or are we just in a natural cyclical tide of events that finds us still coming out of the last ice age.

No one seems too shocked when the scientists say that the UK used to be a tropical paradise, so why are there so many issues about the earth warming now?

Canadian Ice Shelf

I have no particular axe to grind, but would be interested in others' opinions..

The problem with this question is, Lex, I think you actually need a small amount of scientific knowledge to make a stab at answering it - this is something I truly truly don't have, so I can't make a really factual analysis.

A couple of things do spring to mind:

Firstly, i always find it quite interesting when people say "oh, it's the hottest summer in 80 years, obviously a sign of global warming" - what about 80 years ago, they obviously had a hotter summer, so was that a sign of global warming too?

Also, if we aren't to blame, they kind of need to work out exactly what is going on, because if the seas rise too much (which is possible due to arctic glacier's breaking off) then a few countries are going to end up under water (I know the Netherlands is one, i'm trying to think of the others....)

I seem to remember someone suggesting that global warming is something that happens naturally, but we are speeding up the process???

yep, and my scientific knowledge is microbiology not geology, meterology (sp), or any other global-warming-ology!

I guess it could be argued we are speeding up the process by burning oil etc, that would otherwise take years to get back into the carbon chain...

When is el Ninjo due to make a return by the way?

I've heard about global warming being a cycle before - it has in fact happened several times in the human age, and we've always survived :shrug:

Thats what I heard as well, though its never publicised as much as 'The ice caps are melting and England will soon be under water' :unsure:

who here knows of the kyoto protocal?

not me, pray tell..

I know of it, and i know it's about reducing carbon emissions, and that the US refuses to sign up to it.

Climate Change in Depth

The problem with treaties like Kyoto is that it's one thing signing it and another actually achieving the reductions required.Climate change is normal and at the moment the climate is apparently going through an unusually warm phase which has allowed our present civilizations to develop.I do believe that human activity is accelerating global warming and wonder how we will be able to control it when countries such as India and China start producing even more carbon gases than us.Here in Switzerand we're certainly having a strangely mild winter with very little snow so far and we've also had several catastrophic floods and landslides in recent years which are being put down to the effects of global warming.What makes me despair is the increasing number of gas-guzzling SUVs on our roads.Very few of us are willing to change our life styles in order to reduce emissions.. :(

In Britain, car tax depends on CO2 exhaust emissions. ie the more economical your car the less tax.

I think we are ultimately to blame for global warming, or at the very least speeding it up.

But what I think is most concerning is as a % how little is actually recycled and deforestation and such...

over here each house has four wheely bins

yellow - metal and plastics
Grey - normal household stuff
Green - garden refuse
Blue - paper

Our village has less than 500 people yet boasts three glass recycling and clothes recycling areas!

Of course we are to blame. The amount of carbon emissions and such created by the industrial world has a huge impact on the planet. Of course it will inevitably cause global warming, as it is doing. It does annoy me when some idiots say oh great, I love hot weather without thinking of the consequences. If the UK heats up, has no one considered that we will have more diseases because they wont; be killed off by cold weather? These include diseases of plants, fruit and vegetables and we would end up with more disease carrying things like mosquitoes that would survive here too. And our native wildlife woudl suffer. Peopel think that we woudl adapt to this but it will happen much quicker than many have thought according to some scientists and cause chaos. Anyway, regarldless of that plenty of people will eb screwed once the polar ice caps melt.

Anyone who doesnt; beleive that we create thsi mess ourselves shoudl look at China. I saw a fascinating documentary about how their very swift transformation from a peasant culture to an industrial nightmare has ruined parts of their country already. There are areas of land that were once fertile and are now barren with dry rivers and polluted earth. I hear a similar thing about the USA. We all need to do our bit, but these countries that cause the most damage really shoudl get a grip and stop being so bloody greedy and selfish. it says it all that they wont; sign up to Kyoto doesn't it. :rolleyes:

Oh and watch the sci fi movie Soylent Green - not a brilliant movie but the concept is great, and trust me you woudlnt; want to live like those poor people.

Actually, SB, though I do believe that our activities have had an impact on global warming, if you look at it scientifically, it's far from clear cut that human factors are the main driver. There are so many natually occuring sources of "greenhouse gas" emissions, and there are also self-regulating factors such as increased water content (ie cloud cover) as the earth warms up that can actually reduce the amount of solar energy that reaches the earth.

