. I don’t know. What I am pretty sure of is that the program itself a dishonourable beat-up, as explained by George Monbiot here in The Age, and also here and here on the RealClimate blog if you want more details.
Andrew Bolt is rolling around in ecstasy over this, but he’s kidding himself. For what it’s worth, I think it’s too late for the greenhouse deniers – their efforts have indeed delayed action for a decade, but the game is up. The publicity surrounding the decision to screen has probably had the counterproductive result of ensuring that a) it was impossible for the ABC to bury this nasty little doco, and b) ensured a much bigger audience (in exactly the same manner as banning Ken Park – a terrible film – ensured that film a considerably wider audience). But, frankly, they’re getting to the point that they have the same amount of credibility as the people who reckon the moon landings were faked. The infamous Fox TV documentary on that topic didn’t do any lasting damage to space exploration, intensely annoying though it was. And that’s the level of credibility the denialists have reached.
Or is the real worry the thought of Albrechtsen and Windschuttle throwing their weight around on other issues where their lunar right views are not quite so trivially easy to refute?
UPDATE: ABC managing director mounts a a fairly predictable defence based on the requirement to show a diversity of views. Hat tip to Gummo Trotsky.
Robert, while most will agree that “it’s too late for the greenhouse deniers – their efforts have indeed delayed action for a decade, but the game is up” – I’m sure most sane Americans would have thought that it was too late for the “evolution deniers”. However, they now seem to be running (and ruining) the world.
I also agree that if the ABC now decided not to run the program they’d be howled down by the RW commentariat for bowing to their supposed left wing masters and withholding important truths from the Australian people.
I just don’t get it. How can we continue to give so much attention to people who make statements based on poor or no evidence. THAT”S NOT BALANCE!
“Balance” is not sacred.
We do not need a balance between truth and lies.
We do not need a balance between intelligence and idiocy.
We do not need a balance between reason and insanity.
The ABC has no business clogging up its bandwidth and the minds of viewers with this irrational and counterproductive noise. That is againsat the public interest.
And however much the RightWing DeadMeats put on their PoMo masks and claim that their nutso beliefs are as valid as anyone else’s, I’m afraid that bigger-than-quantum-scale science does inform us that there is an objective reality Out There, which will come and eat us if we don’t pay attention. Or burn us, drown us, starve us, whatever.
Climate-change deniers in developed countries should be offered house and citizenship exchanges with the inhabitants of the Maldives, Tuvalu, and other tropical paradises.
Andyc writes: “Climate-change deniers in developed countries should be offered house and citizenship exchanges with the inhabitants of the Maldives, Tuvalu, and other tropical paradises.”
An apt choice for the deniers with the rising sea level scenario, but I’d prefer to nominate less salubrious places such as the outer rims of Greenland where the ice shelf is capsizing.
Apparently a diversity of views includes views that have been misrepresented.
Perhaps removing the Wunsch interview is one of the cuts that shortened the program from 90 minutes to 60.
The revenge mau mau’ing has begun big time at Our ABC: Kim Dalton has been wielding the machete to Factual Television, ABC2 and BANANAS IN PYJAMAS !!??
I can see how the Cons (nothin neo about em) are threatened by the ABC getting facts out onto our screens, and threatened by a way-cool digital ABC making inroads into the vacant space that is between Gen ZZZ ears, osmotically politicizing them via their technologicsal fetish …
But what’s does howard have to fear from B1 and B2? Surely it’s not because the show has a conniving rat on it, running a dodgy shop?
They really have lost the plot.
Check out Bolt on Lateline last night. Open the video and fast-forward to about 2:18. Notice the book he’s reading?
Crikey says…
Dear FredB
You pose the question:
“But what’s does howard have to fear from B1 and B2?”
He is afraid that B1 and B2 are about to announce their joint intention to run as ALP candidates against Alexander Downer and Peter Costello! Moreover B1 and B2 are perverting the minds of potentially “young liberals” just by deigning to appear on the ABC!
Just as the collapse of the trade centre twin towers upstaged Hollywoods best panic drama producers, global warming as illuminated by the science community has served up serious concern far faster than Howard can pace. His only hope to contain the environmental open wound is to patch it with a “band aid”. A 21 million dollar band aid to soothe the public pain that throbs “Howard failure”.
I think the only possible reaction to Howard’s scripted environmental plan is to treat it as Art, because it certainly will not be Science.
“Don’t send the brigade to fight the bushfire if it is caused by lighting rather than arson” is what Bolt et al implying, given that the sunspot theory doesn’t deny warmth (even if the weight of evidence is against the sunspottists and the little-green-rays-from-outer-spacers).
This entire self-righteous thread shows why politics should be kept out of complex scientific debates.
Piping Shrike,
I am interested in the colour of the sky above your planet and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Piping Shrike: The problem is that (as usual) scientists are being kept out of the simplistic political debates.
