Calculating your carbon footprint - a load of bollocks

[Terry Fields]

Which may well support my point too.

You can if one of the positives is decreasing, for example desertification being replaced by vegetative growth elsewhere, or the oceans never reach the methane hydrate release rate so the mechanism never takes place. That's why I said it was 'potential'.

Has anyone calculated how much global warming is taking place due to the receding ice-cap, your second mechanism above? It may be a key mechanism, and is point against the 'global warming'case

You may be natural, but your qualification as a philosopher seem to be in doubt.

Oh, sorry, I was arguing science, not Daily Mail reporting.

You are now conflating night-time/daytime effects with 'global warming', much in the same way as weather is so conflated.

A nice shift of ground, but perhaps it reveals your own lack of understanding.

See above about conflating issues.

See above about conflating issues.

Don't know much about the Salutrians, do you? Or science for that matter. Otherwise you'd never have said something as silly as that.

In case you miss the point again, it's this: there was an ice-age, at a time with a miniscule amount of people on the planet. The ice-age went away. Humans didn't contribute anything to that. What made the planet warm up, and why are those mechnaisms not operating now?

Before you answer, I raise a similar question, based on your three mechanisms, below.

So by from own statements, an earth that's covered in ice (reflecting solar energy), too cold to release methane hydrate from the sea, and with not a lot of vegetation due to said ice caps to soak up CO2, and lower levels of atmospheric CO2 so people were cold at night, the planet was doomed to remain frozen. So, in your humble opinion, what caused the subsequent warming? And why doesn that not apply today?

Thank heavens that CO2 isn't the only player, and that other players (that have been little researched) act to cool the planet. See, for example, the Met Office web site.

His graph was just plain wrong, the 800-year lag that he forgot to mention isn't now challenged by anyone. Except by you?

Will you tell the Met Office? Let me know what they say.

I don't know what you 'mean', I can only read the words you write, and som poor;y string together.

Well, good luck. According to another poster, funding isn't an issue. So let us know how you get on.

Never heard of septicaemia?

Getting warmer on what sort of timescale? Your day/night variations?

What has 'human history' got to do with it?

So, having identified the rate at which things happen, could you state what the mechanisms were, e.g. for the last ice-age, which was essentially people-free?

ITYM *some* evidence. Not all evidence points just one way. Some 'suggest' something else.

They are designed to raise taxes, nothing more.

Quite. As I said at the start.

If we don't know what the key mechanisms are, we can't even say whether we could do anything about them.

Suppose, just suppose, the key mechanism is sunspot activity. There is no method of controlling sunspots, so anything else is palliative, second order at best.

Such costs are falling. You are clutching at straws.

Plus, it has been calculated that at the level of $120 a barrel, other methods of oil production become economically viable, such as oil from shale. There is one oil-shale deposit in the US that could supply them with about 200 years of oil, at current rates. It was manifestily obvious that as current oil prices rose above $120, they wouldn't stay there for long.

The key is the understanding of what mechanisms are critical, and to date only one has been researched to any great extent. We are stumbling about in the dark. Unplugging my mobile phone charger (as a £half-a-million government newspaper campaign suggested last year) will accomplish precisely nothing.

[Terry Fields]

"Met Office forecast for global temperature for 2008

Global temperature for 2008 is expected to be 0.37 °C above the long-term (1961-1990) average of 14.0 °C, the coolest year since 2000, when the value was 0.24 °C."

that temperatures fell from 1945 - 1970 (global warming proponents figures) so the prediction of a rise of 0.37degC is from an unusually low figure. Pick a different range, and you could find the planet is cooling. Why didn't they pick, say 1980 to 2000? Is it because that would show the planet as cooling?

Easy, eh?

For the big one, go here:

look at the graph at the top of page 21.

Note that of twelve mechanisms shown, five are cooling effects, one straddles the zero line, and eight of them are classed as "Very Low level of scientific understanding".

How bad can it be for the proponents of the CO2/global warming debate? At best, they can only say that they don't know what they're talking about.

But judging by some of the posters on here, that wouldn't matter.

