Well the tide has turned with the showing of the documentary " the great global warming swindle". The conclusion seem to be very much in line with my minority view that human activity is not responsible for the rise in global temperatures.

And further the documentary nicely portrayed that the rise in CO2 is not responsible for temperature rises but is a consequence of it!

Any one see this as a political issue? and will we chew it over a bit?

It was more like an episode of " Grumpy old men " talk about bad science.
You can't on the one hand say that some scientists are messing with there results for money and then
expect to be believed when you give your results.

The fact is we don't know for sure and will only know when its too late or not as the case maybe, it isn't worth the risk.
Maybe I'm one of "those people who talk about the risks of technology without talking about the benefits "

Hi Tony, I was going to post exactly the same question, but you beat me to it!

I though the programme was very interesting, especially the charts which showed the effects of solar activity [sunspots etc] mimicking historic temperature fluctuations.

Solar intensity variations were presented as fitting far better than any overlay of CO2, which as you say, was presented as a consequence. Again the curves fitted well.

This has made me think again, but I would like to see hard reference to the raw data used to create the charts themselves.

I was also interested to see that Dr Patrick Moore, the co-founder of Greepeace was a protagonist

Great programme, but like all madia you have to read between the lines, liked all the graphs and explanations all very believable, but....................
My honest opinion, C02 isn't the big issue, it's out of our control anyway. All the hipe by authority is to cover up the real problem which is Peak Oil and Fuel Poverty, now that would be a great programme, wonder if anybody would have the balls to do it? Especially if they had "Dr Albert something or other!" from the link on the Peak Oil thread on the old forum and all the social problems that he spoke about, hope you've all read it, heavy going but well worth the read.

Posted By: Peter A the real problem which is Peak Oil and Fuel Poverty, now that would be a great programme, wonder if anybody would have the balls to do it?

Milliband understands it, but the political climate is not quite right for him to say so yet. He got very close to it earlier this week. Chris Vernon has just posted a piece on this:
http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/2345


(Why aren't my hyperlinks working automatically?)

From another forum I frequent, written by someone I respect:
Comments?

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About two years ago the Telegraph ran a couple of articles by genuine climate experts about the science side of climatology.... commenting in particular on our lack of knowledge, and more particular in the lack of a viable model to explain 'global warming'....... and the almost total lack of evidence for carbon dioxide being the prime driver in current (or past) changes in the earth's average temperature. Its been picked up in a Channel 4 documentary today too...

Alas, in effect this is a near heresy today... and formed much of the basis for the US arguments in recent climate conferences.... here are some facts from the records.......

a) Recent climate records compared with industrialisation....
i) during the last centuary economic growth through industrial activity is focused into the period after 1940. So man made CO2 really starting pumping out in the last seventy years. But for three decades in particular from 1940, the world's temperature constantly declined.... it got cooler when the industrial CO2 content was increasing....
ii) the total CO2 content in the atmosphere, by volume, is about 0.54%. In terms of greenhouse contribution CO2 comes a very poor third.... about 90% of greenhouse effect is caused by water vapour, but you also need to explain its reflective capability when in cloud form - which varies. The second is CO2 at 0.54%. Less than a fifth can be associated with all man-made contribution. It is a very small amount. We are talking in parts per million here.
From other sources I've found this assessment of atmospheric greenhouse gases from 2000 by volume
- Total% - % Natural - % Man-made
Water Vapour........ - 95.000% - 94.999% - 0.001%
Carbon Dioxide...... - 3.618% - 3.502% - 0.117%
Methane (CH4)....... - 0.360% - 0.294% - 0.066%
Nitrous Oxide (N2O) - 0.950% - 0.903% - 0.047%
Misc. gases.............- 0.072% - 0.025% - 0.047%
Total .......................-100.00% - 99.72 - 0.28%
(By volume ranking understates Methane's actually greater greenhouse effect.)
iii) the main focus on climatic temp change in the last seventy years should be warming the temperature of the upper atmosphere where the greenhouse effect is focused.... in theory temperature should be increasing faster up there if the green house effect is the cause. No such faster increase in temperature has been found (although regularly searched for).

