Scientific Scare Tactics- do you believe them anymore?

[maufry]

If you want pure data, go see An Inconvenient Truth. Whatever you may think about Gore politically, he does a very good job with just presenting the data.

[Orbit]

Shouldn't that be, 'Whatever you may think about Gore politically, he does a very good job with mispresenting the data.'?

This issue IS political - in case you didn't realize that. It's not really about science... and that's what's so scary, too many people don't realize that because they just want Gore to be right and the conservatives to be wrong.

And for some reason, people feel good feeling guilty for something they didn't really do and nothing can be done about.

Glenn Beck has a counter coming out to Gore's movie that puts forth the scientists who have data that doesn't agree with the way Gore's slideshow is presented. Once I have access to it, I'll watch them both and compare and contrast...

[maufry]

The part about the movie I remember the most is the graph of....shoot, now I can't remember exactly what it was. I *think* it was the one of CO2 concentration in the air vs average global temperature. The graph was of the past 600,000 years (I think - it's been awhile - but whatever the exact number was, it was a VERY long time) - they got the data from drilling ice cores in Antartica, I believe it was. Anyhow, it was quite clear that whatever it was exactly that the graph was showing had dramatically increased since the Industrial Age. I mean, dramatically[/i]. No one had to interpret that at all. It was quite clear that the increase was not part of the planet's natural fluctutations, b/c those fluctuations were clearly shown on the graph for the past several thousand years. Maybe it's some huge enormous coincidence that everything went wonky as soon as humans learned how to pollute the planet. But I don't happen to believe in coincidences.

Okay, now I'm going to go watch the thing again this weekend so I can remember exactly what it is that I'm talking about, lol.

[Orbit]

Did they mention on this graph that the past temperature of the earth has not ALWAYS been colder than it was after the industrial age? Or did they clearly explain that yes we're warming up... but it's not the warmest it's ever been on earth?

My guess is that they put up the CO2 measurements and expect people to make the jump in logic that CO2 is the ONLY cause of global warming and so THAT must be why things are warming up NOW - ignoring the historical climate changes of the earth and the very great possibility that the increase of CO2 on our planet is a coinkidink with global warming.

But I'll have to watch these two documentaries as well...

[Nightmare]

You could just look through the report summary that just came out. It's less overly dramatic and doesn't overuse bad humour. It gives you a pretty clear idea of everything.

[Orbit]

You mean the one the scientists funded by the U.S. and Capitalist hating UN just put out?

Yeah, I know I'm a cynic. :D

[Octarine]

Actually, humans can cause a lot of that, too.

* Looks around guiltily *

Feeding cows corn makes them significantly more flatulent than feeding them grass. (It also increases pretty much everything that's bad about meat, eg. fat content)

Ah. Thanks for the clarification :oops:

Probably true, but I wouldn't count out volumes of flatulence completely. Ever sat in a wagon behind a horse that's just eaten a bunch of green hay?

True, true. :lol:

[Pobblebonk]

Did they mention on this graph that the past temperature of the earth has not ALWAYS been colder than it was after the industrial age? Or did they clearly explain that yes we're warming up... but it's not the warmest it's ever been on earth?

I haven't seen it so I can't comment on that part' date=' but it's irrelevant that temperatures have been higher in the distant past and it's irrelevant that climate change has occurred in the past. Claiming otherwise is akin to claiming "In the past there was more rainforest than there is now. Therefore humans aren't destroying the rainforest now." The relevant issues are the causes of [i']current [/i]trends, what can and can't be ruled out as causal factors, and how observations match predictions made by different models of climate change. The only relevance of past climate changes lies in testing predictions - for instance, if we predict that rising temperatures are associated with increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide and vice versa, can we produce models whose predictions match historical climate trends. For example, a major drop in temperature 700 million years ago is associated with a significant drop in the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere resulting from the evolution of land plants.

My guess is that they put up the CO2 measurements and expect people to make the jump in logic that CO2 is the ONLY cause of global warming and so THAT must be why things are warming up NOW

This is why I always stress looking at the evidence before coming to a decision on a subject rather than taking guesses. It is established that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere lead to increased temperatures. It is also established that both CO2 and temperatures have been rising during the industrial era.

This is old hat and most climate studies don't deal with it, they are concerned rather with the extent to which temperatures are likely to change and the potential consequences of climate change.

However, you also have the other side of the equation: on the one hand, we know that rising CO2 is a possible culprit for the current warming. On the other, we need to consider what alternative culprits they are.

Warming from the Little Ice Age has been ruled out - firstly because that should have ended more than twenty years ago, but secondly and more persuasively because the Little Ice Age was not a global phenomenon - it occurred only in the Northern Hemisphere (mainly in Europe). Modern warming is affecting areas that never suffered a temperature drop during that period; some of the greatest warming is in Antarctica. Nor have there been any changes in our orbit, any dust clouds we're passing out of or any other phenomena that have been invoked in the beginning and end of past ice age events.

