Wilkins ice shelf breaking away?

Ha ha that's exactly what I was looking at; the pair of rubberneckers at the back are looking for a piece of the action too, but I get the impression they're not fully initiated.

And +1 to batmy (the climaty bit that is)

Yes, and if you understood paleoclimatology you would know that they were correct, and you would also know that if someone were to argue 'climate change is nonsense because they used to say we're entering an ice age', that they didn't know what they were talking about.

If you want to understand climate science, atmospheric chemistry and paleaoclimatology then you will need to do more than read newspapers and nonsense websites, or listen to the bloke waffling on about it in your office.
I don't like elitism, but if you want to be able to even begin to understand these issues you have to go and learn about them at a level where you can understand the basic concepts. Up until then your opinion is free to be voiced, but it is, like religion and fantasy, baseless.

I need a bit of clarification. To accept global warming theory requires only to look at a few graphs or watch an Al Gore film. To refute it requires schooling in some seriously acedemic specialist subjects? That's a difficult one for sure.

Global warming appears to be an irrefutable fact. That's global small G, as in the observation of increased recorded temperatures. I understand that the mechanism that is driving this remains as yet unproven. To me this is where the argument goes awry, a valid observation being tied to an unproven theory of its cause.`I'm being quite specific in my understanding of the proof of theories here; I'm not in any way saying that the those mechanisms espoused are shite.

Feel free to enlighten me with some choice material or links, though I must warn you that I went to work at 17 so keep it as light as possible please.

As to bringing religion into it, I see what you did there you canny fellow.

"Global Warming" isn't an irrefutable fact, as even the IPCC accept that for the last 10 years it has been cooling. It's way more complex than just "warming".

"Climate Change" is an irrefutable fact. The climate is changing. The climate, however, has always been changing. There's nothing wrong with that. The earth has gone through bigger climate changes than this before humans came along. What demands action is that we as a species have to somehow cope with it.

The "climate chaos" camp behaves like a religion. It claims that it has the only truth, and will happily use dodgy science, spurious computer models, ignore inconvenient data and create masses of propaganda to support its arguments. This noise obscures the real science. And of course the people who refute their theories are written off as crackpots and corrupted.

And I am sure exactly the same charge can be levelled at the other side.

Each side is corrupted by the desire for political power and financial gain. Organisations like Greenpeace, for example, have a political agenda that has little to do with stepping lightly upon the planet and a lot to do with anti-capitalism. They have a vested interest, and a successful track record, in blaming the industrialised west for causing climate change, when in fact the causes are hotly disputed.

I say the causes don't matter, because it cannot be stopped. Therefore governments should stop spending money on trying to stop something that cannot be stopped and spend it on finding out what kind of climate we are heading into and making sure we can live in it.

Indian Runner, those links are bullshit.
OK I'm convinced. Scientific argument is really persuasive.

... you would also know that if someone were to argue 'climate change is nonsense because they used to say we're entering an ice age', that they didn't know what they were talking about.

Who's arguing that? Climate changes; that's what happens. Its man's contribution that's at issue.

As for "there has been no warming in the last ten years" that is the equivalent of saying 'it was hotter yesterday than it was today therefore we are entering an ice age'.
No. No. That is the equivalent of saying "there has been no warming in the last ten years". Just that and nothing more. Don't put words into my mouth.

I'm the scientist; listen to me. But what if there are other scientists who take a different view? - http://www.uncommondescent.com/science/400-scientists-disputed-man-made-global-warming-us-senate-report/ and http://www.heartland.org/events/NewYork09/newyork09.html

Oh hell, we'll have to decide for ourselves. Which is why I put up the original links.

The last ice age finished in my mates front garden. So he says. Human beings will have wiped themselves out long before this planet wipes them out. So its all irrelevant anyway. But thats just my ignorant opinion. This planet and all the other things on it will be much better off for it to once us scum have gone

Yes, hurry up about it. then I can have all your bikes.

goes to buy coal-fired-power station and some nukes

checks bank account and changes mind

wow where did richard cheese come from
we have our very own oxford prof on the forum ... welcome sir

the whole basis of the rapid rise in climate has come from 200 years worth of measurement and archealogical and geological findings both of which i presume there will be an margain of error in the data
how can we make a true conclusion based on data from the last 200 years when the globe has been reacting in some form of an equilibrium for billions of years the time scale is too short

maybe the opening of the wilkins ice sheet will allow for a different flow of water around the globe changing temperature and regulating itself

OK I'm convinced. Scientific argument is really persuasive.

Well, I've read those links and seen that there are really very few arguments within them that are based on scientific knowledge. They are the tabloid equivalent of 'science', and the vast majority of the arguments in them are bullshit. I don't care about convincing you, because the evidence that they are bullshit is contained within their pages.