HTH

[Terry Fields]

NO!

[Terry Fields]

You don't understand hoe scientific funding works, do you?

You bid for projects. Many times, the projects aren't what you would like to work on, but you need an income so you work on something else.

Just because 15000 climate scientists arent working on e.g. atmospeheric aerosols, doesn't mean that they don't have a view on it, or any other research in the climate-change game.

Hence, simply because they aren't funded for a particular topic, doesn't mean that they can't speak on it.

And guess where the big money is going?

It's entirely appropriate.

[Terry Fields]

Don't need to.

Mitochondrial DNA that could only have some from the Salutrians is found in an obscure tribe of North American indians.

[Chris Hogg]

Er....thanks, but I was looking for something like X kilos of CO2 per KWh. I presume it would vary with supplier, as different suppliers use a different balance of generating methods, but there must be an approximate average figure which would be at least as accurate to use as some of the assumptions in the govt calculator.

[terry]

Just filled in ours and came up with the following.

Home Appliances Travel Total Carbon Footprint 11.96 1.57 5.91 19.44 Target Footprint 9.57 1.26 4.73

15.56 (That would be for the UK?) National Average 4.53 1.62 3.81 9.96 (UK?)

But I'm in eastern Canada. And guessing mine is low.

This is an insulated 'stick built' (wood frame etc.) all electric house about 40 years old. Four bed About 1600 sq. feet, plus an attached garage/storeroom that are unheated 99% of time. And with now only one occupant (myself) most of the time.

If was built today these walls etc. would be two inches thicker and much more heavily insulated to what is called R2000. That standard is for a well sealed structure with an electric powered air/heat exchanger. This house is still 'leaky enough' to not to require an electrically driven exchanger. Exchangers which incidentally run continuously.

Most of the electricity here is hydro produced, except for a small amount of peak demand for heating mid winter which is from an oil fired power station.

Within this house most of the 'wasted' heat from appliances such as fridges, incandescent light bulbs etc. helps heat the house. Most months of the year in this cool climate require some heating, usually at night when lights are likely to be on anyway.

In this part of North America (unlike further south or in the interior of the continent) we don't need or even own an air conditioner, although do run a dehumidifier most months except the coldest and driest in the basement workshop. We use reconditioned 48 inch commercial fluorescents for areas where lights are on for long periods such as kitchen, workshop etc.

Will admit to travel on an average once every couple of years, last few years, long distance return, air flight! Of course while doing so the house heating is virtually off at around 50 degrees F! With the electric hot water tank and water pressure also off (just in case) that alone saving probably some 25 - 30 cents of electricity per day.

We do occasionally use a basement wood stove burning scrap wood that would otherwise go to the tip. Also during the 40 years we have planted and grown some 67 trees on this half acre many of which are now 30+ feet high. So they absorb carbon; right? We also own some 6

-7 acres of occasionally used fairly heavily treed woodland which also are busy absorbing carbon, growing falling or blowing down and then rotting and their nutrients returning to the soil.

So what are we doing right or wrong?

Oh btw our average daily consumption right now is around 44 kilowatt hours per day. Annually it averages about 70 k.w.hr per day. The outside temp right now (Sept 17th) is about 9 degrees C (roughly 49 F. Low wind) average cost of domestic electrcity is about ten cents (roughly 5p) per kilowatt hour or unit. No heat per-se on at all, house is being warmed by miscellaneous lights, two PCs running continuously, cooking etc.

Cheers.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well I find him a bit gushy, and populist, but then you have to be to get on the Beeb these days anyway: largely though he knows his subject, and gets some good points across. And appears to be able to speak English (albeit with a Scottish accent) which is more than most can these days.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well..a liter of oil weighs about* a kilogram, and costs about 50p to heat yer house, and probably generates a kg of atmospheric carbon, or whatever it is with the addition of two oxygen atoms - about 3 times its own weight in carbon dioxide..

so thats a bout 2kg for every £ spent on fuel. I think gas is probably similar.

