Global warming - What's your "opinion"?

[Bold Seagull]

the VW issue highlights the problem. this wasnt an isolated policy from our government, it was a general european wide policy to promote diesel on the basis of better CO2 emissions. meanwhile they didnt pay as much attention to other pollutants. thats why they are in trouble in the US and less so in the EU, because they have regulations covering emissions we and the EU dont. i didnt mean to tarnish any group, i meant that it is "those that keep track of pollution and its causes" that are pointing the finger at the substantial increase in diesel uptake, not bothered by whether they are government or NGO, thats what i gathered from what i have read.

appreciate the stats on renewable targets, i was sure targets were ahead of schedule. i do though understand why they stalled on those green deals, because they were creating perverse incentives (farmers with fields of solar) and having negative impacts (dodgy insultation leading to damp), and costing quite a lot at a time when we were talking about austerity and how to tackle fuel poverty. at the very least the implementation needs rethinking.

I can appreciate what you are saying, and frankly they got it wrong on diesel vehicles, but I don't think that should be confused with a negative outlook on renewables. Trouble is, governments like short term fixes with tangible benefits within their election cycle. Our energy security and strategy does need outward looking thinking and long term commitment. Feels like the world is doing the opposite, suddenly turning inward and thinking short term.

 

[WonderingSoton]

Cool. Can you source that data? All I'd need is the records from the 150 Billion years of research that you have seen that brings you to the conclusion that we cannot have done that much damage.

I know what you mean though. For example the Great Plain Buffallo existed in vast numbers, about 600,000,000 for about 10 million years before settlers in the U.S didn't manage to reduce their number to 300 within the space of 100 years. Oh, no, hang on, they did. Oh.

Yes we're capable of causing extinction to species of animal, we have that 'power' for want of a better word as Humans. the North American Buffalo weren't the first and probably won't be the last unfortunately - but I fail to see how that's relevant to the discussion we're having about our power to effect climate cycles. Sorry. Nice edit to correct yourself btw. 5 years?

Ironically, Cows/Bison et all put out large amounts of methane and 600,000,00 extra of them wouldn't do our global warming efforts much good!

 

[The Clamp]

Yes we're capable of causing extinction to species of animal, we have that 'power' for want of a better word as Humans. the North American Buffalo weren't the first and probably won't be the last unfortunately - but I fail to see how that's relevant to the discussion we're having about our power to effect climate cycles. Sorry. Nice edit to correct yourself btw.

Ironically, Cows/Bison et all put out large amounts of methane and 600,000,00 extra of them wouldn't do our global warming efforts much good!

It's a shame you can't see the relevance. But also rather telling.

Edited to include accurate data. You should give it a go.

 

[sydney]

What does that last sentence even MEAN? What is that conclusion based on? Where is the data to back that assumption up?

you on the rags again love....

 

[The Clamp]

I can appreciate what you are saying, and frankly they got it wrong on diesel vehicles, but I don't think that should be confused with a negative outlook on renewables. Trouble is, governments like short term fixes with tangible benefits within their election cycle. Our energy security and strategy does need outward looking thinking and long term commitment. Feels like the world is doing the opposite, suddenly turning inward and thinking short term.

Good post.

 

[sydney]

I can appreciate what you are saying, and frankly they got it wrong on diesel vehicles, but I don't think that should be confused with a negative outlook on renewables. Trouble is, governments like short term fixes with tangible benefits within their election cycle. Our energy security and strategy does need outward looking thinking and long term commitment. Feels like the world is doing the opposite, suddenly turning inward and thinking short term.

it's all about the $$$$$$$....!!

 

[The Clamp]

you on the rags again love....

On the rags? Rags? you can't even insult someone properly, you penis.

 

[larus]

Can you please confirm the point you are making with this link?

I honestly thought the Wiki title was quite clear. "List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming".

My point is there are not an insignificant number of scientists who oppose, to varying levels, the doctrine of catastrophic man made global warming.

