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Global warming really is happening... (well, duh!)

1976_Child

By 1976_Child,
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aintforever

aintforever

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Interesting that.

 

"If there is indeed a solar effect on climate, it is manifested by changes in general circulation rather than in a direct temperature signal." This fits in with the conclusion of the IPCC and previous NRC reports that solar variability is NOT the cause of global warming over the last 50 years.

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Sheaf Saint

Sheaf Saint

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http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/exclusive-billionaires-secretly-fund-attacks-on-climate-science-8466312.html

 

Exclusive: Billionaires secretly fund attacks on climate science

Audit trail reveals that donors linked to fossil fuel industry are backing global warming sceptics

 

A secretive funding organisation in the United States that guarantees anonymity for its billionaire donors has emerged as a major operator in the climate "counter movement" to undermine the science of global warming, The Independent has learnt.

 

The Donors Trust, along with its sister group Donors Capital Fund, based in Alexandria, Virginia, is funnelling millions of dollars into the effort to cast doubt on climate change without revealing the identities of its wealthy backers or that they have links to the fossil fuel industry.

 

However, an audit trail reveals that Donors is being indirectly supported by the American billionaire Charles Koch who, with his brother David, jointly owns a majority stake in Koch Industries, a large oil, gas and chemicals conglomerate based in Kansas.

 

Millions of dollars has been paid to Donors through a third-party organisation, called the Knowledge and Progress Fund, with is operated by the Koch family but does not advertise its Koch connections.

 

Some commentators believe that such convoluted arrangements are becoming increasingly common to shield the identity and backgrounds of the wealthy supporters of climate scepticism – some of whom have vested interests in the fossil-fuel industry.

 

The Knowledge and Progress Fund, whose directors include Charles Koch and his wife Liz, gave $1.25m to Donors in 2007, a further $1.25m in 2008 and $2m in 2010. It does not appear to have given money to any other group and there is no mention of the fund on the websites of Koch Industries or the Charles Koch Foundation.

 

The Donors Trust is a "donor advised fund", meaning that it has special status under the US tax system. People who give money receive generous tax relief and can retain greater anonymity than if they had used their own charitable foundations because, technically, they do not control how Donors spends the cash.

 

Anonymous private funding of global warming sceptics, who have criticised climate scientists for their lack of transparency, is becoming increasingly common. The Kochs, for instance, have overtaken the corporate funding of climate denialism by oil companies such as ExxonMobil. One such organisation, Americans for Prosperity, which was established by David Koch, claimed that the "Climategate" emails illegally hacked from the University of East Anglia in 2009 proved that global warming was the "biggest hoax the world has ever seen".

 

Robert Brulle, a sociologist at Drexel University in Philadelphia, has estimated that over the past decade about $500m has been given to organisations devoted to undermining the science of climate change, with much of the money donated anonymously through third parties.

 

The trust has given money to the Competitive Enterprise Institute which is currently being sued for defamation by Professor Michael Mann of Pennsylvania University, an eminent climatologist, whose affidavit claims that he was accused of scientific fraud and compared to a convicted child molester.

 

Dr Brulle said: "We really have anonymous giving and unaccountable power being exercised here in the creation of the climate countermovement. There is no attribution, no responsibility for the actions of these foundations to the public.

 

"By becoming anonymous, they remove a political target. They can plausibly claim that they are not giving to these organisations, and there is no way to prove otherwise."