Increased solar activity has been ruled out - the current warming doesn't match observed changes in solar output or the sunspot cycle. Moreover solar radiation would heat the planet from the upper atmosphere down; human-induced warming would be concentrated in the lower atmosphere. Most warming has indeed taken place in the lower atmosphere, consistent with a human emissions scenario.

Other greenhouse gases have been ruled out - there has been no increase in atmospheric methane or water vapour concentrations that coincides with the current period of warming. Only CO2 and other industrially-emitted greenhouse gases show a trend of increase that's consistent with the present warming trend.

The thing is, you can't just say any warming (past or present) is "natural" and leave it at that. All climate change, natural or otherwise, has some cause - it doesn't just randomly happen or take place on programmed cycles. In all cases what matters is what caused that change - changes in the concentrations of atmospheric gasses, changes in ambient solar radiation, alterations in landmass configuration or ocean currents and so forth. You simply can't say "It's happened naturally before, maybe it's happening naturally again" - if there's no natural mechanism that could be the cause of recent climate trends, then it isn't happening naturally, regardless of whether or not the climate has changed naturally in the past. It really is that simple.

Phil

[Kallan]

I've been told that There is a heavy increase in other greenhouse gasses. I have also heard that there has been a variation of solar activity.

What is the source of your data?

I am not denying your data, simply that I've heard many things, and as I asked before, I would like to have the actual data in front of me.

[secretstar]

Okay.

Ask any scientist who is not on a conservative think tank or oil companies payroll and ask them if global warming is real and if human beings are causing it and they will all say the same thing:

YES

Most of the scientist who have come out and tried to discredit global warming with some research has been discredited as somebody directly linked to a petro company or somebody with ties to petro companies.

Most of the scientist who have come out and say it is happening really have no agenda other than good science.

If you do not believe global climate change is happening and humans are not at fault, take some environmental science courses and THAN talk.

Yes catastrophic climate change has happened in the past, but that usually takes a massive super-volcano.

Yes the climate does change, but the rate its happening now is significantly faster than it has ever happened without a catastrophic event.

AND YES the science behind determining global climate change and human involvement is solid. But explaining how several disciplines of science determined it was happening and how it was happening is complex.

Dismissing it as junk science demonstrates a lack of understanding of science, scientific method, and the scientific community that is best demonstrated by those on fox news and those who spend their time watching fox news and reading conservative publications.

If you spent more time in college level environmental science classes you would understand how it is happening and why, and the science behind how they figured out it was happening.

Sorry if I sound insulting, but those who dismiss global climate change as junk science...generally do not have the educational background to dismiss it as junk science.

As somebody I know best said...99% of the scientific community thinks global climate change is happening and that human beings are at fault, the other 1% is paid by oil companies and similar interests.

[Kallan]

So you don't tend to back up your claim in the manner I asked.

I talked to the director of the Of the Alaska department of the interior (I don't know who the current one is, this was several years ago. The director had a Phd. in geology, was not on the pay roll of conservative think tanks or major oil companies, and said that the evidence and reports he had seen could well be spurious.

I will ask again for direction ANY report, ANYWHERE that is a credible, that will give me scientific data relating to global climate change. I will say again that I have not made up my mind, but that having been faced with noone who will actually show me documented evidence, I am left skeptical.

[Orbit]

Sorry if I sound insulting, but those who dismiss global climate change as junk science...generally do not have the educational background to dismiss it as junk science.

Yeah, we're as bad as holocaust deniers too, I've heard. :roll:

You speak with the authority of someone who is educated in science, yet, something tells me you haven't studied these things anymore than I have, probably less, and you're just writing with the confidence of it being 'the popular view of scientists' rather than true comprehension.

So be insulting all you want, your words are empty though, unless you have the credentials to back them up. I'll take seriously being spewed at by a scientist who has the data in his fist and believes it with all his heart- but from someone on a board who is only regurgitating what they heard Al Gore's movie say - I think I'm going to consider all your fury a grain of salt.

As for the rest of us who are still questioning the popular view, we're fine to be called whatever and the truth will come out in the end. Talk to you in a couple decades and we'll see if your little self-righteous 'tude' was justified. ;)

[Rabger]

Using scientific data, or at least calling data that, or both for political reasons is not uncommon. Numbers can easily be manipulated or misread to get results that aren't accurate, and this is a common practice today. That's why people would never read something and mindlessly believe it. They should read research, data, articles, lots of them, themselves, and then reach a conclusion. Having done so, I know damn well that civ humans are causing huge and devastating problems in the world. And I also believe that our culture won't survive much longer do to the instability of its foundations. It doesn't take much brain work to know the basis of ecosystem stability is diversity. And it doesn't make much work to see that we've done our damnedest to eliminate diversity. Does this mean the end of the world? No. Even if we wipe out 90% of live on the planet, humans included, evolution will stay its course and re-populate the planet with new species, even if it takes a while. Does this mean the end of the world for humans? Possibly, depending on how we bring it about (such as nuclear shit). But does it have to? Not at all. Modern humans have survived in the world for an estimated 200,000 years, with only 10,000 or so being in the fucked up way we live now. With a collapse means a new beginning, that's all. We just have to stop living the way we live, or at some point we won't have a choice.

