|!Dave Fawthrop wrote: |! |!> Most people would be happy to make small changes to their houses/lives to |!> save the planet. |! |!There's your flaw, right there. You are blindly accepting that the |!planet needs saving. It doesn't. It's managed perfectly fine for |!billions of years, and will continue to do so long after we're gone.
Even I can see with my own eyes, or more accurately skin have noticed a massive increase temperature in the UK.
Read
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or preferably the real report for better evidence.
- The assumption that the planet *needs* to be "saved"
- The assumption that there is a causal link between the activities of man and climate change
- The assumption that a change in the behaviour by the entire population will make a difference
- The even bigger assumption that even if the above were true, that lifestyle changes by a willing proportion of the population will make a difference.
Lovely. How much difference has that made to "saving" the planet?
Agree. My Touran is not technically a 4x4, but it sure fits the media profile of one (7-seater, sometimes full of kids + their stuff, sometimes just me or the missus). And guess what, it reliably does 45-50mpg, indeed upto 53 if driven "carefully" on a decent journey.
Far more efficient than my other car, which is a knackered old Daewoo Lanos and manages typical 30-something mpg.
I also suspect my Touran will last a good deal longer than the Daewoo, one being a cheapie runaround, and the other being made by a semi-decent german manufacturer.
Which would the media prefer I ran 2 of - the wrong one I would think.
Okay then, the IPPCC report found that it was so highly probable that the observed warming is anthropogenic as to render the difference between this wording and Dave's so minor as to be ridiculously pedantic. As a scientist I was convinced by the science in the report before last and reasonably persuaded long before that.
Picking up a few dissenters is also not what you might think. Some will have had their names removed because the report as not radical ENOUGH, not because they were sceptics. Truth is also, and never has been a matter of democracy. Try legislating that pi should exactly equal 3 and see how far it gets you.
It should be a matter of naked self interest. If you live in the SE you will either drown or die of thirst for one thing. Either that or some of the couple of billion or so estimated displaced poor people will come camp on YOUR hilltop. We are already seeing the sorts of effects. The conflict in Darfur is environmental in origin, there is not enough rain to grow enough stuff for BOTH 'African' agrarian farmers and 'Arab' animal herders. These people have been living in the region sharing its resources for hundreds of years. Why are they suddenly killing each other? the climate has changed and resources are scarce. Water is already scarce in the SE and the great house build is not helping, how long will society last when you have to compete with your neighbours for water from a tanker at the end of the street?
read this week's new scientist, or see the website. They address all (well, all the ones I could think of) points like this. The only one they don't address is: population growth == more CO2 emissions
What is needed is a material less than 10mm thick so that the dimensions of the room aren't seriously affected. The ridiculously expensive astro-foil might be an answer if it was more rigid and could be painted. Some kind of synthetic cork possibly.
|!> I have spent more than 0.12% of my |!> income over many years to limit my use of energy. |! |!Lovely. How much difference has that made to "saving" the planet?
If *everyone* had done that we would not be in the mess we are now in.
For what reasons? What about the physics of greenhouse gases is wrong? What about the computer models is wrong? Noting that the more detail is put in the closer they get to the observed situation (always a good sign when modelling). What about the historical correlations of CO2 levels with temperature going back a long way now?
So more ad hominem attacks on people in lieu of argument. You do know that many scientists who contributed were absolutely disgusted that the strength of the science got watered down by the politicians? THAT is much more likely explanation than that they disagreed fundamentally with what was a watered down conclusion. The fact is that the science is firmer than the IPCC report says it is.
No one's managed to show that CO2 is a greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Water vapour is the main greenhouse gas, and methane comes a poor second. If CO2 is a greenhouse gas, it is way less significant than either of these. Secondly, no one can find any evidence that the greenhouse effect is playing any part in global warming -- the atmosphere at what scientists think would be the top of the greenhouse cycle hasn't got warmer since we've been measuring it.
We barely have a tiny fraction of the data necessary to do any modelling. Given most of the data has to be made up to run any model, you can make the models say whatever you like.
That's the easiest thing of all to explain. The largest resoviour of mobile CO2 is the sea. When you warm the sea, the solubility of CO2 reduces raising the partial pressure in the sea, which forces CO2 out into the atmosphere to maintain equilibrium. When the sea cools, the reverse happens. You would absolutely expect the CO2 levels to correlate with temperature. More recently with more accurate dating, there's some evidence that the CO2 level correlation lags the temperature changes by some hundreds of years, which also ties up with how long the sea is expected to take to warm and cool under the influence of atmospheric temperature changes. This would also point to the CO2 level change being an effect of temperature change, and not the cause.
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