Despite the fact that certain political forces want to drill it into everyone's heads that "of course we are to blame," in reality, there is still a lot of uncertainty.

You live in Germany don't you? :unsure:

Glad to hear you're doing your bit. We're not quite as good in the U.K, but in south wales, we have green bins to recylce organic waste, black boxes for recyclable materials such as plastic and then the ordinary black bin for other waste...hopefully this system will soon be taken up by all County Councils :)

I understand there could be a doubt about what the reasons really are but should we not all act with care until we clear the doubt. Our temperature records are quite recent 200 years at mostI believe and that is only in Europe I think but there is clearly a rise in temperature in temperature over the recent decades and it is difficult not to associate it to the industrial revolution. We can always find counter-arguments to anything but what we all know for certain is that our burning fuel does not do any good to the planet, from the quality of air we breath to waters becoming irreversibly dirty. Our way of life makes waste a real issue to. It is fine to have rainbow bins but having less packaging in the first place would be better. We are only at the beginning of understanding the implications of our acts and way of life and we have a lot to learn if we want to keep this planet as a potential paradise for future generations.

Hear, hear :clap: :clap: :clap:

Of course we should take responsibility and reduce our impact on the environment. It's silly to say let's all carry on as we are because there might be some other cause - what if there isn't? You dont; go through life being irresponsible on the off chance that your own actions might not be the cause of your misfortunes do you? We all insure our houses knowing fully well that an act of God may destroy them and we wont; get a penny. And yYou don't close the gate after the horse has bolted do you. People's attitudes realy need to change because this isnt; abotu personal choice as you are not in a vaccum where your actions have no impact on everyone else.

Fair enough but better be safe than sorry I say. No good rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic once the ship is near sunk. There are scientists over here who have projected how much damage wil be caused if we carry on like we are and they say that reducing our carbon emissions will reduce this damage.

I agree to an extent, but I have also seen much time and money wasted on whatever the latest "scare" of the time happens to be. Such things very often turn out to be either wrong or grossly exaggerated. I don't know if that will prove to be the case with the Greenhouse Gas theory or not, but there is a good bit of media-driven shrewd analysis (if I dare use that term :D ) about it. But driving toward more energy efficiency and lower emissions is surely a good thing.

There's also a bit of human arrogance in the suggestion that we have the power to prevent the earth from changing. The place where I live was once under the ocean, after all . . .

Indeed. This is why our own common sense is much needed here to sort the hypes from the facts. Knowing the media get their money from the corporate world (polluting entity), if anything, they would tend to play the doubt card. The BBC who takes almost all its revenue directly from us, and who has therefore no direct interest in pleasing exxon, Dupont, BA or BP, has been much more active on raising our concern about our green planet than the rest of the media.

I think we are beyond the arrogance concern. As you say, we have proof all around us that we can change the earth to some extend. We have been learning as a race that the earth can definitely change us as well but we keep forgetting that despite the harsh lessons she gave us in the past.

thought folks may like to see my desktop pic ;)

Interesting theory, but I'm not sure it's true that the corporate world have that much influence over the media. I think the media generally tend to be pretty hostile toward industry. To take a fairly recent example of overhype of a crisis, take the "Y2K bug" thing. That scare was blown way out of proportion, and it ended up costing "the corporate world" tons of time and money. Now, if all that time and money hadn't been spent, there may actually have been a few glitches here and there related to Y2K, but I'm pretty sure it would not have been much.

(I do understand, btw, that global warming is potentially a far more serious issue. I just used that example to illustrate 1) how media hype is not necessarily favourable to industry and 2) an example of wasted effort on an overhyped scare.

Oh, and one more note . . . Don't forget that the corporate world is only producing what we want to buy.

The year Y2K bug scare was actually raised by the large IT players themselves and they made tons of money out of it actually. So in this example it could work both ways.

The Tobacco industry on the other hand really suffered from a media/political campaign. In fact they went for it as if it was the source of all evil on this planet and even became ridiculously comical but that mostly happened during and after the political world prevented tobacco advertising. For some reasons, drinking and gambling are fine and are difficult to attack despite doing much more damage than tobacco. Drinking is harder to stop than smoking and gambling can be a great source of revenue for governments who chose to keep it under control like here in the UK.

Anyway....this is probably a bit of a diversion.

You must be kidding Nick. We are only buying what we think we want to buy. There is a huge difference there. What we want and what we end up buying are very much controlled by the advertising world...hence the media. Why do you think we can post here for "free"?