[Kallan]

Using scientific data, or at least calling data that, or both for political reasons is not uncommon. Numbers can easily be manipulated or misread to get results that aren't accurate, and this is a common practice today.

I always say, figures don't lie, but liars figure.

I also agree that global warming (even if we are causing it) is not going to be the end of our planet or our species, merely of a particular way of life. At one point all these fossile fuels were living organizims, meaning all this carbon was, in the past, in the atmosphere or ecosystem. Despite alarmists this planet is never going to look like DUNE.

[Orbit]

An article about Henrik Svensmark's attributing climate change to Cosmic Rays.

Cosmic rays blamed for global warming

By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent, Sunday Telegraph

Last Updated: 1:08am GMT 11/02/2007

Man-made climate change may be happening at a far slower rate than has been claimed, according to controversial new research.

Scientists say that cosmic rays from outer space play a far greater role in changing the Earth's climate than global warming experts previously thought.

In a book, to be published this week, they claim that fluctuations in the number of cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere directly alter the amount of cloud covering the planet.

High levels of cloud cover blankets the Earth and reflects radiated heat from the Sun back out into space, causing the planet to cool.

Henrik Svensmark, a weather scientist at the Danish National Space Centre who led the team behind the research, believes that the planet is experiencing a natural period of low cloud cover due to fewer cosmic rays entering the atmosphere.

This, he says, is responsible for much of the global warming we are experiencing.

He claims carbon dioxide emissions due to human activity are having a smaller impact on climate change than scientists think. If he is correct, it could mean that mankind has more time to reduce our effect on the climate.

The controversial theory comes one week after 2,500 scientists who make up the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change published their fourth report stating that human carbon dioxide emissions would cause temperature rises of up to 4.5 C by the end of the century.

Mr Svensmark claims that the calculations used to make this prediction largely overlooked the effect of cosmic rays on cloud cover and the temperature rise due to human activity may be much smaller.

He said: "It was long thought that clouds were caused by climate change, but now we see that climate change is driven by clouds.

"This has not been taken into account in the models used to work out the effect carbon dioxide has had.

"We may see CO2 is responsible for much less warming than we thought and if this is the case the predictions of warming due to human activity will need to be adjusted."

Mr Svensmark last week published the first experimental evidence from five years' research on the influence that cosmic rays have on cloud production in the Proceedings of the Royal Society Journal A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. This week he will also publish a fuller account of his work in a book entitled The Chilling Stars: A New Theory of Climate Change.

A team of more than 60 scientists from around the world are preparing to conduct a large-scale experiment using a particle accelerator in Geneva, Switzerland, to replicate the effect of cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere.

They hope this will prove whether this deep space radiation is responsible for changing cloud cover. If so, it could force climate scientists to re-evaluate their ideas about how global warming occurs.

Mr Svensmark's results show that the rays produce electrically charged particles when they hit the atmosphere. He said: "These particles attract water molecules from the air and cause them to clump together until they condense into clouds."

Mr Svensmark claims that the number of cosmic rays hitting the Earth changes with the magnetic activity around the Sun. During high periods of activity, fewer cosmic rays hit the Earth and so there are less clouds formed, resulting in warming.

Low activity causes more clouds and cools the Earth.

He said: "Evidence from ice cores show this happening long into the past. We have the highest solar activity we have had in at least 1,000 years.

"Humans are having an effect on climate change, but by not including the cosmic ray effect in models it means the results are inaccurate.The size of man's impact may be much smaller and so the man-made change is happening slower than predicted."

Some climate change experts have dismissed the claims as "tenuous".

Giles Harrison, a cloud specialist at Reading University said that he had carried out research on cosmic rays and their effect on clouds, but believed the impact on climate is much smaller than Mr Svensmark claims.

Mr Harrison said: "I have been looking at cloud data going back 50 years over the UK and found there was a small relationship with cosmic rays. It looks like it creates some additional variability in a natural climate system but this is small."

But there is a growing number of scientists who believe that the effect may be genuine.

Among them is Prof Bob Bingham, a clouds expert from the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils in Rutherford.

He said: "It is a relatively new idea, but there is some evidence there for this effect on clouds."

So it's not quite 'that's all she wrote' yet... lets' let the scientists do some more studies and take into consideration ALL the possibilies.

[Pobblebonk]

I've been told that There is a heavy increase in other greenhouse gasses.

