To Think Global Warming Can't Be All Bad?

[afteralongsquawk]

My carefully planted main crop tomatoes are long finished; but the runty little seedlings I dumped on the compost heap are doing great and still producing lovely toms in the last third of Nov!

AIBU to rather approve of this global warming thing?

Why are people so keen to believe often rather far-fetched conspiracy theories rather than think it's possible that the planet isn't reacting very well to what we've been doing to it for the last couple of centuries.

Oh yes, because they like their lifestyles and aren't interested in people in different countries now, or their own descendants.

I mean really how awful will it be to have to have electric cars and things. It's not exactly a huge price to pay.

Even if you don't believe in this then you should be aware that tens of thousands of UK people are dying prematurely every year as a result of pollution in our cities - surely that's worth doing something about even if you think global warming is a crock and you couldn't give a monkeys about bangladeshis.

Not a single one of the predictions made by the scientists or the IPCC have been bourne out.
They have been 100% wrong.

Temperatures have not risen now for 13 years whilst CO2 has rocketed. Sea levels have not risen, glaciers are advancing, Manhatten is not under 20 feet of water, there is still ice at the north pole, snow has not 'become a thing of the past', polar bear numbers are increasing fast and the 4 billion people who were supposed to die by the year 2012 are stubbornly refusing to cooperate.

global warming is a religion, there is little point talking to the faithful, but any open minded people out there need to look at the facts

"Not a single one of the predictions made by the scientists or the IPCC have been bourne out.
They have been 100% wrong."

That's a very odd statement. I wonder where you get that idea from. Take Arctic sea ice loss for example. The actual loss has been much worse than predicted by the IPCC - see this graph

Also, OldMac, did you know that 2010 was the joint hottest year on record, and 9 of the 10 hottest years on record have been within the last decade?

Complete madness.

What gets me is people making a huge fuss about puppy farms and dog re-homing when species like polar bears are in desperate straits and are likely to die out imminently, along with loads of other species.

Animals don't exactly have a ball in dramatic climate events, which are acknowledged to be happening more frequently due to climate change; so write off the human victims if you will, but it's not great for animals, if they are what float your boat.

Personally I'm very passionate about some animals; the fact that we're ruining the planet for them is really criminal IMO.

arctice ice is growing 40% faster than normal THIS year. your graph is misleading, 2007 was the ice extent minimum.

Acording to Al Gore, the north pole will be ice free next year. who would bet on that now ?

oldmac

"Even if you don't believe in this then you should be aware that tens of thousands of UK people are dying prematurely every year as a result of pollution in our cities - surely that's worth doing something about even if you think global warming is a crock and you couldn't give a monkeys about bangladeshis."

What do you think?

Don;t you think that moving away from highly polluting fossil fuels towards cleaner energies is a positive thing even if you don't believe in global warming?

wellies, all of the top believers have admitted that the warming has stopped for the last 13 years. they call it a 'haitus'
they cant explain it.

"Don;t you think that moving away from highly polluting fossil fuels towards cleaner energies is a positive thing even if you don't believe in global warming?"

"Temperatures have not risen now for 13 years"

Where do you get your information from, OldMac?

sardine.
Nobody like pollution. But CO2 is not a pollutant , its plant food.
Soot is a pollutant, and I am all for any measure that reduces it.

At the moment solar provides about 6 ten thousandths (0.06%) of the worlds energy.
wind about 1 hundreth (1.3%)

when you can tell me where the rest will come from. I'll be all ears

Bonkersland.

"top believers"

honestly

Yes because people who study science are usually liars

I have never met a scientist who was interested in anything other than finding out the truth. Sure there are some rogue ones but honestly, this global conspiracy of lying scientists, it's unbelievable.

The people who say it doesn't exist OTOH are mainly in the US - the largest polluter per capita in the world whose love affair with huge cars never wanes and go to war to obtain control over oil.

oldmac so you are strongly in favour of researching and encouraging cleaner ways of producing energy, to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.

I am very glad to hear it

You won't have any argument with what the "greens" get up to then, even if you think their reasons for doing it are incorrect.

I think I see the glimmer of a tinfoil hat atop OldMac's head.

YABU. Nice for this country to be a little warmer. But so many people live in Africa, the Mediterranean etc. and their surroundings will become an uninhabitable desert, causing huge human catastrophe.

Where have 4 billion people been predicted to die? Where has Manhattan been predicted to be under 20 feet of water at this point? AFAIK, within the limits of statistical uncertainty, the predictions are ok. I think you may have been reading the dm too much.

This is the bit I don't understand.

Even people who don't believe in global warming, can surely understand that reducing use of fossil fuels is a great thing, the price we pay for using them is so high.

And yet they get all of a lather. If they think the result is right even if the reason is wrong, why do they get their knickers in a twist?

sardine, if only 10% of the money that the EU has spent on the CAGW scam had been spent on researching water supply and purification, every child on the planet would have clean drinking water.

So I am sorry, the greens do have a lot to answer for

I tend to

Other forms of energy can be more costly, less inefficient and have various side effects, and yet they are being promoted because of ideology.

oh dear :(

oh dear, the video, not you trying to leave

Even people who don't believe in global warming, can surely understand that reducing use of fossil fuels is a great thing, the price we pay for using them is so high.

Actually a lot of the (intellectual) skeptics do agree with that, they see some action as imperative as part of a general pollution problem; what they argue with is expensive (dis)incentive schemes when the money could be better spent elsewhere, or technology may help humanity to adequately (definition of adequate varies wildly of course) adapt instead. The skeptics are quite a diverse lot, really.

What's the Worst that Can Happen? is very good read for the open-minded.

Your idea of standing by and watching while literally millions of people are displaced and thousands upon thousands killed, children left orphaned and all teh rest of it, because "charity begins at home" makes me want to either vomit or punch someone to be honest

My point - that you are avoiding facing up to - is that (i) the governments money is in the main already allocated and (ii) no government in a recession today could easily do what you suggest, so I'm afraid you will probably have to do a lot of vomiting and punching your unobliging fellow citizens in the face to achieve your policies

Now, if you were to suggest a supertax on bankers to fund the overseas unfortunates, I'm sure that would get a lot more support, but even that would add up to the square root of fuck all compared to what is needed.

The big issue is that a lot of the unfortunate areas you mention have always been flood plains/ volcanic areas/ semi arid etc (current climate change fads notwithstanding) and the real problem is the population increase, ie each disaster now impacts more people. These geographic forces are so huge that you can't prevent them, and helping the vast numbers eke out a living till the next disaster, so western fluffies feel good about themselves, is sort of pointless - the only sustainable answer is having less people in those areas, which means mass resettlement. And then the question becomes "where" shall they be resettled. Now, face up to that question and you are getting somewhere.