Ok so who would prefer to pump smog into the sky and risk it and who would prefer to just bite the bullet and stop paying oil companies shit loads of money?
Votes for cheaper fuel / no smog
[quote=“Xcerus”]Ok so who would prefer to pump smog into the sky and risk it and who would prefer to just bite the bullet and stop paying oil companies shit loads of money?
Votes for cheaper fuel / no smog[/quote]
This shows CO2 causes global warming how?
Reducing the particulate matter that is thrown into the air is probably a good thing, but the emissions trading act wasn’t trying to stop that. It is based upon the theory of anthropogenic global warming. If the Greens (or any other party) want to pass a law reducing particulate emissions I will have no problems as that is actually based upon science. But instead of trying to pass an anti-pollution law based on science, they decided to pass one based on what amounts to fantasy.
Whether or not it’s causing global warming, I think less smog can only be a good thing, right?
Less pollution would be good at a guess, however
The emiisions trading act is based upoon the priciple of CO2 causing global warming, it is not designed to stop real pollution. Instead of wasting their time on a fairy tale, they could have actually addressed real issues. Also you, I and every other new Zealander is paying about $150+ for the Labour and Green parties fantasies.
I agree that the ‘global warming’ argument, while popular and loud, seems to me to lack convincing data. People try to read too much into a short term trend and forget that there are cycles that are longer than human civilization.
Here is an interesting graph from Wikipedia showing temperature fluxuations on a cycle of around 100000 years:
Even if the temperature has been going up for the last several hundred years, that doesn’t prove we’re doing it. This could all just be a natural, normal cycle.
Which doesn’t in any way reduce my desire for people to reduce their reliance on burning coal and oil.
What is interesting about the graphs you produced, is when the raw data is analysed, the temperature rises about 800 years before the CO2 increases. The CO2 is trapped in the ice, as the ice melts due to warming, the CO2 level increases.
The real resistence to Green party environmental policy originates from business interests, not scientists.
The current scientific consensus is that human activity is very probably causing climate change. That’s the science that the Greens base their policy on. It may be wrong, scientific consensus sometimes is. However:
- Should the Greens base their policies on minority scientific views instead?
- If the scientific consensus is right, the risks of not acting now are huge.
- What is the harm in acting even if the consensus is wrong?
So leaving climate science aside (and leaving it to climate scientists who have their heads around all the data and issues to debate), why is there so much resistence to reducing emissions? It’s because the polluters don’t want to. And they have the money. They’re the farmers, the vehicle industry, the coal and oil industry, etc. They provide us with things we want, but their bottom line is the dollar. Talk of triple bottom lines (economic, social, environmental) is largely promotional.
Like the tobacco industry, the polluting industries will keep promoting the belief that what they’re doing is fine until people just can’t swallow it any more. They’ll lobby politically to be allowed to continue polluting, because that’s the way they know how to make money. They’ll try to bias public opinion on the effects of their pollution.
They’ll keep on polluting and saying it’s fine until regulation stops them. Once regulation stops them, they’ll adapt and find new ways to provide what we want while polluting less. They can do it, they’d just prefer not to go through the pain and temporary costs of change.
Green policy says we should cap pollution from all sources, not just from sources that are politically convenient. That’s only fair.
Let me correct you.
The only current scientific consensus on global warming is that there is no emperical evidence that humans are causing global warming.
I am still waiting for any, any, emperical evidence that shows otherwise. It is primarily politicains, such as the Green Party that claim there is anthropgenic warming in spite of all the evidence the scientific community produces to the contrary.
It is interesting that the politicains say there is a strong scientific concensus when there obviously is none.
Alista, since you know that climate dynamics are very complex, are you not being disingenuous when you focus on finding a temporal correlation between CO2 and temperature.
As it happens, New Scientist have addressed this very issue to my satisfaction, at least.
[quote=“New Scienties”]We know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas because it absorbs and emits certain frequencies of infrared radiation. Basic physics tells us that gases with this property trap heat radiating from the Earth, that the planet would be a lot colder if this effect was not real and that adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will trap even more heat.
…
There is uncertainty about the timings, partly because the air trapped in the cores is younger than the ice, but it appears the lags might sometimes have been 800 years or more.
…
This proves that rising CO2 was not the trigger that caused the initial warming at the end of these ice ages – but no climate scientist has ever made this claim. It certainly does not challenge the idea that more CO2 heats the planet.