I can’t see why any scientist interested in inquiry and challenging orthodoxies would be interested.
Amazing responses to this show.
a) the Board influence question is a beat-up by The Age (though I don’t mind because the occasional beat-up is the price of necessary vigilance.
b) There is no mention of Claire Henderson in the restructure press release. The job is going, replaced by a more senior one. Will she apply? Dunno. Is there internal antagonism to her? No evidence. Why has Crikey and The Australian sprung so vociferously to her defence? Hmmmm… are we seeing some pre-emptive stirring.
c) The new position is supposed to strengthen kids TV – again according to the press release. So why are we assuming B1 and B2, good little earners that they are, are being boned?
d) why do we immediately assume that the Head of Television is some kind of reactionary beast? He is seriously respected by many in the independent community because he hasn’t drunk the ABC kool-aid and happens to believe that Auntie should be closely involved with the rest of the Australian production community.
e) You can pretty well bet that some of the opposition to Dalton comes from ABC insiders who are opposed to change.
f) explain to me again why the ABC should not evolve?
However, I do believe the opposition to this documetary is using a powerful argument. Yes to diversity, no to liars. Has Auntie’s standards been slipping in pursuit of popular appeal?
I think you just won the soundbite competition.
“Yes to diversity, no to liars.”
‘Amazing responses to this show”-David Tiley.
No way, David Tiley and Piping Shrike. We have already seen well enough what’s happened in the US, with whole slabs of that country back in the Dark Ages, banning Theory of Evolution from classes in favour peddling the medieval superstitionism of Creation Theory.
We have seen the damage done to SBS and ABC and we are well- familiar with the concept of “dumbing down” and why some have had it applied to Australian media.
We know from the Sunday- night “Eurovision” atrocity inflicted on us courtesy of the “new” SBS, alone, that if nothing else programming of garbage ensure a slot and its public are denied worthwhile TV.
We know Neo-Liberalism and Conservatism cannot answer critics via the medium of debate in the realm of fact, so that, as with Hitler, the answer from its proponents is censorship in its various forms.
Oh fair go! SBS has been running the Eurovision atrocity for centuries.
And it is Teh CULT PROGRAM.
Yes ,zoot. But there was a time when it ran a whole heap of more substantial stuff despite the shoe-string budget the miserable government allowed it.
And without the loathsome commecials it is now forced to run because of neo lib meanspiritedness.
Get rid of the government; not public broadcasting!
Paul Walter; I think what we see by sentiments expressed in this thread is that censorship and banning debate is not confined to the right.
Hey, who’s letting through these accusations that we’re about censorship and banning debate here? Here it is, 8:25 pm already and this comment from Piping Shrike still hasn’t been deleted.
Not good enough people! What’s happened to the dogmatism, the groupthink, the political correctness? Sheesh!
Piping Shrike
DO not question their religion. It’s all they have. They believed as fervently in the Y2K crisis (did not happen), in man-made Global Cooling (did not happen: hey, Edinburgh was supposed to be under an ice sheet by 2000!) and in mass starvation in the USA an Europe caused by the world’s population reaching 12 billion by 2000 (did not happen) etc etc
Lord, they even believed in communism – how ridiculous (in a blood-soaked welter-of-carnage way) is THAT?
The world is merely coming out of the little ice age, as the sun has warmed up a bit. It is not yet as warm as the Roman or Medieval warm periods.
Yet, these hysterics honestly believe that by putting a little more plant food into the air, we are changing the climate.
The amusement value of watching them banging on so earnestly over the dogmas of their pseudo-religion is tremendous, though! We should enjoy it while it lasts, before they move on to the next bed-wetting hysteria de jour. These last, on average, about 10 years. This one is peaking now, it’s the fourth one I’ve laughed myself silly over.
OOooh! Look! A man-made global warming denier!! And the ABC is permitting an alternative view to be aired! What hideous crimethink! How they get an attack of the vapours, those that are not swooning with outrage, of course.
Damned hilarious!
MarkL
canberra
It will be great when the ABC screens the show while Howard is trying to sell the concept of Nuclear Power generation to solve the Global warming problem. Will be the biggest wedge against his own die hard supporters imaginable, good on the ABC for getting the last laugh on these clowns. I think I’m beginning to appreciate the ABC Board’s sense of humour.
Bet you laughed your arse off over the idea that chlorinated flouro-carbons could deplete the ozone layer too, MarkL. Man, wasn’t that one a hoot! A hole in the ozone layer caused by Mortein, Glen-20 and Mr Sheen for crying out loud!
And out of all the governments of all the nations in the world only five have had enough sense to see through the scam and stay out of the Montreal Protocol: Andorra, San Marino, Timor-Leste, Vatican City and … Iraq!