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Sheaf Saint

Sheaf Saint

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http://www.jobhustler.com/jobs/new-york/General-Labor-Jobs/Earn-Quick-and-Easy-$20-for-an-hour-or-less-of-work.2:16.php

 

 

Earn Quick and Easy $20 for an hour or less of work

 

Our firm needs 100 volunteers to attend and participate in a rally in front of the British Consulate/Embassy in Midtown Manhattan on the East Side on Wednesday, January 30, 2013 at 12 noon. The event is being held in order to protest wind turbines that are being built in Scotland and England. Your participation will be to ONLY stand next to or behind the speakers and elected officials/celebrities that will be speaking at the rally.It is a really simple job and easy money for anyone who is around Manhattan at the time. We need all of our volunteers to RSVP for this event. It is VERY important that you RSVP because we have had people confirm spots and fill spots on the first day of the advertisement in the past. If you have participated in one of our events in the past (Ovation) please make a note of that in your RSVP email and we will email EVERYONE back to confirm your attendance. We look forward to hearing from you all and again, the money is quick, the job is easy and we pay in CASH at the end of the event. Looking forward to seeing you next Wednesday!

 

Well fancy that - the denialist movement having to resort to paying people to protest for them.

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scotty

scotty

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I'm probably repeating myself here, but what the climate deniers always overlook in their argument is that the scientists putting forward the theory dont actually have to provide cast-iron proof. All they have to do is demonstrate some/any possibility of man-made global warming. We aren't gambling with something we can afford to lose, its not like dropping a few grand at ladbrokes.

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scotty

scotty

Posted
Posted
Cant someone just run Clarkson over? He stopped being funny about the same time as his waist exceeded his jeans by three sizes

 

 

Clarkson is about as funny as Loaded used to be for its first few months. The jokes have run out, he needs to be put out of our misery.

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dubai_phil

dubai_phil

Posted
Posted (edited)

Ah, so Clarkson is right after all?

 

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo1767.html

 

Or is he?

 

OK so Climate change causes the Antarctic Ice to Melt which then causes the Antarctic Sea Ice to expand which then reduces the impact of Climate Change and causes global cooling. :scared: I think

 

Or have Scientists just discovered Gaia?

 

Over to you professionals

 

(No I'm not a geek, they just mentioned this on BBC World News)

Edited by dubai_phil
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Minty

Minty

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It's quite frightening really (but no real surprise sadly) that people like Boris, in places of significant responsibility and influence, can't understand the simple fact that local weather is far far removed from global climate...

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Sheaf Saint

Sheaf Saint

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Dear lord. The level of ignorance shown in some of the comments under this article is simply staggering.

 

Perhaps Boris should stick to his day job of being a comedian rather than commenting on things he clearly does not have the slightest grasp of.

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Sheaf Saint

Sheaf Saint

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http://www.livescience.com/38347-north-pole-ice-melt-lake.html

 

npeo_cam2_20130722072337.jpg?1374519402

 

Instead of snow and ice whirling on the wind, a foot-deep aquamarine lake now sloshes around a webcam stationed at the North Pole. The melt-water lake started forming July 13, following two weeks of warm weather in the high Arctic. In early July, temperatures were 2 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 3 degrees Celsius) higher than average over much of the Arctic Ocean, according to the National Snow & Ice Data Center.

 

Melt-water ponds sprout more easily on young, thin ice, which now accounts for more than half of the Arctic's sea ice. The ponds link up across the smooth surface of the ice, creating a network that traps heat from the sun. Thick and wrinkly multi-year ice, which has survived more than one freeze-thaw season, is less likely sport a polka-dot network of ponds because of its rough, uneven surface.

 

July is the melting month in the Arctic, when sea ice shrinks fastest. An Arctic cyclone, which can rival a hurricane in strength, is forecast for this week, which will further fracture the ice and churn up warm ocean water, hastening the summer melt. The Arctic hit a record low summer ice melt last year on Sept. 16, 2012, the smallest recorded since satellites began tracking the Arctic ice in the 1970s.

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Sheaf Saint

Sheaf Saint

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You have to laugh at the comments section on climate articles in the Daily Mail (really - you have to, otherwise you would cry!). I don't know anybody in real life that is quite as ill-informed and downright dumb as the people who comment on these articles, so where do they get them from? They all seem to be Americans who are convinced that the fact Al Gore has made a fortune from it is proof that AGW is a hoax.