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I guess the media can over hype, but they are also crucial in raising our awareness and for some of your average men on the street, the mass media is their onyl way of becoming aware, albeit not necessarily 100 the truth.

Interestign what you say abotu Y2K bug, because that really was ridiculous. My partner works in computer management and technical support, so he and all his team were ordered that they could NOT have NY2k eve off and celebrate with their families and friends like everyone else. :( We had hoped to go away but coudlnt; as george was workign so I arranged a few freinds to come over to mine that night. We kept ringing George up to see what was happening, and nothing happened. he rang just after midnight and the whole team were booing and shouting cos they had wasted their ight and done nothing. roflmao They all got paid about 500 pounds each for the night's work but really most of them would rather have been elsewhere. It made for an interestign NY as it's usual for us to eb together NYE and we had to celebrate ti by phone. We kept the party goin guntil George arrived home at 4am and into the morning, going to bed around 9am! roflmao

Erm ... not exactly. They produce loads of stuff that, along with advertising and other psychological tools, they make people WANT to buy. they create demand for their own products. I've come across peopel who buy stuff purely becasue they want to be in fashion and think that they need these things when clearly they don't. And there is also the issue of certain products that many want being hard or too expensive to get hold of. I try and buy British all the time,and organic, because of the air miles attached to may imports, and my preference for chemical free produce and free range meet but it is becoming hard, even with food. And when I found British fodo at Xmas I paid through the nose for it. My British free range chicken cost nearly 8 pounds, when it's factory farmed and/or non Britsh equivalent was around 4 pounds. I'm nto obsessive but I do try, but it is difficult and half the time some of the claims on products aren't strictly true like organic veg. And you ca buy stuff that is made in England but the parts may be imported from China. And even if you do know the environmental consequnces of a commodity you cant; always find one that is as environment freindly as you would like, money or not. It's also irritating to me as a consumer to have to pay more for products that should actually cost less.

I may have made a slight mistake using the word "want" in my statement, but still, if we don't buy it, they'll eventually quit making it. Consumers often complain about "Corporate America" (well, at least over here that's what they call it ;) ), but without being willing to change any of their own lifestyle. For example, a lot more food produces will (and have in recent years) switch to more "green" or "organic" methods, if the people buying the food demand it.

Oh, and I can empathise with your partner, because I had to be at work for that Y2K New Year's Eve, too. :wacko: And guess what . . . nothing happened.

taking the earth as a closed system, the amount of carbon must be constant. As CO2 is released by burning, decomposing, cows farting, whatever, the amount of carbon in the closed system isn't increasing merely being transformed from one form to another. Normally the CO2 would be absorbed by trees and the carbon returned to another form. If the concentration of CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere, it follows that the natural method of keeping the concentration in equilibrium is being swamped!

SB brought up the point about deforestation - trees are the lungs of the earth so companies who rip up large tracts of forest are damaging the ability of the planet to re-use the atmospheric CO2!

It makes me think as well, don't some McBurger companies buy up forest then cut it down for grazing land? That's double the problem, not only are they getting rid of trees, they're also increasing the number of farty cows!

Perhaps as well as increasing the tax on oil products, the government should also investigate a Burger tax...

(I'm not a veggie btw)

Perhaps a facetious point, but everything we do seems to affect global warming and nature will change to shift the equilibrium.

People are to blame for global warming
Natural equilibrium disturbed
Flooding and other catastrophes reduce human population
Reduced humans means reduced CO2 emissions (once they have stopped decomposing of course ;))
Reduced emissions means reduced temperature
Reduced temperature means remaining humans cooler and need to warm up
Population increases....

:ok:

Of course reduced temperature also means reduced life generally which means less CO2 which means global cooling and so on until another ice-age

and then we begin again...

See it's a cycle :D

So Roger and his cows is as guilty as hell.

Gosh..I knew it.