I have to laugh at those who regularly talk about the loss of free speech under HoWARd also have the hide to say that to debate the issue of climate change is ‘manifestly wrong’
Deep belly laughs follow… because they ALWAYS miss the irony
MarkL
canberra
Some how, Mr 7%, I don’t think that 93% of the Australian people believed in communism. I don’t even think 7% did, which would mean that communism was one of the few ideas in Australian history with less public support than climate change denialism.
Who are you speaking of Mark L? I haven’t noticed that phenomenon here.
Mark,
Purely for your information, the only people who have used the phrase “manifestly wrong” on this page are firstly you, and now me.
Now then, do you actually have anything relevant to say, or did you just come here to sneer, jeer and generally make an ass of yourself?
MarkL, this behaviour is actually caused by the fluoridisation of the water you drink.
As such you are a victim of TEH COMMUNIST MIND CONTROL.
Turn yourself in to the Andrew Bolt Soy Bean Collective and Re-education Facility for immediate deprogramming.
Bit like saying MarkL, that all Rightwingers believe in and sprout militarism, facism and summary executions, but some we know do believe that, don’t they?
Interesting hypothesis assuming you’re not talking about the 11 year sunspot variation, but if so, perhaps some unique unusual sunspot activity stats would be most enlightening.
(Rather informative article on the sun’s activity and earth temperatures here:)
http://www.marshall.org/article.php?id=96
Just for once google some stats and investigate rainfall patterns in Oz over the last 100 years, taking El Nino into account and look for a trend. Try telling conservative farmers there is no climate change and that they’ve never had so much rain since Noah’s Ark.
Large chunks of antarctic ice breaking off before our eyes and departing the scene, which remove reflective areas that keep the world cool (which amplify the problem) but still there are those whose blindness is palpable.
Shorter MarkL: Everything I disagree with must be a lefty conspiracy. All scientists who disagree with me must be lefties and DIRTY ROTTEN HYSTERICAL LYING COMMUNIST SURRENDERMONKEYS to boot !!!
Hilarious.
kemp you are reading from the wrong playbook. global warming is meant to increase the amount of ice in antarctica.
Would you care to substantiate or explain that bizarre assertion dr mcduck?
Here is an irony.
The Swindle director comes from the far left, and is alleged to be in cahoots with the Spiked mob of ex Revolutionary Communists.
He has form in arguing against environmentalism as an attack on the world’s poor.
This. Does. Not. Compute.. Brane Hurts!
Perhaps not. Weren’t the Romans and mediaeval types fortunate that their populations were so much lower, and that there was plenty of room to migrate away from drought-stricken areas and sunken foreshores without having to engage in bloody wars all over the place (mind you, I seem to remember reading about a lot of wars in both periods actually – there couldn’t have been rather a lot of competition for the most fertile areas, could there?)
So all we have to do to get through the climate change is cull the population down to rather drastically fewer than we have now. Call me strange, but somehow I think that those culled will consider that rather calamitous.
It’s been going on since the captain of the Titanic rammed that iceberg, just to drown all the steerage passengers, David. Probably there are even earlier examples.
MarkL, rebuttals of all of your arguments may be found at RealClimate, but be warned, you’ll need to think scientifically.
On the subject of Howardist rigging of qangos and boards to gain compromised favourable results for ideologicalor business cronies,(eg, Monsanto), check out today’s “Age” article,
“CSIRO ‘dumps’ anti-GM expert”.
Just as well a 4 Corners program presented by the much-reviled Ticky Fullarton earlier, gave us the drop on the politicisation and dumbing-down of CSIRO, along similar lines to the ABC itself.
Zoot, one of the few advantages of living in this place is the opportunities one has to speak to actual climatologists doing actual climatology, and full access to their professional journals.
All of those climatologists will say privately to people they trust not to name them that positing a man-made cause for the current minor warming trend is laughable and quite unsupportable scientifically. And all of them put that as a factor in their funding requests – they don’t get money unless they pander to you fine bed-wetters and hysterics, you see. So that is where I get my data. If you prefer the risible cherry-picked garbage at RealClimate to fuel your religious cult’s frenzy, feel free.
This is exactly the sort of thing I have observed before, the pattern is the same as it was for global cooling, for the overpopulation hysteria etc etc. It never changes.
SOme people just like to play the role of ‘global crusade leader’ during these episodic bedwetting hysterias. While the personal reasons for doing so are contemptible (cultic religious fruitloops always act the same), there is one benefit to the cultic religious frenzy of the bed-wetters.
It provides rational people with endless amusement.
MarkL
Canberra
Gummo,
Increased precipitation from warmer oceans.
OK, I admit it, I’ve been sprung! Once I’ve washed the rubber undersheet, I’m going to go through that backlog of research proposals that I’m supposed to be checking for green/political correctness!
Dr McDuck,
Increased precipitation would merely make the poles wetter. If it’s coming from warmer oceans – well you do the simple logic.
