CO2, Climate Change, Global Warming and Global Alarm

[Roger Explosion]

similar to daylight robbery, they've just figured a nice argument for taxing air (CO2)

comparing the climate change debate to daylight savings? Awesome!!!!!!

Age of the stupid, good movie. Watch it if you get a chance.
Who ever is right about global warming, two outcomes: we all survive, everyone continues to deplete a non renewable resource. or we all fucking die. fun times ahead

This is pretty much my veiw on the subject. Is Human enacted climate change a real thing? Dunno. But any steps towards cleaning up the way we live our lives is a good thing. Inaction seems to be driven by people scared about losing some money.
Your taxes go up a bit? So fucking what, big picture people.
A business has to change the way it opperates, therefore costing it's profit margin? Tough.
A lot of the arguments against change sound just like the bleating fisheries industries that get all butthurt when they are forced to cut back on their catch quota, Hollering about their lose of livelyhood, all while they fish their industry out of existence. People need to look past their own nests.

[M|ke]

This would help

The Paint-Less Coca-Cola Would Save Earth One Can at a Time - Naked Coca-Cola Can - Gizmodo

[Mr DJ]

I would rather see the focus move from "Climate Change" across to a more suitable buzz word such as "sustainability". Earth's population is expected to reach 20 billion by the year 2050 and who knows what beyond that. I think that as a civilisation, humans need to completely change the way we generate and consume energy. The current model of hydrocarbon use is very inefficient, extremely polluting to our home (We only got one) and is finite in nature.

Can you even possibly percieve what it's ging to be like in 30 or 40 years with 3 times the population on earth? I am completely appalled at the lack of greater focus the issue is receiving. Such an emphasis on "climate change" to me reeks of only understanding or focusing on a tiny sliver of the greater problem.

Me for one: I would love to see massive/dramatic climate change kick in and annihilate 75% of humanity. I love films such as 2012 and The Day After Tomorrow. I truly believe that the only way we are going to unite as a species and fix our sh!t is if we lose about 3 or 4 billion people - that'll teach us to pull our heads out our arses and become effective.

Leaders required...not politicians. Unfortunately anyone with any leadership ability seems to disappear into the private sector, teaching or military. Which self respecting leader would ever want to get involved in the capatalist process alongside groups/individuals who feed/thrive on such a bitchy/back stabbing, go nowhere environment? I watch question time in Parliament House on the ABC and hang my head in shame at what I see. Our nation's leaders....pffffftttttt

Peace out!

[Lefty]

From what ive read on the subject it seems the anticlimate-change theorists tend to be from scholarly fields other than anything to do with climate.

Many are geologists, many of whom are employed by oil companies.

Its the anticlimate-change crowd that are retarded ostriches.

Tell me, how are geologists not satisfactorily qualified to talk about paleoclimates and the subsequent climate change and cycles associated with the Earth?

I'm all ears.

[Roger Explosion]

'cause geology is in the ground, and climate is in the sky IDIOT!!!!!!!!!!!!



/troll

[Desmo]

This is a beautiful film which really moved me.
YouTube - HOME (English with subtitles)

It's a poorly directed and produced film full of thinly veiled rhetoric and spin.
Sure, it looks pretty, but that's normally enough to convince 90% of it's audience.

[d0t-bat]

Tell me, how are geologists not satisfactorily qualified to talk about paleoclimates and the subsequent climate change and cycles associated with the Earth?

I'm all ears.

Most of them make megabucks from oil & gas companies. You would have to be naive to believe they would be making 150K$+ and then speak out against their primary source of income.

More fun facts: The same PR company that represented tobacco way back when, is the same company employed to change public opinion on climate change. (Ross Gelbspan | Former tobacco spin-doctor plays cruel climate change hoax) you will find more references online. (dont believe everything you read on the internet! i hear you say. fair enough, Climate change denial - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia or go to a library read about these companies and ask yourself, if they could lie to me about smoking, why not global warming?)

Anyway, like i said, we will find out one day.

[dr00]

nothing pisses me off more about this whole climate debate than the "even if we arent sure, we will still be moving in a positive direction of reducing carbon emissions" argument. it contributes nothing to the discussions and just shows how little idea you have of the impact the proposals will have. any government that is proposing to tax its citizens billions of dollars needs to have a solid rational justification for it.

interesting thing i came across today was the concept of "consensus cascade" or "informational cascade" in science. basically that humans tend to think other people know what they are talking about and so will tend to answer the same as someone else who has answered before them. an example was the "fat is bad" thing that was big a while ago. the "scientific consensus" was that fat caused heart disease and that turned out to be wrong.

