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Can we really blame climate change for this year’s extreme weather - and does the phenomenon of climate change even exist?
Those are the questions the Shropshire Star video team has been posing during a special investigation into our weather.
Using archive footage and interviews with local residents, video journalist James Shaw has edited a series of online videos in a bid to discover the answers.
This first video looks at the “green” side of the argument and how people were affected by June’s floods.
Chris Leggett, Shropshire Star electronic editor, said he hoped the videos would spark a lively debate on the Shropshire Star website.
“We are sure James’s video will bring the issue to life for website users,” he said.
“We expect it to spark a great discussion and I think it is a fine example of how we can use video online to stimulate debate.
“The video team has been working to compliment our traditional text and picture output, and to ensure we set new standards in local journalism.”
James said video images of the devastation caused by this year’s weather offer a fascinating insight into the issue.
“Shropshire has been battered by wave after wave of extreme weather this year, so we thought it would be a good chance to bring all this footage together,” he said.
“It started with the really heavy snow at the end of the winter and has only stopped in the last few weeks.
“One of the worst-hit areas was around Hampton Loade near Bridgnorth.”
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146 Comments
If climate change is the real threat that the government tells us it is why do they insist on raising taxes on the things that have a high carbon foot print such as 4×4’s and flights. Surely it would be better to ban these things to save the environment. That is if it is the threat they are telling us it is. Also why are the government not preparing us for living in our ever changing conditions and planning for higher temperatures. Why don’t we see them investing in infrastructure such as extra fire fighting equipment for the forrest fires we will surely have. Or investment in our water supplies. I find it very suspicious that we keep getting told that global warming is the threat that it is when all government do is use it as a tool to tax us even more. I’m not saying global warming isn’t an issue, just curious as to how the government don’t really seem to be taking it as seriously as they tell us it is.
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Nice little video and a shame to pick you up on one point. The gulf stream is not an air stream but a huge ocean current bringing warmer waters that make us in the UK warmer than we should be for our latitude. Some scientists have predicted that the ocean circulation of which it is a part will fail and plunge us into Scandinavian type climatic conditions - this is still not clear. But I look forward to the next installment and congratulations on tackling what is a very difficult subject for most people. KB
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Warrington North wonders why 4×4s and flights are taxed rather than banned if the situation is as bad as the government tell us it is. The thrust of WN’s contribution is one of scepticism that the threat is really as serious as claimed.
In response to this, I would say that scientists have been trying to tell those who were willing to listen about the climate crisis for years and that our government’s response is utterly inadequate in the face of a consensus in the peer-reviewed science that the climate situation is potentially catastrophic. [1]
While I do not share WN’s scepticism, I feel he has a good point about our government’s inaction, when it comes to climate change.
Voters are not stupid. The Labour government says it is ‘leading the world on climate change’ but it is going to take much more than introducing a few eco-taxes to convince people that it is serious.
While I welcome these green taxes, which are long overdue, it is clear that they will have only minimal effect on helping Britain hit our emissions targets, if the proceeds are then spent on Gordon Brown’s plans to further expand the road system and encourage the biggest expansion in aviation in British history.
We need a government who are willing to scrap these myopic, carbon-spewing policies and invest the proceeds of transport eco-taxes into making public transport convenient, affordable, safe, clean and an attractive alternative to the car.
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What a silly video. This isn’t ‘extreme weather’ by any means, an ice age is extreme, not a bit of snow; a biblical flood is extreme, not a few feet of water on a flood plain (why do you think it is called a flood plain?. If it rains they blame global warming, if there is a drought they blame global warming, is there any kind of weather that they don’t try and blame on global warming? And have you noticed how ‘global warming’ has subtlety been changed to ‘climate change’, they must have realised that it wasn’t actually getting any warmer like they have been predicting. A lot of scaremongering hysterical nonsense.
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Chris doesn’t feel the climate is getting warmer and feels there is some conspiracy about the term ‘climate change’, so let’s deal with these two points first.
