General Chat

Glacier melt claims were 'speculation' (from the Daily Express)

Monday January 18,2010
By Anil Dawar
FRESH doubts were cast over controversial global warming theories yesterday after a major climate change argument was discredited.
The International Panel on Climate Change was forced to admit its key claim that Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 was lifted from a 1999 magazine article. The report was based on an interview with a little-known Indian scientist who has since said his views were “speculation” and not backed up by research.
It was also revealed that the IPCC’s controversial chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, described as “the world’s top climate scientist”, is a former railway engineer with a PhD in economics and no formal climate science qualifications.

You can see the full article here:-

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/152422/The-new-climate-change-scandal

There are others along this line, too...

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/153130/Climate-change-experts-say-sorry

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/152848/Climate-boss-Yes-we-did-get-it-wrong

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/152595/Taxpayers-foot-bill-for-climate-change-campaigners

This is all I have read so far... no other reports, so bearing in mind media bias etc... this does give some food for thought... and of course, the organisation who picked up this ball and ran with it, they get paid lotsa pennies by governments all over the world.... what do others think?


Love

Daff xxxx

i think this ice cap melting thing
goes in waves and always has done
sometimes they are melting sometimes they are not
its just nature

as for pollution surly with the smokeless zones
we now have hardly anybody has coal fires
where as years ago everybody had then
and cows have always f**ted

so things must be better

My personal opinion is,

It's all the rockets going into Space since the 1960's that has caused all the Global Warming,ie knocking holes in the atmosphere can't be good for the World and it's population.

As for the cows f**ting makes Global Warming well it is a fact that they only cause 8% of the Global Warming,so where does the rest of the 92% come from.??? All the Space race that's where it comes from as as each country that has sent a rocket into Space has caused another hole in the amosphere.

But of course the Governments will deny this as they will say that we need to find out if there is life on Mars,The Moon or any other planet.

Cars, lorries, planes etc.

They've replaced the muck given out by coal fires and are probably giving out a huge amount more.

And look at the size and fuel consumption of cars in America! Can't be a good thing can it?

Plus all the electricity we use - power stations etc.

Jill

but most cars are now low emissions
so it should of dropped again


i say take all the cars off the road
and give everybody a horse pmsl

I think this is interesting, in relation to how much we are now affecting the climate, working roughly from the beginning of the Industrial age ...the world population growth

1804 1 billion
1850 1.2 billion
1900 1.6 billion
1927 2 billion
1950 2.55 billion
1955 2.8 billion
1960 3 billion
1965 3.3 billion
1970 3.7 billion
1975 4 billion
1980 4.5 billion
1985 4.85 billion
1990 5.3 billion
1995 5.7 billion
1999 6 billion
2006 6.5 billion
2009 6.8 billion
( taken from http://geography.about.com/od/obtainpopulationdata/a/worldpopulation.htm )

and taking into account the current industrialisation of countries like China , makes for a lot more pollution overall.

I don't know if it is 'man-made' climate change, or 'natural' climate change...but which ever it is, there isn't a doubt that it is happening so anything we do to reduce it and cope with it for our kids and grandkids sake ( and wildlife ), and make the planet generally a decent place to live has to be worth trying, IMO.

xx

Well if you think of certain countries building loads of power stations that are emmitting mega fumes our cars don't seem quite so bad. All those hydrogen/atomic bombs that have been tested on land and see must have done an awful lot of damage.

Pat

I think we all have very valid points....

my view is very non scientific... so anyone with a science background please feel free to challenge/educate/inform me, lol

I have a little bit of view from everyone else's, lol... nothing like sitting on the fence, is there, lol I won't use people's names.... but I have taken note of what everyone has written.

1. Until recently, there was nothing available to measure the hole in the ozone layer.... the polar icecaps hadn't been explored, and they hadn't hosted hundreds of scientists eager to explore the mysteries of this inhospitable land, so all knowledge is fairly recent, and what is actually known is still very little indeed...even with all the modern tools... so who can say with accuracy that what is happening now is a new phenomenon?...... there have been geological ways of measuring the rise and fall of the glaciers, much of Britain was a glacier once... and it was tropical, too... but that has movement of the earth's crust to take into account, as well as climate change. But there is still a large gap(s) in our knowledge and understanding.

