Anyone else follow climate change news obsessively?

[Chickychickyparmparm]

It's like a car crash - I can't look away.

I am reading more and more in the build-up to the Paris talks at the end of the year. China has surprised everyone with a bigger pledge than expected. But will it be enough? What about the US? They ignored the Kyoto Protocol. Obama is in the news today talking about melting ice in Alaska - yet gave Shell the go-ahead to drill in the Arctic.

I am genuinely terrified of what will happen if the world does not act fast.

speechless isn't the half of what the UN bigwigs and local bigwigs will be like on the day Trump takes charge.

"The elites’ problem with Donald Trump: He’s not for sale

Jeffrey T. Kuhner

The media establishment is having a cardiac arrest.

The reason? Donald Trump has thrown his hat into the Republican presidential race.

The billionaire businessman is a straight shooter, known for his bluntness and tough talk. Unlike most politicians, he speaks plainly and directly. He doesn’t mince words or engage in the kind of double talk that pervades Washington. In short, he does not defer to the media elites, who cherish their role as the gatekeepers of our political class.

The ruling establishment’s dominance is based on the complicity of the mainstream media. It is an unspoken bargain: New York-Washington journalists depend upon having access to politicians in exchange for safe, almost sycophantic news coverage."

www.worldtribune.com/2015/07/01/the-elites-problem-with-trump-hes-not-for-sale/

If Trump takes over, the entire climate game is up.

Cameron was allegedly supposed to have changed direction when he feared he would lose good Tory voters over his climate policies as the election neared, and he is alleged to have said "we've gotta cut the green crap". If Trump gets in, there will be so much "cutting of the green crap" by people who once made frightening adverts for it, that it will collapse overnight.

I don't read climate news obsessively, no. I tend to stick to what you might describe as mainstream sources. This still leads to a fair amount of terror.

Scrolling past claig's posts, I'm discounting most of it, but it is absolutely true that fear is something that people seek to create in us - in the case of climate, usually the media because they are all trying to work out how to make us pay for what we read. I remember spending most of my youth terrified of nuclear attack, and this is my hope; that as caroldecker said, the graphs have been extrapolated off the edge of the squared paper, and life is never that straightforward, there are always unexpected factors and some of them will be positive.

That's my hope too, annandale. But reading about how scared climate scientists are (suffering from PTSD etc) has made me sit up and think a lot. I don't read mainstream sources, lots of science journals. And the Guardian coverage has been good.

The predictions of people migrating hasn't come to pass (although we're seeing the biggest human migration since post-WW2 right now) but a lot of other events are happening faster than predicted. The sea ice did improve on last year (because after all, events aren't happening in a linear progression) but it's predicted that this year's record heat will cause that to vanish.

I'm not reading Claig's posts, I am willing to see both sides of an argument but I can't get past the anti-science conspiracyspeak.

I've been following climate change news on and off since my early teens, mainly from mainstream sources these days although I have read more specialist material in the past. Mark Lynas's books "Six Degrees" and "High Tide" make sobering reading, as does Elizabeth Kolbert.
This website is worth consulting for debunking some of the main climate sceptic myths.
caroldecker have a look at this article about the Arctic sea ice.

In other news, the Met Office has paid the price for slavishly pushing the political climate change government-approved propaganda, and lost the BBC tender.

Does anyone remember when they were full of "hottest summer ever" - leading to the infamous "BBQ summer" prediction that they then denied (I heard them say it on the radio, as did the presenter !). Then they got all huffy and stopped longer-range forecasts because the public (us) weren't interpreting them right.

Does anyone remember when "climate change" was "global warming" ? Right up to the point when it was patently obvious there was no warming.

As others have said, the climate changes anyway. Pretending we can somehow affect it - why, even control it, is hubris - a carefully chosen word - of the highest order

Yep, the climate changes but never before like this. I'm with the 97% majority on this.

How far do detailed records go back though? Most data outside Europe that is over 100 years old is patchy and limited to specific sites, so difficult to extrapolate.
The theory is based on the fact that Co2 retains heat in experimental conditions but there is very limited knowledge of how co2 works in the oceans and impact on plant growth - higher yields from crops may save more lives than any climate impact causes problems.
Throughout the 70's we were told that the earth was cooling and scientists were suggesting melting the ice caps to keep us warm.

From this site, you can see some previous totally incorrect predictions, including:

Claim 1989: “Using computer models, researchers concluded that global warming would raise average annual temperatures nationwide two degrees by 2010.” Associated Press, May 15, 1989.
Data: According to NASA, global temperature has increased by about 0.7 degrees Fahrenheit since 1989. And U.S. temperature has increased even less over the same period.

According to Dr. David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, within a few years “children just aren’t going to know what snow is” and winter snowfall will be “a very rare and exciting event.” Interviewed by the UK Independent, March 20, 2000.
“David Parker, at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Berkshire, says ultimately, British children could have only virtual experience of snow.”

climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia

The Marx Brothers of the climate change scene.

Anyway, if climate change were a real threat, we'd really be doing something about it.

Anyway, if climate change were a real threat, we'd really be doing something about it.