By me' date=' among others. :) To reiterate:

there has been no increase in atmospheric methane or water vapour concentrations that coincides with the current period of warming. Only CO2 and other industrially-emitted greenhouse gases show a trend of increase that's consistent with the present warming trend.

There have been other increases in greenhouse gases - in nitrous oxide, for instance. However, the critical point is that these do not explain current climate trends because these rises do not correspond with the observed increases in global temperature - N2O emissions, for example, are correlated with increases in the amount of agricultural land (it's a fertiliser). There have also been increases in volcanic emissions, but these too don't coincide with a consistent warming trend.

THE RISE in global temperatures over the past century was caused mainly by increased carbon dioxide emissions, according to an analysis of temperature records by David Thomson of AT&T Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. Thomson hopes his study will silence the sceptics who argue that the observed 0.6 °C warming has nothing to do with the greenhouse effect, and was instead caused by an increase in the radiation coming from the Sun.

New Scientist, 22 April 1995

I have also heard that there has been a variation of solar activity.

There has indeed, but see my comment on that subject: the current warming is concentrated in the lower atmosphere, which isn't consistent with solar-induced radiation. There has also been a warming trend during periods of low solar activity, such as 1960-1980. Therefore recorded solar variability is inconsistent with the warming trend. Moreover, solar variability may only have a minor role in climate change generally:

Overall, the role of solar activity in climate changes - such as the Quaternary glaciations or the present global warming - remains unproven and most probably represents a second-order effect

Source: Bard, E. and Martin, F. (2006) "Climate Change and Solar Variability: What's New Under the Sun?", Earth and Planetary Science Letters 248: 15 August 2006

From examining the data records I conclude: Changes in solar irradiance explain perhaps one-quarter of the increase in temperature during the last century. The changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration resulting from human consumption of fossil fuels cause most of both the temperature increase and the changes in the seasonal cycle.

Source: Thomson, D. J. (1997) "Dependence of global temperature on atmospheric CO2 and solar irradiance", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 94: August 1997

What is the source of your data?

As a good, reasonably accessible general source, from New Scientist 11 June 2005:

"NOW there is indisputable evidence that humans are causing global warming, claims a team that studied the extent and pattern of the rise in ocean temperatures. The oceans eventually absorb 84 per cent of the Earth's extra heat, and the distribution of that heat closely matches what climate models predict would be the effect of human activity. Natural causes are ruled out, the team says.

"The evidence is so strong that it should put an end to any debate about whether humanity is causing global warming," says Tim Barnett of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La JoIIa, California.

Barnett's team analysed records of ocean temperatures from the past 40 years. They found that oceans have warmed by around 0.5 °C at the surface, and the warming extends to a depth of several hundred metres. They then looked at the potential causes of the warming, such as increased solar radiation, changes in the amount of sulphate particles from volcanic emissions in the air, natural fluctuations and human activity. The human component included both the warming effect of greenhouse gases and the shading effect of the aerosols in urban smog and forest fires, which prevent radiation from reaching the Earth's surface.

Computer simulations of the three possible natural causes showed effects many times weaker than the warming actually observed, says Barnett. But simulations of human effects agreed with observations "with a confidence exceeding 95 per cent".

The human fingerprint also shows in the pattern of warming. For instance, warming has been greatest in the southern oceans, where man-made aerosols are at a minimum. In the northern Indian Ocean there is a cool layer of water above a warmer one. The upper layer is almost certainly a result of the thick "brown haze" of pollutants over southern Asia, which has largely cancelled out atmospheric warming in the region, says Barnett (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1112W8).

The accuracy of the model is so striking that it should bring confidence that science can predict the pace and pattern of climate change in the coming decades, he adds.

Jonathan Gregory of the University of Reading in the UK assessed Harriett's results, and agrees that computer models, which have already accurately predicted atmospheric heating due to human activity, are getting better. "Our confidence is increased when we reach the same conclusion [on manmade climate change] by examining both the atmosphere and the ocean," he says.

Phil

[Pobblebonk]

Okay.

Ask any scientist who is not on a conservative think tank or oil companies payroll and ask them if global warming is real and if human beings are causing it and they will all say the same thing:

YES

Most of the scientist who have come out and tried to discredit global warming with some research has been discredited as somebody directly linked to a petro company or somebody with ties to petro companies.

Most of the scientist who have come out and say it is happening really have no agenda other than good science.

If you do not believe global climate change is happening and humans are not at fault' date=' take some environmental science courses and THAN talk. [/quote']

One thing climate change sceptics certainly ought to ask themselves is: what would anyone have to gain from a 'pro-climate change' agenda? What tangible, substantive benefit would they achieve?

For instance, Orbit tells us that she would be sceptical of studies supported by Greenpeace. But what does Greenpeace have to gain from advocating the idea that humans cause global warming? The group was going strong for years agitating about whales and nuclear power - what does it gain by making climate change its issue-of-the-month? There are plenty of other environmental disaster stories out there.