2. Much of the lush jungle has been cut back... still is being, at a massive rate... and this can never be renewed..... so this is definitely a new happening. And man made

3. The oil and coal reserves have been set down over millennia.... haven't a clue how many... but they are being depleted rapidly, the time equivalent of the blink of an eyelid... in just a couple of hundred years. And coal is still being used to run our power stations, and industry as a whole, in a roundabout way, even though we are not using it in our homes. It is not all nuclear fuel and wind machines!

4. I know that vehicles are *cleaner* and we use fuel in a more efficient way.... and even the *cave man* found fire, and used it constantly.... but there were fewer *cavemen*... (well, ok, there are still some Neanderthals out there, lol) but.... they utilised every piece of their environment that was ...usable. they didn't have the waste and the disrespect for the environment that so many of us have today.

My personal opinion is that there has always been climate change... in the past it was not noticeable on a global scale, because humanity was *tribal* and isolated... they didn't have the technology and communications systems that we have today.... plus there were nowhere near as many people on the planet... but maybe there were more animals, I don't know.... and the jungles weren't always there to filter clean air back into the environment.

I think it pretty much all balances out.... but we are coming close to tipping that balance.

I think that Global warming will happen... it is a natural phenomenon.

However..... I think we are bringing it on more quickly.... and it will have a more devastating effect because there are more people to devastate.... there are not so many places in the world left to migrate, as our ancestors did... plus, the fuels we are using are not renewable.

But..... Governments should use people who are qualified to research exactly what we are required to do to reduce the effects.... not to base their whole policy on dodgy data... a mere flight of fancy... by someone without either qualification or research to back that up.... well in my opinion, that is criminal. And it isn't just our country that have embraced this.... it is global... and those the governments are paying have a vested financial interest in maintaining things just as they are.

And so in this country... we get bullied by petty bureaucrats and jobsworth officials for putting the wrong yoghurt carton into the wrong bin...... but not really attacking the problem directly.

Just more of our money greasing the palms of the fatcats on the gravy train... and I make no excuses for the mixed metaphors etc etc, lol

Love

Daff xxxx

i found an interesting article in a old news paper
the other day in middlesbrough
nobody was allowed to uses anything electric
between 8 and 9.30 and 5 and 6 on a night week days only
in a domestic home

summit to do with the factories starting up

and conserving electric and over loading the electris suplys

The climate has always been subject to change.... the difference now is that a change in temperature and sea levels will affect the way we live in a way it never has before.

as Daff says " Governments should use people who are qualified to research exactly what we are required to do to reduce the effects.... not to base their whole policy on dodgy data... "

the trouble is this has to be paid for, and a number of those qualified to do the research are paid by companies who will not want anyone to produce findings that might threaten their industry . The only ones who are free to speak are those who may be out on the left field a bit, they may be wrong, looking at the worst case scenario.... but it IS a new phenomenon to us right now, the circumstances of climate change and the people it affects have never been the same before...there is no 'precedent' if you like.

Hi Daff,am I going to get slated again if I venture an opinion??

I agree with every thing that you have so eloquently put,and think that whatever the causes of global warming,we are going to have to do something about growing population before the world bursts.

I think that mother nature,God,or whatever you believe in,made the biggest mistake when humankind evolved.We cause so much suffering to the rest of the worlds flora and fauna that we should be classed as the ultimate parasite.

What we need,is a totally new,unimagined way of coping with our modern needs,just as electricity was only about 150 yrs ago, Or a virulent Plague to vastly thin the population out.

And yes,I have grandchildren,but it dosn't alter my views,

Now, all together,have a go at Nina.

wondered when you be back

shut up,

I think we already have a number of 'virulent plagues' Annina. Aside from the obvious ones...maybe the two most likely to change our world forever are hunger and greed.

i thought we had one swine flu

Daff, I think there are a whooooole lot more pennies to be made by denying climate change -- like by the oil companies and everyone who profits from them. And of course the coal extractors, particularly in the US where the industry wields huge power (and of course also in China where coal is huge). We just watched a BBC doc last night, with interviews with coal miners, whose jobs of course depend on the coal industry trundling along.

