Politics: Global warming swindle or real?

181 to 210 of 219

- CommentAuthoragu
- CommentTimeMay 13th 2008
Surely the point of a forum is for people to give their opinions whether that topic be science or football or whatever. I think people have enough common sense to know they are just that opinions. To suggest not to give opinions surely makes the point of this forum worthless?
- CommentAuthorjonl
- CommentTimeMay 13th 2008 edited
I'm not a politician, I'm not a religious leader, and I don't have a great deal of common sense, how science is the exception here?

Hi Bowman,

I am sure you do have common sense ;-)

To address the "science" bit of your post - science is an exception because of the way people interpret it and because of what it is. I would rather leave the religious example out as I feel your argument does not depend on it but it I do feel it is a tin of worms - I hope you will accept an argument based only on the political aspect of your post....

Everyone expects everyone else's politics to be different to theirs - "political facts" are known to be opinions.

Science is different, it may form the basis on which you base your politics and it may or may not form the basis on which you base your religous beliefs but the reverse should not apply.

What becomes very very dangerous is when people form their science on their politics rather than the other way around, it becomes even more dangerous when they dissiminate pseudo science derived from political belief to the general population.

No-one addresses my key point because I suspect they cannot - If you are sufficiently knowledgeable to tackle the professional scientific position(s) then address the scientists directly, the obvious glaring problem here is that the amateurs do not have sufficient confidence in their own ability to take on the professional but they are sufficiently confident in their ability to broadcast their "science" and risk misleading the general public.

If climate change is real and the worst predictions are turn out true then there is a moral responsibility to ensure that all science or anything reported as science is of the highest quality and subject to extensive checks and measures, peer review. Scientists then need to interface with politicians in very carefully monitored ways - politicians need to keep check on the scientists (by means of advisory scientists) and we need to keep check on the politicians.

Agu said

"Surely the point of a forum is for people to give their opinions whether that topic be science or football or whatever. I think people have enough common sense to know they are just that opinions. To suggest not to give opinions surely makes the point of this forum worthless?"

Science is not absolute knowledge but it strives to be an absolute process and is not served by being confused for politics or opinion.

Science is not and never should be about opinions, it is about measurement, postulate, theory, peer review proof and concensus. Of course a final proof or accepted scientific 'truth' starts as an opinion but it is not allowed to rest there, a established scientific procedure demands certain steps from you if you are to present your 'opinion' to your peers and pretty soon they will start asking you for proof. Any proofs you offer will be scrutinised, critcised and examined very closely by the scientific community.

In this fashion, science, just like the law grows step by step in a very carefully monitored fashion, it doesnt always get it right but lessons are learnt, procedures are improved and the process is continually adjusting in the light of mistakes, there are checks and measures that are not replicated in amateur discussions.

This is not the process followed by your average internet surfer when down the pub who decides to try and influence the rest of his group by some dubious 'climate science' he has pulled off the internet, doesnt understand properly and has taken entirely out of context. If he spouts his religion or politics then his friends know thats just his opinion, its a different matter when he spouts information he presents as 'science'.

If people are starting to regard science as opinion (as you seem to imply) then there is already a very dangerous misunderstanding going on.
- CommentAuthorMike George
- CommentTimeMay 13th 2008 edited
Posted By: aguSurely the point of a forum is for people to give their opinions whether that topic be science or football or whatever. I think people have enough common sense to know they are just that opinions. To suggest not to give opinions surely makes the point of this forum worthless?

Seems the majority of us hold this view
- CommentAuthorjonl
- CommentTimeMay 13th 2008 edited
Posted By: Mike George
Posted By: aguSurely the point of a forum is for people to give their opinions whether that topic be science or football or whatever. I think people have enough common sense to know they are just that opinions. To suggest not to give opinions surely makes the point of this forum worthless?
Seems the majority of us hold this view

Hello Mike

Well if any significant proportion agree with me then they are mostly silent so I conceed to your view
that the majority of members on this forum do not have the same objections as me.

I dont conceed on the issue itself, merely I agree I am in a minority here and since I have had my say
then its time to leave it alone I think.

Best to all, even the ones I really disagree with...

Jon.
- CommentAuthorjoe.e
- CommentTimeMay 13th 2008 edited
I'm not a politician, I'm not a religious leader, and I don't have a great deal of common sense, how science is the exception here?