On the other hand, if you're supported by oil companies, the oil companies' sceptical agenda produces tangible benefits for them - in the current political arena, it's assumed that if climate change isn't related to fossil fuel emissions, oil companies have a licence to carry on in a 'business as usual' scenario, protecting their current profit margins without the need for pricey R&D into alternatives to fossil fuels.

As I've mentioned elsewhere (repeatedly, at that), I advocate scepticism generally and wariness of taking anything on authority. But I also advocate using one's ability to discriminate between alternatives on the evidence rather than saying "well, since we're being sceptical, let's reject everything equally". Not that I have ever seen any examples of good research supported by Greenpeace, but one needs to take a critical approach in evaluating what any side has to gain from throwing money at pursuing a particular 'agenda'.

Phil

[Pobblebonk]

So you don't tend to back up your claim in the manner I asked.

I talked to the director of the Of the Alaska department of the interior (I don't know who the current one is' date=' this was several years ago. The director had a Phd. in geology, was not on the pay roll of conservative think tanks or major oil companies, and said that the evidence and reports he had seen could well be spurious.[/quote']

Well, this comes back to the issue of expertise, doesn't it? This is the opinion of someone who, whatever his educational background, works, not as a scientist, but as a civil servant, and whose former discipline is of somewhat limited relevance to climate change, a topic which relates to atmospheric chemistry, environmental science, astrophysics, oceanography etc., but notably not in any important way to geology.

I will ask again for direction ANY report, ANYWHERE that is a credible, that will give me scientific data relating to global climate change. I will say again that I have not made up my mind, but that having been faced with noone who will actually show me documented evidence, I am left skeptical.

I've given a number of extracts, but the nature of science is such that most scientific research results and conclusions are published in scientific journals, most of which aren't widely available to nonsubscribers outside a university environment. And even then much of the work relating greenhouse emissions to climate change dates to a period when a number of these sources aren't available online. The 1995 New Scientist piece, for instance, isn't available to me online because my university is only subscribed to sources that hold records of the magazine from 1999 onwards. Not having access to that piece, I don't have its citation of published research to follow.

Phil

[Pobblebonk]

An article about Henrik Svensmark's attributing climate change to Cosmic Rays.

Cosmic rays blamed for global warming

By Richard Gray' date=' Science Correspondent, Sunday Telegraph

Last Updated: 1:08am GMT 11/02/2007

Man-made climate change may be happening at a far slower rate than has been claimed, according to controversial new research.

Scientists say that cosmic rays from outer space play a far greater role in changing the Earth's climate than global warming experts previously thought.

In a book, to be published this week, they claim that fluctuations in the number of cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere directly alter the amount of cloud covering the planet.

High levels of cloud cover blankets the Earth and reflects radiated heat from the Sun back out into space, causing the planet to cool.[/quote']

While this is true, it's incomplete. Bear in mind that we're talking about global warming from the ground up in human emissions scenarios. Clouds reflect light (and heat) from above back into space ... and they reflect light (and heat) from below back into the atmosphere, trapping it. One of the longest-standing questions in climate change science is whether clouds amplify global warming or mitigate it. It seems rather simplistic to assume low cloud = greater warming, more cloud = less warming.

Phil

[Orbit]

One thing climate change sceptics certainly ought to ask themselves is: what would anyone have to gain from a 'pro-climate change' agenda? What tangible, substantive benefit would they achieve?

Can you prove a mass conspiracy based on ideology alone? I would say it's hard to prove, but because of the "oil companies don't believe in global warming' rallying cry, I'm going to go ahead and tell you what I believe is the biggest thing to gain by having a pro-global warming caused by men' agenda.

(Several here keep trying to slip into the argument that we are denying climate change. Yes, I think the climate is changing, but we disagree that the reason why has been sufficiently established... though I agree that we should be much more careful with our environment, I don't think the kind of radical and immediate changes the far left wants from industry is reasonable, or useful, or necessary...)

So... the conspiracy? It's socialist ideology, and here's why and the ideological 'proof'.

Now, I realize the Socialist Alliance is just one organization in Australia and doesn't speak for all socialists everywhere, nor is it the heart of the plan for this agenda, but it DOES reflect typical socialist values and ideology and belief systems.

The constitution of the socialist alliance as found on http://www.socialistalliance.org/ :

CONSTITUTION OF THE SOCIALIST ALLIANCE AS AMENDED OCT 14 2006

A: Statement of aims

A1. The name of the organisation will be “Socialist Alliance”.

A2. The Socialist Alliance promotes the ideas and principles of democracy and republicanism, an environmentally sustainable global socialism and working class internationalism. The Socialist Alliance starts from the basis of the Socialist Alliance 2001 programme “People Before Profit”

A3. The Socialist Alliance aims to win support in the working class movement for a democratically organised republican socialist party, along the lines of the Scottish Socialist Party.