1) Scientists ascribed the heat-wave of August 2003, which caused 35,000 excess deaths in France and northern central Europe directly to climate change, entirely consistent with predictions from the early 90s.
2) The period from April 2006 to April 2007 was the hottest single 12 months ever to have occurred in Britain according to the Met Office.
Empirical evidence of alarming changes in the climate thus shows that it IS getting warmer, Chris. If you want more evidence, just say so and I will respond with more.
As for your other point, the reason people refer to it as climate change is that excess CO2 is triggering changing weather patterns. Kelvin Boot (above) referred to potential changes in the Ocean Conveyor of the North Atlantic which could change weather patterns in this country, making it colder here, while other areas get hotter.
A better term to refer to this phenomenon, whose exact consequences are still unknown, but which will certainly affect different regions in different ways, would therefore be ‘climate change’.
Massively increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are one of the main triggers of climate change. They are entirely avoidable if governments across the world act in a concerted manner, and thus should be the target of government preventive action.
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Chris sees no cause for concern in the fact that July 2006 was the UK’s hottest July on record, that April 2007 was the hottest April and that June 2007 was the wettest June.
Perhaps the record forest fires in Greece and the record drought in Australia have slipped his notice, or perhaps he has not heard that 35 million people were affected by record floods in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan.
How many people need to lose their homes and livelihoods before you call a flood ‘biblical’, Chris?
And what conclusion do YOU draw from the almost constant series of record-breaking extreme weather events in the UK and across the rest of our planet?
If you persist with your contention that these occurrences are not truly ‘extreme’, would you at least accept that they are a warning sign and a wake-up call that climate scientists’ predictions are rapidly becoming reality?
I would be grateful if you or other sceptics could respond to the points I have made. This subject urgently needs to be debated openly in this forum if people in Shropshire are truly still sceptical.
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Ludlow was flooded in 1927 and 1947. Records are short - rainfall records begin in 1914, the Central England Temperature Series begins in 1659 in the depths of the Little Ice Age. Surprise! It got warmer. Climate sensitivity to CO2 is low, at most 1 to 1.5C for a doubling from 280ppmv to 560ppmv - otherwise we wouldn’t be here - CO2 has been many times higher in the past without runaway warming.
In heat wave of 2003, there were a claimed 2000 deaths in the UK - contrast this with the 25,000 to 45,000 excess deaths each winter, and 100,000 for Europe as a whole.
If you don’t have access to climate science journals, as I do, then you don’t have access to the science. Looks as though Huw has mistaken the tabloid press for a scientific source. Also, there’s no such thing as a ‘green’ tax - a tax is a tax, red, green or brown:”a poll by YouGov showed that nearly two-thirds of people think politicians are using the green issue as an excuse to pull in more cash.”
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Huw,
Where is the laboratory evidence and proof that CO2 causes warming?
All the scaremonger’s predictions about climate change are based around computer models which have various suppositions and estimations as to the effects of various inputs. Basically, you can feed different inputs into the models to reach whatever conclusion you want. For instance, you can tell the computer CO2 warms the atmosphere by 1 deg for every additional 100 PPM. The model then spews out a result showing CO2 warms the planet. Tell it CO2 cools the planet and it shows a cooling.
Water vapour has a far higher effect on the air temperature than CO2 and yet nobody ever mentions this.
The climate on Mars is warming - nobody ever mentions this.
You say all the events which have happened recently are “records”, but records only go back 100 years or so.
Climate change has been happening for millennia and CO2 has been many times higher in concentration than it is today with negligible effect on temperature.
Earths climate is constantly changing and even recently (medieval warm period) was far warmer than today. CO2 emissions and concentrations are a convenient stick to wield against us in order to convince the general population to pay ever higher taxes.
There is no consensus on the causes of climate change and the science is gradually moving away from blaming CO2. The only people who really believe CO2 is the cause of climate change are the green evangelicists, pseudo scientists looking for a government funded project and politicians looking to scare us into paying higher taxes.