We like to think that people improve their judgment by putting their minds together, and sometimes they do. The studio audience at “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” usually votes for the right answer. But suppose, instead of the audience members voting silently in unison, they voted out loud one after another. And suppose the first person gets it wrong.

If the second person isn’t sure of the answer, he’s liable to go along with the first person’s guess. By then, even if the third person suspects another answer is right, she’s more liable to go along just because she assumes the first two together know more than she does. Thus begins an “informational cascade” as one person after another assumes that the rest can’t all be wrong.

Because of this effect, groups are surprisingly prone to reach mistaken conclusions even when most of the people started out knowing better, according to the economists Sushil Bikhchandani, David Hirshleifer and Ivo Welch. If, say, 60 percent of a group’s members have been given information pointing them to the right answer (while the rest have information pointing to the wrong answer), there is still about a one-in-three chance that the group will cascade to a mistaken consensus.

[kriso]

I would rather see the focus move from "Climate Change" across to a more suitable buzz word such as "sustainability". Earth's population is expected to reach 20 billion by the year 2050 and who knows what beyond that. I think that as a civilisation, humans need to completely change the way we generate and consume energy. The current model of hydrocarbon use is very inefficient, extremely polluting to our home (We only got one) and is finite in nature.


Peace out!

The number of microorganisms in a culture broth will grow exponentially until an essential nutrient is exhausted.

[xphread]

The number of microorganisms in a culture broth will grow exponentially until an essential nutrient is exhausted.

If you want to exist in this world at the same thought level of bacteria, then I hope you don't mind if you end up being "farmed".

[Roger Explosion]

nothing pisses me off more about this whole climate debate than the "even if we arent sure, we will still be moving in a positive direction of reducing carbon emissions" argument. it contributes nothing to the discussions and just shows how little idea you have of the impact the proposals will have. any government that is proposing to tax its citizens billions of dollars needs to have a solid rational justification for it.

.

Fair point, but maybe you yourself would like to contribute something beyond the economic impact argumument. On environmental issues, you have to look beyond the financial bottome line. To sit and do nothing, while getting focused on the fact that any action is going to be expensive and cost jobs is hardley helpful.
Of course change is going to cost money. Most of the proactices that have a damaging side affect on the evironment have been brought about because because they are the cheaper option.
I would be interested in hearing an actual plan of action on environmental action by climate change sceptics, because even if CC is a big scam, you can't possibley think everything is hunky dorey.
To bring a valid point of argument to the table, you need to provide an alternative plan of action, not just based on nit picking those who are trying to impliment their own plan.

[dr00]

if AGW was a big scam (which i dont think it is) then of course i would say do nothing. that doesnt mean pollution is irrelevant, it just means carbon emissions are irrelevant. dont confuse pollution in general with carbon emissions.

if AGW can be satisfactorily proven then it seems to me that a carbon tax would be a better way to go, with the revenue generated specifically being spent on reversing any impact and not on just increasing the size of government. if carbon emissions impose on the lives of the population then that represents a cost that should be borne by the consumers (you and me) of the products that require the emission of that carbon.

effectiveness of emissions trading schemes is very debatable in the first place but what it requires is a big market infrastructure to be set up. that represents a big group of interested parties that will then fight tooth and nail to keep the emissions trading system in place for reasons that arent environmental. if it turns out that AGW isnt happening then you can very easily pull the pin on a carbon tax but its extremely difficult to kill off an emissions trading scheme.

[soulfood187]

This irks me like nothing else. Climate Change... pfft.... CPRS.... pfft. I agree that we should live more sustainably but to do it this way is crap. Copenhagen is more about a transfer of wealth from industrialised nations to poorer nations. Fair enough you say but remember we will have no choice if we sign any agreement at Copenhagen. How about we focus on some important issues, deforestation, loss of biodiversity etc.
Here is an interesting thought. What would the best solution be to climate change if it was definitive? Reducing the population of the planet. Why can we not consider this (we do not need to be drastic and kill people)? Answer the financial system is built on a fraudulent premise. We have to grow. We have to sll things and consume more. The system could not cope if the population decreased and consumed less. Then what?

[02keilj]

I havnt read the whole thread but i believe the reason there are so many varying and dodgy opinions on the subject is that people do not understand what is being said. They are just siding with who they think is most sensible. Im talking about the general public of course, not PSB.

I have just completed a unit in environmental geochemistry (of which a lot was based on climate change etc) for my degree and even i dont feel i know enough to listen to what people are saying and understand 100% what is being said.

one thing i think is a big problem when discussing this topic is people dont know how to interpret the facts they are given.
for example the pictures i have attached



Just because one thing follows the same trend (or in this case an inversely proportional trend) it doesnt mean one cause the other.

and


Although CO2 and temp over the last 400000 years seem to follow each other, we cannot say 100% that one causes the other. there are many factors to consider.