A4. Socialism - The Socialist Alliance is opposed to capitalism and imperialism. Socialism abolishes capitalism and economic exploitation and hence the necessity for social oppression. Socialism re-organises society on the basis of common social ownership and democratic control.

A5. Republicanism - The Socialist Alliance identifies the working class as the only genuinely democratic class in society. The struggle for democracy is the only road to working class self-emancipation.

A6. Internationalism - The Socialist Alliance is internationalist in its outlook. International capitalism is creating an expanding working class across the world. Building international working class solidarity and co-operation is central to the struggle for democracy and socialism. We oppose all capitalist policies which divide the working class along national lines including imperialist wars and foreign occupations.

A7. Environment – The Alliance recognises that capitalism is incapable of planning and developing the resources of our planet in the light of the vulnerability of the ecosystem. Capitalism – with its ruthless pursuit of short term profit and its need for unplanned growth is the major cause of environmental damage. Capitalism by its very nature can only plunder and disrupt the environment. In particular we regard global warming as a major threat to human civilisation and existence. Only in a socialist society would it be possible for human activity to be environmentally sustainable.

A8. The Socialist Alliance is a campaigning organisation, seeking to win support for our ideas and policies in the socialist movement, the trade union movement and working class communities. We are prepared to work in and campaign within a broad range of socialist and working class organisations. We are prepared to stand in elections where circumstances indicate we have the support and means to do so.

There's more, you can go to the link if you want to read the entire thing.

So there you have it - an organization document that lays at it's foundation the belief that not only is capitalism at fault for much of the worlds problems, but they require global warming to be a key facter in their stance that capitalism is bad and socialism is the only answer...

Yet, the Kyato treaty which claims to stop global polution through heavy limitations on capitalist countries, still permits countries like China and India to continue poluting - when that happens, they will get the business we can't afford to run anymore. So in effect it won't really cut down on emissions, just change where they are coming from, and possibly make them worse because the U.S. has been developing some of the best technologies to cut down on transmissions that these other countries just don't bother with.

Without global warming being caused by men, socialists lose a HUGE card to play in the world economy. As the Kyato treaty proves, they really don't care about global warming, and as THEIR data shows, we can't really stop it anyway - BUT they can continue to make capitalists feel guilty and put pressure on the world to feel stupid and uneducated if we disagree with them so that by chance they might still have a chance to shut down the capitalist machine... and maybe (oh please, oh please) Socialism will have a chance.

Granted, I don't believe most environmentalists are keen on this big conspiracy, they just like Earth and trust people like Gore to be telling them the truth - even when the charts leave out important data and the chicken little arguments are embarrassing to their position.

[Orbit]

One of the longest-standing questions in climate change science is whether clouds amplify global warming or mitigate it.

Ah! We're getting somewhere (maybe) you at least admit that it's a longstanding question...

Hopefully the new experiments will shed some light on the subject. (pun intended)

[Pobblebonk]

One thing climate change sceptics certainly ought to ask themselves is: what would anyone have to gain from a 'pro-climate change' agenda? What tangible' date=' substantive benefit would they achieve?

[/quote']

Can you prove a mass conspiracy based on ideology alone?

The point of requesting an explanation of tangible benefits is that you can't. :) No doubt one could claim that climate change sceptics are sceptics because it furthers some evil capitalist agenda to destroy the world, but that one would be a loony.

Now, I realize the Socialist Alliance is just one organization in Australia and doesn't speak for all socialists everywhere, nor is it the heart of the plan for this agenda, but it DOES reflect typical socialist values and ideology and belief systems.

How is this relevant, unless the Socialist Alliance, or for that matter other socialist groups, are sponsoring climate change research? Environmentalism has nothing to do with socialism.

So there you have it - an organization document that lays at it's foundation the belief that not only is capitalism at fault for much of the worlds problems,

Yes, this tends to be the foundation of socialist organisations' beliefs more or less by definition.

but they require global warming to be a key facter in their stance that capitalism is bad and socialism is the only answer...

No they don't. The document mentions global warming as its prime example, but this is in the context of a phenomenon that's already taking place. If it wasn't global warming, they could take issue with polluting practices and oil companies on the basis of other environmental problems. That's the thing - politically, global warming is completely unnecessary for the 'left'. It doesn't require any action people weren't clamouring to be taken before it ever became an issue - increased pollution controls, capping emissions, all this was part of the environmental agitators' arsenal long before global warming became the fashion. The only people who have anything to gain by making global warming a political issue are industrial interests who believe that, by pretending that global warming is the only problem they're being blamed for, they can brush all other concerns about polluting activities under the carpet by claiming global warming isn't their fault.

Yet, the Kyato treaty which claims to stop global polution through heavy limitations on capitalist countries, still permits countries like China and India to continue poluting - when that happens, they will get the business we can't afford to run anymore.

