Global warming ... It's back and it's official ..

[Apple]

Do not feed cows on Jerusalem artichokes.
OR the End will be Neigh!

interesting debate


James

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Rather ignorant about scientific research then.

No, just rather contemptuous of the usual band wagon followers, doom mongers and other trendies who live in fairyland.

.........oh, and those who think that just because they have a compost heap and take their empty Beaujolais nouveau bottles to the recycling centre that they can look down their noses at everyone else because they are single handedly saving the world

 

[pargyle]

No, just rather contemptuous of the usual band wagon followers, doom mongers and other trendies who live in fairyland.

.........oh, and those who think that just because they have a compost heap and take their empty Beaujolais nouveau bottles to the recycling centre that they can look down their noses at everyone else because they are single handedly saving the world

I'm grateful that anyone recycles and composts - but, unfortunately, you are right ... there are a great many people who claim to be 'green' but drive their fat kids 200 yards to school in Chelsea Tractors - whose idea of a healthy diet is a different takeaway every night of the week and live a life where recycling means taking it to the council tip when they have grown tired of the colour or a screw has come loose. Who will moan because milk is a penny a bottle more than last week but are prepared to pay £8 a packet for cigarettes. This lifestyle is, sadly, not confined to the wealthy - I see just as many people on low incomes who appear to have their social priorities stuck up their rear orifice.

Western consumer society over the last 50 years was blatantly unconcerned about what effect consumerism would have on the world and now this lack of concern has spread to the mega populations of the third world and developing countries - countries with huge populations and the resultant impact upon our environment. How we curb this cycle when I see container ships carrying 16000 containers of consumer goods from China to Europe and the Americas I really don't know ...

I don't profess to be perfect as I have a long way to go in my quest for a balanced lifestyle and I recognise that, as much of my generation was, I was responsible for embracing and encouraging the disposable, live for today, society in which we find ourselves.

But ... without doom mongering ... are the world's population and governments going to accept that there HAS to be a change and start doing something about it ? I see very little evidence of any real change at present.

 

[Hivemaker.]

But ... without doom mongering ... are the world's population and governments going to accept that there HAS to be a change and start doing something about it ?

No.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

And you probably won't - look at this renewable energy business - millions and millions of pounds shovelled at private companies to put wind turbines all over the place when every other country was abandoning the idea - not very efficient, just a money maker for the fat cats but yet the government refusing to give a little funding into research for other much more efficient projects with less environmental (both aesthetic and ecological) impact because every spare penny had to be spent on subsidising wind power. we missed a trick entirely when the new Severn crossing was built - miles of causeway and not one effort to harness the great tidal power of the Severn channel with little extra environmental impact. The list goes on and on.
But back to deforestation - saw the impact of it during my sojourn in Africa last year - hundreds and hundreds of acres of land washed away in the rains due to lack of ground cover, an Aberfan style disaster when a school was washed away in a mudslide, loss of agricultural land in a time when maize xrops are failing and every little kernel counts.And yet we still fiddle around with collecting every bit of waste plastic separately (I was thinking, what of all the extra energy I waste heating water to wash all the tins/bottle/cartons we used to just throw away) just for it to be shipped halfway round the world to be buried in some other country's landfill site - byt at least it makes us feel better!
I liked the attitude of the orphanage where SWMBo was working last year - her parting gift was a pair on new shoes for every child for Christmas - they insisted on second hand ones - because at least they knew they were good quality because they'd lasted the use of one wearer already1 no shame in that kind of attitude

 

[mbc]

Do not feed cows on Jerusalem artichokes.
OR the End will be Neigh!

interesting debate


James

The origins of my interest in insects lies in various items of trout food, now I've always got a bit over awed when thinking of the big picture on issues like climate, environment and economics, so I try not to worry too much about "think global" but concentrate on the "act local", bio digestors seem to be a good idea along these lines, take away the number 1 threat to the well-being of trout food round here, animal -specifically cow- manure, digest it to produce methane, - harnessing sustainable energy to save the planet, while producing dry organic fertiliser of no threat to trout food. Why don't we have more of them?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

harnessing sustainable energy to save the planet, while producing dry organic fertiliser of no threat to trout food. Why don't we have more of them?

Not enough cash in it for the cronies in big business

 

[mbc]

Not enough cash in it for the cronies in big business

Ti'n iawn Jenkins, we were running buses on methane during the war, no problem, it's just somehow cheaper to maintain an aggressive foreign policy to bully Arabs into selling oil cheap or for us to pump it up from under the north sea than it is to build anaerobic tanks to stick our poo, baffling!

 

[domino]

There is certainly a link between the Sun's influence in relation to the earth's orbit around it and the shift in the earth's magnetic poles appears also to contribute to the long term fluctuations in the world climate.

Agreed.

Solar irradiation has been stable for the last 40 years whilst at the same time temperatures have risen.

Here is a graph from a 2004 study by Meehl into the relative influence of natural and man made factors in the climate.

You can see that their is little relationship between natural causes (energy from the sun, volcanos, etc) and the rapid recent climate change in this model.