Chetpanv

Oh really? Yes it was all a waste of bloody time that Y2K eh? :wacko:

Yes I guess people need to buy more responsibly as well as the companies manufacturing more responsibly. Boycotts and stuff like that. I remember a lot of support for boycotting South African goods in this country as a show of dissapproval for apartheid - I woudlnt; buy them and neither did most people who were politically aware. I have boycotted KFC, McDonalds et al (nto that it bothers me as the food is disgusting IMO) but it seems there are problems with the other millions of customers that still go there :rolleyes: I genuinely think people are more apathetic and more selfish than they used to be, and less prepared to make a stand which annoys me. it's like many people have given up - sad. :(

It was. And I didn't get paid 500 pounds for it, either. :angry:

roflmao

Lex is right about deforestation though. People shoudl tno be allowed to rip trees down in the interests of business gain. I really think it's disgusting. they are the lungs of the earth. You would not rip out parts of your own lungs for money and then stick your mouth round a car exhaust and inhale now woudl you? :D

Anyway I have neighbours who rip up their front gardens and pave it, tak edown hedges and add walls, pave their lawns, chop down trees and produce these awful low maintenance gardens. They actually remove useful things that support widllife and the environment. I've even had neighbours tryign to get me to chop down my trees when my garden is doing it's bit to get rid of pollution and is heaving in wildlife. People themselves need to be proactive with their own gardens - if I were in power and make sure there was a tree and some grass and hedges etc. in every building and that they were evenly distributed around towns. They look nice too so god knwos what people's problems with these beautiful natural things are, but boy oh boy do some people have them. My neighbour's hacked at my tree 3 times now and tried to poison it whilst i was on holiday - but much to his dismay it grew another 20 foot since and beleive me that makes me so happy, as well as the doves that nest there! roflmao

Btw I've got 8 sizeable trees on my 200ft garden, including plum, apple, magnolia and pine and I have somethign of interest all year round, whether blossom, cones, leaves or fruit. I have a palm tree too :D There's over 400 foot of hedgerow and shrubs which harbours wildlife, and holly and ivy makes valuable nesting sites so that is grown wherever there's a gap. It really isnt; that much effort to maintain, as long as you dont; mind the intensive spring pruning programme that takes a few weeks on and off. I pretty much leave it to nature cos it is much nicer that way but any effort I do make is well worth the end result not to mention good excercise, meantlly fulfilling and godo for the environment. And it doesnt; cost much money either, good tools last a lifetime and nature can look after itself. I do wish mor epeople were like minded, cos the benefits would be enormous but sadly people see a green space and their first though is to think of how they can property develop on it and make money. :( My garden is one of the best things that I ever had and I count myself lucky and could not give it up. :) I could never live in a flat ever again, nor could my partner. If we had our way we'd have even more land and grow veg and keep hens too.

Dsgraceful. :angry: George was lucky in that respect. I think most people here got paid at least treble time for NY Eve and George's company paid quadruple or more for some reason - they are a big company (NTL) so they were scared of a cock up and felt the need to get in as many top staff as they could. Wast eof money though as usual with that company :rolleyes:

Of course we are really to blame.. !

WHAT IS GLOBAL WARMING?

Carbon dioxide and other gases warm the surface of the planet naturally by trapping solar heat in the atmosphere. This is a good thing because it keeps our planet habitable. However, by burning fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil and clearing forests we have dramatically increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere and temperatures are rising.

The vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is real, it’s already happening and that it is the result of our activities and not a natural occurrence.(1) The evidence is overwhelming and undeniable.

1 According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), this era of global warming "is unlikely to be entirely natural in origin" and "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence of the global climate."


The detailed stats make for depressing reading.. but sadly too many people choose to overlook them, either out of sheer selfishness or ignorance or both.

Gore's Global Warming Film Gets Rave Reviews From Climate Scientists

WASHINGTON — The nation's top climate scientists are giving "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's documentary on global warming, five stars for accuracy.

The former vice president's movie — replete with the prospect of a flooded New York City, an inundated Florida, more and nastier hurricanes, worsening droughts, retreating glaciers and disappearing ice sheets — mostly got the science right, said all 19 climate scientists who had seen the movie or read the book and answered questions from The Associated Press.

The AP contacted more than 100 top climate researchers by e-mail and phone for their opinion. Among those contacted were vocal skeptics of climate change theory. Most scientists had not seen the movie, which is in limited release, or read the book.

But those who have seen it had the same general impression: Gore conveyed the science correctly; the world is getting hotter and it is a manmade catastrophe-in-the-making caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

"Excellent," said William Schlesinger, dean of the Nicholas School of Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University. "He got all the important material and got it right."

"I sat there and I'm amazed at how thorough and accurate," Corell said. "After the presentation I said, `Al, I'm absolutely blown away. There's a lot of details you could get wrong.' ... I could find no error."

Gore, in an interview with the AP, said he wasn't surprised "because I took a lot of care to try to make sure the science was right."

