to be sceptical about man made climate change

[Brioche201]

.. to a layperson like myself the evidence does not seem robust (record antarctic ice caps) .Even if it were true 'the climate' is such a complicated thing affected by thousands of factors.Is it likely that changing just one or 2 of the factors that are within out control would make a difference (or even that the difference would be in the right direction)
Do you still believe in man made climate change or think it is mainly rooted in politics?

Loads of eminent scientists disagree with you. Nigel Lawson, Donald Trump, Sarah Palin.

What has it got to do with cooking? Leave Nigella alone!

(Sorry)

Only 16% of global greenhouse gas emissions are Methane, and 75% of that is due to cattle/cows. So cattle/cows contribute only 12% ( = 0.75 x 0.16) to total greenhouse gas emissions.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) from fossil fuels & industrial processes contribute 65% to total greenhouse gas emissions.

'A mass slaughter of livestock and animals then?'

They want us to cut down our meat consumption. They tell us it gives us cancer and they have their "meat free Monday" spin type funded, promoted campaigns etc with slebs, rock stars, charidees, the usual lot etc

Of course, we all know that meat is good for health, but remember everything is about population for the real brains behind the scams.

"What has it got to do with cooking?"

Celebrity chefs running their gas cookers all day are wasting our precious fuel reserves.

Meat is good for everyone. Animal products generally are good as they contain loads of essential quaility nutrients; iron for a start.

Piers Corbyn sounds like a half-baked fruit cake. Not surprised that he is your hero claig, just like Donald Trump.

' Which can only be a good thing. No?'

Absolutey, Lweji, environmentalism is very important - cut down on plastics harming animals, more clean air, clean water, no GM foods that they keep telling us are fine and dandy etc

But we do eat far more meat than we should.

'If you are going to say that figure, then you could at least back it up with meaning.'

I don't know because I have never taken the time to look into the science because I think it is about politics not science. For the science (and of course the politics too) it is worth listening to Piers Corbyn, esteemed brother of Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn. Piers knows his stuff and speaks worldwide on these issues.

Don't forget too, in geological terms if not humans, there are periods of warming and cooling of the earth: remember in the 80s, along with acid rain, was the belief that we were moving to the next ice age? And "global warming" has now become "climate change".

The 1820s was a period that was unusually warm - hence the rise in muslin Empire line dresses popular in that period. Parts of the seventeenth century was unusually cold - think of the Frost Fair when the Thames froze over. There are inevitably changes in both longer- and shorter-term weather patterns.

Do I think man-made climate change is the biggest problem facing the world today, worthy of an annual £1 trillion world summit? No. But do we need to accept that galloping over-population and lack of respect for natural resources is a major issue? Yes. But until we are going to tell countries with unreasonable birth rates that they are contributing to the problem -instead of seeing them as somehow being victims of the west - and until we are going to enforce emissions' standards on all nations, industrially developing or not, we might as well piss into the wind. That's not to say that things like wind farms are massive cons when it comes to environmental credentials - but they are relatively harmless in the grand scheme of things.

"But we do eat far more meat than we should."

Considering that our ancestors ate only meat and maybe some fruits, I don't think you have a realistic estimation of how much meat we "should" eat, if we are basing it on what our bodies have evolved over millennia to digest and use.

'Can you explain a bit further about the 4% of CO2 in the output that is due to humans?'

From listening to Piers on that, the impression I got is that the human contribution of 4% is insignificant to the output and he says that termites produce 10% output. He says man is deluding himself (or rather the political class is deluding man) in coming out with the spiel.

'In other words, you don't actually understand it.'

That's right, if I spent time I could understand and explain what Piers means by it, but I spend my time on understanding the politics because that is where the decisions are made, where the coffee and biscuits are paid for and where the government grants andsponsored and funded campiagns are paid for.

'Do you know what biomass is?'

I don't know, is it something to do with Gordon Brown's weight?

The planet will be fine

your grand children will be screwed

"there are periods of warming and cooling of the earth: remember in the 80s, along with acid rain, was the belief that we were moving to the next ice age? And "global warming" has now become "climate change""

The ice age thing is linked to global warming - ice caps melt > water levels rise & surface increases > more evaporation & clouds > less sunlight getting through > cooling down etc.