No one disputes that climate changes naturally over time, the issue here is that in the last hundred years the climate has changed more dramatically that ever before the industrial revolution.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Ti'n iawn Jenkins, we were running buses on methane during the war, no problem, it's just somehow cheaper to maintain an aggressive foreign policy to bully Arabs into selling oil cheap or for us to pump it up from under the north sea than it is to build anaerobic tanks to stick our poo, baffling!

There was a lot of research after the foot and mouth fiasco into bio-digesters to cope with disposal of carcasses (do you know, that until a few years ago the Irish government had acres of refrigerated containers full of BSE infected carcasses that they couldn't dispose of) and Bangor university were trying to develop ones that every farm could run, SWMBO was involved in the periphery of that, but apparently the biggest problems was government red tape (UK and a smattering of EU) and it seems to have died a death - seems to work fine in Portugal though. Lot of volatile gases produced with those methods which are just let off (so to speak) without being made use of.

 

[pargyle]

Yes ... it strikes me that there is no will on the part of any governments to encourage development of a whole host of sustainable alternative energy sources. We have seas with massive, predictable and reliable tidal ranges around our coastline that could be harnessed and yet we are investing millions on putting windmills off shore to harness the power of the wind which for the most part is only available intermittently and cannot be reliably predicted.

I see huge fields of solar panels being erected all round the country when the chances of seeing the sun seem to get less and less the older I get ... or perhaps our scientists know something we don't know ?

There are few initiatives to encourage individuals and small organisations to invest in renewables such as ground source heat pumps and biomass yet the technology is already there ... but at a cost.

But the one trick I think is missed is that there should be encouragement and financial rewards for using LESS energy ... the road tax on fuel efficient cars can be zero but perhaps there should be tax breaks for those who people reduce the mileage they use their cars for - essential journeys only perhaps (allowing for people who live outside the scope of public transport). Our cities are the best serviced by public transport and yet that is where I see the most cars ? Something wrong here ?

So many initiatives could reduce our energy consumption on an individual level and with that would come the benefits of not having to produce as much energy on a commercial basis ... but where's the profit in that ?

 

[MuswellMetro]

Agreed.

Solar irradiation has been stable for the last 40 years whilst at the same time temperatures have risen.

.

A bit erroneous as when i studied solar physics at university we could not measure it and i am not that old!! .so everything prior to the 1975 on your graph are proxi and we know how they vary depending on which you choose

currently solar irradiation appears to be declining this cycle from from 2005 which equates to a 10 year pause in satellite temperature data and most other temperature data except NOAA adjusted data used in your gragh

 

[Gilberdyke John]

A bit erroneous as when i studied solar physics at university we could not measure it and i am not that old!! .so everything prior to the 1975 on your graph are proxi and we know how they vary depending on which you choose

currently solar irradiation appears to be declining this cycle from from 2005 which equates to a 10 year pause in satellite temperature data and most other temperature data except NOAA adjusted data used in your gragh

It's been said "there are lies, there are damned lies and then there are statistics". Adjusted data seems to be even worse.
Whatever the problem really is (if one truly exists), building subsidy harvesters to make vast profit for overseas corporations is not the answer.
The money wasted on wind turbines could have developed and built successful Thorium reactors by now.

 

[farbee]

No, just rather contemptuous of the usual band wagon followers, doom mongers and other trendies who live in fairyland.

.........oh, and those who think that just because they have a compost heap and take their empty Beaujolais nouveau bottles to the recycling centre that they can look down their noses at everyone else because they are single handedly saving the world

Your comment was of no value basically. There are many excellent and eminent American scientists. Adds nothing to the discussion and misleading to the less informed. If it was an attempt at humour well it certainly did not get me laughing.

 

[MuswellMetro]

It's been said "there are lies, there are damned lies and then there are statistics". Adjusted data seems to be even worse.

Especially when even the Met O doesn't record what adjustment had been done

The station data that we are providing are from the database used to produce the global temperature series. Some of these data are the original underlying observations and some are observations adjusted to account for non climatic influences, for example changes in observations methods or site location.

The database, therefore, consists of the 'value added' product that has been quality-controlled and adjusted to account for identified non-climatic influences. Adjustments were only applied to a subset of the stations, so in many cases the data provided are the underlying data minus any obviously erroneous values removed by quality control. The Met Office do not hold information as to adjustments that were applied and, so, cannot advise as to which stations are underlying data only and which contain adjustments.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

comment was of no value basically.

Well, all weve seen from you so far is snide comments, and definitely of no value to this discussion - humour or otherwise.
I suppose you have a compost bin?

 

[farbee]

Well, all weve seen from you so far is snide comments, and definitely of no value to this discussion - humour or otherwise.
I suppose you have a compost bin?

Yes thanks!!

Just picking up on silly comments (which add nothing to the otherwise discussion) which it appears you cannot defend so you want a slanging match. Not from me not unless you wiseup.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Ah, I see a self appointed guardian of the thread now are we. Well, you carry on take more than a pompous little prig to spoil my Sunday

 

[MuswellMetro]

A bit erroneous as when i studied solar physics at university we could not measure it and i am not that old!! .so everything prior to the 1975 on your graph are proxi and we know how they vary depending on which you choose

currently solar irradiation appears to be declining this cycle from from 2005 which equates to a 10 year pause in satellite temperature data and most other temperature data except NOAA adjusted data used in your gragh

my source that their is no consensus on irradiation rather than the recent guardian article which says there is