The Great Global Warming Swindle - C4 (I think)

[Gobbledigook]

Is anyone watching? It's very interesting.

What I thought was fasinating is how you can take a belief - any belief - and make it fact. Making heretics out of people who dare to question is bad science I think.

The whole developing world angle was interesting. That was the worrying side of it.

Didn't get to see the whole programme and don't have enough scientific education to judge whether they were making a reasonable case or doing the 'nobody likes us so we must be iconoclasts so we must be right' thing. Scientists are human beings and some of them are bloody awkward for the sake of being awkward, just like the rest of us.

The thing is, you have to choose between worst case scenarios. If they are right, then efforts to combat global warming may not work, but there's little harm done. If they are wrong, and convince the rest of the world to stop trying to mitigate global warming, we are all f*cked. So the potential price of listening to them is much higher than the price of listening to the scientific consensus.

Developing countries is an interesting one but policies to combat global warming are trying to take this into account. I wonder whether the people who use this line are motivated by 'how much money can we make out of developing countries' though - often 'development' means wealthy western companies get to make profits at the expense of the poor.

it was great great great. i caught parts of it inbetween demanding teenagers p[roclaiming "dcumentaries are borrrrring"

is all to do with cosmic rays man

fuck all to do with my car - i'm swapping my sciento for a 4x4.

i've had a quick look at the info on channel4's website and from what i can see this programme was a lot of nonsense. i'll try and link a page which gives a short description of climate change this

and no, whatzsaname - i didn't mean that. i was trying to explain the greenhouse effect but was doing it very crapply

So a bunch of world renown scientists from places like MIT just outed themselves as talking a bunch of twaddle (even though it's probably going to mean they lose money and possibly even their jobs) - says the BBC!

LOL!

Oh, yes, and the BBC has no bias.

PMSL!

I'm the Pope, btw.

I find the BBC about as believable as Gordon Brown these days.

Very interesting viewing indeed.

NO ONE was arguing that the global warming isn't occurring.

Just about its possible causes.

i put that link as i thought most people here would not have time to read through long, detailed explanations and i thought, after studyting this for years, that what was on that bbc page was a good, short summary, but i suggest for more info then to look at www.ipcc.ch/

I think it's important to treat with skepticism ANY apocalyptic theory after studying history for many years, because any student of history knows how powerful a tool such theories can be.

Weather patterns have stirred up hysteria and even witch hunts even in very recent history.

Fear is a very, very powerful tool to control and manipulate people. Propoganda is its minion.

I voted for Al Gore. But that doesn't mean he's infalliable.

NEVER underestimate the power of the mob.

Even here in Edinburgh, many found this out to their cost.

expat, i appreciate your point about apocalyptic theories throughout history, but what i have studied as part of my degree and a diploma in international environmental policy making is that there is plenty of well researched evidence that climate change is being caused by co2 emmissions, and that there is widespread international agreement among scientists that this is the case.
it has to be a good thing however that there is always the possibility to challenge ideas and beliefs

I appreciate your degree, granny, but c'mon, there are some pretty hard PhD scientists out there - not just those who studied policy - who are starting to speak out.

And again, this has happened in the past in history. People like this paid a very dear price.

Only for many of them to have been proven correct later on.

My ex-h was a geophysicist with only a masters degree, and even he looked askance at this whole 'Manmade C02 emissions are responsible for all global warming', especially in view of oceanography and his specialty, hydrology.

don't think i can add any more expat - i agree with what you say about those who speak out against something, having a bad time and then being proven correct. but there are always those who are in disagreement with new evidence too, aren't there ? either from a maverick type viewpoint or due to vested interests, or other reasons, but in the end, they are shown to be wrong

Let's see, Galileo was such a maverick. So was Pasteur.

In fact, let's find a few more recent ones.

Oh, yes, I got one just off the top of my head!

The two Australian doctors who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1996. They challenged decades of what was thought to be hard-core evidence on the cause of peptic ulcers with the idea that they were actually caused by a bacteria that could live in the acidic enviromnent of the stomach. One even infected himself with the bacteria in the course of their research.

And the doctor who discovered that cholera came from dirty water. Another 'maverick' who no one believed for years. I'll have to Google him, though.

Excellent programme.

It brought up the three things that really bug me about the GW argument

Co2 is produced by all living things.
Explain the Ice Age in the contest of the earths history of climatic change - was very drawn to the Sun correlation.

