What could usefully be done with climate change sceptics

[Whitey Grandad]

The way I see it is that if there's any possibility of truth in all this, then we should reduce emissions anyway. They can't be GOOD, whatever way you look at it, and sooner or later we clearly will need alternative clean and renewable energy. These facts alone suggest we should make efforts to pollute the world less and make things a bit better generally. Hardly hippy rubbish.

There is also the possibility that we could face all these restrictions and it won't make a blind bit of difference to the climate.

[Robsk II]

I agree. But I also think that the 'just in case' path is emminently treadable with a bit less profiteering from people. Of course we need advancement, but you could say global agendas for change and legislation to force, for example, car companies to invest in electric cars.. (and actually make them good with a good infrastructure) would force entirely palatable change very quickly. I mean... it's like car safety. The technology exists to make cars super safe 9of course drivers should still drive carefully..) but companies still want to make huge profits so generally don't really invest as much as they could do into the long view. understandable from a business sense, but the first company to do something revolutionary, by taking risks, often reaps the rewards long term. Dyson, for example.

[Smirking_Saint]

I agree. But I also think that the 'just in case' path is emminently treadable with a bit less profiteering from people. Of course we need advancement, but you could say global agendas for change and legislation to force, for example, car companies to invest in electric cars.. (and actually make them good with a good infrastructure) would force entirely palatable change very quickly. I mean... it's like car safety. The technology exists to make cars super safe 9of course drivers should still drive carefully..) but companies still want to make huge profits so generally don't really invest as much as they could do into the long view. understandable from a business sense, but the first company to do something revolutionary, by taking risks, often reaps the rewards long term. Dyson, for example.

 

Hmm yeah, electric cars, in one hand removing the carbon emmissions of the petrol in the other taketh away by pretty much doubling the amount of energy needed to be provided by the grid, energy that will need to be created somewhere. Although i am all for non-petrol cars i am much more of the opinion that the Hydrogen cell is the prefered long term option.

 

But yes, you are right, it IS much better to head towards a greener path then we are taking now, however i don't think we need quite the amount of stealth taxes that have actually been imposed on us, unless you look at it and think, without the taxes would anyone actually make any changes ??

 

I am a denier, i don't think the science is out there to prove either way, does this mean i am not trying to use energy more efficiently ? No, i am, i just do not agree with the premise of global warming.

 

A much more alarming situation will be around 2015ish and onwards, when we will be relying very heavily on energy created elsewere for our needs, this is because the government is mothballing many of the older plants (along with some coing to end of life) not creating new plants soon enough and the peak energy usage of the country beginning to grow and grow, even now as an industry we do not see the summer dips in peak usage as we always did because of the invent of A/C and heat pumps etc will only make it worse.

[aintforever]

I have no lack of education. For me, the problem is that the science has to explain also the changes in the climate going back over the last few thousand years. The little ice age, for example, seems to correlate very well with the Maunder minimum in sunspot cycles so we can infer from this that the solar activity has a very strong effect on our climates. There is also evidence that the proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere is a consequence of higher temperatures rather than a cause. Climate science is not exact and much of the early alarmist reporting ignored many factors which we now know to be significant, such as the degree of cloud cover, so I take a sceptical view of the latest prophecies. There are a lot of hidden agendas when it comes to energy use and we have to be careful to stick to the core issue which is, 'how much effect do man-made CO2 emissions have on the climate?' In my view, changes in solar activity far outweigh any savings that you or I might make. The govenment view has been, we don't know what effect we are having so the safest thing to do is to reduce emissions in case they might cause an increase in temperatures. It also suits them to raise taxes on fossil fuels and restrict travel.

 

When I was a young boy the big fear was that another Ice Age was on its way. We are overdue one by several centuries. Now that would be really bad news.

 

I agree that Solar activity is the main influence but I think you will find that solar activity has decreased since the 80's so wouldn't explain the temperature rise. Co2 being a consequence is also a fair point, it's a complex science that is not fully understood, but we ARE pumping billions of tons of it into the atmosphere and it DOES absorb more heat and temperature HAVE risen - they are all facts.

 

No one knows what will happen in the future, we could be screwed like Lovelock says or the Earth might regulate itself, or Global Warming could be a good thing if we are heading for another ice age. I still think the sensible thing to do is use renewable energy though if only because of the peak oil scenario.

[Verbal]

That's a fair argument, but let's be clear about the reasons. The problem is that by restricting technological growth now we may delay the development of clean technologies. We need nuclear fission elctricity generation within the next 50 years or so.

 

This doesn't make any sense. The push for green, far from restricting technological growth, is actually a serious spur for investment in new technologies - just as restrictions on car emissions pushed the evolution of car engines in Europe and Japan in the 1980s onwards. I don't understand your next, seemingly disconnected argument: we may indeed need nuclear power for a long time yet - but that has nothing to do with the fallacy that green technologies inhibit technological growth.