Ad far as electricity generation goes, broadly with the sorts of efficiencies seen 10 units of electricity give out the same heat as a liter of oil, but will have been generated at probably about 40% efficiency, so lets say that a unit of electricity takes about 250grams of carbon..is that right?

• order of magnitude only..oils lighter than water and has a few hydrogens attached.

[Roger]

The message from Terry Fields contains these words:

and look at the graph at the top of page 21.

And those that are classified as medium level and below are also shown as minor players.

Those classified as a high level of scientific understanding are CO2, CH4, N2O and Halocarbons and about three fifths of that column represents CO2.

Not bad at all but it does rather destroy the last vestiges of your credibility.

It did indeed. It shows how desperate you are to discredit global warming that you would cite an item that makes such a strong case for the greenhouse effect.

[Roger]

The message from Terry Fields contains these words:

For someone who claims a scientific approach you are remarkably careless with your 'facts'.

There is indeed a strong link between Solutrean artifacts and very similar items in America and there is some mitochondrial DNA linkage between several native American tribes and some modern European groups but as with any hypothesis for which there is absolutely no evidence there is some dispute about whether the the Solutreans ever made it from Europe to America at all let alone whether they did it by land or sea. Nor that they used kayaks.

[Bob Eager]

Can't you just accept that you have a religious belief about climate change, or whatever it's called this week, and Terry has a different one? Religions rarely ever agree.

[Terry Fields]

>> and look at the graph at the top of page 21.

If you believe that the document makes that case, then I despair for the future of the human race.

[Terry Fields]

In that case, the BBC TV programme that showed the DNA traces was a load of rubbish.

Thanks for your input.

[Roger]

The message from "Bob Eager" contains these words:

I don't see my quest as for anything other than the truth. That quest is currently taking me down the global warming road from a very sceptical beginning.

To keep things simple I will repeat that snippet from Wikipedia:

"The greenhouse effect was discovered by Joseph Fourier in 1824 and first investigated quantitatively by Svante Arrhenius in 1896.[2]

In the absence of the greenhouse effect, the Earth's average surface temperature of 14 °C (57 °F) would be about -18 °C (?0.4 °F) [3] [4](Black body temperature of the Earth). "

If it is accepted that the above is broadly correct then I can't see how any disinterested observer can do anything other than accept that varying the CO2 concentration has a significant effect on the temperature.

To say as Huge did that the greenhouse effect is established fact but has nothing to do with climate change beggars belief. Huge may not be the genius he thinks he is but he certainly isn't stupid so what drives the man to deny the obvious if it isn't religion.

In the final analysis it doesn't really matter what the source of the CO2 is. If the increasing CO2 is a danger then it behoves our masters to do something about it. All the signs are that we are teetering on the brink. Recent years do show a slowdown but it will be several years at least before it becomes apparent whether the trend is really still upwards or the temperature really has peaked.

Perhaps we should revisit this subject in 10 years time by which time we should have a clearer idea of who has got the wrong end of the stick. :-)

[Terry Fields]

Some two or three years ago I researched as best I could the published evidence for and against 'global warming', as it was called then.

i was shocked at the flaky nature of the pro-warming 'evidence' (which I mentoined elsewhere) and the vituperation launched against those scientists that spoke out against it.

I drew the conclusion that CO2-based 'global warming' was a load of rubbish, driven by some other agenda, and have seen nothing to make me change my mind since then.

What does come across is the nature of the attack by those who do believe it on those who don't.

[Bob Eager]

Prophets have said that for centuries!

[The Natural Philosopher]

>> and look at the graph at the top of page 21.

wheres we just despair of you.

Seems a fairly reasonable arrangement..;-)

[The Natural Philosopher]

That tells anyone who actually understands science, how little you do.

There is no more to be said.

What you fail to realise, is that the 'there is no CO2 driven global warming' is another agenda driven by peole who have other ideas tat are more about short term profit.

You have become their sock puppet.

Or vice versa.

Oh, by the way when was the last time you could actually take a boat to the North Pole?

And how does that fit in with your 'no global warming' thesis.

[Roger]

The message from "Bob Eager" contains these words:

Funnily enough when I was at college my nickname was Prof.