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Sergei Gotsmanov

Sergei Gotsmanov

Posted
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In fairness the 'experts' who know it all and are the prophets of doom told us that our children would rarely snow - that heralded in a sustained period of extraordinary cold winters. They then told started using the term climate change instead of global warming. We had a hot summer in 2003 and 2006 and then the same experts told us that we were set for a barbecue' summer. We then had a washout. This year after two years of wet summers we were told that we had to get used to wet summers - that brought a heatwave summer. I might be inclined to take these people more seriously if they ever actually got it right!

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buctootim

buctootim

Posted
Posted
In fairness the 'experts' who know it all and are the prophets of doom told us that our children would rarely snow - that heralded in a sustained period of extraordinary cold winters. They then told started using the term climate change instead of global warming. We had a hot summer in 2003 and 2006 and then the same experts told us that we were set for a barbecue' summer. We then had a washout. This year after two years of wet summers we were told that we had to get used to wet summers - that brought a heatwave summer. I might be inclined to take these people more seriously if they ever actually got it right!

 

So because one part of Britain had a two bad summers global climate change isnt real? If you cant tell the difference between a local short term weather and long term global trends then you should comment on Daily Mail articles more.

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aintforever

aintforever

Posted
Posted
You have to laugh at the comments section on climate articles in the Daily Mail (really - you have to, otherwise you would cry!). I don't know anybody in real life that is quite as ill-informed and downright dumb as the people who comment on these articles, so where do they get them from? They all seem to be Americans who are convinced that the fact Al Gore has made a fortune from it is proof that AGW is a hoax.

 

I particularly like Dave from Durham's comments that scientists have a vested interest because they are... ...scientists!

 

Sergi's comment above sums up why we stand no chance of acting on climate change. A few weather forecasters get it wrong and people just don't take the science seriously.

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Sheaf Saint

Sheaf Saint

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Posted
In fairness the 'experts' who know it all and are the prophets of doom told us that our children would rarely snow - that heralded in a sustained period of extraordinary cold winters. They then told started using the term climate change instead of global warming. We had a hot summer in 2003 and 2006 and then the same experts told us that we were set for a barbecue' summer. We then had a washout. This year after two years of wet summers we were told that we had to get used to wet summers - that brought a heatwave summer. I might be inclined to take these people more seriously if they ever actually got it right!

 

Not one of the 'experts' you refer to ever claimed to know it all, as you suggest; they merely put forward some evidence to suggest that these scenarios might happen. As usual, their claims were wildly exaggerated and sensationalised by the national media.

 

The term climate change is now preferred by many simply because it is very difficult to predict exactly how a warming of the planet will affect the climate in different regions. The term global warming refers to an increase in the global mean surface temperature (GMST) and that this is increasing there is absolutely no doubt. The DM seem to have finally got something climate-related right for once, because data taken from ice cores show that the rate of increase since the beginning of the 20th century is approximately 10 times greater than at any point over the last half a million years. Because this rate of increase is unprecedented, trying to predict how it will affect regional climate and local weather systems is extremely difficult. For example, it is believed by many that the melting of the polar ice caps will have an adverse affect on the gulfstream, due to the increased amount of desalinated water sinking and disrupting the currents. Should this happen, as the planet warms, north-western Europe will likely see a decrease in average temperatures, as the gulfstream currents ensure that we currently have higher average temperatures than other locations at the same latitude (Without the gulfstream, Britain would have a climate more like that of Labrador).

 

All of this is just an educated guess. Even the most sophisticated climate models are still only models and as such cannot be relied upon to give 100% accurate predictions. But one thing that is generally agreed by nearly all in the field of climate science is that warmer global temperatures will lead to more frequent extreme weather events, and the heatwaves that have struck North America over the last few years appear to show that this is already happening. This makes predicting long-range weather patterns even harder than they ever were before.

