CLIMATE CHANGE AND GLOBAL WARMING

[Stanley]

There was a study a few years ago which pointed out how surprisingly effective high hedges of leafy shrubs on the sides of roads were at reducing pollution behind them.

[Tizer]

While we are distracted by the signing of Article 50, on the other side of the Atlantic...
`Trump signs order undoing Obama climate change policies' LINK

We knew this was going to happen but it's bizarre that he's claiming it's going to bring back the coal industry in the US. That industry has been dying out but not because of climate change policy. It's been hit by the low price of shale gas from fracking and by concerns about mercury pollution. A press photo today shows Trump signing the order with a bunch of coal miners standing behind him with smiles on their faces. They won't be smiling when they find that they're still out of a job. Will they still be Trump supporters then, I wonder?

[Stanley]

I thought exactly the same ting. Question is whether Trump is a trickster or does he really believe the over simplified view he has put forwards about coal mining? I suspect the latter. There is another small matter, who is going to put the money into re-commissioning the mines? This is far more difficult and complicated than it looks. I think Trump believes you just start digging again......

[Sue]

I think he thinks it's just the legislation that stops things happening, undo the law and carry on. There is a certain issue of finance for all his ideas and it appears that reality is kicking in with the Republucans that actually funding for all his ideas is limited in the grand scheme of things. There was an article yesterday about them setting their budgets for the year and they couldn't afford to include the WALL.

[Tizer]

Another thing he seems to have missed is that his promised action to roll back environmental legislation and open up the old coal mines would dramatically slow down the renewable energy industry - one of the key new industries for employment of young people in the US. He'd rather have them working down mines than building wind turbines, PV panels, and tidal and wave energy installations.

[Stanley]

If you want yet another example of how incompetence, egotistic behaviour and sheer blind stupidity are spreading like a rash across the globe, Trump's attitude towards the environment takes some beating.
Where will the UK policies finish up when May and Co have finished 'refining' our laws after Brexit?

[Pluggy]

Its become very clear he hasn't the first clue on how to run a country.

[Stanley]

His environmental policies will blow up in his face like the others. He's like a learner driver trying to drive an oil tanker. You can't do handbrake turns with a nation!

[chinatyke]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw03E8 ... =drive_web

Nobel Laureate smashes the global warming hoax.mp4

The other side to the argument, seems that some agree with Donald.

[Stanley]

Give them time, they will eventually realise that the pesky scientists were right......

[Tizer]

Nobel Laureate smashes the global warming hoax.mp4
The other side to the argument, seems that some agree with Donald.

Ivar Giaever is a prominent climate denier rather than climate sceptic. Although a Nobel Laureate (in physics) he actually admits that he has done no more than take a cursory look at the evidence for climate change. He simply doesn't like the idea and decides therefore it must be incorrect.

[chinatyke]

Nobel Laureate smashes the global warming hoax.mp4
The other side to the argument, seems that some agree with Donald.

Ivar Giaever is a prominent climate denier rather than climate sceptic. Although a Nobel Laureate (in physics) he actually admits that he has done no more than take a cursory look at the evidence for climate change. He simply doesn't like the idea and decides therefore it must be incorrect.

He is not denying climate change, he states that the climate always has changed and always will. Historic data shows these variations. He refutes that CO2 is to blame for it. Perhaps if we brought back fluorocarbons they would combat the warming, but the data says no warming took place for 19 years. Messing with the climate is like pilot induced oscillation.

[plaques]

He produces some very interesting charts and graphs which are good enough to raise some plausible questions. The lecture appears to be about two years old and I would imagine there has been a lot more studies that explain away some of these anomalies. If climate change is true at least we've taken some action to eliminate it. If it is false then we have waisted money that could have gone elsewhere. Like insurance cover you look at the risks and weigh up the costs against a particular outcome. Its worth reminding ourselves that the effects of tobacco smoking are still contested by some authorities but to most rational people the case is well proven. In the tobacco case an individual can make their own decision but with climate change its got to be a collective decision.

[Pluggy]

Old scientist from an entirely non related area (electron tunnelling in semiconduters back in the 70's) has an opinion that is at odds with almost all scientists working in entirely related area. Doesn't add up to much in my book. You might as well have an opinion from Doris the bar maid in your local.

Nicola Tesla was a brilliant scientist in his day, he went nuts in his later years.