Haha. Yeah, that's what I'm confused about, too!

Carol other models show that climate change is happening faster than predicted.

See here: www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models.htm

It depends who you believe. James Lovelock also presented some rather dire scenarios that haven't come to pass and he's one of the foremost authorities on CC in the world. But I believe that's it's past the if stage and moving into the when.

Anyway, if climate change were a real threat, we'd really be doing something about it.

Haha. Yeah, that's what I'm confused about, too!

No need for confusion. Obviously climate change isn't quite the threat people think it is.

If it were (for example) then the UK government could tell us the carbon footprint of each sheet of paper they handle, and demonstrate their plan for reducing it to zero by 2050.

What's that you say ? There is no such metric ? There is no such plan ?

Not taking it that seriously then, are they ?

Now compare and contrast with a very real threat of starvation during WW2, and the response there - rationing, protecting farm workers. That's how real threats are dealt with.

How much CO2 is involved in a jobseeker being asked to attend daily instead of weekly ? What's that ? No one has thought to calculate it ?

Not taking it that seriously then, are they ?

What was the environmental impact of the bedroom tax ? Presumably there's an evaluation, ensuring it was at worst carbon-neutral, if not carbon-negative. What's that ? No study ?

Not taking it that seriously then, are they ?

It's simply because post-war starvation was staring everyone in the face. Whereas it's very difficult to get governments to legislate for threats that will happen sometime in the future, and large companies to change the way they operate now.

My point is, we only have detailed records for about 100 years, and that is only on surface temperatures and conditions. Arctic sea ice has been measured by satellite only since 1979 and shipping records only go back to 1950.
Climate, as all the experts say, is a long term thing. We do not have enough data to conclude at this point.

Although there are points in recent history when we did act on future threats - acid rain, cfcs. I hope this year will be the turning point for acting on climate.

lthough there are points in recent history when we did act on future threats

Or stopped reporting them. What's your understanding of ozone depletion in the past 10 years ?

There is a big difference between governments taking things seriously and whether or not they are happening.

Anthropogenic climate change is happening, is a problem and yes I am worried about it.

Lurking I dunno, that hole looks pretty serious to me, but am I missing a claig-style conspiracy here?!

Carole the consensus is that this is the fastest rise in temperature in 600,000 years or something, but I guess the question really is whether or not you believe that THIS change of climate is due to human activity. Most scientific studies and models support this - I would post links but I don't want to get all spammy.

Chicky - The recent warming amounts to less than 1C in the last 100 years, and even the alarmist IPCC agree that only half of that can be attributed to CO2. The planet has warmed much more quickly in the past, and it has certainly been much warmer also, long before we started to burn coal and oil: see snag.gy/tJ7z6.jpg for the last 10,000 years, and

www.foresight.org/nanodot/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/vostok.png for the last 420,000 years. The recent (late 20th century) warming of half a degree or so is insignificant, and more likely just a continuation of the long slow that out of the Little Ice Age (which was the probably the coldest period in the last 10,000 years, and very little if anything to do with CO2.

Climate change has become a religion, and sadly far too mnay scientists who should know better have been going along with it. Noble cause corruption is a serious problem. Read what climate scientists have said themselves if you don't believe me or other sceptics:

sites.google.com/site/globalwarmingquestions/climategate
sites.google.com/site/globalwarmingquestions/climategate-2

And here's an aposite cartoon:

snag.gy/LPUXq.jpg

claig

"even the alarmist IPCC agree that only half of that can be attributed to CO2"

that's interesting. Do you have a link to the IPCC claim about Co2? From the IPCC site, not a 'climategatehoax' site.

The globally averaged combined land and ocean surface temperature
data as calculated by a linear trend show a warming of 0.85 [0.65 to 1.06] °C 2
over the period 1880 to 2012,

). It is
extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was
caused by the anthropogenic increase in GHG concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together.

Both from the ipcc report itself.

FFS Claig do you have to take over every thread that takes your fancy?

I was going to conferences 15 yrs ago when everyone was saying that we were already committed to 2 degree C increase then, I know the climate modellers now just reach for booze at social occasions, they can't bear to talk about what their models say :(

I'm glad people like OP still care, honest I am. I can't bear to read the news so I shut it out. I suppose people in London blitz were sure that they were caught up in end of the world, or the people who nearly didn't survive the Holocaust thought that humans had reached their lowest point. So I just have to hope there's a way thru the (now unavoidable) Climate-change-problems, too. Poor people of the world will suffer most, of course, and then mass immigrate to bring their problems here.

(Oh wait...)

Carol the rest of that par says that it's likely that anthropogenic climate change has caused the glaciers to melt and the seas to rise! Isn't that a little concerning?!

I hope there's a way through too, Trout.

'FFS Claig do you have to take over every thread that takes your fancy?'

I am trying to help people not to be "terrified" by this climate scam. The media and the great and the good are doing their best to avoid real discussion of what lies behind it. I am only showing that Donald Trump and the Australian adviser and many Republicans think it s a con.

You're not trying to help, you're pushing your misguided agenda, repeating the same bad science over and over. No one is listening.