[/quote]
If the Greens, Greenpeace, IPCC and many others are wrong about climate change, then we will have reduced pollution and our reliance on fossil fuels. Those are Good Things, especially since we are facing the end of cheap oil.
And if you are wrong, then would you be OK with the consequences - BILLIONS in Asia facing starvation as the Himalayan glaciers recede ?
Business has a natural self-interest to offload as many costs as possible onto other parties. In this case, it is the environment - and by extension - future generations. It has a name - “capitalism”.
During the ETS consultations, all the large energy consumers lined up to say “while we think this is a good and necessary initiative we are a special case and need an exemption…”. This included the aluminium smelter at Te Wai Point - which has long term energy contracts from a renewables-only supplier and is thus not subject to the ETS.
With regard to nuclear power, perhaps the most important consideration for Aotearoa is that we are seen as Clean & Green (however erroneously) and much of this stems from being Nuclear Free. Like it or not, much of our trading advantage is based on this context. Introducing even a thorium reactor would blow this image out of the water, and our tourism industry with it.
This stat is for total distanced travelled. If you measure total journeys taken, then air travel is the second most dangerous mode of travel, after motorcycles. Me, I’m happy to wait for clean fusion technology, rely on renewables in the meantime.
Wind is a good way to go because it is a very localised which means that communities can vote for it.
Also, I would argue that the risks Alista identified are not the same in Aotearoa where we have vast areas of wet, deforested landscape on which to place the turbines. Wind is a massive resource here, and we should use it.
[quote=“Mike Curtis”] addressed this very issue to my satisfaction, at least.
[quote=“New Scienties”]We know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas because it absorbs and emits certain frequencies of infrared radiation. Basic physics tells us that gases with this property trap heat radiating from the Earth, that the planet would be a lot colder if this effect was not real and that adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will trap even more heat.
…
There is uncertainty about the timings, partly because the air trapped in the cores is younger than the ice, but it appears the lags might sometimes have been 800 years or more.
…
This proves that rising CO2 was not the trigger that caused the initial warming at the end of these ice ages – but no climate scientist has ever made this claim. It certainly does not challenge the idea that more CO2 heats the planet.
[/quote][/quote]
This is still not proof that human activities are causing global warming. I am still waiting for any emperical data. I suggested one possible form of evidence, but did not say this was the only form of evidence I would accept. It would seem reasonable that if an increase of CO2 causes warming then the increase in CO2 would occur before the increase in temperature. In modern mathematics we have many techniques for getting rid of spurious signal. However no matter whatever valid mathematical technique is applied the warming always occurs before the increase in CO2. This is not just my opinion. This is the opinion of many peer reviewed articles. It is also the implied opinion of the piece that you quoted.
It is known that plants grow faster when there is more CO2. This could be good. It also known that plants grow faster and yeild more crops when the temperature is higher. This could also be good to feed people. Your doom and gloom predictions are based on computer models of known unreliability. I have used these computer models in my masters thesis. I once changed the solar input into this model by 0.01 W/m^2 from 1342.15 W/m^2 to 1342.16W/m^2. This is a much smaller change than has been observed. According to this model (which is the same on NASA uses), it took 17 years for the oceans to boil. I will accept real emperical evidence, not discredited predictions from unreliable models.
[quote=“Mike Curtis”]
If the Greens, Greenpeace, IPCC and many others are wrong about climate change, then we will have reduced pollution and our reliance on fossil fuels. Those are Good Things, especially since we are facing the end of cheap oil. [/quote]
If the aim is to reduce poluution and dependence upon oil, why not just say that. Why make up a lie called anthropgenic global warming?
By the way with current technologies it costs US$40 to make a barrel of oil. Oil is now, technically, a renewable resource.
While that may seem like a sound idea, how is anyone going to develop clean fusion if they cant do nuclear research? Bearing in mind that while a lot of research can be done using models in a lab, eventually it comes to a point where you have to observe it in a real life setting. My major gripe with anti nuclear lobbyists is that they completely discount it as a power source despite the incredible potential it has. As for the “clean green” image, the only reason nuclear energy is counter to this is because it is that image of it perpetrated by those campaigning against it. Everyone is very quick to bring up the chernobyl incident which admittedly was a catastrophe, but these people will never mention the hundreds of power plants all over the world that are operating quite safely all over the world. you have to remember chernobyl sticks in peoples minds because it wasnt normal, it was pretty much worse case scenario stuff and is not typical of nuclear energy as a whole.