b) Recent centuries of climatic variations ...
i) back to the lack of relationship between CO2 and the climate record.... and the so called CO2 warming models....
in the hundred years 1840-1940 the world warmed quite considerably, yet the addition due to CO2 was missing.... and the contribution by man negligible.
We can go on..... for two and a half centuries in the 1350 to 1580 period.. Europe experienced what is now called a Mini Ice Age..... the Thames frozen in the hard winters, cold summers and snow across Europe..... and the CO2 variation? none existent. No CO2 driver of climate there then.
What's more we can go on, back into the records.... for just before this was a Mediaeval Warm Period... about 350 years long. It was very warm in Europe - warmer than today or what is projected for the next 50 years....with vines grown in Northern England. But there were no catastrophic effects. We actually lived very well. The great period of cathedral building.
Further back we can go - through the earth's cycles of warm and cold periods.... much warmer than the projections for this century and then much colder... the earth naturally goes through these cycles without a coal fired power station in sight! .... the last time the North Pole had no ice was about 3000 years ago..... we did not drown, the Polar Bears (a definitive species for atleast 150,000 years) went on survivng just as they will again. Greenland was much greener then, before it got cold again.
ii) Finally an alternative argument from the distant past regarding the doomsday notion of climate change with high CO2.... the Cambrian period - greatest explosion of life in the planet's history continued with atmospheric CO2 somewhere between 10 and 20 times our levels. It was not disastrous to life or the environment then either.

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cont.........

I happen to know the maker of this programme. He's made a number of documentaries questioning the rigour of accepted 'scientific truths'. I think the main thing we should take from it is the need for better informed discussion in the press and elsewhere. Sure this film made some tenuous claims, but none more tenuous than the claims it was trying to dismiss. In my view this makes it less wrong than blindly accepting unproved theories about things (such as climate systems) which are patently hideously complex and perhaps impossible to assess accurately.

Note that the film didn't discuss in any detail the ongoing political issues surrounding the control of fossil fuel supply, which for me are bigger motivators for energy conservation/ alternative supply. It limited itself to criticising the science.

Interesting, Guest - who are you?

Oh come on, we need a reality check here. Channel 4 have cobbled together a popularist, dumbed down programme with a buch of climate change deniers, most of whom are well known for their track record of pseudoscience and vested interest positions.

The recent IPCC report came down in support of Anthropogenic climate change with a certainty about as good as anything in the scientific world. The greater than 90% probability figure was itself watered down from Greater than 95% on political pressure from China and Saudi Arabia. Other political pressure removed most of the references to the dangers of feedback that the scientist had in the earlier draft.

The arguement on climate change is over. We now need to do something about it. Of course there still is an issue about whether the effects of Peak Oil will hit us first - but that was beyond the IPCC remit.

Guest, considering that individuals' credentials and axes-to-grind is a real issue here, I think you must declare yourself if you want to join in.

For the most part I thought it was a very badly made programme and on looking up some of the speakers their credentials start to look more than a little weak. But I did think the debate about the Climate Change industry now having a momentum of it’s own interesting and the link between Thatcher and the protest movement is worth looking into.

It is worth bearing in mind that the issue is now being run by a lot of vested interests whose jobs and company profits depend on Climate Change (including myself to some extent). This was made clear at this Ecobuild conference where everything being sold was there to prevent climate change / reduce CO2 emissions. This has only just started more CO2 will be produced selling us useless CO2 cutting measures. It is classic capitalism you can sell something that causes a problem and then sell the solution.

I would like to see someone cleverer than me go through the facts given on the programme and either confirm or disprove them it is important that the information given is tested in some way.

The more I remember about the program the harder I laugh.
When it was suggested that the whole reason for reducing CO2 emissions was to stop third world countries developing,
cut to woman in mud hut (complete with baby) choking to death on the fire because she didn't have electricity.
I nearly wet myself, LOL

While I could see nothing funny about the shots of the woman cooking I couldn't work out the point were they seriously suggesting that If it were not for the threat of Climate Change Africa could be wired up for using electric cookers. It is a ludicrous argument.

Sorry I am logged on as a guest as I can't remember my Password

Geoff Stow

Nigel Calder, according to Wikipedia, was editor of New Scientist from 1962-66, so in this case "former" means 40 years ago !!

I can see that there is much critisism of those who were involved in the programme, and this may be well founded. But there is very little counter argument to dispute the message given. Come on guys, if they really are talking bull let's discuss it rather than just throwing verbal tomatoes. What about this correlation between sunspots and temperature fluctuations? What about fostertom's logical summary of the arguments above?