If you think that the "science is settled" (as so many people continually espouse), then why is it that the models are so wrong.

This from Dr Roy Spencer. His bio is :

Roy W. Spencer received his Ph.D. in meteorology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1981. Before becoming a Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville in 2001, he was a Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, where he and Dr. John Christy received NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for their global temperature monitoring work with satellites. Dr. Spencer’s work with NASA continues as the U.S. Science Team leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite. He has provided congressional testimony several times on the subject of global warming.

Dr. Spencer’s research has been entirely supported by U.S. government agencies: NASA, NOAA, and DOE. He has never been asked by any oil company to perform any kind of service. Not even Exxon-Mobil.

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2014/02/95-of-climate-models-agree-the-observations-must-be-wrong/

Also, this is from this page http://www.drroyspencer.com/global-warming-natural-or-manmade/

Global Warming
“Global warming” refers to the global-average temperature increase that has been observed over the last one hundred years or more. But to many politicians and the public, the term carries the implication that mankind is responsible for that warming. This website describes evidence from my group’s government-funded research that suggests global warming is mostly natural, and that the climate system is quite insensitive to humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions and aerosol pollution.

Believe it or not, very little research has ever been funded to search for natural mechanisms of warming…it has simply been assumed that global warming is manmade. This assumption is rather easy for scientists since we do not have enough accurate global data for a long enough period of time to see whether there are natural warming mechanisms at work.

The United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claims that the only way they can get their computerized climate models to produce the observed warming is with anthropogenic (human-caused) pollution. But they’re not going to find something if they don’t search for it. More than one scientist has asked me, “What else COULD it be?” Well, the answer to that takes a little digging… and as I show, one doesn’t have to dig very far.

But first let’s examine the basics of why so many scientists think global warming is manmade. Earth’s atmosphere contains natural greenhouse gases (mostly water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane) which act to keep the lower layers of the atmosphere warmer than they otherwise would be without those gases. Greenhouse gases trap infrared radiation — the radiant heat energy that the Earth naturally emits to outer space in response to solar heating. Mankind’s burning of fossil fuels (mostly coal, petroleum, and natural gas) releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and this is believed to be enhancing the Earth’s natural greenhouse effect. As of 2008, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was about 40% to 45% higher than it was before the start of the industrial revolution in the 1800’s.

It is interesting to note that, even though carbon dioxide is necessary for life on Earth to exist, there is precious little of it in Earth’s atmosphere. As of 2008, only 39 out of every 100,000 molecules of air were CO2, and it will take mankind’s CO2 emissions 5 more years to increase that number by 1, to 40.

The “Holy Grail”: Climate Sensitivity Figuring out how much past warming is due to mankind, and how much more we can expect in the future, depends upon something called “climate sensitivity”. This is the temperature response of the Earth to a given amount of ‘radiative forcing’, of which there are two kinds: a change in either the amount of sunlight absorbed by the Earth, or in the infrared energy the Earth emits to outer space.

The ‘consensus’ of opinion is that the Earth’s climate sensitivity is quite high, and so warming of about 0.25 deg. C to 0.5 deg. C (about 0.5 deg. F to 0.9 deg. F) every 10 years can be expected for as long as mankind continues to use fossil fuels as our primary source of energy. NASA’s James Hansen claims that climate sensitivity is very high, and that we have already put too much extra CO2 in the atmosphere. Presumably this is why he and Al Gore are campaigning for a moratorium on the construction of any more coal-fired power plants in the U.S.

You would think that we’d know the Earth’s ‘climate sensitivity’ by now, but it has been surprisingly difficult to determine. How atmospheric processes like clouds and precipitation systems respond to warming is critical, as they are either amplifying the warming, or reducing it. This website currently concentrates on the response of clouds to warming, an issue which I am now convinced the scientific community has totally misinterpreted when they have measured natural, year-to-year fluctuations in the climate system. As a result of that confusion, they have the mistaken belief that climate sensitivity is high, when in fact the satellite evidence suggests climate sensitivity is low.