Who's arguing that? Climate changes; that's what happens. Its man's contribution that's at issue.
No it's not. Firstly MMCC had not been discussed in these pages, so it is not at issue; secondly the point was that your use of the 'well they used to say we're entering an ice age' was I presume used to show that scientists are changing their minds on the behaviour of the climate, which in the instance of an impending ice age, they are not.

No. No. That is the equivalent of saying "there has been no warming in the last ten years". Just that and nothing more. Don't put words into my mouth.
Your statement that says there has been no warming in the last ten years may well be true, but I would imagine you put that point forward to make some sort of statement about climatic change. Many people use this argument to suggest that there is no warming occurring, and they are wrong to do so. As badtmy pointed out, warming occurs regionally to extremes whilst not affecting the overall global mean. The warmest years on record occurred 10 to 15 years ago, so to say there has been no warming since then is daft, as the current mean is still higher than it had been prior to those years.

I'm the scientist; listen to me. But what if there are other scientists who take a different view? - http://www.uncommondescent.com/science/400-scientists-disputed-man-made-global-warming-us-senate-report/ and http://www.heartland.org/events/NewYork09/newyork09.html

Oh hell, we'll have to decide for ourselves. Which is why I put up the original links.

I agree, but put up some decent links if you want to convince people, not nonsense websites and opinion pieces based on hearsay and politics.

I need a bit of clarification. To accept global warming theory requires only to look at a few graphs or watch an Al Gore film. To refute it requires schooling in some seriously acedemic specialist subjects? That's a difficult one for sure.

Nope. Did I say that? No.
My feeling on this is that people are too willing to jump in either camp without knowing about the science, and I mean a sound experience-based knowledge.
If you were to suggest that I think the greater populace is too dumb to understand the basis then you would be very wrong.
I believe the greater populace is more than capable of understanding the facts, but at present they do not because they simply don't have the time or resources to get that level of knowledge.
The shame of it that most people get their knowledge of this matter (whether it's pro or anti) from bullshit websites like those that IndianRunner put up, or simplistic arguments found in the Guardian/Mail etc.
The very fact that you are happy to use the term 'global warming' is a good example of this. It is not a term used in climate science as it is not correct - it was a term coined by and for the use of the press, and as such has caused much controversy as it leads people to believe that scientists are moving the goalposts by changing their terminology, whereas they have never changed their terms, but the press have.

see, here's the thing. i'm not a climate scientist (although i have a science degree in biology, this isn't much use in this debate). i understand that the people who know most about climate science are climate scientists. so i am willing to trust their expert judgment on the matter. i don't have the time, raw data or expertise to independently weigh up the claims of every climate scientist or research body in the world, so i think the only rational way to approach the problem is to believe the consensus from the greatest number of experts who have had their research published in peer-reviewed journals and whose theories fit best with other accepted theories - on a macro level this is how science works, innit.

all this talk of "green mafia" and "greenpeace has a political agenda" is merely obfuscation of the fact that the strong majority of climate change experts (and it's not a 51/49 split, it's much stronger than that) are in agreement that anthropocentric climate change is real and is likely to cause significant problems for human civilisation.

unless the majority of scientists decides to change its collective mind, i reckon we should take these claims seriously. grassy knoll "lefty conspiracy" theories are really just attempts to cloud the actual scientific debate in politics (cunningly disguised as a whinge that lefty commie greenies are using politics to discredit denialist science).

wow where did richard cheese come from
we have our very own oxford prof on the forum ... welcome sir

the whole basis of the rapid rise in climate has come from 200 years worth of measurement and archealogical and geological findings both of which i presume there will be an margain of error in the data
how can we make a true conclusion based on data from the last 200 years when the globe has been reacting in some form of an equilibrium for billions of years the time scale is too short

maybe the opening of the wilkins ice sheet will allow for a different flow of water around the globe changing temperature and regulating itself

No, the data is based on several hundred thousand years of proxy measurements, compared to the recording collected over 200 years.
I find the work done by these 'scientists' to very thorough and very sound in it's practice. They are experts in their field acknowledged as such by their contemporaries regardless of opinion clashes. I therefore am inclined to listen to what they have to say on the matter - rather than the some ill-informed based 'climate-experts'.
I have read arguments by scientists who disagree with what is the paradigm view, and some of them make very good arguments too, but their arguments don't really stand up to too much scrutiny.
Personally I don't give a flying fuck what happens to the planet, I just can't believe the amount of ill-informed nonsense that people spout on this matter -the good thing that comes out of this is that people are beginning to explore this more deeply instead of listening to randoms, but it is a really unfortunate fact that the scientific journals are unavailable to the greater population.

god i'm fed up with being doomed.