[Stanley]

I agree Pluggy. Spending money on trying to halt climate change due to pollution is never wasted, look at the health benefits of cleaner air. I can remember growing up with constant black snot!

[Tizer]

I, too, agree with Pluggy. In his later years Einstein argued against continental drift even though there was 30 years of evidence for it from all over the world and it's a fundamental part of geology. He might have been a good physicist but he wasn't a geologist and didn't have what it needed to go deep enough into the geological basis of continental drift.

[Stanley]

I think the trick is humility. Admit your ignorance and trust whatever evidence seems the best. People like Nigel Lawson and Trump seem incapable of that strategy. QED.

[Bruff]

Well quite. Just becaue you are a physicist doesn’t mean you know everything about physics. If you are given a diagnosis for your tachycardia from a cardiologist, would you seek a second opinion from an obstetrician if you weren’t happy? After all, both are Drs. I would also note that just because you have a degree in physics this doesn’t make you a physicist (or a degree in history a historian). Noted sceptic Peter Lilley MP is fond of noting he studied natural sciences at university. Great. If he’d then done a PhD (or equivalent research study for 3 years or so) he could pop his L-plates on. After a futher 10 – 15 years research experience he might then be justified in calling himself ‘a physicist’.

The weight of evidence in favour of human impact on climate change is about the same as that which encourages us to pop a painkiller for a headache rather than seek out the local wise woman for a trepanning. Or as I heard a Dr the other day say on the issue of vaccination (similarly vexed for some), I am as sure of the efficacy as I am if I went to the top of a building and jumped off, I am sure I would not fly. That is, I might fly as one can’t prove I couldn’t, but I probably won’t.

Just quickly, on another thread we noted the ‘it’s not just not right, it’s not even wrong’ trap. Climate scepticism is riddled with this. The furore over the leaked e-mails and the use between scientists of the word ‘trick’ is an example. Ah, they ‘tricked’ us so it’s all wrong, all of it. No. 'Trick' is used all the time by scientists to describe neat, perfectly logical and robust short cuts. Trick here is not used in it’s popular parlance. If you don’t get this, then you are at the start up the creek. And the sceptics blundered right in, taking ‘trick’ at this literal, sole meaning of ‘deception’.

Richard Broughton

[Tizer]

..just because you have a degree in physics this doesn’t make you a physicist..

I notice that Michael Palin has been awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree by The University of St Andrews.

[Stanley]

I like the way Richard's mind works..... As I have said in another place, the trick is the context.
They gave me a degree saying I was a historian but looking back I was only just dabbling. I think I am getting better at it but reading some real historians, I am not there yet!

[plaques]

Naomi Klein, "The worst is yet to come" Link.. (23 mins). A follow up to 'Shock Doctorine' suggests that Trump's backtrack on climate change is an attempt to increase the probability that there will be regular and sustained catastrophic events round the world which would allow America to step in with more 'Shock Doctorine' tactics and to profit from the chaos. This would give them the immediate profits from selling more coal, oil etc with a future assured markets through massive takeovers. It sounds a bit far fetched but she gives examples of where big business has moved in after such tragedies in a way we would normally consider them as being immoral. Looking at the the current trend within the republican party I wouldn't put it past them.

[Stanley]

Thanks for that P. I shall order it immediately. I gave Yiota and Ash Move Fast and Break things and Shock Doctrine yesterday. They hadn't heard of either of them. Also Yiota said she hadn't been reading since her mum's death and these would get her going again.....
I've just ordered it off Bookfinder.....

[Stanley]

From initial reports, no change in the US attitude during the Hamburg talks......

[Tizer]

`Sea level fears as Greenland darkens' LINK
"Scientists are "very worried" that the melting of the Greenland ice sheet could accelerate and raise sea levels more than expected. They say warmer conditions are encouraging algae to grow and darken the surface. Dark ice absorbs more solar radiation than clean white ice so warms up and melts more rapidly. Currently the Greenland ice sheet is adding up to 1mm a year to the rise in the global average level of the oceans. It is the largest mass of ice in the northern hemisphere covering an area about seven times the size of the United Kingdom and reaching up to 3km (2 miles) in thickness. This means that the average sea level would rise around the world by about seven metres, more than 20ft, if it all melted."

[Stanley]

The way things are going Tiz that should be 'when' it all melts, not 'if'. I'm a pessimist (or a realist!) and think that we have passed the point of no return. Gaia will have her revenge on us!