And the 3rd world.
This has been my bugbear for ages

How dare we (western world) experience the benefits of industrialisation using our resources and then try to prevent the poorest countries from using theirs. Barbaric

I really enjoyed seeing another POV on it

of course, the existence of mavericks who were right does not mean that mainstream scientific theory regarding climate change is wrong. mavericks can be wrong too but their names, unlike galileo, are just forgotten

Yes, Piffle, that is an angle that was truly interesting to be shown - the developing nations.

I was unaware of how many people, especially children, are dying as a result of these inefficient ways of producing food.

And the co-founder of Greenpeace had some pretty sharp words as well.

To me, it's just important to try to look at all angles instead of just swallowing everything we're fed without question.

I (and my dh) enjoyed it too - but then 1 would wouldn't I ?!

As expatinscotland and other have said, they weren't arguing about whether climate change was happening - it was just about the chain of cause and effect.

Grannycarcakers didn't see the programme - but for her info, some of those who were expressing concerns were actually lead authors on the IPCC. Some will still be "included" as contributing authors(despite the fact that their contribution was to disagree), while others ahve had to threaten to take legal action before thier name was removed, as including their name suggests that they agree with the conclusions (and altohugh this wasn't covered in yestrday's programme, the current report has not yet been completed or peer reviewed: as I understand it, the "summary" is waht was "agreed" at the recenet meeting, the report is now being written to agree with that report. BAD science)

And I agree with Piffle - there is a real issue about the third world - the western world haivng gained the benefits and then quibbling with the developing world about thier "right" to develop too. That crystallised for me last night watching the programme: I hadn't been able to put my finger on why Western governments, not know for their altruism (Bush, Blair for example) were so keen to jump on the bandwagon. It is a simple case of disguised protectionism.

I owuld have liked to have seen more fo a real debate on the porgramme between "por" and "anti" anthropogenic (man-made) climate change rather than a simple polemic (eg to have a scientist who says the ice-core hsitroy supports the idea of CO2 leading climate change addressibg the issue of why, as presented on the programme, it lags it be 800 years), but it was still good to see a presentation of the "alternative" argument.

Has anyone read the sceptical environmentalist?

how can it be equitable and right...
That the most expensive and inefficient technolgy is used to power such populous and needy continent.
It is just insane
We are looking at ground source heat pump.
we know it will not pay for itself for at least 10 yrs, this is the benefit of being a developed nation, we can afford to supplement our need for fuel with green energy and it is right to do so where we can.

it is not right to foist our ideals onto countries who are sucking billions in aid, without tackling the root causes of their poverty - civil war,famine,lack of water, crop failure, lack of hygiene, medical facilities, housing, power, trade tariffs etc.

Anything we can do to get these nations a step up the ladder will save millions of lives

What's the agenda for not doing it, that's my next research, there must be money in keeping Africa down there is my cynical conclusion.

The agenda in keeping african nations under-developed is because if the african nations can't develop industries such as steel, then they won't provide more competition to the established domination by the USA and western Europe.

If anybody missed this (like me!) it is going to be repeated on Monday night on More4.

Grannycrackers,

You really should have seen the programme, look out for it being repeated on More4 soon.

I appreciate that you were taught stuff in your degree, that you truly honestly believe to be true. But the guys on this program (several of whom agreed the original theories, but have changed their opinions over some years) suggest that the original theories may have been flawed. None of them suggested that global warming wasn't happening. Most just questioned the causative link between carbon levels and global warming, and questioned our role in causing it, and our ability to make a significant impact on it anyway.

One scientist pointed out that thru history, raised carbon levels seem to follow periods when the world was warmer by about 800 years (in our case the world was warmer in medeival times, vinyards being cultivated on northern britain for example).
Others pointed out that the VAST majority of carbon is actually produced from totally natural sources, such as rotting vegetation and the oceans. If we ALL stopped using fossil fuels, electricity etc TODAY, it would reduce total carbon output in the world by about 6%. It would be likely to make diddly-squat difference.

I think (and have done for some time) that the whole global warming issue is being used by our govt as a means of manipulating us, and an excuse for raising taxes.

Remember, one of the contributors to last night's program was the co-founder of Greenpeace. He now believes that the carbon-global warming relationship is much more complicated that the popular media have us believe, and that we are being fed scientifically unsafe theories.

lol at grannycarcakers (prettybird) i think i prefer that spelling.

i shall try and watch the programme.

don't forget, that it is international agreement - kyoto - which is pressurising national gov's to reduce emmissions.

i think the developing nations issue is very interesting too. i just wish my brain wasn't so befuddled (sick 3yr old, 6 month baby and business to run) so i could discuss it better

Well of course science is not infallible - it evolves through questioning principles and ideas constantly.

I mean we got from flat earth to round earth right?