The case for natural climate change I also present an analysis of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation which shows that most climate change might well be the result of….the climate system itself! Because small, chaotic fluctuations in atmospheric and oceanic circulation systems can cause small changes in global average cloudiness, this is all that is necessary to cause climate change. You don’t need the sun, or any other ‘external’ influence (although these are also possible…but for now I’ll let others work on that). It is simply what the climate system does. This is actually quite easy for meteorologists to believe, since we understand how complex weather processes are. Your local TV meteorologist is probably a closet ‘skeptic’ regarding mankind’s influence on climate.

Climate change — it happens, with or without our help.

Dr Roy Spencer is responsible for the production (with his team) of one of the 5 global datasets (UAH). This is a satellite dataset and, as such, is less pronse to adjustments which get done on land based ones (infilling, etc.).

 

[Bold Seagull]

I honestly thought the Wiki title was quite clear. "List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming".

My point is there are not an insignificant number of scientists who oppose, to varying levels, the doctrine of catastrophic man made global warming.

If you think that the "science is settled" (as so many people continually espouse), then why is it that the models are so wrong.

This from Dr Roy Spencer.

Dr. Spencer is on the board of directors of the George C. Marshall Institute, a right-wing conservative think tank on scientific issues and public policy. He listed as an expert for the Heartland Institute, a libertarian American public policy think tank. Dr. Spencer is also listed as an expert by the International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project (ICECAP), a global warming "skeptic" organization

He's made a lot of money and publicity about his skeptical views.

 

[larus]

Dr. Spencer is on the board of directors of the George C. Marshall Institute, a right-wing conservative think tank on scientific issues and public policy. He listed as an expert for the Heartland Institute, a libertarian American public policy think tank. Dr. Spencer is also listed as an expert by the International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project (ICECAP), a global warming "skeptic" organization

He's made a lot of money and publicity about his skeptical views.

He may well have done - I don't know about that. However, he is still responsible for producting one of the 5 global datasets on temperature. And, aligning himself to an organisation which in in tune with his beliefs on global warming is not so wrong is it? Just because they differ in their views, there does not mean that they are corrupt or dishonest, which is clearly your agenda. There is so much "shoot the messenger" on here.

Talking about money - how about Al Gore? He's made millions from global warming and is so worried about the environment he flies everywhere in a private jet! And he wants to lecture us about Co2 emissions.

 

[Bold Seagull]

He may well have done - I don't know about that. However, he is still responsible for producting one of the 5 global datasets on temperature. And, aligning himself to an organisation which in in tune with his beliefs on global warming is not so wrong is it? Just because they differ in their views, there does not mean that they are corrupt or dishonest, which is clearly your agenda. There is so much "shoot the messenger" on here.

Talking about money - how about Al Gore? He's made millions from global warming and is so worried about the environment he flies everywhere in a private jet! And he wants to lecture us about Co2 emissions.

What Al Gore does or doesn't do doesn't impact my thoughts on our planet one iota.

 

[The Clamp]

The death of the ocean's coral reefs is a big problem too, they cleanse the oceans and support a vast wealth of marine life. It is having a huge impact on marine life.

Another worry is my former favourite magazine National Geographic was bought last year by the Murdoch news group. This mag used to report heavily on climate and energy issues. Rupert and his son are high profile climate change deniers.

 

[GoldWithFalmer]

20 million years.

Not wishing to belittle facts,however in the grand scheme of things 20 million years is a rather short time,what if there were such levels as they are now,peaks and troughs over every 100-200 million years? that said i would agree.

 

[Bold Seagull]

Not wishing to belittle facts,however in the grand scheme of things 20 million years is a rather short time,what if there were such levels as they are now,peaks and troughs over every 100-200 million years? that said i would agree.