I am still open to see the proof. Show us absolute proof that higher CO2 levels cause warming and I might start to believe it. Until then - man made climate change is a false religion.
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Huw Peach wishes that scientists had a “consensus” on climate change!
It is odd that when the doom-mongers wore sandwich boards, no one paid any attention to them but the internet seems to have given them a new confidence.
Evidence of “Global warming” like the threat of a new ice age thirty years ago, is the result of computer modelling based on natural climate variations, no more, yest the Greens will grasp at any excuse to claim that their argument is vindicated.
Huw Peach said it all when he said on th video that the summer floods were not entirely in line with predctions - having just said that the recent “extreme weather” was consistent with their predictions.
The summer floods were not AT ALL consistent with the global warming predictions.
And am I not correct in saying that average temperatures have not risen in the last four years? Could this be why the Greens are now referring to “climate change” to broaden their pitch?
Curiously the ice age threat of thirty years ago was also accompanied by dire warnings that it was already too late, action needed to be taken immediately to minimise the damage - all the banners now being waved regarding warming, or since the climate is nol onger warming up, should it become “irregularity ” of climate?
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Huw Peach says that”massively increased levels” of CO2 are causing climate change and that there is a concensus on this in peer reviewed scientific papers.
Checking thousands of papers by non-government funded scientists shows both statements to be incorrect.
Yes the climate is changing but clearly mankind cannot affect this, all we can do is prepare to adjust to it.
Certainly CO2 is a “greenhouse gas” but one with a relatively weak effect and its presence in our atmosphere is essential to all plant life. Despite all the Co2 we’re pumping out it is only present in our atmosphere in trace quantities of around 350 parts per million by volume and only about half of that is due to man (it shows the enormous scale of the world’s atmosphere!). It is clearly not a driver of climate change. Water is hugely dominant comprising around 90% of green- house gas. Plots of temperature against Co2 concentration using readable time co-ordinates show increases in the gas lagging hundreds of years behind the temperature increase as oceans slowly warm and release dissolved gas! Finally, as an “oldie” i’ve seen much freak weather in my life and heard many long forgotten “scare stories”. I presently live in Gloucestershire and in the recent dreadful floods the water level at our river lock just reached the 1947 level and was well below the 1894 mark.
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Medical researcher Dr. Klaus-Martin Schulte recently examined all peer-reviewed papers published from 2004 to February 2007 on the ISI Web of Science database concerning climate change.
Of 528 papers on climate change, only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the so-called consensus on climate change. If one considers “implicit” endorsement (accepting the consensus without explicit statement), the figure rises to 45%. However, while only 32 papers (6%) reject the consensus outright, the largest category (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis.
This is no “consensus.”
Source (ice age now website)
So no consensus then?
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What I find amazing is just how gullible certain people like Huw Peach really are.
Either that or they are part of the many organisations looking to make (or already are making) huge amounts of money on the global warming scam.
We know that politicians lie or spin, it’s the same thing, we don’t need to look further than the Iraq war to know that - yet for some strange reason that I cannot fathom when they mention global warming they are tell the truth? Please wise up.
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Thanks for responding, Paul Biggs, Peter Roberts, Bruce Young and Bob Dennish, Andrew and Andy L. I am delighted to have the opportunity to debate with you and will deal with each of your points one by one.
However, before I do so, I would just like to alert other readers to the fact that much of the information used by climate change sceptics comes from a large number of very well-funded sources.
In the Shrewsbury Chronicle on April 26th 2007, Shrewsbury’s Conservative MP, Daniel Kawczynski, discussed the interference in democratic debate of well-funded industrial lobbyists. In an article entitled ‘An inconvenient truth –time we faced up to climate change’, he highlighted the involvement of ExxonMobil, the world’s most profitable corporation, in funding numerous think tanks and public relations groups whose brief was to prevent action on climate change.
