Climate change...

[The Sleeping Giant]

Have to change the saying to "not quite dead as a dodo".

[therisingblues]

No. Because in that saying the dodo would still be dead, just the thing you are comparing to the dodo would be not quite dead. For example, Anniken Skywalker when Obi wan leaves him all cut up by the river of lava. Obi wan would have been well within his rights to have turned around and said, "My goodness, he's not quite as dead as a dodo."

[Sky Pilot]

What caused the meteorite shower on Russia? The carbon tax or climate change ?

[therisingblues]

What caused the meteorite shower on Russia? The carbon tax or climate change ?

Wow. That's a really good question. Actually I think it was caused by the morons who believed that stupid radio jock when he said billions of carbon euros disappeared a while back.

[dedja]

What caused the meteorite shower on Russia? The carbon tax or climate change ?

The Big Fella being pissed of with the Pope ... but his aim could be better

[fish]

Based on the current state of the poll, 38% agree, 46% disagree and 15% aren't sure (where did the other 1% go?) that society is affecting climate.

Are you still suggesting that this is not all a natural phenomena?

http://climatecommission.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/The-Critical-Decade_Key-messages_RB-v2.pdf

It is beyond reasonable doubt that human activities – the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation – are triggering the changes we are witnessing in the global climate.

A very large body of observations, experiments, analyses, and physical theory points to increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere – with carbon dioxide being the most important – as the primary cause of the observed warming.

Increasing carbon dioxide emissions are primarily produced by the burning of fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, as well as deforestation.

Natural factors, like changes in the Earth’s orbit or solar activity, cannot explain the world-wide warming trend.

[Psyber]

Lets go back to page one and go around in circles again...

[dedja]

That's the plan ...

[therisingblues]

Lets go back to page one and go around in circles again...

Well produce some peer reviewed evidence to the contrary you clown, instead of your constant mantra of "Oh, I'd like to have a look at what data they base that on."
Has it not occurred to you that if these scientists are all putting us on to milk money out of this that there'd be a considerable body of evidence to support your views? But there is NOTHING to the contrary! Nothing you can produce. As comforting as it would be, nothing!

[Psyber]

Lets go back to page one and go around in circles again...

Well produce some peer reviewed evidence to the contrary you clown, instead of your constant mantra of "Oh, I'd like to have a look at what data they base that on."
Has it not occurred to you that if these scientists are all putting us on to milk money out of this that there'd be a considerable body of evidence to support your views? But there is NOTHING to the contrary! Nothing you can produce. As comforting as it would be, nothing!

You obviously haven't read anything about the much longer term weather patterns and geological records of oxygen and CO2 levels in this and other threads.

I'm not disputing that there is climate change, nor that there is a human contribution to current CO2 levels.

I am questioning studies based on meteorological records, given that such records only date back to about 1890 when the Little Ice Age ended, and thus have an inherent statistical bias built in.

PS: I also don't turn abusive and call people who disagree with me "clown" or anything else.

[therisingblues]

Clowns make people laugh! If you don't like the association I apologize.
Yes I've read pages and pages of charts opinions etc.
Scientists have proven the correlation between global warming and CO2s and mankind's input. Sure, charts covering the past 150 years only, don't show warming patterns from earlier periods but the earlier warming patterns coincided with increased CO2s. Recent charts emphasize what CO2s mankind is putting into the atmosphere, I've seen the comparisons between now and earlier periods and if I remember correctly it's not confidence building.
You however seem to demand an explanation from the very beginning every time Fish publishes a stat. If you accept the fact that current global warming is manmade then we shouldn't need to show you charts to explain how these charts fit in.
If it was all a croc then BHP would have cabinets full of reports and rooms filled with scientists to prove it. But they don't have one lousy page to support that view. I think your point about the relevance of charts that show only the modern era is moot.