I do seem to recall concerns being raised about the atmosphere in the Antarctic getting wetter – i.e more humid. Something to do with the possibility that actual rain (rather than hail, sleet and snow) is bad for the stability of the icecap.
Now increased albedo from more cloud cover I might have bought.
93% of people apparently.
and telepathically
MarkL, it’s easier to believe you’re fantasising than to believe climate scientists have no integrity.
MarkL, one of the advantages of the internet is that I have full communication with those same climatologists, and behind your back they call you a goose. Of course they only tell me because they know I won’t name them.
Just like Scientologists, eh? Straight for the ad hominem.
Please tell me again that you are not following a pseudo-religious cult? I need all the laughs I can get.
MarkL
Canberra
Here ya go MarkL:
Barrie Pittock
Who have you got?
Is that an e-meter in your pocket Mark, or are you just feeling a little frisky?
I’m getting more laughs than I can handle right now from your repeated demonstrations of escalating ineptitude. Do you plan to come up with any reasoned argument based on verifiable factual evidence any time soon?
One of the ways of picking a crank is to check for claims to secret knowledge from an elite which refuses to tell the hoi polloi.
Mark manages the mobius trick of both appealing to the secret elite, and accusing it en mass of deceiving the nation.
On one level, that is very funny.
On another level, he is a simple garden-variety self-aggrandising two-bit jack-shit liar.
Or self deluded. In fact, definitely self deluded if he thinks his evidence is worth anything.
In cyberspace, not all statements are equally credible.
Which they only bring on one time pads to impress Walter Mitty type armchair generals sitting in the janitorial basement of DFAT with dial up access to Google.
(Sounds a bit like a replay of the Khemlani affair: producing absolutely SFA out of six suitcases?)
Aren’t they burying this documentary by showing it on the ABC? You should be happy!
No, I think they wanted it banned altogether.
Good grief, no, Gummo! I drop by occasionally to laugh at the herd mentality and irrationality on display, an actual rational, reasoned discourse is hardly possible here, on this and many other topics. LP is strictly for amusement value. Why on earth should I attempt to engage in rational discourse with members of a religious cult? You see, doom-cultists know all the answers already, and want all heretics against the cult muzzled and banned… just like their predecessors did during the impending doom of the planet due to overpopulation (see ‘The Population Bomb’) and due to global cooling (see ‘The Coming Ice Age’) and due to global warming (see ‘Heat’). Oh, and just like the Scientologist whackjobs do. No difference at all, it is just the usual behaviour I’ve seen for 30 years.
The years will tell. Just like all the times before. As will the next bedwetting hysteric impending global doom de jour. And once again, as it was for global cooling, global warming, climate change and overpopulation, the “answer” will be EXACTLY the same! (It’s a simple game for simple people.)
Modern industrial society will be to blame no matter what the fantasy next time, and the ONLY way to save the world before we all die on a 10 year time line will be to radically modify industrial society and to place it under the control of the bedwetters!
And as for dear David: “One of the ways of picking a crank is to check for claims to secret knowledge from an elite which refuses to tell the hoi polloi.”
Poor fellow: he thinks various scientific journals located in libraries are ’secret knowledge from the elite’.
Well, he is absolutely right, of course. And rational people have a magic pass card to this elitist arcana held in places called ‘libraries’, David. Not just everyone can get one. The guardians of the secrets of the elites are called ‘librarians’. You may have heard of them?
MarkL
Canberra
It’s just a dressed up austerity pogramme.
Anyone interested has already watched the video on Google Video or YouTube (from where it has been deleted).
But in the general scheme of things I think MarkL is calling this right.
AGW is just a modern version of medieval apocalyptic and about as persuasive — which means, of course, it’s very persuasive.
Presumably, AGW sceptics posting on this thread would attempt to avoid at all costs the counter accusation that they are anti-AGW “bedwetters”.
And the only way of doing that is to concede the possibility, remote as it may be, that AGW is indeed occurring.
And so it would behove them to state now what they would accept as minimum evidence that the hypothesis that AGW is not occurring is incorrect.
If AGW sceptics can demonstrate that their evidentiary standards are relevant, consistent and parsimonious, then they are worth engaging.
Otherwise not.
Really? Then perhaps you’ll provide us with links to the slew of scientific articles predicting global cooling?
Or maybe MarkL could actually use his library card and find us just one peer-reviewed article presenting evidence that global warming isn’t caused by human activity. Oh, I forgot – they’re not getting funded or published – I supressed another half-dozen myself today. That no doubt accounts for the situation described in the graphic in this post at Troppo.
Just one article, Mark. Or would you rather give us another Tom Cruise lecture on the history of psychiatry instead? Even money says you take the Tom Cruise option.
New Scientist deals with the Ice Age prediction and gives it short shrift.
