Great Global Warming Swindle (Ch4 last night)

[G1ZmO]

Did anyone watch the Great Global Warming Swindle on Ch4 last night?

It was obviously very one-sided but had some very interesting arguments against man made climate change.

A few points which struck me:

- Ice core samples covering thousands of years show that rising CO2 levels follow rises in temperature and not vice versa as generally thought.

- There was a theory that cosmic rays can generate clouds and that during periods where solar activity is high the solar wind effectively blows these cosmic rays away from the earth therefore less clouds and higher temperatures (sounds a bit bizarre to me)

- Global temperature variations directly coincide with solar activity but not CO2 levels

- Temperatures rose in the period up to 1940 BEFORE the major industrial boom and fell between then and 1975 then began to rise to the present day levels.

I'm not saying that man-made global warming is nonsense (as the program clearly did) but there are some interesting points for thought.

Cheers

Paul

[GazOC]

As you say it was very one sided but its a side we don't hear very often. The superimposed solar activity/ polar temperature graphs we're pretty impressive.

Another interesting point was that global warming became a popular cause after the Cold War ended and the peace protesters were at a loose end for something to do.

[Tinkerbell]

It seems that by the reports in the Daily Mail and that program last night some of the people who disagree with the Man Made Global Warming Myth are being given a platform.

Could it be that the dissenting voices in the darkness are starting to get louder. :shock: I'm sure some swivel eyed tree hugging useful idiot will be wheeled out to decry the findings presented last night as usual Let the fun begin

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Something else to consider:-

http://www.btinternet.com/~robertjtucker/gas_emissivity.htm

That's a link that shows how to calculate the emissivity (greenhouse gasness) of a furnace atmosphere (something that some of us do for a living). It demonstrates that water vapour has a profound effect on the grey gas model of atmospheric emissivity. Because there is comparatively loads more water vapour than CO2, the climate change model as presented to us on the TV is flawed.

http://www.atmos.washington.edu/honors_220/model/model_instructions.html

Is another interesting link along the same theme.

Enjoy the fizzing brain sensation.

Captain Chaos

[Vega]

I too posted about the program but on the SPA Forum The thread has grown massively since this morning. A fascinating theory which in my opinion is much more believable and makes much more sense than the Man-made Co2 theory.

Matt

[MartinB]

The trouble with these debates is that so often people start with a particular view and then look for the evidence that supports that view. When we are dealing with probabilities rather than certainties this is especially easy.

Never let the evidence get in the way of a good predjudice as they say.

[Alliboy]

Before I watched this program my view was that we should be do all we can to stop using fossel fuels and how disrespectful we humans are to our planet and this is regardless of whether global waming is due to C02 released by man. This program turned me around and I have to say I was wrong because as stated if the pressure to stop using fossil fuels is unecessarily pushed before we have a cheap alternative then people in developing countries will die. This I feel was the most important point of last nights program.

[magician]

What I found to be most interesting was the number of 'Experts' who disagree with the 'Experts 'that have been foisted upon us--Usually by our political masters- I am a layman,what do I know? other than someone is going to great lengths to convince me of SOMETHING!

Cheers Frank

[Jamie]

someone is going to great lengths to convince me of SOMETHING!

Yep and that is that THEY are gonna make more money from you by taxing your presence on earth... (as fossil fuels start to run out we will be taxed on the lack of them as well as our use of them) :shock: (jeeze that sounds just daft enough to be true) :insects1:

My own theory is that mother earth has "hot and cold" spells and this is just the beginning of one of her "hot spells".....

[Andrew*]

Not your own theory, Jamie, but the argument goes that we are currently in a hotter "spell" now than we have ever been in a few hundred thousand years (forget the figures). Whether the research or technology used to form that statement is sound or not is another question.

There are so so many different sides to this debate and each one sounds as probable as the next. I find it very difficult to decide who and what to believe, and why.

Andrew

[MartinB]

I haven't looked into the evidence (got all on keeping up with medical evidence), I'm happy to go with consensus scientific opinion which states the overwhelming probability is that CO2 emmissions are having an impact on global warming. I'm not naive, I do understand how research departments gain funding.

If you want to come up with an informed opinion the best way isn't to watch a program which just explores the views of a small minority of scientist who have a different view.