On a more practical level for the UK, the desalinisation of ocean waters due to melting polar ice can trigger the collapse of Gulf Stream and then you will see how global warming can make the UK a much colder place.

"human contribution of 4% is insignificant to the output and he says that termites produce 10% output."

Termites are responsible for 4% of Methane emissions and Methane emissions make up only 16% of all greenhouse gases. That means, termites are only responsible for 0.64% (= 16% x 4%) of all greenhouse gas emissions.

For comparison, Carbon dioxide (CO2) from carbon fuels, industrial processes, and deforestation accounts for 76% of all greenhouse gases, not 10% like you claim.

As I said, Piers Corbyn sounds like a half-baked fruit cake.

The issue that is never discussed by climate change scientists is that if CO2 increased in the atmosphere then plants would grow quicker - especially oceanic algae.

We know this form our O Level/GCSE classes. This a feedback loop that counters the effect of emissions. The climate change lunacy is that it ignores the basic science. Plants grow quicker and take up more CO2 (removing if from the atmosphere more quickly) if its concentration increases. This is why market gardeners pump CO2 into greenhouses.

Seriously the climate change debate is correct in saying CO2 is a greenhouse gas and they are correct it leads to global warming but only if you ignore the counteracting forces of plants taking up the CO2 when its concentration increases.

This is the basis of Gaia theory as proposed by Lovelock.

Feedback processes are completely ignored by policy makers. It is non linear feedback processes that drive climate and are exceptionally difficult to model with linear equations that are embedded in all climate models.

I realise most people don't understand the complex underlying theory that sits behind non linear feedback process modelling and that is where politicians spin steps in and exploits that ignorance.

If you start from the standpoint that anyone paid to do climate research is 'selling out for money' and therefore biased, then all you have left to trust is, presumably, people who are not paid for it and are doing it as a hobby

I'd say that entirely depends on who's providing the money. Sadly, the concept of funding pure research and seeing where it leads seems to be dead; as always with politics everyone's got to have their finger in the pie, with the results we're seeing now

Personally I'll go right on trying to do my bit to avoid waste, switching unnecessary lights off, recycling and all the rest - but I certainly won't be joining the shroud-waving the politicians are so keen to encourage, largely in their own interests

Piers is a PhD an studied at Imperial College and runs his own successful weather forecasting company which has outperformed the Met Office a number of times in predictions.

I have just listened again and he says that "man's contribution to CO2 in the atmosphere is only 4% of the total amount which is 4% of 0.04% which is a tiny amount. If man is going to dominate the CO2 effect then all the rest of the CO2 has to stay constant, so you've got to have a conspiracy of nature to stay still while man rules. CO2 in the past has gone up thousands of times more than man's contribution, so this idea that volcanoes, termites, which emit 10 times more CO2 than man ..."

I don't get where the 0.04% comes from, but I stick to politics rather than science because that is where the big players play their games in my opinion.

remember in the 80s, along with acid rain, was the belief that we were moving to the next ice age? And "global warming" has now become "climate change"

Yes Hefzi, I remember it all; back then our local council even produced leaflets advising on what we'd need to do when the disaster hit (wish I was making this up but I'm not)

Frankly I'm interested to see what the next dire warning will be ... plague of locusts, anyone??

If politicians really cared about this issue why didn't they mandate that all coal fired power stations shut down a decade ago all over the planet.

A combined cycle gas turbine burning natural gas emits only 35% of the CO2 that a coal fired power station emits.

Shutting all coal power stations all over the plant by law an international agreement would have been the quickest and most immediate way of cutting emissions. The politicians didn't mandate that though - the Indians, Chinese, Russians, USA, Germany would never have agreed to that as it is coal that powers their electric grids. They instead discuss wind turbines and solar power. Its lip service with a $100 billion of slush money to grease the wheels.

Even if you don't believe in man made climate change, we are still over consuming. When fossil fuels run out we won't be able to sustain our way of life. Just Clean water and food take a huge amount of energy to produce. We're using up millions of years worth of stored energy in a couple of hundred years. What will our grandchildren use?