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Whitey Grandad

Whitey Grandad

Posted
Posted
97% is a pretty large majority, there will always be sceptics.

 

What percentage should we wait for until we call it a consensus then?

 

You can call it what you like, all I'm saying is that you cannot take a vote on this kind of matter. The consensus has been wrong many, many times before.

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aintforever

aintforever

Posted
Posted
You can call it what you like, all I'm saying is that you cannot take a vote on this kind of matter. The consensus has been wrong many, many times before.

 

What sort of absolute proof do you think we should wait for then before we act?

 

The polar ice caps could melt completely tomorrow and some sceptics will say it's not due to man. There will always be sceptics, there will never be an unveiling of a big banner by god saying "global warming is true". What are you waiting for?

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Whitey Grandad

Whitey Grandad

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What sort of absolute proof do you think we should wait for then before we act?

 

The polar ice caps could melt completely tomorrow and some sceptics will say it's not due to man. There will always be sceptics, there will never be an unveiling of a big banner by god saying "global warming is true". What are you waiting for?

 

Due to man or not there is absolutely nothing we can do that will change anything. The earth's weather is determined by forces far more powerful than anything we do. The climate will stabilise at a new status and we must adapt to it.

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scotty

scotty

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Posted
Due to man or not there is absolutely nothing we can do that will change anything. The earth's weather is determined by forces far more powerful than anything we do. The climate will stabilise at a new status and we must adapt to it.

 

You're around a decade too late for that argument, Whitey. Do try to keep up.

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Ludwig

Ludwig

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Posted
I bet they were certain once that the earth was flat. anyone who suggested otherwise was a loony

 

except that never really happened. Pretty much all educated people knew the world was a sphere. Its only in modern times that this idea that they thought the world was flat came about. Still, don't let facts get in the way of a sensible debate about climate change.

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Whitey Grandad

Whitey Grandad

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Posted
Wasn't there once an ice age?

 

Hasn't the climate been changing since the world existed?

 

If we all lived in windmills, went round on push irons rather than cars, stopped flying, stopped industry and started wearing sandals , would the climate stop "changing"?

 

My point exactly. At least some people could stop feeling guilty about it.

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aintforever

aintforever

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Posted
Wasn't there once an ice age?

 

Hasn't the climate been changing since the world existed?

 

If we all lived in windmills, went round on push irons rather than cars, stopped flying, stopped industry and started wearing sandals , would the climate stop "changing"?

 

Historical changes in the Earths climate over millennia only add weight to the theory of man made warming. Numerous things effect the temperature (the sun, volcanoes etc) and will continue to do so but he recent warming can only be reasonably explained by increased greenhouse gasses due to man.

 

Co2 levels have exceeded 400 parts per million, the highest point for 3 million years. The last time they were this high camels lived in the high Arctic and seas were at least 30 feet higher and that was in the final stage of a prolonged greenhouse epoch, and CO2 concentrations were already on their way down.

 

We are entering a complete unknown, positive feedbacks like methane from melting Arctic tundra could mean catastrophic consequences. Ignoring what science is telling us is just plain retarded.

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Whitey Grandad

Whitey Grandad

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Historical changes in the Earths climate over millennia only add weight to the theory of man made warming. Numerous things effect the temperature (the sun, volcanoes etc) and will continue to do so but he recent warming can only be reasonably explained by increased greenhouse gasses due to man.

 

Co2 levels have exceeded 400 parts per million, the highest point for 3 million years. The last time they were this high camels lived in the high Arctic and seas were at least 30 feet higher and that was in the final stage of a prolonged greenhouse epoch, and CO2 concentrations were already on their way down.

 

We are entering a complete unknown, positive feedbacks like methane from melting Arctic tundra could mean catastrophic consequences. Ignoring what science is telling us is just plain retarded.

 

This is alarmist claptrap. If the world were that unstable it would have fried a long time ago. There are other explanations for the recent perceived increase.

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