The European Union is a signatory to the Kyoto protocols; this has had no noticeable effect on these countries' competitiveness or political relevance. Indeed as the European carbon trading market kicked in, there were American states and companies frustrated that they wouldn't be able to get a piece of the action.

The big problem with Kyoto is that despite being critically flawed, it's being hailed by too many people as the answer to all the world's ills - as if answering all the world's ills is something that can be achieved by encouraging countries like Malaysia to chop down natural forests to replace with oil palm plantations (they get credit for planting, no matter what they destroy to plant things), and it was never intended as more than a stopgap. If you listen to the Australian opposition, their environmental policy begins and ends with "We will sign up to the Kyoto protocol". Hey, that's great, let's elect someone whose manifesto commitment is not to meet any targets, not to do anything vaguely practical, but to sign a treaty commiting them to try and reach a non-binding target on emissions that few of the signatories are expected to reach as it is. The worry is not just that the general public might buy into this crap, but that the politicians will - that they might really believe they're doing something useful with a pointlessly symbolic signature on a piece of paper, and so not bother doing anything more productive.

However, in spite of all of this, the Kyoto treaty is at least a start and is, if only slightly, then still better than nothing. Criticising it is all very well, but criticism has to be constructive - the US government never came up with a practical alternative that would be any better (and nor did the Australian one). "It's not enough, but let's at least make a start" seems a much more constructive approach than "It's not enough, so let's do nothing and instead complain about everything that's wrong with it".

So in effect it won't really cut down on emissions, just change where they are coming from,

China's not going to be emitting any more under Kyoto, or making those any less dirty, than it would without it. Kyoto just lets China carry on as it would otherwise. Cutting down on US emissions still reduces the amount coming out of the US, so you have fewer emissions overall.

Without global warming being caused by men, socialists lose a HUGE card to play in the world economy.

"Lose a huge card to play"? What role do socialists have in the world economy? After all, your Socialist Alliance manifesto comes from Australia, a country which hardly ranks among the most influential world powers, and even here I'd never heard of them.

As the Kyato treaty proves, they really don't care about global warming, and as THEIR data shows, we can't really stop it anyway - BUT they can continue to make capitalists feel guilty and put pressure on the world to feel stupid and uneducated if we disagree with them so that by chance they might still have a chance to shut down the capitalist machine... and maybe (oh please, oh please) Socialism will have a chance.

Now this really is getting far-fetched - what mechanism would cause a sense of guilt to destroy the "capitalist machine"?

Phil

[Kallan]

But what does Greenpeace have to gain from advocating the idea that humans cause global warming?

I don't know, what do they have to gain by lying about deforestation in the Tongass National Forest? Or the Environmental damage caused by drilling in Prudhoe Bay (and Possibly ANWAR)? I don't know what they gain out of lying but I've seen them do it, and the fact that I can't tell why or in what circumstances they lie makes them all the more suspect.

[Nightmare]

Tongass National Forest????? Have you used Google Earth lately? That whole region's going to shit. Maybe the Tongass area isn't as bad as neighboring BC, but there are still clearcuts dotting most of the islands, and not just an 'okay' handful here and there either.

[maufry]

I firmly believe that the human race is going to destroy life as we know it at some point. True, we probably don't have enough power to destroy the entire ecosystem (at least, not yet), but we could do some very major damage, at the very least. Whether it's now or later is just a matter of whether or not I live through it. Do I think that humans are the cause of global warming and that it's spiralling out of control? Yes. Do I think that acting on it makes one bit of difference? No. I think that even if we are able to reverse what we've been doing to the planet, we'll just come up with some other way to destroy ourselves a little bit later. Of course, that's not to say I'm not going to try my best to make whatever contribution I can, just in case I'm wrong (the concept! lol).

[Orbit]

The European Union is a signatory to the Kyoto protocols; this has had no noticeable effect on these countries' competitiveness or political relevance. Indeed as the European carbon trading market kicked in, there were American states and companies frustrated that they wouldn't be able to get a piece of the action.

Hmmm... according to this document, very few have actually implimented change:

I doubt anything I say will matter to you, so I'll just explain it quickly and then be done wasting my time.

Rather than setting a standard that countries must reach which would be good for the environment, the Kyoto treaty requires Annex I countries (Capitalists success stories) to meet a 5% lower rate of emmissions than they had in 1990. :shock: Which means that the countries who started first in turning around and reducing emmissions will be penalized the most, especially if they are already extremely efficient and it is nearly impossible for them to get lower. While those who polluted much more in 1990 because they just don't care, can go on polluting at a much higher rate with no insentive to get lower or match the lower polluting countries.

Top that off by realizing that there is a monetary insentive built in so that these successful low emmission producing countries must purchase (turn over cash) to countries who are poluters to buy points.

So those countries who did well early on WITHOUT the treaty and who have worked hard to do better are penalized, while those big massive polluters get rewarded because they are 'third world' and didn't give a rip about the environment in 1990.