The potted version, for MarkL – in a 1971 paper a NASA scientist suggested that aerosol pollution might cause an ice age, the press beat the story up out of all proportion, NASA scientist 6 years later reviewed his data and changed his mind because the data wasn’t conclusively on the side of either warming or cooling.
What’s different this time around? A lot of scientists – we’re told – have looked over the data and seen the same thing. This is known in science as “repetition of results”.
Time you hied thee to a library Mr L.
I was referring, in case you can’t remember your own post MarkL, to the fact that you claimed to have had secret conversations with multiple climatologists (you used the word “all”) who only talked to you because they trust you not to reveal their names.
Do you think anyone believes you?
I’m sure the Scientologists could offer some effective cure for an obsession with bedwetting. All battiness is relative.
Rob: If… she… weighs… the same as a duck,… she’s made of wood.
MarkL: And therefore?
Rob: A witch!
MarkL, your path to credibility is to explain why in this graph the influence of the sun outweighs all the other forcings. Should be a cinch. Please go away and come back to tell us about it when you’ve finished. Up against you are the scientists from NASA GISS for starters.
The graph was cited in a post that looked at the extrapolations made by Jim Hansen in 1988 compared with what has happened.
You’d have to say that the usefulness of the model was very promising.
If you are having trouble wrapping your mind around all this stuff you might start with this post for beginners from RealClimate.
Time to ease up on the homework, I think. The poor guy’s never going to get any leisure time if we keep this up.
drscroogemcduck, Gummo and all. I gave the short story of what is going on in Antarctica here.
Gummo is right in that Antarctica is essentially dry. I recall commentary that the air is so cold that you often see snow falling from a blue sky. As the area warms scientists thought there would be more snow. A study last year found that as yet it hasn’t happened.
This University of Colorado study found that the ice sheet was losing mass. The methodology used, as I understand it, was via satellite measurements of the total mass through its gravitational pull.
If it starts raining in Antarctica, then watch out, we’re in big trouble.
If you want a more complicated version of what is going on this one should fill the bill.
While the continent is cold and fairly stable the ‘more heat means more snow’ story may be still to come.
Nevertheless the mechanics (dynamics) of the cryosphere seem to indicate that if you get warmer ocean around the continent you are likely to lose more ice.
Since those articles and posts I can only report the sighting of some clouds and the discovery of some lakes under the ice. Possibly bad news, it’s hard to say.
If anyone has found more recent material that puts a new complexion on things, please don’t hold back.
I’ve seen The Great Global Warming Swindle. In my opinion it’s brilliant! Congratulations to the ABC for deciding to air it; the warming fraternity have had it too good, to long. Good conclusions in science only come about through debate and it’s about time the general populace was given the facts regarding alternative points of view.
Let’s face it, thousands around the world have made a good living from this scaremongering. In my opinion this doco will upset the applecart for these spongers and hopefully they may in time be forced to get real jobs instead of sucking year after year on the public purse. Fear is a marketable commodity and there will always be those sharks who cash in on it.
Too all you ‘warmers’ in this thread, this old farmer can’t help chuckling at the panic exposed in your feeble efforts to talk up your ridiculous beliefs. We all accept that warming is happening, (these cycles have been going on since the year dot,) but how absolutely stupid it is to believe that we humans can interfere with our planet’s vast weather systems!! Grandiose thinking indeed!
Wow, quake in fear ‘warmers’, if an already-debunked doco that one of it’s sources claims severly misreperesented his position can have a Damascene effect on RetiredGrazier72, we really are doomed. Wind down the IPCC, guys, RG72 can see right through us…
Leinad, a typical response & just what I expected. Your type’s use of smileys always amuses me.
Bet you grew up in one of those concrete jungles they call a city. Sort of stunts your conception of reality, doesn’t it; all that nasty CO2!
Old-timer, I’m 67 and grew up on a farm. I remember the droughts of the 1940s, saw photos of parched earth and starving cattle from earlier times and have experienced flood, drought, heat and cold since. Memories of the weather over the last 70 years at a specific place on the planet mean nothing, I’m sorry to say.
What you need to do is this graph showing our carbon usage since 1850, then look at what’s been happening to the temperature on the whole planet. There is real science connecting the two. One of the RealClimate scientists recently said the science is about as solid as saying a bowling ball dropped from an airliner will fall to ground. In other words as solid as gravity.
If you want to prove otherwise you’ve got a bit of work to do. But let’s be clear, the onus is on you.
Late last year I met the guy who was the eldest kid on the farm next door. He must be about 10 years older than I. He told me to read a book by a bloke called Yeomans, the son of the guy who invented keyline farming and the chisel plough. I think it might be this one. He’s still a farmer, not retired, and there was no doubt in his mind that we have a problem.
Just on Antarctica, the New Scientist has a neat summary of the situation. It pretty much confirms what I said. It seems that Antarctica was grew slightly from 1992 to 2003. But they have found that there was a net loss from 2002 to 2005. It’s too short a time period to base predictions on.