Mainly due to we are able to measure these peaks and troughs that follow a pattern over that time frame. Of course there could be other patterns that measure every 100 million years or so. However, a bit coincidental that a cycle that might operate over 100s of millions of years arises to give unprecedented levels of CO2 in the atmosphere at the same time human beings release huge amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere.

 

[GoldWithFalmer]

Mainly due to we are able to measure these peaks and troughs that follow a pattern over that time frame. Of course there could be other patterns that measure every 100 million years or so. However, a bit coincidental that a cycle that might operate over 100s of millions of years arises to give unprecedented levels of CO2 in the atmosphere at the same time human beings release huge amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere.

True,very true..as a side issue it makes me shudder to think what damage was done when they tested nuclear devices in the upper atmosphere back in the 1950's and 60s,although thought i read somewhere that there has been no effect from it..

I liken the global warming to sitting in your of my front room and lighting some candles,just candles,a few not many,after a while even with out the heating on in mid winter it's going to create some heat eventually..

The real scary part is how on earth are we going to change things-

 

[pb21]

Dr. Spencer is on the board of directors of the George C. Marshall Institute, a right-wing conservative think tank on scientific issues and public policy. He listed as an expert for the Heartland Institute, a libertarian American public policy think tank. Dr. Spencer is also listed as an expert by the International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project (ICECAP), a global warming "skeptic" organization

He's made a lot of money and publicity about his skeptical views.

What a surprise. These people are right wing, free market loving libertarians first and foremost and then climate change skeptics/deniers second.

They cannot be reasoned with scientifically.

 

[larus]

What a surprise. These people are right wing, free market loving libertarians first and foremost and then climate change skeptics/deniers second.

They cannot be reasoned with scientifically.

He was a NASA scientist and still produces one of the 5 global temperature datasets, but hey-Ho, you read a comment from a poster on NSC and think that overrides the credentials of someone of that stature. Jeez, there really are some f***ing dicks on here who are so blinkered that they cannot even consider the idea that as humans, we know so little about the climate.

 

[beorhthelm]

What a surprise. These people are right wing, free market loving libertarians first and foremost and then climate change skeptics/deniers second.

They cannot be reasoned with scientifically.

you dont agree with someones politics, so you they cant be reasoned with on matters of science? do you not see how ridiculous that is?

that wiki list of people with objections to IPCC kicks off with David Bellamy (literally wrote the book The Greenhouse Effect), includes visionary Freeman Dyson and well known right-winger Peirs Corbyn. maybe the politics isnt as settled as you think?

 

[dangull]

If humans became extinct, mother Earth will heal the planet In no time. The Earth has been hotter and colder in the past. There will be another species to take its place.

 

[BadFish]

I honestly thought the Wiki title was quite clear. "List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming".

My point is there are not an insignificant number of scientists who oppose, to varying levels, the doctrine of catastrophic man made global warming.

If you think that the "science is settled" (as so many people continually espouse), then why is it that the models are so wrong.

This from Dr Roy Spencer. His bio is :

Roy W. Spencer received his Ph.D. in meteorology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1981. Before becoming a Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville in 2001, he was a Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, where he and Dr. John Christy received NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for their global temperature monitoring work with satellites. Dr. Spencer’s work with NASA continues as the U.S. Science Team leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite. He has provided congressional testimony several times on the subject of global warming.

Dr. Spencer’s research has been entirely supported by U.S. government agencies: NASA, NOAA, and DOE. He has never been asked by any oil company to perform any kind of service. Not even Exxon-Mobil.

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2014/02/95-of-climate-models-agree-the-observations-must-be-wrong/

Also, this is from this page http://www.drroyspencer.com/global-warming-natural-or-manmade/

Global Warming
“Global warming” refers to the global-average temperature increase that has been observed over the last one hundred years or more. But to many politicians and the public, the term carries the implication that mankind is responsible for that warming. This website describes evidence from my group’s government-funded research that suggests global warming is mostly natural, and that the climate system is quite insensitive to humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions and aerosol pollution.