[Psyber]

Clowns make people laugh! If you don't like the association I apologize.
Yes I've read pages and pages of charts opinions etc.
Scientists have proven the correlation between global warming and CO2s and mankind's input. Sure, charts covering the past 150 years only, don't show warming patterns from earlier periods but the earlier warming patterns coincided with increased CO2s. Recent charts emphasize what CO2s mankind is putting into the atmosphere, I've seen the comparisons between now and earlier periods and if I remember correctly it's not confidence building.
You however seem to demand an explanation from the very beginning every time Fish publishes a stat. If you accept the fact that current global warming is manmade then we shouldn't need to show you charts to explain how these charts fit in.
If it was all a croc then BHP would have cabinets full of reports and rooms filled with scientists to prove it. But they don't have one lousy page to support that view. I think your point about the relevance of charts that show only the modern era is moot.

I don't accept that current global warming is entirely man made, but I do accept that there is a human contribution to rising CO2 levels now. How much that is contributing to climate change, as a percentage, has to be weighed against other operating factors, and is to my mind unclear. That said we should clean up our act anyway...

I reached the conclusion that fish was right about human activity contributing to current rises based on data fish did post a link to when I asked. However I did run it past an expert - John Tibby at The Environment Institute at the Uni of Adelaide. John sent me links about how to relate fish's references to the older ice core data in a valid way.

I tend to jump in these days only when fish re-runs the old charts based on very short-term data again, without addressing the bias of that short term data. Other than that I have no argument with him.

Of course temperatures and CO2 levels have been rising since the Little Ice Age - it would be weird if they didn't.
Then you would really have to wonder whether we were doing something to muck up the normal ecological responses.

[fish]

Lets go back to page one and go around in circles again...

Well produce some peer reviewed evidence to the contrary you clown, instead of your constant mantra of "Oh, I'd like to have a look at what data they base that on."
Has it not occurred to you that if these scientists are all putting us on to milk money out of this that there'd be a considerable body of evidence to support your views? But there is NOTHING to the contrary! Nothing you can produce. As comforting as it would be, nothing!

You obviously haven't read anything about the much longer term weather patterns and geological records of oxygen and CO2 levels in this and other threads.

I'm not disputing that there is climate change, nor that there is a human contribution to current CO2 levels.

I am questioning studies based on meteorological records, given that such records only date back to about 1890 when the Little Ice Age ended, and thus have an inherent statistical bias built in.

Psyber surely you don't believe that climate science is based only on the meteorological records of the last 120 years!

It isn't - it is based on a comprehensive analysis of historical climate change and that analysis is used to predict the consequences of the increasing levels of atmospheric greenhouses gases due to human activity.

For example the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) 2007 Fourth Assessment Report looked back at the relationship between temperature and carbon dioxide over the last 400 million years. This analysis informs our understanding of climate and the forces that drive climate change and led IPCC to conclude that climate change is occurring now, mostly as a result of human activities.

[fish]

Filipino super-typhoon an ominous warning of climate change impact

Philippines is having to adapt and adjust to rapidly deteriorating climatic trends at a great cost to its economy.

When super-typhoon Bopha struck without warning before dawn, flattening the walls of their home, Maria Amparo Jenobiagon, her two daughters and her grandchildren ran for their lives.

The storm on 4 December was the worst ever to hit the southern Philippines: torrential rain turned New Bataan's river into a raging flood. Roads were washed away and the bridge turned into an enormous dam. Tens of thousands of coconut trees crashed down in an instant as unbelievably powerful winds struck. The banana crop was destroyed in a flash – and with it the livelihoods of hundreds of farmers.

The five most devastating typhoons recorded in the Philippines have occurred since 1990, affecting 23 million people. Four of the costliest typhoons anywhere occurred in same period, according to an Oxfam report. What is more, Bopha hit an area where typhoons are all but unknown.

The inter-governmental panel on climate change says mean temperatures in the Philippines are rising by 0.14C per decade. Since the 1980s, there has been an increase in annual mean rainfall. Yet two of the severest droughts ever recorded occurred in 1991-92 and 1997-98.

Scientists are also registering steadily rising sea levels around the Philippines, and a falling water table. All this appears to increase the likelihood and incidence of extreme weather events while adversely affecting food production and yields through land erosion and degradation, analysts say.