Science is the exception because everything in politics and religion is only opinion. It's all subjective and endlessly debatable. The whole point about science is that it is not about opinion. Science is rooted in observing events, and presenting those observations with careful and detailed information about how they were made and about their possible shortcomings and limitations. Show me a politician or a religious leader who operates like that and I'll... well, I'll be very surprised, even if I fall short of headwear consumption.
Jon, fundamentally I do agree with you, that climate change - and perhaps most cutting-edge scientific work - is too complex and specialised for amateurs to be able to form any opinion on that's not simply recycled, potentially from dubious sources. The shame is that right now it's really, really important for people to be listening to the real scientific work that's going on regarding climate change, and not to be distracted by those in denial or in the pay of the oil people. To quote Wittgenstein, albeit utterly out of context,
'Whereof we cannot speak, thereof let us remain silent'.
But people have always and will always banged on about things of which they have only shallow knowledge. Let's be honest, it's one of the pleasures of life, and wthout it most or all internet forums would become bleak, sparsely populated places, pubs would be quiet and subdued, and my own social life would take an extremely heavy hit...
- CommentAuthorBowman
- CommentTimeMay 13th 2008
I think this is quite probably the most important debate on this forum, I think we are singing off the same sheet just in different keys, that can mean either harmony or discord, sounds like the first to me at the moment...
- CommentAuthorPaul in Montreal
- CommentTimeMay 14th 2008
At the end of the day, it doesn't much matter if climate change is anthropogenic or not. The climate has always changed and always will. Of course, we may or may not affect the rate of change but that is still not the most important issue IMHO. The real problem is that we're treating finite resources as though they're infinite and have swallowed the lie that we must always have positive economic growth no matter what. This is clearly a contradiction with the reality of the resources we have, compounded by the fact that the availability of resources is so skewed towards the rich west at the expense of everyone else. Whether or not CO2 makes a difference to the rate of climate change is a distraction from this inherent contradiction. In the short term it looks like there will be an energy crunch since we've become so addicted to fossil fuels. In the long term, there is no shortage of energy so long as the sun keeps shining so the longterm prognosis should be OK so long as we can manage the resources that we have in a sustainable way. We will never "run out" but the extraction and use may require more energy than currently. This is just for primary resources such as water, metals etc. What is much more serious is our capacity to sustain the production of food for the population we have since we're not being careful to preserve soil - if this erodes away we will be in serious trouble. It is frustrating that so much focus is given to climate issues rather than these much more serious problems.

Paul in Montreal
- CommentAuthorMike George
- CommentTimeMay 14th 2008
Well put Paul, I agree totally
- CommentAuthorbiffvernon
- CommentTimeMay 14th 2008
Posted By: Paul in MontrealAt the end of the day, it doesn't much matter if climate change is anthropogenic or not.

At the end of the (proverbial) day it may not matter as the human species will be extinct, but it is still morning and whether we recognizes the reality of AGW and do something about it pdq makes all the difference to when our sunset comes.
- CommentAuthorMike George
- CommentTimeMay 14th 2008
I assume your joking about human extinction Biff
- CommentAuthorfostertom
- CommentTimeMay 14th 2008
Like the Irish potato famine and many other diasporas, crisis may well produce extinction or at least population crash at home, but causes the species or race to explode out into new or foreign territories. A small and obscure people (beggin' yer pardon) may thereby become disproportionately widespread and influential on a wider stage eg. the Kennedys, Henry Ford, U2, Michael Flatley .....

Humans may yet take the present shock-opportunity to integrate back with deeper wisdom, the valuable knowledge resulting from 2000yrs of scientific tunnel-vision, make friends again with the planet, and thrive in a happier way. Or the planet may just want us gone, in which case I don't doubt that a sufficient seed-bank of the human race will climb into spaceships and go and explode somewhere else. Which option would you vote for? If despite your vote, the second came to pass, would you be on the spaceship, or keeping faith in the dying land?

I just found I'd written (and then deleted) 'a race against time'. Is that what we are?!
- CommentAuthorskywalker
- CommentTimeMay 14th 2008 edited
Hello Tom

I've been too busy to come out to play recently.

Glad to see you are still talking total scribble.

S.
- CommentAuthorjonl
- CommentTimeMay 14th 2008 edited
Posted By: fostertom
Humans may yet take the present shock-opportunity to integrate back with deeper wisdom, the valuable knowledge resulting from 2000yrs of scientific tunnel-vision, make friends again with the planet, and thrive in a happier way. Or the planet may just want us gone, in which case I don't doubt that a sufficient seed-bank of the human race will climb into spaceships and go and explode somewhere else. Which option would you vote for? If despite your vote, the second came to pass, would you be on the spaceship, or keeping faith in the dying land?

I just found I'd written (and then deleted) 'a race against time'. Is that what we are?!

Hey Tom

I am staying off the main point of this thread if I can resist but regards planetary colonisation.

If you believe Einstein then I dont think you would place a bet on colonisation oppportunities, the distances are rather large, indeed the current method of detection is by gravitational wobble of the host star rather than direct observation.

You face the problem of deciding on a destination and then deciding what to do when you find its no good - what then do you embark on another journey, go into deep freeze once again and then set off once more only to find disapointment once again at the next planet turns out to be a methane gas giant that has no solid crust or its just too damn hot or cold for life or is subject to deadly radiation etc etc.

