Woe,woe and thrice woe!

[Acrylic-bob]

The Cassandra’s at the BBC emerged from their sibylline conclaves last week to deliver dire prophecies on the state of the world’s climate. We are, it appears, on our way to hell, not just in a handcart but in a fuel guzzling industrial behemoth of our own devising, spewing atmospheric pollution and carbon dioxide as we go. And, what is more, shaking their collective heads wearily, they conclude that this sorry state of affairs is all of our own doing; there is no one to blame but ourselves. Mean global sea levels are rising inexorably, Arctic glaciers are shrinking at an alarming rate, the world is warming and we are all doomed, DOOMED I tell you!

Which is all jolly interesting and makes for an entertaining programme strand; a worthy, and profitable, way to fill up the vacant slots in the schedule. But, sitting here in my equivalent of Voltaire’s garden, I cannot help thinking that we have been here before. Those of us with some acquaintance of the history of our species will recognise this hoo-hah over climate change as a manifestation of that periodic malaise which appears to accompany the entirely spurious significance accorded to the change in our system of designating and recording our experience of time. It is known as either Millennial angst, or Centennial angst and usually occurs around the period of the change from one millennium to another or from one century to another. This manifestation is unusually intense because, currently, we are experiencing both.

Prior to the outbreak of the first world war, the whole of intellectual Europe was in the grip of what was termed “Fin-de-siecle” or the end of an era, in which it was generally feared that invading hordes from the east were due on the doorstep at any moment to sweep away the decadent societies of the west. So intense was this fear that the nations of Europe decided to pre-empt the invading hordes and destroy their own societies; a get it out of the way and then we can get on sort of thing. And it has been the same to a greater or lesser extent with every change over of the dating system from one century into the next.

Calmer heads will tell you that panic and knee jerk reaction is not a reliable solution to any problem. They will slap the Cassandra’s around the chops and tell them to get a grip. They will point out that the world’s climatic systems and the periodic changes it undergoes are, as yet, poorly understood. They will also point to the resourcefulness of the human imagination and the experience of the Dutch, who have lived below mean sea level for hundreds of years without any significant deterioration in their standard of living.

While probability states that virtually anything is possible, in practice you generally find that it’s dictats are wildly overestimated; which does not make for very interesting television, but does ensure a sound nights sleep!

[cashman]

like that summary a-b welcome back.

[Bazf]

Lemme do this in as few words as possible.
Proving that the global warming crowd is wrong is, by definition, impossible without the benefit of decades. Proving a negative always works out that way. But we can look at the theory critically and determine if it is even credible. As soon as I post this, 100 believers will try to play semantical word games... Especially since I'm doing this in as few words as possible, I'm sure someone will have a problem with the way I say something.
I challenge them to skip the word games and stick to the larger points.
While it can be expanded for days, the basic "global warming we're all going to die" theory goes like this:
We release nasty things like CFCs and CO2 in to the atmosphere. This causes a hole in the ozone layer (and/or acts as a thermal blanket) allowing more radiant energy from the sun to hit the earth causing the earth to warm... which in turn causes any number of scenarios, all of which end with, "and we're all going to die."
The "evidence," such that it is, can be lumped into 2 broad categories.
1) We are getting warmer than we were a few years decades ago so it is already happening and
2) We can measure the hole in (or the thinning of) the ozone layer and that proves the theory is true.
Additionally, it is ASSUMED that these 2 phenomena are caused by humans. We can't even prove the first 2 much less that we caused it. Let's look at each:
#1) Depending on who you talk to, the earth is about 4.5 BILLION years old. We have reliable temperature data from about the last 200 years.
The "believers" routinely compare the temperature today with the temperature just a few decades ago. That is just silly. Even using all 200 years of data we are looking at the last 1/22,500,000th of the history of the planet.
To put that in terms you can wrap your mind around, we just had about 120 million people vote in the last election. Imagine Gallup releasing a poll where they sampled 5 registered voters, all in the same city and called it scientific. They would be laughed at because the sample size was so small.
Yet the environmental crowd expects us to consider the last 20 years of temperature readings important on a planet 4.5 BILLION years old. 20 years would be (statistically) the same as asking 1/2 of 1 person how they were going to vote and from that, predicting a winner.
THEN toss into the mix we know the temperature of the planet has swung wildly thru history and it quickly becomes obvious the people citing this data have a screw lose.
But I'm a generous guy.... I'll give them the point.
Let's pretend we really can tell something from the fact the average temp raised 0.8 degrees in the last 200 years. AND I'll be even more generous and give them that man did it.... OK, Why did it happen?
Which is more plausible:
The established theory: CFC's (et al) don't destroy ozone at seal level, (or we would not have smog) they magically hold there electron stripping potential till they get to a higher altitude where they strip electrons off ozone and blah blah blah blah blah (there are tons of holes in the theory but I won't even bother poke holes in it now)
OR
Bazf's Theory: You know, if we are getting hotter for the last 200 years, it might have something to do with this little thing called "heaters." You know, those things we use to warm us up. Those of you in the North West might be familiar with them. To see the effects of man made heat generation, just watch the evening news during the winter. They give one temp in the city and one for the surrounding area which is generally 4 or 5 degrees cooler. Where do you think all that heat goes?
Hundreds of years of us producing heat to keep ourselves warm and produce steam for electricity is far more likely to be the cause of any warming that the nonsense the environmentalists are touting. If we can change the temperature locally by as many of 5 degrees, it is too much to believe that over hundreds of years we can move the average 0.8 degrees? (assuming man is moving the climate which is doubtful)
The environmentalist love to point out that sparsely populated nations have not had as large a temperature increase. DUH! They don't have as many heaters, hot engines, electric generating plants etc etc.
=======
So what have we learned?
First, the data that we have is worthless because the dataset is too small and second, EVEN IF you hold stock in the data, there is a FAR more plausible explanation than the one the environmental community is spreading.
Which brings us to #2.
I so eviscerated #1, I really don't even want to bother with #2. But I will add this to the mix.
#2) Much of the ozone data suffers form the same incompleteness as the temperature data, (or worse) we've only measured it for about 20 years. But there is more to be said:
The theory goes that we are "depleting" the ozone layer. I love when people tell me this, I ask them how much ozone we have now and how much we need. It is a great way to make people realize they are arguing from complete ignorance. I literally had a person one time tell me she thought there was a fixed amount of ozone up there and when we depleted it, we all fried. I disabused her.
Ozone is produced by lighting -- that's what replenished the ozone layer naturally. The theory holds that as the globe warms we get more freak storms. hmmmm More storms means... (say it with me....) more lighting!
So even if we have all these freak storms they will produce more ozone, keeping it in check! Ain't the earth cool?
[Note: I've only posted 1/10th of the flaws with the theory, there's plenty more.]