Coal producers and car manufacturers have also given lots of money to fake grassroots organisations whose job is to SOW DOUBT and CREATE CONFUSION.
If you are interested in finding out more about public relations companies, which distribute highly-spun science which has not gone through the peer review process I recommend George Monbiot’s book ‘Heat’ which has a whole chapter on what he calls The Denial Industry.
Global Spin by Sharon Beder is another clear, brilliantly researched, well-documented of the tactics used by these groups.
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First of all, Mr Biggs.
1) You say, ‘Records are short - rainfall records begin in 1914, the Central England Temperature Series begins in 1659 in the depths of the Little Ice Age. Surprise! It got warmer.’
Some records go back a lot further in time if you are not satisfied with these. For example the data gathered by the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (Epica). Epica is a 10-country consortium which analysed a 3.2km-long core of frozen snow in East Antarctica and their findings were reported on 4 September 2006 by the BBC.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5314592.stm
After studying air bubbles trapped in this ice core, they were able to calculate past concentrations of carbon dioxide in the slices.
Epica scientists concluded that CARBON DIOXIDE LEVELS NOW ARE SUBSTANTIALLY HIGHER NOW THAN AT ANY TIME IN THE LAST 800,000 YEARS.
They also gauged past temperatures from the samples, by analysing the presence of different types, or isotopes, of hydrogen atom that are found in precipitating water (snow) when temperatures are relatively warm.
Their conclusion was that when carbon dioxide rises, temperature rises. And when carbon dioxide falls, temperatures fall.
Could you comment please on this data from the East Antarctica ice core, Mr Biggs? As you feel rain and temperature records are too short, would you not agree that 800,000 years provide a long-term perspective that we should study carefully?
2) You then cite the shocking number of winter deaths as evidence that it is getting colder. This ignores the fact that winter deaths are not caused or prevented by global warming, but because these people are old, vulnerable, alone and often living in leaky, uninsulated houses without adequate resources to spend on fuel.
Government should be supporting the most vulnerable, insulating their homes and helping the poorest to pay for heating. Increasing energy efficiency in Britain’s housing stock will save these people money and perhaps their lives, as well as reducing CO2 emissions.
3) As for your point accusing me of using tabloids for my information while you use climate science journals, then I’m going to have to call your bluff.
If you do possess these journals, you may be familiar with a report in Science magazine from 3rd December 2004 by Naomi Oreskes of the University of California at San Diego. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686
In it she reports analysis she carried out on 928 papers on climate change, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003. NOT ONE PAPER DISAGREED WITH THE CONSENSUS POSITION THAT MAN IS HAVING A NEGATIVE INFLUENCE ON CLIMATE CHANGE.
Are your journals refereed scientific journals, Mr Biggs?
Are you at all embarrassed about having been found out?
4) TAXATION: It is vital that we tax the things we don’t like (pollution) and which are motors of climate change (CO2) to ensure that their use is discouraged and our society can evolve in a positive direction.
We need a Green Industrial Revolution. How can you create this without taxation of CO2 and subsidies for green technologies? How else will we incentivise non-CO2 technology?
5) Finally let’s deal with your YouGov point. I Googled this and discovered some other interesting findings in this Daily Telegraph poll. http://www.yougov.com/interactive/kellnerMain.asp?jID=3&aId=4049&sID=6&wID=0&UID=
Your claim about the public’s suspicion about green taxes was correct. However, it was interesting that you missed out the bit about 85% of the public thinking global warming is taking place, and 79% believing that, unless action is taken, global warming will accelerate.
Thank you for drawing it to my attention, Mr Biggs.
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Peter Roberts, who claims he is ‘open to see the proof’, asks a lot of questions about laboratory evidence for CO2’s warming effects, computer models and the role of water vapour.
These misleading arguments are rebutted very clearly and emphatically by the website of The Royal Society, the national academy of science of the UK and the Commonwealth.