It is all speculation. We can't predict tomorrow's weather with certainty (although some will still blame weather forecasters for getting it wrong). We can't predict the future, all we (at least those of us with the skills and resources) can do is model it based on past experience.

I just don't think that any vested interest that climate change researchers may have in producing results that support climate change begins to rival the interest that others have in denying climate change. None of which means that either of them is "right" or "wrong", just that I'm skeptical to the point of cynical about all the noise being made to discredit climate change researchers!


And I absolutely agree -- population is the real problem, and it's time individuals, especially in the developed world which is where resources are gobbled and pollution is spewed, started taking responsibility and not breeding with wild abandon, and government polices started encouraging them to do so.

Daff, climate change is one of those few things that I don't get worked up about - or haven't done so far. I have this nice cosy belief that Nature is far greater than we are and that we are just passing shadows and it will sort itself out . I can't be doing with all this global guilt and I can't do much more than I do to be a good householder so I don't think too much about it:)

Alko, re your post below

*Alko Yesterday at 16:21 Request review

wondered when you be back

shut up, *

There was no need for that, it was rude, I have a valid point (if it was me you were being rude to) and so does everyone else, and we have all been very polite and friendly on this thread so far.

Uggers, I think I feel pretty much the same... that our planet would easily renew itself if we stopped plundering and began to really think about more sustainable fuels and materials, for an example... that's what I mean when I say I think we have almost reached the point of no return. Like you, I try to do my bit in my own life, too.

Janey... I also agree with you... about becoming a bit cynical, especially. It seems everyone has a sales pitch... research for and against climate change is governed more by greed, as Rose said, rather than a fervent desire to save our planet from whatever we are hastening it towards.

As I said, I think climate change is inevitable.... it is cyclical I think, even if we can't see yet what that cycle is... we can see that clearly on a smaller scale with weather patterns such as hurricane seasons and the *seasonal* weather patterns which arrive every few years rather than within one year.... even though it is normal, it is still climate change after a fashion.

Nina... you are right, as a few of us have pointed out, the population has grown so much, and as a result, so many more people will be affected by these changes, however they happen, big freeze, big melt... and it will be the rich and the wealthy who will be able to afford to survive... the poorest in our world will always be the first and worst to suffer.

Joy, that was interesting... did the article say whether it actually did reduce the use of fuels? In Cyprus pre 1974, we would only have water switched on for a couple of hours a couple of days a week... we bought bottled water to drink.

But in those couple of hours, everyone went mad filling all sorts of buckets and bottles etc to make sure they had enough.... and I believe that it didn't affect the overall consumption of water too much, anyway... but might be wrong so please don't quote that... the forces/British Government built, I believe, the first de-salination plant there, for the use of the local community and the one of the Military bases, back in the late 60's early 70's.... must check my facts, that may be my memory playing up again!

Thank you for your input everyone.... I have really enjoyed reading your views and opinions.


Loads of love

Daff xxxx

I agree with Sue in Leeds in thinking that all the atmospheric atomic tests and Chernobyl could have had the effect of damaging the ozone layer......plus watching the underground tests.......all that release of energy towards the earth's core......must have some effect on the plates and surface......

Us humans have a lot to answer for in damaging the place and air that we all breathe......

......sorry to bang on, but while I think about it.......there was a programme trying once again to blame the housewives for al the food waste.......but what about the farmers having to plough acres of veg back into the ground because it is not perfect enough for the supermarkets.......and all the food wastage from the supermarkets......especially vegetables where prices are sometimes just ridiculous....

The supermarkets answer is that the customer wants perfectly sized veg and fruit........excuse me.......we have to buy what we are offered, and we are offered nothing less than this perfect and sometimes tasteless stuff....

In Europe, you go into shops and see all shapes and sizes, and they seem to have some taste to them.......maybe the sun.......but if I was offered a cauli at 89p that is perfect and something less than perfect, but of equal nutritin at 60p......I would go for the cheaper one....

Its what you are offered that guides the customer......we are not given ANY choice.....

Hi Moonchild, I bought a 5kg bag of potatoes a few weeks bag, all pretty mishapen and covered in mud...but for 50p I wasn't going to be picky lol...and they were fine :) our local supermarket is rather good at reducing veg to a decent price when it's close to sell by date :))

Rose xx