“One of the RealClimate scientists recently said the science is about as solid as saying a bowling ball dropped from an airliner will fall to ground. In other words as solid as gravity.”
Well so too is the fact that co2 is nearly twice as heavy as air therefore it too is forever falling where 70% is absorbed by the oceans which cover nearly three quarters of the world’s surface.
Also the desciption piece on Yoeman’s book ends by stating: ‘Clearly, potential impacts from climate change require immediate attention because of the uncertainties, not in spite of them.’ Which to my mind emphasizes that we are not dealing with an exact science. In other words there are too many ifs & buts. By the time the doomsday forecasts are proven true or false we’ll all be long gone. It may well be proven that the billions spent on mere speculation could have been put to far better use.
Bye the way I tips my lid to the inventer of the chisel plough, definitely my all-time favourite implement. Having access to the subsoils are a must for all successful cropping.
Bollocks! There are only two mechanisms which would lead to absorption of CO2 by the oceans:
(1) Conversion into carbonic acid (H2CO3): this one is limited by the chemical equilibrium H20 CO2 < => H2CO3. Once the H2CO3 concentration is saturated, that’s it sunshine.
(2) Photosynthesis by phytoplankton. The problem there is, no nutrients (particularly nitrogen) = no uptake of CO2. Plus, as any biochemist worth his, or her, salt could tell you, that’s essentially a chmical equilibrium too – so once the saturation point is reached, that’s it – no more uptake.
RG72 I think he’s talking about risk and the precautionary principle. I don’t know whether the book’s any good, but I’ve just spent $5.86 so I can find out.
If his brain is half as good as his dad’s it should be OK.
Well that’s all right then. I don’t have to do anything cause it’s my grandchildren’s problem. Thanks RG72, I can sleep peacefully tonight.
RG72
Perhaps you need to clear up your understanding of what is constituted by “science” ?
For instance, the term “exact science” as you use it is meaningless – all scientific theories represent the most probable outcome/result(s) from a given set of actions and influences (as opposed to “exactitude” you seem to feel is necessary.
The levels of probability of adverse conditions resulting from AGW, and the fact that AGW is occurring, are in the 90-95% range ( certainty is 100%) – which is why the scientists on the IPCC have stated that AGW is real, and is a major threat, both ecologically and socially.
It may also be instructive for you to consider that the technological basis of our civilisation has been built from such “inexact” sciences, with a great deal of success.
Help – SPAMINATOR attack !!! AGAIN !!!!
(weeps, bashes head against monitor)
I even tried a different email address, but for some reason, it HATES me!
But if you are planning power stations, any major power-using industrial facility, rods, railways, any significant infrastructure, especially coastal etc you need to know what roughly what the scenario is going to be in 2020, 2030 and indeed 2050. If you are providing or buying insurance you need to as Michael Hawker of Iag says, monetise risk.
It’s about risk and probability and the odds don’t look good. As I said in my post on the most recent IPCC report:
If you want to see what 2C or 3C means look at Figure 2 on page 5 of Stern’s Executive Summary (pdf).
Howard, I’m sorry to say, still doesn’t get it.
Hard to say why, Pterosaur, but it is Word Press that hates me. I copy a bit from an earlier post in it containing links. All of them work except one. I then have to take it out, find the url and re-insert it. And it’s just done to annoy me!
Gummo Trotsky. Bombastic responses never impress me, especially when they are accompanied with pseudo-scientific mumbojumbo. Haven’t you heard of the biological pump??
I bet any one of these 17200 people could explain the process to you very easily.
Explanation – Global Warming Petition Project.htm
RG72
You don’t impress me either, RG72. Perhaps because it’s because what you call “pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo” is stuff that I learnt years ago as real science – first at a suburban high school (how carbon dioxide dissolves in water, and why it doesn’t stay there, what plankton is and what photosynthesis is) and later at a university (the biochemistry).
And I sincerely hope that they’re still teaching at least some of that “mumbo-jumbo” – the bits that haven’t been supplanted by more recent discoveries – today. Doubt that the chemistry of Carbon dioxide has changed that much in thirty years though.
Leaving this thread now while still believing man made global warming is a scam! It’s fairly clear to most of us now that earth gets warmer and cooler periodically, mostly due to changes in solar output. Man has nothing to do with it.
Incidentally the IPCC report is well known to have LIED about the amount of CO2 in the air for the last 180 years. Current CO2 is about 379 ppm, but in 1940 it was 420 ppm and in the 1820’s it was 470 ppm. Where were the disastrous runaway greenhouse events from those big spikes in CO2? They didn’t happen! In fact, for several decades after the 1940 peak, the earth got cooler. CO2 is simply NOT a driver of climate. The ice core records clearly show that CO2 is a climate FOLLOWER: As the earth warms (from the activity of the sun) the oceans release more & more CO2. As the earth cools, the oceans absorb CO2. Absorb that!