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?id=6229
The UK’s best scientists give far better answers than I can to misleading arguments used by climate change deniers like Mr Roberts.
Scientists deal with proof and empirical evidence on a daily basis. They are by definition ‘open to see the truth’.
It’s all there for you to research if you are as open-minded as you claim.
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Bruce Young is wrong to say Greens have been given new confidence by the internet.
In fact confidence comes instead from the consensus in the peer-reviewed science, as well as the public consensus, highlighted in that YouGov poll that Paul Biggs quoted, that not enough is being done to tackle climate change.
Those members of the public who know of the deceptions used by ExxonMobil and other multinationals to prevent government action to reduce CO2 emissions are appalled at the cynicism and short-termism of multinationals protecting their profits by paying lobbyists to blog for them and confuse the public. They rightly feel that their actions are jeopardising our children’s future.
The public mood is also increasingly sceptical of climate change deniers and their agenda, which has everything to do with spreading confusion and nothing to do with open-mindedness.
On your point about computer modelling, the Royal Society states that computers DO give us a reliable guide to the direction of future climate change. The reliability also continues to be improved through the use of new techniques and technologies.
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?tip=1&id=6232
As for you point about me giving mixed messages in the video, I agree with you that I could have been clearer. This was my first video interview, and I am still learning the ropes.
This is what I intended to say:
According to the 2004 UK Climate Impacts Programme’s report on the West Midlands, much more intense rainfall was predicted. The flooding and the damage to houses, roads and agriculture was in line with these predictions.
Your statement ‘The summer floods were not AT ALL consistent with the global warming predictions’ is plain wrong.
Relying more on vehemence than accuracy is not going to get you very far in debates like this.
I urge you to read the document. You can get it from the organisation Sustainability West Midlands. admin@swm.org.uk
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Midlands, much more intense rainfall was predicted. The flooding and the damage to houses, roads and agriculture was in line with these predictions. Your statement ‘The summer floods were not AT ALL consistent with the global warming predictions’ is plain wrong. Relying more on vehemence than accuracy is not going to get you very far in debates like this. I urge you to read the document. You can get it from the organisation Sustainability West Midlands. admin@swm.org.uk
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Bob Dennish claims he has been ‘checking thousands of papers by non-government funded scientists’.
Could you name one paper, please, Mr Dennish. Could you also say whether his/her work has been peer-reviewed? If it is not peer-reviewed then I’m afraid it does not count as good science. To say otherwise would be misleading to readers of this site.
Just one of ‘the thousands’ will suffice.
The Royal Society has a very good reply to your misleading argument that carbon dioxide only makes up a small part of the atmosphere and so cannot be responsible for global warming.
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?tip=1&id=6777
They also have an excellent response to your misleading argument that rises in the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are the result of increased temperatures, not the other way round.
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?tip=1&id=6231
I would have a look if you, like most ‘oldies’ I know, are interested in passing on a safer world to your grandchildren.
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Andrew relies on an alarmist website which says that we are about to go into a new Ice Age, so I think that it is a fair indication of how far out of kilter with public opinion he is.
The point about the scientific consensus that I made used a paper published in a reputable magazine by a known and respected academic, Naomi Oreskes.
The research he cites by Martin Schulte was published on an extremist website.
I think that sums up how much crdence we should attach to it.
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Andy L believes nothing that any politician tells him about global warming.
What about the Royal Society?
What about the IPCC?
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Mr peach, you are making some basic incorrect assumptions in your replies. Mr. Roberts is no ‘climate change denier’ he stated it has been happening for millennia.
