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Originally posted by Bioethanol:
The phase 'greenhouse effect' does seem to suggest it will be good for growing plants.

Yes but who knows how it's going to affect other environmental factors such as distribution of rainfall...

So in conclusion who knows? So let's deal with things we do know.

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Originally posted by et al:

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Originally posted by legjoints:
All the available evidence? In the past 10 years about 10,000 peer-reviewed scientific articles relating to global warming have been published. They are all available.

Could you summarise? The thing is we are overwhelmed, it's there if you look. As I have said the burden of proof is on the new idea backers? You give me the definitive nature article that shows anything but someones ideas.

I'm not a climatologist so I can't summarize, and I wouldn't claim I know more than people who have been studying and publishing on this subject their whole working lives. I think the IPCC reports are the most reliable summaries we have, and the latest one says it is "very likely" that the main driver of global warming is human activity, where very likely is their way of saying they're 90% certain. This level of certainty comes from evidence.

Climate models that include human forcing fit the observed temperatures better than any others, and predictions have been made in the past (Arrhneaus (?) in 1896 and Hansen in 1988 are the ones I know), stating that the climate would warm as a result of increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.

A number of other hypotheses have been put forward (changes in solar irradience, cosmic rays, volcanoes etc.), all of which have been shown not to be possible drivers of the current climate change.

You say "the burden of proof is on the new idea backers." Why?

In science there is never absolute proof. You only really get proof in maths. In science it's always about probabilities. People look at the evidence, they set up various hypotheses and then look for evidence that will test those hypotheses.

And what is the new idea? Within the scientific community the idea that our emissions of CO2 cause the climate to warm has been around for over 100 years, and there has been a virtual consensus among scientists for the past 20 years or more. It's only a new idea for some members of the public, particularly some Americans it seems, who talk about Al Gore's Global Warming, as if it didn't exist until he made a film about it.

And proof to whom? Einstein's theory of general relativity has been demonstrated to be true to a very high degree of accuracy, but who outside the world of physics would be able to look at the calculations and say "ah yes, I can see quite clearly that you've proved relativity there"? The thing with climate is it's something everyone thinks they know something about, whereas in fact it's a highly complex science. At the end of the day, those of us who are not climatologists cannot just spend an afternoon on Google and expect to get to grips with the subject enough to be able to say one thing or another with any confidence. If we think we can then I think that's down to arrogance. So for me, the strongest evidence is the fact that the vast majority of scientists, in peer-reviewed journals, working for universities, for a variety of governmental and non-governmental bodies, from numerous nations, are confident that human activity is the main driver of climate change.

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Originally posted by heujas:
Yes but who knows how it's going to affect other environmental factors such as distribution of rainfall...

I guess we will find out.

in the meanwhile biofuel production is the best way of artificially maintaining the c02 balance of the atmos.

lets get THAT researched.

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Originally posted by Bioethanol:

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Originally posted by heujas:
Yes but who knows how it's going to affect other environmental factors such as distribution of rainfall...

I guess we will find out.

in the meanwhile biofuel production is the best way of artificially maintaining the c02 balance of the atmos.

lets get THAT researched.

It is being researched, the technology has been around for ages. The challenge wrt biofuel is integration.

There are a number of other techs in the pipeline that could easily ween us off oil. Nuclear is the most obvious one because the tech is mature and it can produce colossal amounts of energy.

The other is microgeneration, and this is where having economic incentives through taxation and so on comes into play. If there is enough impetus for demand to pick up, supply will follow. Advances don't come along without something pushing them.

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Originally posted by welshwarlock: It is being researched, the technology has been around for ages. The challenge wrt biofuel is integration.

?

Explain.

The grail of biofuel is celluose - so old newspapers and crass cuttings can be worth their weight in ethanol - and i believe there is a rainforest mould that may be the key.

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Originally posted by et al:
I think all have useful opinions and we should not stop each having his say. There are very few who know enough to make an informed opinion. These debates never get too far because of bad behaviour and hiding behind mases of info that we are supposed to familiarise and see the light. Having bothered to read one or two recently I find the claims cannot be substantiated from any linked article.

We had a useful discussion on sea levels and agreed there was some disagreement.

I'd like to receive and review the definitive paper on the role of CO2 if anyone knows of it, there must be one in Nature perhaps? Tell me what it proves and I'll see for myself with an open mind whether the paper supports the hypothsis.

I read somewhere that CO2 is not a major player in global warming, that it actually followed GW as a correlate after the heating and ice measures could not be used as they were an inaccurate measure? I don't want to discuss these just now but just as a warning of where I am likely to look next.

OK here is the bottom line and a fact that cannot be explained away. Man-made carbon is only 0.12% of all greenhouse gasses when adjusting for relative effects of each gas. Now without even getting a thermometer out it is quite clear that 0.12% perturbation to a system that is effectively regulated anyway is going to have less than 0.12% effect on other parameters like temperature.

