Re: Global warming deniers

Inuit4Life wrote:
Inuit4Life (by name, but not by nature):

I'm an Inuit at Heart
It wasn't the "Inuit" I was questioning. It was the "4Life", which
seems not to sit comfortably with your attitude towards the
environment!

I despair of your conspiracy-theory/global incompetence attitude. The
IPCC is an international body of climate experts including several US
scientists. NASA researchers (I understand NASA is a US organisation)

Despair? Wow, maybe you should lighten up a little? Just kidding.
But seriously, obviously developed Nations such as the US and UN
members will take great lengths to protect the environment, because
they are under a constant litany of how the environment is under a
stream of attack. In the 1970s fossil fuels were predicted to be gone
by 2000, now its been moved back to 2050. The fact is that the public
is always going to need something to worry about when it comes to the
world they live in. The media and scientists find that they make a lot
of money when they can provide the public with this information.

Lets face it. Global warming research is a comparable industry. Last
year, there was over $5 billion in research. If scientists are paid to
come to a conclusion that creates more attention for them... well of
course they are going to find that conclusion.

You really don't understand the process of doing science, do you? If
you had any contact with active researchers, you would know that the
pay is often measly, and grants are constantly running out. And how do
you get more grant money? Not by "coming to a conclusion that creates
more attention for them...", but by publishing research results which
stand up to public scrutiny, and increase scientific knowledge. Try
publishing crap or made-up results just because that's what you think
people want to hear, and see how far that gets you in science!

are at the forefront of efforts to elucidate the size and mechanism of
any climate change. National scientific learned societies around the
world (including the AAAS) are convinced by the science that CO2
emissions are causing warming.

including the AAAS? Is this some sort of surpise?

No, it's not a surprise, because the scientific consensus is that
global warming is occurring, so predictably a major scientific body
would be likely to accept that scientific consensus.

In their 2003 press
release the first freaking opener does not even admit to a controversy
over the issue, it comes right out and says that Global Warming is a
problem they have to solve.

Oh, right. So not only is an area of science bunk if it's well-funded
(as you imply above), but it's also bunk if the AAAS is sure it's not?
So creationism must be correct, then, to get briefly back to the
subject of this group, since the AAAS admits of no doubt on the
validity of evolutionary theory. And how about the UK's Royal Society?
Tree-huggers with honorifics? The US National Academy of Sciences? All
the other national science academies of the G8, Brazil, China and
India? The US National Research Council? Any comments on them?

The dissent comes from (surprise,
surprise) the petroleum and automotive industries - but even most car
manufacturers (including GM) are now investing heavily in
fuel-efficient vehicles and alternative power sources.

The irony is thick isn't it? But not too thick. Of course gas and car
manufacturers are going to try and fight against this tide of poor
science. Their livelyhood depends on it. Just because there is
interested decent

I think you meant "dissent". Am I right?

does not mean that global warming is any more true.

That's funny - you were just complaining about the AAAS being convinced
that manmade climate change is occurring, as if that made it *less*
true!

There clearly is an interest in creating Global Warming.

Oh, of course there is. Anthropogenic climate change, if the scientific
consensus is correct, is likely to: cause monsoons to fail and the
major Asian rivers to dry up, jeopardising the livelihoods of about two
billion people, as Himalayan glaciers retreat; turn much of Amazonia to
savannah, drastically reducing CO2 absorption capacity (never mind the
loss of species or potential medicinal discoveries) which will
accelerate CO2 build-up; halt the North Atlantic conveyor belt, so that
the British Isles (which I call home) will become much colder, with
more winter flooding; reduce crop yields in sub-Saharan Africa as
temperatures rise past optimal conditions and rainfall decreases; turn
millions of Bangladeshi into refugees as rising sea levels flood the
Ganges delta. As a supporter of the consensus on global warming, I'm
really looking forward to that, and the starvation and displacement it
will cause. What fun!