[size=150]I am still waiting to see emperical evidence that humans are causing global warming. [/size]
If I remember rightly, this thread was started because I stated that a lot of Green party policy is based upon fantasy. We took one example of this, anthropogenic global warming. This is often touted as one of the greatest threats to human life on this planet. I then asked for emperical proof that humans were causing the stated global warming. I am still waiting for any emperical evidence. Considering the Green Party has supported Kyoto and the Emissions Trading Bill based upon the belief that humans are causing global warming it would be nice if they a single shred of emperical evidence to back it. If they have no emperical proof then it is just a fantasy and my statement is correct. So as a physicist I ask “what is your proof ?”
Similarly, with Nuclear power, we are told there are three bad things about nuclear, waste, proliferation, safety. To date nuclear is probably the safest, greenest and most enviromentally friend bulk power generation that we have. I am not the only person that thinks that. People like Mike Moore (Cofounder of Greenpeace), Jack Lovelock (founder of the Gaia hypothosis), Stewart Brand ( the founder of the Whole Earth Catalogue) and the late Bishop Hugh Montefiore (founder and director of Friends of the Earth) are all on record advocating the use of nuclear power. In fact we know that compared to other forms of bulk power generation, modern nuclear is so clean and safe that we can say that people who protest against it are probably anti-envorimentalists.
The thing is, despite your denials, the majority of climate scientists are satisfied that there is sufficient evidence of human-generated climate change that we must act on it. Personally I’m not interested in discussing the details of how they come to that conclusion, because it’s a complex topic and I’m not an expert on the climate. I’m just noting it’s the conclusion of scientists who are experts in this area.
It is the scientific consensus, and that’s why the UN is acting on it. Do you think that all the countries that the UN represents want all this hassle of trying to reduce emissions? No. The reason that so many countries have signed on to the Kyoto Protocol is that the scientific consensus is behind it. If that wasn’t so obviously the case, all those countries would have spared themselves the pain.
You’ve quoted Wikipedia somewhere above. Let’s see what it says about global warming:
[quote=“Wikipedia”]The average global air temperature near the Earth’s surface increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F) during the 100 years ending in 2005.[1] The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes “most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-twentieth century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic (man-made) greenhouse gas concentrations”[1] via an enhanced greenhouse effect. Natural phenomena such as solar variation combined with volcanoes probably had a small warming effect from pre-industrial times to 1950 and a small cooling effect from 1950 onward.[2][3]
These basic conclusions have been endorsed by at least 30 scientific societies and academies of science,[4] including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries.[5][6][7] While individual scientists have voiced disagreement with some findings of the IPCC,[8] the overwhelming majority of scientists working on climate change agree with the IPCC’s main conclusions.[9][10][/quote]
Note the second paragraph especially. When so many major scientific bodies agree with a conclusion, that’s a scientific consensus. Wikipedia isn’t perfect, but that paragraph is well referenced. Read the references folk, decide for yourselves.
You can ask for evidence until the cows come home, but it won’t change the scientific consensus of experts in the climate field: that we are causing global warming. They might be wrong, but that is the scientific consensus, and that is what Green policy is based on. They’re not doing the science themselves, they’re not “art students trying to do science”. They are politicians relying on the scientific consensus on climate to help form their policies.
I only wish that more political policy on matters concerning the planet was informed by science.
[quote=“Ryan Paddy”]The thing is, despite your denials, the majority of climate scientists are satisfied that there is sufficient evidence of human-generated climate change that we must act on it. Personally I’m not interested in discussing the details of how they come to that conclusion, because it’s a complex topic and I’m not an expert on the climate. I’m just noting it’s the conclusion of scientists who are experts in this area.
[/quote]
Name them, As I have repeatedly stated, the current concensus amongst scientists is that there is no evidenc ethat humans are causing global climate change. To quote again the IPCC which is the major advocate of human induced climate change
“No study to date has positively attributed all or part [of the climate change observed to date] to anthropogenic causes.”
Final scientists draft, 2nd IPCC report 1995
Secondly, scientific concensus means nothing unless there is proof to back it up. (See the Flat Earth Theory). In science we try and follow the scientific method which goes roughly.
1.) Observe the data
2.) Make a theory
3.) Make a prediction
4.) Test the prediction.
If a theory has gone through these four steps then we say is a good working theory and we keep repeating steps 3 and 4 til we need a new theory.
The Anthropogenic Global Warming theory has spectacularly failed step 4. Many predictions have been made based on this theory and they show the same accuracy as random chance.