The tiny errors scientists found weren't a big deal, "far, far fewer and less significant than the shortcoming in speeches by the typical politician explaining an issue," said Michael MacCracken, who used to be in charge of the nation's global warming effects program and is now chief scientist at the Climate Institute in Washington.

One concern was about the connection between hurricanes and global warming. That is a subject of a heated debate in the science community. Gore cited five recent scientific studies to support his view.

"I thought the use of imagery from Hurricane Katrina was inappropriate and unnecessary in this regard, as there are plenty of disturbing impacts associated with global warming for which there is much greater scientific consensus," said Brian Soden, a University of Miami professor of meteorology and oceanography.

Some scientists said Gore confused his ice sheets when he said the effect of the Clean Air Act is noticeable in the Antarctic ice core; it is the Greenland ice core. Others thought Gore oversimplified the causal-link between the key greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and rising temperatures.

While some nonscientists could be depressed by the dire disaster-laden warmer world scenario that Gore laid out, one top researcher thought it was too optimistic. Tom Wigley, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, thought the former vice president sugarcoated the problem by saying that with already-available technologies and changes in habit — such as changing light bulbs — the world could help slow or stop global warming.

While more than 1 million people have seen the movie since it opened in May, that does not include Washington's top science decision makers. President Bush said he won't see it. The heads of the Environmental Protection Agency and NASA haven't seen it, and the president's science adviser said the movie is on his to-see list.

"They are quite literally afraid to know the truth," Gore said. "Because if you accept the truth of what the scientific community is saying, it gives you a moral imperative to start to rein in the 70 million tons of global warming pollution that human civilization is putting into the atmosphere every day."

As far as the movie's entertainment value, Scripps Institution geosciences professor Jeff Severinghaus summed it up: "My wife fell asleep. Of course, I was on the edge of my chair."

Those are pretty wishy-washy and qualified sounding conclusions:

"unlikely to be entirely natural"

"the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence"

That's more weasle words than a post from Wise_Analyst.

I do tend to believe there is a component of human influence in the current cycle of climate change, but I think it tends to be exaggerated.

Academic hedging, I would say. Or, if I could borrow from your proclamation that corporations are out to claim us all, maybe some of these scientists get their incoome from such companies and therefore couch their words more carefully? Or maybe in the litigious world of corporate culture, they choose their words very carefully.

But if you feel that you need 100% cast iron proof before anything is done, then by all means rearrange the decks of the Titanic to your heart's content. But I don't view it as scaremongering.. and what exactly are people being asked to do about this? Not exactly a great deal..

I take some exceptions to your comparisons to other posters here. I am not maniuplating facts to suit my own ends. I took that from the site 'An inconvenient Truth', which, as my second posting mentions, IS scientifically accurate..

Ok.. as Nick has accused me of spouting wishy washy facts, I shall post something a little more concrete.

Rather than flood this thread with more comments, here are the links:

An at-a-glance guide to the Stern report, published by Sir Nicholas Stern, former Chief Economist to the World Bank:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6098362.stm

Here is a more detailed write up on the points from the report:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6096594.stm


I think that this report is really interesting in that it not only focusses on the environmental impact of globla warming, but also the economic impact of this.

Nick. whilst I take on board your thoughts that the impact of people on global warming might be overestimated, I would also say that are you really willing to take the risk that this is not the case?

What is undeniable are the likely impacts of continued global warming, regardless of the extent to which human beings contribute to it.

What is also undeniable is that that we could at least slow down the rate at which global warming occurs by our own actions.. and given the likely scenarios outlined in the Stern report, and also in 'An Inconvenient Truth' then this is surely something worth aiming for?

And the fact that this aproach might be expensive need not be a factor, as it makes huge sense from a cost-benfit perspective. Stern makes a compelling case for this approach having hugely economic benefits simply by miminising the economic costs of global warming.. which at this juncture look very worrying indeed, any which way you slice it..

Well I know a fair deal about climate and all that.
And I guess in order to understand Global Warming you would have to understand the greenhouse effect.

So with more CO2 in the air the earth's temperature will rise.Thats like the bottom line.
So when you consider the amount of CO2 emmisions there are I guess it wouldn't be too far off to say that we are at least partly to blame for Global Warming to some degree.
I also believe that it also has to with the natural cycle of the earth as well as it heats up and cools down over time.

The thing which worries me is with the ice caps melting, how are low lying areas like the Maldives gonna survive.