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Originally Posted by OLD BOY
Well not much we can do about that, eh? So should we even bother?
Of course we should. Best to look to what we can do rather than what we could have done. The latter is totally pointless.
---------- Post added at 14:05 ---------- Previous post was at 13:56 ----------
Well, it doesn’t. Scientists tend to prat out any old nonsense these days without the scrutiny that these things once had. The number of times they have come out with stuff they’ve later had to retract, such as ‘we’re going into an ice age’ and ‘don’t eat butter, it’s bad for you’, etc, etc, it’s no wonder people are studying these pronouncements more carefully.
Imagine if, after spending trillions of pounds on reducing carbon they find that the temperature keeps on increasing because warming is down to other factors. I suppose we’d never get to find out because the truth will be hidden due to the fact that it is a major embarrassment for politicians everywhere.
---------- Post added at 14:15 ---------- Previous post was at 14:05 ----------
That’s not a fair comment. Many people, including myself, became sceptical due to a number of instances where the scientists deliberately set out to mislead (eg the hockey stick graph, the temperature reading manipulations, etc).
We do not know for sure whether we are still experiencing a natural warming phenomenon due to variations in the distance of the Earth from the sun, recovery from the mini-ice age which may have been put back by industrial pollution, etc. It still seems pretty remarkable that only 0.04% of the atmosphere has absorbed carbon despite the incredible volume of emissions for which we are responsible, and it is not lost on sceptics that scientists prefer to record any increase as ppm - parts per million - to big up the figures.
I am happy to go along with all this now because I am anti-pollution, but I still remain to be convinced about carbon being the cause of the warming problem.
I am happy to be convinced otherwise, but I have not heard any convincing arguments to persuade me otherwise. My scepticism has nothing at all to do with the politics - it is all about the science.
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Being guided by the science is a fair approach. There are some basic 'yes' or 'no' questions from science that go back to the 19th century that might help here;
- Does solar heating of the earth surface cause radiation of long wavelength infra red light? - yes
- Is this light absorbed by the atmosphere or escape in to space? - some is absorbed by the atmosphere, some escapes in to space
- What molecules in the atmosphere absorb this light? - water, carbon dioxide, methane and ozone
- What happens when this light is absorbed? - it is re-radiated in all directions, including back to the surface
- Are these molecules effectively global insulation? - yes, the Earth should have an average surface temperature of -18°C
- Is it reasonable to expect the concentration of molecules that form this insulation will have an effect on the insulation effect - yes
I don't think the above points are too controversial and we have had getting on for 200 years of science to prove these points wrong so far
There have been a lot of ideas on what cause climate change if it is not man made, including volcanoes and solar radiation changes. How can we mitigate these natural changes to prevent a global increase in temperature? Would lowering the insulation due to what we can control, namely carbon dioxide and methane do the job? Global engineering for the win!