You mention quote:- “Shrewsbury’s Conservative MP, Daniel Kawczynski, discussed the interference in democratic debate of well-funded industrial lobbyists. In an article entitled ‘An inconvenient truth –time we faced up to climate change’” - Is this not the title of a film created by the ‘would have been’ next president of the United States of America - Al Gore? Mr Gore’s hypothesis was an emotional display encouraging the world to wake up to excessive CO2 production. He may have had good intentions, but his ploy used unsubstantiated evidence in declaring CO2 to be the major ‘warming’ gas. The natural volume of CO2 in the atmosphere has been found to FOLLOW a warming trend by around 800yrs (despite what the Royal Society claim. For reasons best known to them, they have chosen to ignore some scientific data), exceeds any amount put out by mankind, and is but a small percentage of the so called ‘Greenhouse gasses’.
With reference to industry having vested interests in creating ‘counter’ man made global warming blogs etc. by what you call ‘protecting their profits’. Perhaps Mr Al Gore is doing much the same, being on the board of a group of companies who are set to make money from ‘Green’ products. Not a man to consider frugality in fuel usage it seems, he has a carbon ‘footprint’ far greater than the average person.
You can of course find industry sponsored sites, but there are so many others to choose from with independent science at their fore - unlike the IPCC, a UN created panel to advise Governments on Climate Change Policy, whose very title of ‘Intergovernmental’ leads one to ask questions about their motives.
Good politicians are word smiths. They have the ability to talk with skill and perpetuity to maintain their position. They may tell the truth, but in such ways that it can be undone and even reversed in their favour when required - that’s what makes them ‘good’ politicians. When government seek policy reforms or basis for new policies, advise is sought from experts - enter in this case the IPCC. But their mandate is biased toward statistics that suit policies to encourage further curtailing of finite resources for longevity (looking after future generations), whilst generating revenue at the same time (war on terror has a price - don’t kid yourself ‘green’ taxes are to save the planet). Within the IPCC are a panel of lead authors who co-ordinate articles and papers from thousands of scientists, but the out coming statistics are carefully selected to match current government policies which are in the ‘global’ eye, this has led to resignations by some scientists in protest - they were not on Exxon’s or Mobil’s payroll, they were people who saw their careers work being denied and even denounced in favour of more malleable ‘facts’.
I could lead you to many websites and papers set up and written by independent scientists who have lifetimes of work behind them, but I fear it would be to no avail. One who has chosen to adopt a ‘Green’ flag is unlikely to want to see a broader picture, an deeper view of science, because they themselves have taken a ‘position’ with a ‘politically correct’ movement whose aim is to eradicate any viewpoint than their own, or bend it to their own. There’ll be no more truth coming from a Green alliance, as there will be from a Red one, Blue, Yellow, or sky blue pink.
CO2 in ice samples: Those air bubbles had incorrect readings due to factors which led to exaggerated readings of CO2 content, but I’ll let a scientist pick up on that one.
Here’s one ‘oldie’ who breathed more pollution during his childhood, than you will ever breathe in your lifetime. My children have issues of where to live that are far more relative to their lives than the clean air they currently, and continue to breathe.
Climate change is with us, has been with us, will always be with us, whether we are here, or not. While we have been here, and when we were not. Live with it. But turn the heating down, and switch off the light (if you want to save some tax).
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Begging your pardon Huw, I missed the capital letter on Peach. Apologies.
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Mr Peach,
You have accused me of being a “climate change denier”
Please show me exactly where in my comment I denied climate change was happening. The use of this terminology is typical of people who cannot accept the science is not proven and indeed view climate change almost as a religion.
The term “Climate change denier” is used to associate with “Holocaust denier” and marginalise people who do not agree with your views on the world.
Personally, I find this a little disturbing. Your response to Paul Biggs began:
“First of all Mr Biggs”
Which I find quite an arrogant statement.
In my view, your approach is to ridicule and marginalise all the people and arguments which question your beliefs concerning climate change. There is clearly a degree of science supporting your belief in man’s contribution to climate change. However, there is also a large body science which does not reach the same conclusion. The debate is still open and there are still a lot of questions unanswered.