Scientists say "never say never" and history teaches us the absurdity of historic 'proofs' against heavier than air flight machines but even so I would suggest that a betting man would prefer the odds that we can change our ways and look after our planet than the odds that we can reliably 'remote detect' a viable alternative never mind actually get there and colonise it. Anyway if lessons have not be learned and so we have failed to act upon them well...frankly...whats the point?

If we cannot save ourselves from ourselves then should we really seek to propogate the problem elsewhere?
- CommentAuthorfostertom
- CommentTimeMay 14th 2008
Good stuff! Well, I think both horses are already well backed. See The Hunt for Zero Point by Nick Cook.
- CommentAuthorjonl
- CommentTimeMay 14th 2008 edited
Posted By: Paul in Montreal What is much more serious is our capacity to sustain the production of food for the population we have since we're not being careful to preserve soil - if this erodes away we will be in serious trouble. It is frustrating that so much focus is given to climate issues rather than these much more serious problems.
Paul in Montreal

Hello Paul

Just an observation.

My wife and I run a hotel in France. We have learnt by experience to increase our meat and grocery estimates quite considerably when we get the occassional non-French visitor, similar observations about who does and who does not ask for "seconds". I have been amazed since I have lived here how little the French seem to eat, its all about quality not quantity.

Across Europe I suspect that general food consumption and in particular meat consumption is not constant, food waste does not appear to be constant either.

I suggest that western consumption per capita is not unavoidably fixed - habit and culture are factors too.

For instance, here in France taste is most important. As a result people will accept mis-shapen fruit as long as it tastes good, consequently supermarkets are not as wasteful because they do not have to reject items that fail appearance or uniformity tests.

I am not certain that green issues are a major aspect of consumer choice here but lets put it this way, if the only way to have a tomato out of season is to grow it under a lightbulb and if as a consequence it hasnt got much taste then the French wont buy it so there is certainly a much greater tendency to local produce and seasonal produce. It is driven entirely by the consumer, not really on green issues, not even I feel on health but on taste - on the idea of food that tastes good.

I am not suggesting that given the bigger picture anyone is better than anyone else merely that considerable
variability exists in habit, waste, attitude and consumption with the west. If anyone wants to consider percentage savings in the western pattern of consumption then I think there is considerable scope for improvement and quite possibly health at the same time.

I was interested to see a documentary once that showed how one of the factors in some supermarkets in some countries deciding to insist on uniformity of natural product was that they used hidden observers to watch shoppers picking over fruit and observed in some cultures that people rejected the mis-shapen and malformed.

Its certainly true in my experience, here in France you can find all sorts of wierdly shaped vegetables in the supermarket and people buy it, they pick over for firmness or freshness but not shape or colour, they dont really care if a tomato is a glorious deep red as long as it tastes fantastic.

We buy our meat here from local growers, same for vegetables, most of our supplies come from a 100km radius which of course means that there is a balance in the way that land is used that has to satisfy both the tourist and the local - in otherwords the dynamic and politic of food production are local and locally managed.
The consequences of decisions made regards food production are immediately apparent to all so if people create problems they have to also live with them - not so easy to sweep issues under the carpet. Livestock are fed by and large on locally produced produce. Our clients prefer local produce, not so much because they are concerned about haulage issues but because they believe the local stuff will be fresher and will not have been frozen.

I find it interesting that taste buds seem to lead to similar conclusions as Green politics, it would be interesting to ban MSG added salt, fat and sugar and see if taste buds alone changed some patterns of consumerism? Just wiping out the 'artificial taste' industry would be an interesting experiment?
- CommentAuthorskywalker
- CommentTimeMay 14th 2008
A book which, not at all uniquely, utterly fails to make even the merest beginnings of a convincing case for the existence of such technology. It re-hashed a bunch of old stories and invented some new (old) stories with the usual hackneyed mystical 'can't tell you it is secret', '"they" will get me if I tell you' sprinkled in for good measure.

Keep 'em coming Tom, when I have time the stuff you refer us to (when your doing your 'whooo look magic physics' bit) is often hilarious.

By the way Anthropologically induced Climate Change is a repeatedly recorded, cross referenced, peer reviewed measurable phenomenon - in other words IT IS A FACT. The body of evidence describing the phenomenon is entirely overwhelming and that is why it is no longer regarded as a theory but as A FACT. All the data used to describe the phenomenon are in the public domain and are thus able to be investigated and repeated by others. A lot of supportive but unreliable data has been chucked out because it did not stack up on further investigation, this is the nature of modern science. Every popular counter argument suggesting that the current scale and pace of planetary warming is not as a direct result of human action has been soundly dis proven but multiple data which are available to all to obtain and analise.

Love to all.