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Bow-and-Arrow

Any points that I have made on the science (not the arguments) are in my esteemed(!) opinion correct as I understand them.
I wouldn't like to think that anyone 'believes' me though - that would be equally as blind as believing the gibberish in some of those aforementioned links.
All those that want to know the facts should stop listening to people who use terms like 'global-warming', 'green-taxes' and 'eco-fascist' and get down the library and start reading some journals.
If however you are happy to base your knowledge on what complete strangers who could well be bullshitting tell you, listen to me or read IndianRunners links, and make your choice, but it would be a foolish choice.

it's all heresay

you can use statistics to prove anything
ask the labour government

The very fact that you are happy to use the term 'global warming' is a good example of this. It is not a term used in climate science as it is not correct - it was a term coined by and for the use of the press, and as such has caused much controversy as it leads people to believe that scientists are moving the goalposts by changing their terminology, whereas they have never changed their terms, but the press have.

Thanks for the clarification. Climate change it is then?

I'm off to buy a load of baked beans and make sure my section 2's in date.

I'm amazed (well, surprised) that some people are still having a discussion about climate change and man's contribution to it. Come on, these are both facts! Putting aside the thousands and thousands of scientists who are in complete agreement, doesn't common sense tell you that if we pump massive amounts of pollutants into the atmosphere and cut down huge swaths of the worlds forests as we have been doing for the last 150 years, we are going to do some damage to our environment?

But if common sense isn't your thing, then just look at the IPCC. Hundreds of scientists from all around the world, meeting and coming up with a consensus opinion, which is that humans are making a significant impact on climate change. To dispute this is like arguing against evolution.

The only argument should be what are we going to do about climate change, or as mentioned above, if we can't stop it, how are we going to live with it.

A bloke asked me the other day (and this is true) whether i believe in evolution of a species. i said in reply "its not a matter of believing but a scientific fact" ,
and he started to laugh at me !
i asked him why
and he said, "your so stupid, god made everything."
strange bloke i thought.
then i asked him who or what caused variation of species then he unquestionably said "god, of course"
i started to laugh at him, just to make a point.
Funnily, he thought i was being insensitive and rude.

i've always considered myself concerned and interested in the environment as well as being rational scientist. i'm not an expert on ecology or climate change but my background is philosophy of physics and i'll defend scientific method to the end. on top of that i've always been pretty passionate about all things conservation and yet... and yet there is still a nagging doubt in my mind about much of this. token environmentalism is such a cash cow these days that i find it hard to sort the wheat from the chaffe when trying to filter much of the information available. it's so tied up in claim and counterclaim, faddy buzzwords, scaremongering, potentially dangerous spurious "debunking" i don't know where to start. i really want to get on board with the good guys. by which i mean the kind of people who will stand up for the unpleasant facts in the face of spin and denial and lead by example in making personal sacrifices for the greater good. but i find it hard to know exactly who to believe. it's not helped when you find out who you thought were the good guys "thanks a lot al gore" are often just as guilty of manipulating data... an even plain making shit up to sell a story. or a product. or a lifestyle.

basically, with limited access to the latest raw, dry, unemotional facts i find it very hard to get a clear picture in order to be able to make my own mind up. i'm not swayed by pictures of sad looking polar bears, nor do think that i'm "doing my bit" by pumping up the tyres on my oil-burning-filth-spewing car (see the poster on the back of busses suggesting that you make a contribution to the cause in this way!). I need FACTS in order to make up my own mind and i don't know where to get them. I would dearly love to get these nagging doubts laid to rest and get fully on board but i just can't. not just yet.

having said all that i think the only rational, sensible, prudent thing to do is err on the side of caution and do your best to minimise your potential impact because, well, why wouldn't you? given a choice between doing what you can to minimise a potentialy very bad thing, and doing nothing and potentially contributing to the potential bad thing... hmmm that didn't come out very well. too many potentials. but i'm sure you know what i mean. why not recycle? why not try and minimise energy use, investigate cheap, clean energy sources? etc. most of these things make sense from a personal, economic, micro-environmental and plain old happiness point of view anyway.

yours, onboard but still confused and healthily cynical,

dooks.

Why not recycle?

1. Because it's not very environmentally friendly. Landfill aside (the space it takes up is the only problem - otherwise it's pretty much the most inert disposal method that exists). Unless you're recycling metal (pretty much any recycling process is cleaner than mining and smelting). It takes more energy, chemicals, fuel etc to transport, sort, store and process recyclable goods than to create new ones.
   