This catastrophe talk is utter tripe and I wonder why it is even worth debating sometimes. I suppose it's like debating about the possibility of getting taken over by little green men from Mars. It's pure gibberish and until I see something convincing then I don't feel the need to prove we are not going to get invaded by aliens. The onus of proof is on the people who put forward these theories and its clear they are so incompetent/fraudulent that they can't even present to us correct data. I'm thinking this Y2K bug in nonsense anyway; I think it is more probable that these figures were fixed. It's like banking 'errors' that are always resulting in the customer loosing money. This sort of thing flies in the face of probability where it should be 50/50.

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Originally posted by welshwarlock:

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Baron von Idiot said:
OK here is the bottom line and a fact that cannot be explained away. Man-made carbon is only 0.12% of all greenhouse gasses when adjusting for relative effects of each gas. Now without even getting a thermometer out it is quite clear that 0.12% perturbation to a system that is effectively regulated anyway is going to have less than 0.12% effect on other parameters like temperature.

Well thats just a plain lie. Like the lie that 95% of the greenhouse effect is water vapour. Like the lie that human emissions are insignificant to natural ones.

We can see through the lie very easily. We know that about 20% of the greenhouse effect is CO2. We know that humans have increased CO2 levels by about 40% since pre-industrial times - hence it is reasonable to assume that about a 1/4 of the CO2 in the atmo is ours. 0.12%? Did you just pick a small number and divide by ten? You really are a pathetic liar Baron, just as well given the malicious misinformation you are trying to spread.

No, that figure was from a professor of meteorology. What you fail to understand is that the carbon cycle is huge, most of the world is uninhabited but it still plays a role in the carbon cycle. Also during history CO2 levels have fluctuated widely but no harm has been done to the planet. This proves that it can cope with wide fluctuations and return back to equilibrium values, except that it is a kind of dynamic equilibrium.

CO2 is only a small part of the overall greenhouse gasses and comes in at about 4-5% of the total. Water vapour is the majority of the rest and there are a few minor ones like methane.

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Originally posted by welshwarlock: Oh dear god you are dumb. Of course the planet can cope, its us that will cop it. The planet doesn't give two shits if London is flooded, but we do, not only those directly flooded but those affected by the economic effects of destruction/rebuilding etc.

How much of london is less than 12 inches above sea level?

How long will it take sea level to rise 12 inches?

Some say the sea is not rising at all and the 'trend' is an artificial one introduced by data not fitting the hypothesised model and fudge factors being introduced so the model worked. Damn, damn Bayesian types.

Well said Baron, I agree with most of your 17.19 post.

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How much of london is less than 12 inches above sea level?

How long will it take sea level to rise 12 inches?

Thats not really the point. The important factor about rising sea levels in the increasing chances of flooding from freak a spring tides. I don't know the exact stats, but say currently the Thames Barrier could withstand up to a 1 in 500yr storm. If the sea level rises a few inches, that could drop to 1 in 200yrs, if it rises further the chances increase.

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Some say the sea is not rising at all and the 'trend' is an artificial one introduced by data not fitting the hypothesised model and fudge factors being introduced so the model worked. Damn, damn Bayesian types.

Well said Baron, I agree with most of your 17.19 post.

Well, one person says so, a person whose arguments are of questionable integrity (has he written any peer reviewed papers on the matter - not that I could find). Of course the models have fudge factors in them - all equations of nature are full of fudge factors - their called constants. A fudge factor is just a number thats used to bring different units and proportions to the same numerical value, it does not mean that its just been invented so the input fits the desired output (though it could be done). Pi (3.14...) is a fudge factor for the proportional relationship between diameter and circumference.

As for Baron's post (17:19), yes, he is right in so far as scientists do have to prove their theses beyond reasonable doubt in order to be accepted. But he is wrong, so very very wrong, to say that these theories should be ignored or sidelined until every idiot on the planet is convinced. There are people who believe that evolution is based on falsified science and there is a conspiracy. Should we thus stop genetic research? There are still people who think the earth is flat (seriously - I'm not joking). Should we then stop round-the-world flights and cruise ships in case they fall off, until these last few people are convinced?

No, no and no for global warming too. There is an almost unanimous scientific consensus on AGW. The evidence is all there. Just because a few people have convinced themselves that there is some sort of conspiracy (link) does not mean that the scientific and environmental effort should be reduced to a standstill until they are convinced.

As with evolution or the flat earth, if (hypothetically) anyone produced good evidence to counter the well-established theory, it would be added to the melting pot of scientific knowledge and, in the unlikely instance that it is necessary, a new conclusion formed. The same goes for global warming. Provide something fundamentally wrong with the theory, a credible alternative or something more than a mild inconsistency or whining about conspiracy, then it can be seriously investigated. Oh, and don't complain about finding. The oil and car industry are being forced to spend 100s of millions of $$s to clean up their image and product, they would easily cough up if something look credible.

Until this happens, don't spread lies and misinformation that has been debunked time and time again. Its simply malicious.