[Captain Starfish]

Hmmm- compare the emissions from one decent volcanic eruption to a country's industrial output and, from what I can remember, we're being pretty arrogant to assume our impact is more then one foomteenth of fuckall of a statistically acceptable variation against normal planetary climatic cycles.

Personally, I think there's enough to worry about without having to decide whether the farts from the next can of beans is going to kill my great-grandchildren by flooding the wetlands in 100 years.

ie... fuck it. go for a ride. burn some oil (but responsibly)

[02keilj]

Hmmm- compare the emissions from one decent volcanic eruption to a country's industrial output and, from what I can remember, we're being pretty arrogant to assume our impact is more then one foomteenth of fuckall of a statistically acceptable variation against normal planetary climatic cycles.

from here

Volcanic eruptions can enhance global warming by adding CO2 to the atmosphere. However, a far greater amount of CO2 is contributed to the atmosphere by human activities each year than by volcanic eruptions. T.M.Gerlach (1991, American Geophysical Union) notes that human-made CO2 exceeds the estimated global release of CO2 from volcanoes by at least 150 times. The small amount of global warming caused by eruption-generated greenhouse gases is offset by the far greater amount of global cooling caused by eruption-generated particles in the stratosphere (the haze effect). Greenhouse warming of the earth has been particularly evident since 1980. Without the cooling influence of such eruptions as El Chichon (1982) and Mt. Pinatubo (1991), described below, greenhouse warming would have been more pronounced.

Not saying we ARE the major cause...but im sure we have had an affect much greater than if we werent here


EDIT: Another sorce http://www.grist.org/article/volcano...o2-than-humans

[dr00]

so its been a couple of weeks since this climategate stuff came out and main stream media in the rest of the world is covering it quite a bit but not australia... quite a few new developments with prof phil jones standing down pending an investigation, scientists suing NASA to get them to release the raw data that their models are based on, the UK meteorological office declaring it will reanalyse 160 years of data which will take three years etc

plus bits and peices of emails keep coming up with bits like this one, which seems to show that even the guys closest to the science were not convinced of the so called consensus and were worried about bias...

"the possibility of expressing an impression of more consensus than might actually exist. I suppose the earlier talk implying that we should not ‘muddy the waters’ by including contradictory evidence worried me. IPCC is supposed to represent consensus but also areas of uncertainty in the evidence."

and this from a normally warmist comedian
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgPUpIBWGp8]YouTube - Jon Stewart Talks Climategate[/ame]

[g0zer]

2009 ends Australia’s warmest decade on record, with a decadal mean temperature anomaly of +0.48°C (above the 1961-90 average). In Australia, each decade since the 1940s has been warmer than the preceding decade. In contrast, decadal temperature variations during the first few decades of Australia’s climate record do not display any specific trend. This suggests an apparent shift in Australia’s climate from one characterised by natural variability to one increasingly characterised by a trend to warmer temperatures.

Annual Australian Climate Statement 2009

BOM has released its 2009 report which is funnily enough, a statement supporting climate change theory

[gordonleslie]

United Nations' blunder on glaciers exposed | The Australian

I love it how the IPCC based all this from a story in New scientists who based it on a phone call to some random indian scientist who then admitted he based it on speculation!!!!

And the IPCC is supposed to be believed when it spouts all the other shit too?

15 years time our kids are going to laugh at us and say "holy shit you dick heads actually believed in man made global warming!?!?"

[Jamathi]

comparing the climate change debate to daylight savings? Awesome!!!!!!


This is pretty much my veiw on the subject. Is Human enacted climate change a real thing? Dunno. But any steps towards cleaning up the way we live our lives is a good thing. Inaction seems to be driven by people scared about losing some money.
Your taxes go up a bit? So fucking what, big picture people.
A business has to change the way it opperates, therefore costing it's profit margin? Tough.
A lot of the arguments against change sound just like the bleating fisheries industries that get all butthurt when they are forced to cut back on their catch quota, Hollering about their lose of livelyhood, all while they fish their industry out of existence. People need to look past their own nests.

Big picture/personal picture.
Does that mean also you support less pay for employees?
Les to be able to spend on YOUR life and that of YOUR family??
Taxes of 40% plus a blanket GST take of 10% never mind the state/local/product taxes on top of that.
I think enough is enough!
Slavery takes 100% of effort put in other than staying just alive!
Current taxes do take more than 50% of effort put in!