   

In the case of paper you're also adding to CO2 by preventing trees being planted. Paper comes from managed and sustainable tree farms, not endangered forests. Every tree that is felled is replaced by two or 3 more - and we know that smaller trees absorb more CO2 than larger ones.

Glass comes from silicone - the most plentiful substance on the planet - you'd probably be better off crushing glass and dumping it back into the sea, which will turn it back into sand - now that's wave power! And cleaning bottles and re-using them actually takes more energy and toxic chemicals than recycling them.

1. Because it salves the consciences of the heavy consumer, who will continue to buy too much, packaged to excess, and waste it, thinking they are doing a good thing by recycling their waste. But creating the waste in the first place is the thing that you should be avoiding. Buy only what you can use, and buy as little pre-packaged stuff as possible.
   
   

This is a simplistic view of course. There are all sorts of considerations which I am sure you can read about on the web from many sources. Some of it may lead you to different conclusions than I reached. I merely raise the point to encourage you to think about these issues rather than following meekly. Rather than recycling everything, consider what you actually buy and how you buy it.If you're only going to eat half that bag of spuds before they go off, why not buy fewer loose ones? Still buying newspapers? Why when you can read it all online?

I get told to 'Recycle Now!' by our county council weekly. They employ people to go round checking bins and knocking on my door to ensure that I'm getting the message. I am happy to recycle, have done for a number of years, but sometimes the noise level of their message hurts my delicate ears.
Obviously a large team within the county council is tasked with ensuring that I am constantly reminded of the importance of recycling, an important duty.

Unitil I get fined for polluting my recyling bin with non-recyclable waste, I will continue to recycle; Perhaps even afterwards.I just wish that the feeling that it's all about delaying the need for more land-fill sites (a council's nightmare) would go away. I also wish we didn't sell recyclable waste to third parties who dump it at sea or abroad, creating revenue for both parties.

@blue quinn - i'm well aware of the paper recycling argument. my old man worked in the paper trade for years and used to be a staunch opponent of recycled paper for the reasons you stated and more.

however, from a biodiversity/natural habitat point of view, those forests you refer to are plantations just like any other homogenous crop and as such support a vastly reduced range and amount of life. yes there are more trees but at the expense of the low-density, high diversity natural forest/scrub/whatever that was dug up to plant them.

also, i'm pretty sure that planting trees isn't the answer to C02 reduction. isn't the vast majority of C02 absorbed by plant life done by oceanic phytoplankton?

just saying like.

i'd never really considered the glass thing before.

as an aside on the paper thing, for years recycling paper was the norm. it was only our desire for higher quality, whiter, shinier paper that brought it to and end as a normal procedure in the first place.

Gutted for him; should have got a Siemens they're bombproof.

however, from a biodiversity/natural habitat point of view, those forests you refer to are plantations just like any other homogenous crop and as such support a vastly reduced range and amount of life. yes there are more trees but at the expense of the low-density, high diversity natural forest/scrub/whatever that was dug up to plant them.

Everytime you clearfell a section of forest you are removing a percentage of the biomass of the area. Around 20% each time infact as the nutrients in the soil needed to grow the trees is depleated. Forestry is not infinitely sustainable, especially at today's level of demand. Having the biomass in the paper ending up in landfill only puts all the nutrients into a place that is somewhat toxic, rather than back into the forest where it was originally intended. Less trees have to get cut down if we recycle the paper, meaning less depleated soils, better levels of biomass and therefore biodiversity (inc little furry things that live in places like forests) and the timber can be used for more important things than your local pizza shop flyer.

The following is directed at no-one in particular.
Sure, planting trees is not the answer, but there is no one single answer. As the old native american proverb goes:

[INDENT]
[SIZE=+1]Only after the last tree has been cut down,
Only after the last river has been poisoned
Only after the last fish has been caught,
Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.[/SIZE] [SIZE=4]- Cree Indian Prophecy
[/SIZE]
[/INDENT]

If nothing is done to stop the sheer mass of consumption that is the modern world that prophecy above will become a harsh reality.

Everyone can try and ignore the obvious and laugh in the face of the hippies, but ask yourself this: When an aboriginal man wanted to go and hunt for some kangaroo meat for his tribe & family, did he take a ton and a half of steel, rubber and plastic with him for a 15mile round trip and throw a load of plastic & polystyrene out of the window once he finished eating? No, of course not. that's why his way of life has survived for at least 50,000 years and the rest. I don't need statistics and scientists to tell me the world is in the shit. It's fucking obvious. The earth needs you to do your bit and if everyone just shifts their attitude slightly it makes a huge difference. Just look at how many more people ride bikes in this city now than say 4 years ago?

Attitude is the key - don't be a defeatist and do your bit.

There, rant over :-p