[The Sleeping Giant]

3 months late there. Been struggling lately. Not enough devastation recently.

Love the line "struck without warning". The storm had been heading that way for days.

[therisingblues]

Clowns make people laugh! If you don't like the association I apologize.
Yes I've read pages and pages of charts opinions etc.
Scientists have proven the correlation between global warming and CO2s and mankind's input. Sure, charts covering the past 150 years only, don't show warming patterns from earlier periods but the earlier warming patterns coincided with increased CO2s. Recent charts emphasize what CO2s mankind is putting into the atmosphere, I've seen the comparisons between now and earlier periods and if I remember correctly it's not confidence building.
You however seem to demand an explanation from the very beginning every time Fish publishes a stat. If you accept the fact that current global warming is manmade then we shouldn't need to show you charts to explain how these charts fit in.
If it was all a croc then BHP would have cabinets full of reports and rooms filled with scientists to prove it. But they don't have one lousy page to support that view. I think your point about the relevance of charts that show only the modern era is moot.

I don't accept that current global warming is entirely man made, but I do accept that there is a human contribution to rising CO2 levels now. How much that is contributing to climate change, as a percentage, has to be weighed against other operating factors, and is to my mind unclear. That said we should clean up our act anyway...

I reached the conclusion that fish was right about human activity contributing to current rises based on data fish did post a link to when I asked. However I did run it past an expert - John Tibby at The Environment Institute at the Uni of Adelaide. John sent me links about how to relate fish's references to the older ice core data in a valid way.

I tend to jump in these days only when fish re-runs the old charts based on very short-term data again, without addressing the bias of that short term data. Other than that I have no argument with him.

Of course temperatures and CO2 levels have been rising since the Little Ice Age - it would be weird if they didn't.
Then you would really have to wonder whether we were doing something to muck up the normal ecological responses.

I'll admit it is good that you like to find things out for yourself, but I've always been of the opinion that there's more dough to be made if man made climate change didn't exist. That not one scientist has been able to take advantage of what must be a massive windfall strongly suggests to me that such an idea is false and we should get straight down to the business of doing something about it. The more dickering and hairs split trying to convince people the further we fall behind.

[Psyber]

I'll admit it is good that you like to find things out for yourself, but I've always been of the opinion that there's more dough to be made if man made climate change didn't exist...

Big companies have always run their own campaigns, and funded research that suited them. That's how the link between smoking and heart disease which was established in a study published in The Lancet in either 1903 or 1907 (I forget which) was fobbed off for as long as it was, and how the cancer risk of components in diesel fumes has been being belittled until the WHO finally looked at all the studies and listed it as on par with Asbestos recently. (And, yes, I did research that one for myself too.)

However, other groups with an axe to grind also selectively fund research that suits their agenda - political and socio-political groups, for example, and whole government departments may depend for their funding on encouraging certain social agendas.

University staff are really under the pump to "publish or perish" now that there is less funding from governments of pure research. Universities like staff who attract grants. Want your contract extended? Get grants anywhere you can, and publish.

As a doctor I am appalled at some of the articles I see in medical journals pumping up Big Pharma's products subtly and indirectly, by concluding, for example, that cholesterol levels should be lower than is humanly possible without using the drugs.

All research, whatever direction it pushes, has to be viewed with scepticism.

[fish]

However, other groups with an axe to grind also selectively fund research that suits their agenda

Secret funding helped build vast network of climate denial thinktanks

Conservative billionaires used a secretive funding route to channel nearly $120m (£77m) to more than 100 groups casting doubt about the science behind climate change, the Guardian has learned.

The funds, doled out between 2002 and 2010, helped build a vast network of thinktanks and activist groups working to a single purpose: to redefine climate change from neutral scientific fact to a highly polarising "wedge issue" for hardcore conservatives.

The millions were routed through two trusts, Donors Trust and the Donors Capital Fund, operating out of a generic town house in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington DC. Donors Capital caters to those making donations of $1m or more.

[Sky Pilot]

Tony Abbott is to blame for Cyclone Rusty

[dedja]

No, but Lleyton Hewitt is ...