An understanding of probablilty is essential to allowing you to make sense of the evidence. So, sad to say, you will need to understand some statistics - significance and p values, odds ratios and confidence intervals and normal distributions will do. Then study design and the problems with individual studies - potential for bias, confounding factors, intermediate outcome measures and surrogate markers. All sounds complicated but is actually dead simple for anyone with a CSE in maths and a bit of time.

The trouble is there isn't a good read on these basic stats tools for the lay reader. There is a great opportunity for someone to write a readable book along the lines of "Eats Shoots and Leaves" on statistics. Now that's given me an idea

[GazOC]

As I was watching the program last night I couldn't help thinking that this CO2/ global warming connection was analogous to dark matter/ dark energy in astronomy in that its widely accepted but there are massive holes in both theories. They could both end up being those things that when people look back in 100 years or whatever they can't understand why relatively few questioned them.

[Astroman]

MartinB is exactly right. Programs such as the above are designed to introduce a point of view to people that do not understand scientific method in such a way as to further their own agenda and generate controversy, scandal and disinformation where none exists.

Moon Plodger's inflamatory comments don't help any either.

I thought I was nearly banned for voicing an opposing position, well before I even got started, and the thread was pulled.

Science-982. Dissent-0

[GazOC]

I thought I was nearly banned for voicing an opposing position, well before I even got started, and the thread was pulled.

No one was 'nearly banned', the last thread on the subject was pulled because it had gone off climate change and into politics.

[Astroman]

Pardon my overstatement, but that topic was pulled quickly, and this one extends points of view clearly opposite the science involved.

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

AM I've no doubt at all that the scientific studies carried out so far are valid and point towards overuse of fossil fuel helping the climate warming. BUT. The case put to the "man in the street" is not valid and has been politicised far too much. Our politicians have a vested interest in cutting carbon emmisions as they can close down industries and say that it's a "good thing". We used to have a steel industry but now most is imported from India and Brasil. Their efficiency levels are less than half UK levels for the use of fossil fuel, I should know, I've been there and measured it. You can't shift the problem away from Europe and USA and claim that other countries, such as the ones mentioned and China, should be let off the hook for economic reasons whilst letting them use double what we used to do as far as fossil fuels are concerned. It's just madness.

Everybody should cut fuel useage by every means possible even if it's just because there is not much left. The way its being done is flawed though.

Captain Chaos (trying his level best not to get political)

[GazOC]

Pardon my overstatement, but that topic was pulled quickly, and this one extends points of view clearly opposite the science involved.

SGL has a no politics policy, the last thread was pulled quickly as it had started to get political and its better to nip things in the bud when they are heading in the wrong direction rather than wait until it all blows up before acting.

This thread has stayed on-topic and as long as this continues people are welcome to voice their opinions on climate change.

[MartinB]

Sound advice Gaz.

CC there is this common belief that government or big business controls the scientists. I can only speak for my own field, medicine, where the drug companies play a huge role with profits hinging on the results of trials. There's lots of mischief going on such as publication bias but even here anyone with half an eye can see through the misleading presentation of statistics. The chief medical officer wouldn't last 5 mins if he strayed away from scientific method and analysis when guiding government policy. There is a mass of independent scientific research. I can't believe that in the earth sciences there isn't a similar body of independent minded scientists formulatin opinion.

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

OK so back to what I was saying about CO2 levels in the atmosphere.

The links I posted state that the greenhouse effect depends upon the parial pressure (percentage in laymans terms) of both CO2 and H2O in the atmosphere. An increase in either leads to an increase in the emissivity of the atmosphere which is what the greenhouse effect is all about. Only a fool would disagree with that statement as it's a well studied area of the science.

To follow up on that by stating that the increase in CO2 levels has caused a gloal increase in temperature misses two important parts of the equation:-

The percentage of H2O, for exactly the same reasons of accepted physics, will affect the amount of greenhouse effect.

The percentage of H2O in the atmosphere is measured in %, whereas the CO2 is measured in PPM.

My conclusion is that the role of CO2 in global warming has been vastly overstated, I only wish I knew why that is the case.

Captain Chaos

[tenbyfifty]

Unfortunately I missed the C4 programme and if anybody knows when its being repeated please post in

lounge lizard. Hearing about it has sent a shiver down my spine though. Even if global warming has nothing to do with Man's influence, the idea of global warming is doing a very nice job of focussing the attention of both the public and more importantly governments, on environmental issues generally.