Have I proven a negative? No, you never can.
Have I proven the current theory to be fatally flawed?
I think so.

[cashman]

glad you didn,t drag it out bazf. lol

[SPUGGIE J]

Its like being back at school! Fare does though there are pro's and con's and pieces can be picked in both but it is down to the individual which they believe.

[cashman]

Originally Posted by SPUGGIE J

Its like being back at school! Fare does though there are pro's and con's and pieces can be picked in both but it is down to the individual which they believe.

wish i could remember that far back. pmsl

[Neil]

Come on Bazf lets have the other 9/10ths please

[Ber999T]

Neil if Baz keeps em as short that will take about 3 weeks to typr out and the electric used will make another small hole in the ozone but then again we had cracking thunder storm last week so there must be some spare up there now

[Bazf]

So ber at least you read it, sorry for getting on my high horse but these tree hugging, PC, ultra conservative so called intellectuals just brow beat people untill they believe all that sh*t when in fact there are far more scientists proving them wrong.

[Gayle]

Perhaps it's all a marketing ploy by Sony et al. You've all got very nice TV sets, radios etc but you're not buying new ones often enough - why not create a scary 'your electrical appliances are killing the world' and watch everyone go out and buy new, more expensive, ozone saving appliances.

[Mancie]

Bazf.. just heard the goverment are commiting us to reduce carbon addmissions by 30% by 2015.. if you stop talkin S**t it would go along way to achieving the target

[garinda]

I predict we'll be having frost fairs on the Thames again within twenty years.

[Terry]

Unfortunately, the media loves sensationalism. There is absolutely nothing to worry about concerning Co2. In fact we need it and much more of it.
It has been estimated by various scientific institutions that between 175 and 200 billion tons of co2 is released into our atmosphere annually, including that by burning fossil fuels(7 billion tons). Not to mention the co2 being expired by 6.4 billion humans. OK, but that poses a question. Where the hell is it all. The scientists will tell you that the co2 content of our atmosphere is or was a couple of years ago, about 380 ppm. Now I don't know about you but I can't envisage that amount. But what I can envisage is if I convert it to a percentage of the atmosphere. i.e 0.038% Yes almost 4 hundreths of a percent. Wow cough, cough, I'm suffocating allready. So where has it gone? The answer of course is that all the green plant life on this planet absorb over 99.99% of it as soon as it is produced. Then of course the green plant life then gives us that lovely oxygen we all need. Then the cycle starts again, just one of those dynamic cycles we have on this planet. What! someone mentioned 'green house gases' co2 has no bearing on the green house effect whatsoever. co2 is invisible and its thermal properties are next to nothing. The main component of green house is water vapour. Over 98% of it. If we are getting global warming and we are getting climate change I suggest you look elswhere. Such as airbourne particulate matter. Long term weather cycles, Changing solar wind. etc...... ad infinitum. Too many other reasons are possible. Sea level rising! Yeah sure. Like we live in a wash basin eh. There has been no evidence from the Maritime Institute of Adelaide that there has been any rises in sea levels since 1840. Of coarse there are those who love to listen to all the junk scientist and watch the doomsday docco's and films. Good luck to you. I suggest you do your own research on the web and start thinking for yourselves. It's all there. P.S. I also could write volumes on this subject. This is just a precise

[Bazf]

Originally Posted by Mancie

Bazf.. just heard the goverment are commiting us to reduce carbon addmissions by 30% by 2015.. if you stop talkin S**t it would go along way to achieving the target

Yeah and I really value your opinion.

[Shady McGough]

Originally Posted by Mancie

Bazf.. just heard the goverment are commiting us to reduce carbon addmissions by 30% by 2015.. if you stop talkin S**t it would go along way to achieving the target

Does that mean the Government are going to admit 30% more or are they going to reduce carbon EMISSIONS by 30%?