Believe it or not, very little research has ever been funded to search for natural mechanisms of warming…it has simply been assumed that global warming is manmade. This assumption is rather easy for scientists since we do not have enough accurate global data for a long enough period of time to see whether there are natural warming mechanisms at work.

The United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claims that the only way they can get their computerized climate models to produce the observed warming is with anthropogenic (human-caused) pollution. But they’re not going to find something if they don’t search for it. More than one scientist has asked me, “What else COULD it be?” Well, the answer to that takes a little digging… and as I show, one doesn’t have to dig very far.

But first let’s examine the basics of why so many scientists think global warming is manmade. Earth’s atmosphere contains natural greenhouse gases (mostly water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane) which act to keep the lower layers of the atmosphere warmer than they otherwise would be without those gases. Greenhouse gases trap infrared radiation — the radiant heat energy that the Earth naturally emits to outer space in response to solar heating. Mankind’s burning of fossil fuels (mostly coal, petroleum, and natural gas) releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and this is believed to be enhancing the Earth’s natural greenhouse effect. As of 2008, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was about 40% to 45% higher than it was before the start of the industrial revolution in the 1800’s.

It is interesting to note that, even though carbon dioxide is necessary for life on Earth to exist, there is precious little of it in Earth’s atmosphere. As of 2008, only 39 out of every 100,000 molecules of air were CO2, and it will take mankind’s CO2 emissions 5 more years to increase that number by 1, to 40.

The “Holy Grail”: Climate Sensitivity Figuring out how much past warming is due to mankind, and how much more we can expect in the future, depends upon something called “climate sensitivity”. This is the temperature response of the Earth to a given amount of ‘radiative forcing’, of which there are two kinds: a change in either the amount of sunlight absorbed by the Earth, or in the infrared energy the Earth emits to outer space.

The ‘consensus’ of opinion is that the Earth’s climate sensitivity is quite high, and so warming of about 0.25 deg. C to 0.5 deg. C (about 0.5 deg. F to 0.9 deg. F) every 10 years can be expected for as long as mankind continues to use fossil fuels as our primary source of energy. NASA’s James Hansen claims that climate sensitivity is very high, and that we have already put too much extra CO2 in the atmosphere. Presumably this is why he and Al Gore are campaigning for a moratorium on the construction of any more coal-fired power plants in the U.S.

You would think that we’d know the Earth’s ‘climate sensitivity’ by now, but it has been surprisingly difficult to determine. How atmospheric processes like clouds and precipitation systems respond to warming is critical, as they are either amplifying the warming, or reducing it. This website currently concentrates on the response of clouds to warming, an issue which I am now convinced the scientific community has totally misinterpreted when they have measured natural, year-to-year fluctuations in the climate system. As a result of that confusion, they have the mistaken belief that climate sensitivity is high, when in fact the satellite evidence suggests climate sensitivity is low.

The case for natural climate change I also present an analysis of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation which shows that most climate change might well be the result of….the climate system itself! Because small, chaotic fluctuations in atmospheric and oceanic circulation systems can cause small changes in global average cloudiness, this is all that is necessary to cause climate change. You don’t need the sun, or any other ‘external’ influence (although these are also possible…but for now I’ll let others work on that). It is simply what the climate system does. This is actually quite easy for meteorologists to believe, since we understand how complex weather processes are. Your local TV meteorologist is probably a closet ‘skeptic’ regarding mankind’s influence on climate.

Climate change — it happens, with or without our help.

Dr Roy Spencer is responsible for the production (with his team) of one of the 5 global datasets (UAH). This is a satellite dataset and, as such, is less pronse to adjustments which get done on land based ones (infilling, etc.).

Yes the title was quite clear but some of the content seemed to muddy the waters a little.

Anyway

I am interested to know what percantage of scientists you think agree and disagree with man made climate change? You disputed the 97% earlier in the thread so I was wondering what your research puts the figure at?