One more thing Gummo,so how does CO2 dissolve in drinks if there’s no mechanism for it to dissolve in water? What’s more, in my soda water the gas is good right to the last drop, so there must be good mixing. Otherwise when we drank it we’d come to a very flat portion at the top and a very fizzy bit at the bottom, because the CO2 is the heavier.
CO2 gets into water in at least two ways – it comes from volcanoes under water, and as it is heavier than most other gases in the atmosphere it tends to sink towards the earth’s surface, again most of which is ocean. As it contacts the ocean surface, particularly when seas are rough, much carbon dioxide dissolves in the water and is absorbed by the grasses of the ocean – algae and plankton.
Any biochemist that would argue with that should rethink his career. Cheers
One more thing Gummo,so how does CO2 dissolve in drinks if there’s no mechanism for it to dissolve in water?
RG72, if you read my comment on that subject with a little more attention, you’ll note that I did not say that there was no way for CO2 to dissolve in water – I said that the process was limited by a chemical equlibrium.
How do they put the fizz in beer, and soda water? By putting it in under pressure, pushing the equilibrium point towards the H2CO3 side of the equation. That’s why, if you examine a bottle of soda water that hasn’t been opened, you won’t see any fizz in it. The CO2 stays dissolved until the pressure is released.
Once the pressure is released, and the solution is back at atmospheric
temperaturepressure, the solution is no longer at equilibrium. Equilibrium is restored by the release of all those little bubbles of CO2. This might take a little time, but once the process is underway it’s irreversible (unless you put the CO2 back in under pressure. Hence the phenomenon of flat beer.)Incidentally, you can speed up the process by dropping a small stone into the soda water – that provides an irregular surface where it’s easier for bubbles to form.
And the reason it’s fizzy all the way through? Because carbon dioxide in gaseous form is a lot less dense than water. So bubbles that form anywhere in the glass are much less dense than the water around them – they get pushed upwards by water settling around them. Unless molecular scale electrical attraction and surface tension keep them stuck to the side of the glass.
I’m not totally convinced that ‘Climate Change’ is primarily caused by human activity…tho i imagine we are having a deleterious effect on the environment, but as to the extent, percentage wise & such, i reckon the figures presented have more to do w/ politics & funding as much as anything else…
but in the long run i’m keen to see more alternative & renewable energy sources used…& a much more diverse use of transport…so if the argument/theory works to shift the voter’s perception i’m all for it…;)
The fossil fuelers need some REAL competition. Their bank vaults & tangible assets are over-flowing & they have way too much influence on polies of all persuasion.
Let’s see the Dawning of a New Age…less reliance on old resources, technolgies & formulas. Anyway, I imagine this will suit most of the BIG energy Corporations now…considering how they’ve benefitted from this global “war on Terrorism”…:(…& have gathered the money & assets to move into these alternative energy areas…buy up intellectual property rights & small research companies & fund private/public research projects…crikey, imagine if Al Gore had shifted the energy balance w/out a War in Iraq?…now that would have HURT the fossil fuel types. Lucky them gettin’ G.W. & Cheney instead eh?…:)
Now oil can become a rarer commodity, averting problems of ‘peak oil’ & worth a darn site more…soon to become the preserve of the ‘rich & famous’.
Nasking, I suggest you look at this graph from NASA GISS of climate forcings. They’ve got it pretty much taped. They know what’s there, how much of it came from volcanoes and other natural processes.
RG72, I’ve got a brother still a grazier (aged 72, as it happens) and have kept some contact with rural folk. I find that they both respect and disrepect persons of science and learning. Unfortunately they often stay curious only until they find an expert opinion that suits them. I’m aware that there is undue currency among them at present that the answer is sunspots and/or cosmic rays. It gives them hope of better times to come, and for some the theory gains respectability because of the reputations of Inigo Jones and his successors at Crohamhurst Observatory, who were (are) big on sunspots.
Unfortunately there are no patterns that stack up with observations of what is going on in the last half century whereas the models of TEH EVIL, greedy AGW climate scientists perform quite well. You might like to have a look at what real scientists say about sunspots and cosmic rays.
Science: 1 — RG72: 0
this is a really important documentary…
i used to assume that global warming was from co2 emissions simply because everyone said it was in the media.. i should have known better than to trust the media!