You're making the simple mistake of assuming that global warming is
poor science, despite all the evidence, despite the expert opinion, and
despite the undisputed existence of the well-understood greenhouse
effect. And interestingly, you made the argument initially that climate
change scientists say what it takes to keep them in a job, and yet the
automotive and petroleum industries (i.e. corporations with profit as
their underlying motive) are somehow not guilty of this, but fighting
the cause of true science! Priceless!

I was in Texas last week, talking to venture capitalists,

I really don't know what to say to that.

You didn't have to say anything to that comment in isolation. It was
providing context to my subsequent comment, which that I was surprised
to learn that even in the heart of oil country, people now seem to take
global warming seriously. Yes, I travelled there by plane, and yes, I
realise the contradiction. The only defence I have (not very good) is
that I was travelling as an invited and paid-for guest of my research
council, refusal would definitely have offended, and travelling by
freighter (which I would love to have the time to do) would have taken
about four weeks each way.

Did I mention the 1970s scare that we would run out of fossil fuels?
Oh, well that still applies today. Just because we have better
technology means nothing, you have to remember that they thought they
had better technology too.

No you didn't. And the 1970s scare was primarily of running out of oil,
*next week*, as Middle Eastern politics sent prices skyrocketing. The
increased interest in the size of economical oil reserves was a
*consequence* of this, not the cause, and as in any newish field of
study, early predictions weren't going to be spot on. Try this
argument:

"Did I mention the 1630s scare that the sun wasn't the centre of the
solar system? Oh, well that still applies today. Just because we have
better technology today means nothing, you have to remember that
Galileo thought he had better technology too."

So if one advance in technology means nothing, then no advances in
technology are worth having? Hmmm...

In any case, even if you don't accept man-made global warming as a
scientifically plausible hypothesis which appears to be supported by
more and more of the evidence, do you also reject the research which
calculates that we are using fossil fuel reserves at approximately 400
times the rate at which they were laid down in the Carboniferous (and
that therefore they will certainly run out one day)? To quote Dickens:

"Annual income twenty pounds; annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six:
result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds; annual expenditure
twenty pounds ought and six: result misery."

Similarly, big business is now in the strange
position of pressurising the US Govt to do something about CO2
emissions simply because of all the ancillary benefits to them of
emissions reductions (new technology platforms, better international
competitiveness, access to regulated markets like the EU and
increasingly China, easier compliance with other anti-pollution
legislation). Not only that, but they realised that these benefits
would only occur once companies weren't financially penalised by
investing more in new technology than their competitors.

And every other non-industrialized country in the world is screaming
against it. These countries need this cheap and efficient source of
fuel. When was the last time you saw Hydrogen powered cars coming out
of Uganda? Third world countries need this 'evil' technology to
survive. Because we live in Industrialized nations, we can afford to
inconvienence ourselves over the environment. Other nations are not so
fortunate.

I refer to my previous point about the finite nature of fossil fuel
reserves, and ask you: how does our prodigious and increasing use of
oil help the third world have access to it? And you are incorrect: the
non-industrialised countries need *a* cheap and efficient source of
fuel. They also need some means of industrializing without making the
same mistakes that we in the North have making over the last century or
more. Petroleum is a wonderfully compact energy source, but it's hardly
without problems, even if you discount global warming, including the
geopolitics of petroleum reserves, cost and hazards of transport,
energy use in refining, the health impact of particulate and NOx/SO2
pollution, never mind the utter dependence on a single energy source
and local communities' complete lack of control over their energy
supply.

We have ample resources to enable non-industrialized countries to
bypass all these problems, though combinations of wind, wave, tidal,
geothermal, solar (heat and PV), hydro, biomass, even some
waste-to-energy, along with hydrogen fuel cell technology for personal
transport, energy efficient vehicles, good public transport and
land-use planning. Of course developing countries will protest if we
demand they invest in these new technologies instead of the internal
combustion engine while we continue to use petroleum at our current
rate. That's not an argument against reducing petroleum use: it's a
demand for a level playing field.

Simmer down there kid.

Love you too, sweetie pie!

.

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