S.
- CommentAuthorfostertom
- CommentTimeMay 14th 2008 edited
Posted By: skywalkerthe stuff you refer us to (when your doing your 'whooo look magic physics' bit) is often hilarious.
I do aim to please. It gives to those inclined, a chance to prove their 'ay oop' commonsense self-image.
- CommentAuthorbiffvernon
- CommentTimeMay 14th 2008 edited
Posted By: Mike GeorgeI assume your joking about human extinction Biff
No I am not joking and I am somewhat surprised that you think I might have been. Have I not spelled out sufficiently clearly that there is a significant risk that climate tipping points will be reached that makes this planet effectively uninhabitable - the sort of conditions that existed at the end of the Permian when 95% of all fossil forming animals became extinct. Of course it is not certain that such a scenario will happen - but we wouldn't avoid flying only when we are certain the plane is going to crash. In fact we only fly when the probability of a crash is perceived to be vanishingly small. But when it comes to AGW, policy makers and the public are still largely in denial. James Hansen has called for a reduction of CO2 levels to 350 ppm, from the present 387 ppm, and that seems a sensible goal to aim for straight away. Any action that leads in the other direction should be opposed.
- CommentAuthorskywalker
- CommentTimeMay 14th 2008
And the elephant in the room is population size.
- CommentAuthorskywalker
- CommentTimeMay 14th 2008
Aye Tom Lad

No worse than wearing ones chemically induced/new age/in touch with the universe persona I guess and all adds to the diversity of opinion.

Now I'm off to watch the clouds writing poems in the sky.

S.
- CommentAuthorfostertom
- CommentTimeMay 14th 2008 edited
Posted By: skywalkerNo worse than wearing ones chemically induced/new age/in touch with the universe persona I guess and all adds to the diversity of opinion.
We agree on that, but no chemicals actually, never did. Half a bottle of wine quite often. In Devon it's Arr Tom bay.
- CommentAuthorBowman
- CommentTimeMay 14th 2008
Surely we are in danger of a population crash, not because of AGW directly, but because of the triple whammy of climate change, oil and population?

Anyway what is a "crash"?
- CommentAuthorbiffvernon
- CommentTimeMay 14th 2008
Posted By: skywalkerAnd the elephant in the room is population size.
We're not allowed to shoot the elephant. We just have to find a way to grow more hay, and persuade it not to have a lot of babies.
- CommentAuthorMike George
- CommentTimeMay 14th 2008 edited
Posted By: biffvernon James Hansen has called for a reduction of CO2 levels to 350 ppm, from the present 387 ppm, and that seems a sensible goal to aim for straight away. Any action that leads in the other direction should be opposed.

You mean like terminal 5 and increased air traffic? I though you were in favour of T5?

Edit: Sorry Biff that was unfair - I think what you said was that air travel makes no difference to AGW?
- CommentAuthorfostertom
- CommentTimeMay 14th 2008
Perhaps he means banning cement and concrete, or meat eating. Both those, individually, would make a bit of air travel look trivial.
- CommentAuthorbiffvernon
- CommentTimeMay 15th 2008
Mike's point, and mine, about air travel (or any other oil use) is that for individuals to cut their use of oil does't actually have any effect on total oil burn and the CO2 emission. If one person doesn't use it someone else will. Oil production is governed by supply, not demand. We will use every drop that we can suck out of the ground. Of course that isn't to say flying (etc) doesn't matter. We should avoid it so that the oil can be used for more deserving uses (e.g. taking African children to school in the bus) and so that we get used to doing without when it becomes much scarcer.
- CommentAuthorMike George
- CommentTimeMay 15th 2008
Agreed
- CommentAuthorfostertom
- CommentTimeMay 15th 2008
In that case I'd say that air travel that's cheap enough to be available to the general population, is an extremely deserving use. Can you imagine a world where the only people who could afford to fly, or travel (don't give me that leisurely cruise-by-ship stuff) were politicians, businessmen, journalists and the military? The fact that the whole population has seen bits of the world and met foreigners in their own land, has put an immensely valuable limit on the lies that the powerful can feed us. This even though most of those who travel are only interested to find to find fish & chips, warm beer and sexual liberation when they get there.
- CommentAuthorbiffvernon
- CommentTimeMay 15th 2008
Er, out of the 6.5 billion people on this planet, how many of them are rich enough to fly?
- CommentAuthorfostertom
- CommentTimeMay 15th 2008
The ones who, despite what I'm suggesting, 51% of them remain pig-ignorant enough to vote in politicians who still spread the alien-johnny-foreigner lies and sponsor most of the world's mayhem. If not for that western (no, make that American) prejudiced core,the 6.5billion, left to themselves, even without the benefit of cheap tourism, would cause far less damage to each other, however small-world nationalist/religious prejudiced they remained, as ever.

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Politics: Global warming swindle or real?