I have not found any serious funding at all for scientists who wish to study climate without the pre-conception that CO2 is causing global warming. If you have evidence of this funding, please let us know, as I would be far more sceptical of the results if I were aware of the funding source and their political persuasion.
Huw, please do not see this as a personal attack on you or your beliefs. All the people here are participating in this debate because they are not convinced by the arguments surrounding the global warming bandwagon. There are too many interested parties and too much politically biased funding for the arguments to be accepted without question.
Keep an open mind and please do not see us as “Climate Change deniers”.
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Far too mnay people on this site swallowing the government’s lies. In answer to those who are preaching about how hot 2006 was - can I just remind them what happened this summer. Stop being so gullible, and start thinking for yourselves - you’re sleep-walking in to the taxman’s dream…
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Peter Roberts, a man who in Comment 8, denies that CO2 has heat-trapping qualities (ie basic meteorology) thinks that I am ridiculing his position and is upset that I called him a ‘climate change denier’.
This man who, in his first contribution to the debate, referred to people who see CO2 as one of the causes of climate change, as ‘scaremongers’, ‘green evangelicists’, ‘pseudo scientists looking for a government funded project’ and ‘politicians looking to scare us into paying higher taxes’, then goes on to say that I am arrogant because I said, “First of all Mr Biggs”.
First of all, Mr Roberts, I would say that it is arrogant of you to deny basic meterological science.
Secondly, I would add that, according to the YouGov Daily Telegraph poll cited by Paul Biggs, 79% of the UK public believe that, unless action is taken (CO2 is cut), global warming will accelerate, proving that the evidence is obvious to the British public, even if it is not obvious to you.
Thirdly you cannot seriously expect to be taken seriously in highly technical debates of this kind if your only tools for debate are unproven, unverified science and name-calling.
This is a complex scientific issue, and as such relies on a courteous discussion of the accepted, peer-reviewed science.
Not one peer-reviewed paper has been put forward by you or any of the other contributors to this debate. If I was in your shoes I would be very embarrassed.
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Did Chris S read the Royal Society’s rebuttal of misleading arguments put about by industry-funded public relations groups? No? Perhaps that would require too much of an open mind. The Royal Societys past presidents include Sir Christopher Wren, Samuel Pepys and Isaac Newton. Do you not think this institution is about as good as it gets if you are after the most reliable scientific information?
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Huw
The IPCC consists of mainly politicians surely you know that?
As for the the Royal Society the level of information is disappointing, the website to the does not mention or provide links to the sources that support their statements and expect the reader simply to believe what they say.
Further there are direct links between the IPCC and the Royal Society via Sir John Houghton FRS.
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?id=4761
The Royal Society’s main funding, to the sum of £30 million, is from the government (DTI).
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?id=1139
So I wonder just how politically independent these bodies really are?
Having read the so called ‘Misleading Arguments’ section I noticed this quote:
“measurements from satellites show that there has been very little change in underlying solar activity in the last 30 years there is even evidence of a detectable decline and so this cannot account for the recent rises we have seen in global temperatures”
This couldn’t be because the IPCC or their so called scientists have removed the last 34 years of tree ring data which shows a decline in temperatures and destroys the alarmists beloved ‘hockey stick’ graph? And the so called man-made global warming theory in the process - the only man-made global warming it appears is due to this bad science and not CO2.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1579
Over the last 100 years we have been responsible for several coming ice ages and several global warmings and none of these so called catastrophes have happened and neither will this latest scare.
Global warming is nothing more than a government sponsored scam.
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In fact the Royal Society want to pair a scientist to an MP - goodbye for objectivity, independence and truth searching in science then, and hello to even more scientific spin like global warming.
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If Climate Change is man made, and not a 8 billion year old phenomenon shared with other atmospheric celestial bodies such as Mars, and nothing to do with the big hot thing in the sky that makes us warm in summer and cold in winter, then:
Why are the government obsessed with taxing motorists £30 billion pounds a year, when their “footprint” (wheel print) is only 16% of the UK’s total CO2 production.