Because there is no evidence to back up the theory of anthropenic global warming many groups instead revert to sophistry to try and “Prove” the scientific theory. I have been through the IPCC reports 1,2,3 and 4. The primary evidence they give to support the Anthrogenic view is “We say it is the cause.” That is the sum total of the proof. As a scientist and not a politician I say show us the emperical evidence.
even the most ardent scientists for human caused climate change say that there is no proof of it.
edited to remove offensiveness?
[quote=“Ryan Paddy”]You’ve quoted Wikipedia somewhere above. Let’s see what it says about global warming:
[quote=“Wikipedia”]The average global air temperature near the Earth’s surface increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F) during the 100 years ending in 2005.[1] The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes “most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-twentieth century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic (man-made) greenhouse gas concentrations”[1] via an enhanced greenhouse effect. Natural phenomena such as solar variation combined with volcanoes probably had a small warming effect from pre-industrial times to 1950 and a small cooling effect from 1950 onward.[2][3]
These basic conclusions have been endorsed by at least 30 scientific societies and academies of science,[4] including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries.[5][6][7] While individual scientists have voiced disagreement with some findings of the IPCC,[8] the overwhelming majority of scientists working on climate change agree with the IPCC’s main conclusions.[9][10][/quote]
[/quote]
[quote=“Alista”]To quote again the IPCC which is the major advocate of human induced climate change
“No study to date has positively attributed all or part [of the climate change observed to date] to anthropogenic causes.”
Final scientists draft, 2nd IPCC report 1995 [/quote]
Ok, so ignoring the fact you’re trying to quote the same scientific body, I don’t think a report done back in 1995 overwrites something that would have been done 10 years later…
[quote=“Dave”]
[quote=“Alista”]To quote again the IPCC which is the major advocate of human induced climate change
“No study to date has positively attributed all or part [of the climate change observed to date] to anthropogenic causes.”
Final scientists draft, 2nd IPCC report 1995 [/quote]
Ok, so ignoring the fact you’re trying to quote the same scientific body, I don’t think a report done back in 1995 overwrites something that would have been done 10 years later…[/quote]
I am not trying to quote the same authority, i am direct quoting the same authority. This is the most up to date and definative opinion from the scientists of the IPCC. They have released no other hard science on this point since this date. Therefore I must go with their most up to date data, especially as they are the main proponents of the theory and the original source.
To date total emperical proof presented on this thread that humans are the cause of global warming
None
In your typical style, you made an immflamatory statement in an attempt to 'jack a thread. I responded by starting this thread to find out what exactly you were on about, since - as is usual - you made a broad claim without providing any information on what has caused you to reach your position.
Turns out you disagree with Green position on anthropogenic climate change, even though this is based on broad scientific consensus. IMO, calling a scientific consensus a fantasy is quite a call. But you’re welcome to your opinion, and I don’t think any amount of discussion is going to change it. Here ends my contribution to that discussion.
I would be interested in checking out the the $40 renewable oil technology, though. Have you got any links ?
Also, I remain unconvinced that nuclear power is suitable for Aotearoa. Anyone got any empirical evidence that building a nuclear power plant won’t completely destroy our 100% Pure image 
How about we can the political stuff in the larping forum.
[quote=“Mike Curtis”]
Turns out you disagree with Green position on anthropogenic climate change, even though this is based on broad scientific consensus. [/quote]
I keep repeating, the theory of the greenhouse theory of anthropogenic global warming is not a broad scientific concensus. It is based on a pro nuclear policy initialy proposed by the renowned scientist and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
As I said I am happy to email you a list of 31,000+ scientists that disagree with theory. I have met 2 scientists in the area that agree with the theory. I have met many, many more that do not. Even on the IPCC panel there is not a concensus. On the section dealing with causes of global warming only 4 out 24 scientists supported the view that greenhouse gases caused global warming. I hardly call that a consensus.
I you do finde emperical ecvidenc ethat humans are causing global warming, then I urge you, please post it on this thread. People should be happy to note though, that the Southern Hemisphere hasn’t had any warming in the last 28 years and the Northern Hemisphere has been cooling slightly for the last ten years.
Total emperical evidence that humans are causing presented by the IPCC or anyone on this thread;
Zero
edited to remove offensiveness?
Up to now, this debate has been perfectly congenial, if a little heated. However it is starting to lean towards inflammatory remarks towards individuals and if this persists I will be locking this thread.
Be warned.