The fact is homo sapien has done a lot of damage to just about every environment he's lived and worked in,

and we need something big to radically alter our perceptions and behaviour WRT the natural world we all depend upon. Global warming is doing a damn fine job of scaring the carp out of everybody and making us all think positively and responsibly about what we can do to lessen our impact on poor old Mother Earth who may well be thinking by now that bald, lanky, bi-pedal apes weren't such a good idea after all, even if they are quite good at sums, drawing, open heart surgery and snooker.

Even if we aren't causing the world to heat up, we are chopping down rain forests, we are killing off species at an unprecedented rate ,we are polluting rivers and oceans with toxic chemicals, we are creating choking smogs over our larger cities, we are creating a population too large for us to provide for and we are at a point where we need to start doing something about it.

[Carl]

I¬ll be watching this in Theory at College next Thursday.Kinda looking forward to it just hope it`s not depressing.We watch `FIve Ways to save the World` last week, then we had to write about it, was really good.

[G1ZmO]

For anyone in the vicinity of East Kilbride. There are some FREE science talks on the subject running on Satuday mornings at 11:00 in EK.

I attended the last series of talks which was on the cosmos and enjoyed them very much.

details can be found here: http://www.scienceforall.co.uk

Cheers

Paul

[gary1968]

I saw a telly program a while ago about the theory of 'Global Dimming' This offsets the effect of global warming. But, due to man's obsession with polution we decided to reduce emmissions, heavy particulates being the first to go. Now, we have reduced these particulates, more sunlight can get through and due to the co2 in the atmosphere the heat from the sun light cant get back out. So, I my very uneducated opinion it would appear that our effort to reduce polution we have inadvertantly increased the effect of global warming.

I therefore think that my landrover is on a quest to increase global dimming and therefor reducing global warming............. 8)

Gary.

ps that'll be the blue touch paper light then...............

[Ant]

I watched the program with interest.

I am more than happy to take on board the criticism that it was very one sided. BUT if there is any credence to this argument and I have to say it did seem very compelling (especially the solar activity / Temp chart), then by not including it the people / scientists that say that all global warming in man made are being one sided to the extreme.

It's back to the age old argument, who do we believe...

Governments? NOT LIKELY.

Scientists, what the ones that have to make their research more exciting / important / deadly than last year to get the money they need to carry on - NOT LIKELY.

Now don't all jump on me, the scientist comments is a wild sweeping statement. I'm not trying to imply anything bad by it. Just my own thought process, in trying to figure out who / what to believe.

The CH4 program was very interesting, and compelling.

Ant

[Jamie]

Hmmmm!

I don't believe the governments and that goes as a matter of fact or not in this case.

Scientists well there are 2 kinds in my book.

The ones you just posted about Ant and the ones that are above the yearly grant.

Its very hard to tell the difference though.

On the other hand you can make of this what you may.

Here in the West Of Scotland (Renfrewshire) in the 70's we had very bad pollution loads worse

than we have now (remember all that smog?). ( I do it nearly killed me as a child )

Granted we have more cars on the road and planes in the air but we STILL had cars and planes.

Ask your self what is missing from todays equation-

Every household burning coal fires every factory burning what ever they burned to make that

big smoke plume from all those chimneys.

Plus there were no smokeless zones meaning anyone could burn anything (and they did)

All our power stations were powered by burning coal or oil (today its nuclear fuel) (not an argument for nuclear fuel BTW)

Now about those cars.

Maybe we have 10 million more cars on the road now than we had then but the old ones only had an exhaust pipe to quieten the engine noise and to direct the engine fumes away from under the car. (not to reduce emissions) = 2 dirty cars on the road or 8 semi-clean ones multiplied by millions.

"IN RENFREWSHIRE"

In the 70's we had 2ft over night snowfall every other week in the winter.(now we are lucky to get snow at all)

Summer started mid May till late September (can't ever remember having to wear a coat during the summer holidays)

Now we have a good week in may 2 in July and one in August. (unless we get the odd heatwave)

Now we always get rain/thunder storms the likes i have never seen here before.

This is a significant change from what used to be the norm. And it only took 30 years to become noticable.

Surely you folks up and down the counrty must see this change too?

I for one say that we live in a cleaner place now than back then...........