But when Al Gore jumped on the bandwagon and made his film, alarm bells rang in my head, as Al Gore is no saint thats for sure, if u look into his real past he is a nasty piece of work, a typical political puppet professional liar..
so when i watched The great global warming swindle it all made sense, its a scam, its about politics and money.. im a “greenie” and always have been, but im no idiot either, and i can see that co2 is not causing global warming, it is polluting our world and we should do something about it, but not in the way we are which will cause poor countries to suffer even more, the kyoto treaty is a scam too, just because a lot of well meaning environmentalists support the co2 theory doesnt make it right.. people need to make up their own mind and have some perspective and common sense and look at the scinence and see where al gore has deliberately mis represented the facts as he was paid to do.. wake up people, once a puppet always a puppet
Generally understood, but rarely publicized is the fact that 95% of the greenhouse effect is due solely to natural water vapor. Of the remaining 5%, only 0.2% to 0.3% of the greenhouse effect (depending on whose numbers you use) is due to emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases from human sources. If we are in fact in a global warming crisis, even the most aggressive and costly proposals for limiting industrial carbon dioxide emissions would have an undetectable effect on global climate.
Jason
Generally speaking
Unless you want to go around also saying “bacteria! ha! they’re tiny and I’m large!” the sun! 92 million miles away! it couldn’t possibly keep us warm” you might want to approach it from “what amounts are significant and are they there”
Specifically
It’s wrong
Thnx for the links Brian. I’m slowly going thru the research & studies. Everything helps.
Like I said: “i imagine we are having a deleterious effect on the environment”
Time for a change methinks.
Jason said
Hmmm. Really? Is it only me who has trouble with this?
Cheers…
Models are GIGO. For instance, sequester enough CO2 and you starve plant life, cut down on oxygen and CO2, and freeze the planet. We will then need to burn the furniture to keep warm which could tip over into burning the remaining oxygen while we all choke in the cold. Sound incredible? It is.
The planet has evolved mechanisms over geological time (4.5 billion years of trial and error) to protect itself. Earth’s climate varies for a lot of extraterrestrial reasons. The shortest period has to do with the interplay of solar activity and cosmic radiation from the Milky Way. During quiet periods of solar activity, like now, cosmic radiation penetrates the atmosphere and creates clouds where conditions permit. Over long periods this cools the earth. Most of the time however, sun’s magnetic activity induces earth’s geomagnetic field. The geomagnetic shields are up during most of the 11 year sun spot cycle. Earth’s cooling (1940-1965) and earth’s heating (balance of the 20th century) is 95% correlated to sunspot peak frequency. Short cycles induce cooling and long cycles induce warming. This is a magnificently balanced system because the total solar irradiance varies very little. The subtlety is the correlation with sunspot peak frequency. During the Maunder Minimum there were no sunspots and the world suffered through the Little Ice Age.
CO2 has come out of the planet during 4.5 billion years of volcanic activity. Plants use CO2 to produce carbohydrates, oxygen and water vapour. Free oxygen is not produced by volcanoes. CO2 has the property of inverse solubility. Global warming from the sun forces CO2 out of the ocean in increasing quantities like warming beer. CO2 is the effect, not the cause of the warming. Moreover, the absorption wavelength for CO2 in the spectrum is filled. CO2 will not contribute any more heating. The analogy is adding a second Venetian blind to your window may not make the room any darker.
Sea level is said to be rising (ICPP) at 2 – 3 mm a year. Since the Pleistocene it has risen 125 metres (6 mm a year) and most of the coastal tribes of the earth have a Noah. The coral reefs of the oceans have kept pace because of a symbiotic relationship with algae that keep them thriving in the sunlit surface of the sea no matter how fast sea level rises. Barrier bars like the Atlantic longshore bar are dynamic features that are fed sand by Piedmont rivers and maintain themselves in the surf zone. A summer beach is wide and fine and a winter beach is coarse and steep. Common sense needs to be applied.
By the way modern coal-fired power plants produce electricity, water vapour and CO2; plant food not pollution. The US has enough coal and oil shale to support itself for 1,000 years. This AGW piece is political, not scientific, and is coming out on party lines.
jason the shorter story on water vapour is this.
The greenhouse effect gives us about 30C of warming which makes the planet inhabitable, and it’s mostly water vapour that does it. A significant portion of it is CO2. It’s what happens at the margin that makes the difference now.
What has been happening very strongly in the past half century is that increasing amounts of CO2 and other greenhouse gases have been going into the atmosphere. There is a direct heating effect, but this is amplified by, wait for it, a feedback loop involving water vapour.
You don’t need much at the margin to make a big difference. 5 degrees colder and we’d be deep in an ice age with the sea level about 120m lower.
Dr Francis, the earth has had some pretty wild times in the past billion years, but no species has come along that could fowl the whole planet, before us, of course. And that’s a by-product of modern industrial civilisation.
The problem with all that cosmic radiation and sunspot stuff is that it is very much a theory. If you look at this thread from comment 37, and particularly raypierre’s responses in comment 69 and in comment 90 you’ll see what needs to be done before the claims can be taken seriously.
By the way, coming out of the last ice age, according to James Hansen, the sea rose by a metre every 20 years for 400 years. As a rule of thumb the coastline recedes 100 metres for every metre rise. Enjoy the wide beaches while you can.