*fin*

[Kallan]

Tongass National Forest????? Have you used Google Earth lately? That whole region's going to shit. Maybe the Tongass area isn't as bad as neighboring BC, but there are still clearcuts dotting most of the islands, and not just an 'okay' handful here and there either.

No but I lived there for 20 years and flew over it several times a year. And while yes clear cutting is going on, that is not synonomous with deforestation. Deforestation occurs when the forest doesn't grow back as fast as it is cut.

The trees that grow in the Tongas National Forest grow back in 50-60 years, Between 1946 and 1996 A total of 2% of the forest was cut. You would need to expand the logging by nearly 5000% to begin deforestation.

When Loggers harvest the forest they stay away from strems and lakes, and clear as many of the animals out as they can, then in 20 years you've got a beutiful young forest of spruce and alder. a couple decades later you've got a forest of cedar and hemlock, and another decade later you're ready for harvest again.

That's how we look at it too, like a crop that we harvest. The only difference I see is the length it takes to grow it.

On another note, young trees and fauna take in MUCH more CO2 than old dead forests do.

[Orbit]

No more energy for the arguing, but I will put up some articles as I find them. :D

Global-warming skeptics cite being 'treated like a pariah'

By Eric Pfeiffer

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

February 12, 2007

Scientists skeptical of climate-change theories say they are increasingly coming under attack -- treatment that may make other analysts less likely to present contrarian views about global warming.

"In general, if you do not agree with the consensus that we are headed toward disaster, you are treated like a pariah," said William O'Keefe, chief executive officer of the Marshall Institute, which assesses scientific issues that shape public policy.

"It's ironic that a field based on challenging unproven theories attacks skeptics in a very unhealthy way."

Two climatologists in Democrat-leaning states, David Legates in Delaware and George Taylor in Oregon, have come under fire for expressing skepticism about the origins of climate change. Oregon Gov. Theodore R. Kulongoski is publicly seeking to strip Mr. Taylor, widely known as the state's climatologist, of his position because of his stance.

"There has been a broad, concerted effort to intimidate and silence them," said Myron Ebell, director of energy and global-warming policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. "It's the typical politics of the hard left at work. I think these are real threats."

CEI, which previously listed Mr. Legates as an "adjunct scholar," has published multiple reports questioning the science behind global-warming theories and has been criticized for accepting donations from companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp.

Mr. O'Keefe said his organization doesn't deny the existence of global warming but questions the methods used by individuals and groups advocating for new government restrictions to combat the phenomenon.

"We have never said that global warming isn't real," Mr. O'Keefe said. "No self-respecting think tank would accept money to support preconceived notions. We make sure what we are saying is both scientifically and analytically defensible."

In an interview with local NBC affiliate KGW-TV, Mr. Kulongoski, a Democrat, said he hopes to take away Mr. Taylor's job title because his views do not mesh with the political opinions of most lawmakers in Oregon, including the governor.

"He is Oregon State University's climatologist. He is not the state of Oregon's climatologist," Mr. Kulongoski said. "I just think there has to be somebody that says, 'This is the state position on this.' "

Mr. Taylor was appointed to the position in 1991, when Oregon's legislature created a state climate office at the college. Mr. Kulongoski wants to change the position to a governor-appointed one. State Sen. Brad Avakian, a Democrat, is sponsoring a bill supporting such a move.

[Nightmare]

No but I lived there for 20 years and flew over it several times a year. And while yes clear cutting is going on, that is not synonomous with deforestation. Deforestation occurs when the forest doesn't grow back as fast as it is cut.

The trees that grow in the Tongas National Forest grow back in 50-60 years, Between 1946 and 1996 A total of 2% of the forest was cut. You would need to expand the logging by nearly 5000% to begin deforestation.

When Loggers harvest the forest they stay away from strems and lakes, and clear as many of the animals out as they can, then in 20 years you've got a beutiful young forest of spruce and alder. a couple decades later you've got a forest of cedar and hemlock, and another decade later you're ready for harvest again.

That's how we look at it too, like a crop that we harvest. The only difference I see is the length it takes to grow it.

On another note, young trees and fauna take in MUCH more CO2 than old dead forests do.

Hasn't the logging increased a lot since 1996--wasn't some sort of protection removed a few years ago? And also doesn't it at least matter in the slightest that the whole area is old growth forest (aside from regrown clearcuts, that is)? Maybe it's a personal thing, but turning the whole world into a plantation doesn't appeal to me (this sentance is hyperbolic because that's how I speak, as a Midwesterner).

[Kallan]

No actually it's almost stopped. In 1996 Clinton signed a law that said we couldn't log in the tongass national forest except where neccessary for expansion of roads and residential housing.

Which ironically causes more damage to the forest because it forces people who want to harvest it to build over what they cut down rather than letting it grow back the way it has for centuries.