Man made climate change is nothing more than an excuse for envy taxes on the middle classes supported by a left wing government trying to up it’s tax take, supported by a left wing media, and played along with by a group of celebrities so concerned with the environment that you see them every week flying somewhere different.
People’s memories are short - remember the WMD that were pointed at us a few years ago?
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Huw - if you want to pay more tax because it’s the latest scare tactic from our beloved Labour government, then feel free. However, as an enlightened and educated individual (I have a degree in Chemistry with Physics and Astronomy), I’m going to go with my own mind. Thanks.
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Will somebody think of the children. The poor children!
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Bob Dennish, I am still waiting to hear about ONE of the ‘thousands’ of papers that you say you have been checking.
Could you also say whether they have all been checked and tested by other scientists?
And Paul Biggs, I was hoping you were going to get back to me to tell me whether your climate science journals were peer-reviewed.
A couple of names of the journals you rely on for your argument would suffice. I wouldn’t name Ice Age Now as the source of your information, by the way, if you want to be taken seriously by the people of Shropshire.
Perhaps the reason for the silence of Paul Biggs and Bob Dennish is that my arguments (which are not my own, are not new, are not original and have been in the public domain since the late 1980s) have been based on PEER-REVIEWED SCIENCE. Theirs, by contrast, are NOT.
If they know anything about the scientific process, scientists’ views can only be referred to as SCIENCE after they have been through the peer-review process.
The fact that the only organisations willing to publish the ‘science’ quoted by sceptics are industry-funded fake grassroots organisations or websites like Ice Age Now says it all.
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In this debate I have highlighted the scandalous tactics of
industry-funded public relations organisations to sow doubt and confusion.
Derek Reynolds has no response to this vitally important and shocking
point. He passes without comment over my point about Exxon Mobil’s
scandalous role in preventing effective, international government action on carbon emissions in the late 1990s and tries to divert readers’ attention to a trivial point about Al Gore’s carbon footprint.
Which of these is more likely to elicit opprobrium in Shropshire Star readers, Mr Reynolds?
1) The world’s richest international corporation putting profits before people’s lives by funding think-tanks and public-relations organisations to sow doubt and confusion about the scientific consensus about climate
change?
2) Or a US politician who, because of an undeniable scientific consensus about climate change, is investing his money in non-carbon technologies and urging other foresighted people to get their investments and buying habits out of carbon and into renewable technologies as fast as possible?
Al Gore has done more to raise the issue of climate change and motivate grassroots action to prevent it than most other people. I am delighted that he has done so and fully support him.
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Now to your point about the Royal Society, Mr Reynolds.
You say ‘For reasons best known to them, they have chosen to ignore some scientific data’.
With the greatest of respect, I think Shropshire Star readers will probably be more inclined, to trust the Royal Society, whose past presidents include Sir Christopher Wren, Samuel Pepys and Isaac Newton, rather than you, Mr Reynolds.
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Now to the point about the IPCC, a collection of over 2,000 of the best climate scientists in the world, whose motives Derek Reynolds and Andy L question.
Derek Reynolds said one thing, in particular, which I would like to seek further clarification from him on.
He used the plural when referring to SCIENTISTS who have resigned from the IPCC. This is not factually correct.
I am aware of Christopher Landsea resigning in 2005 over a scientific dispute about hurricanes. This is definitely true. However, you said ‘this has led to resignations by some scientists in protest’. Some scientists? Plural?
Could you let readers know which other scientists resigned from the IPCC? 2 names would suffice.
Furthermore, Mr Landsea believes that global warming is real and happening.
According to wikipedia and PBS, American public radio, Christopher Landsea said these words in an interview with the PBS News Hour programme in 2005.
“We certainly see substantial warming in the ocean and atmosphere over the last several decades on the order of a degree Fahrenheit, and I have no doubt a portion of that, at least, is due to greenhouse warming.”
After explaining to readers exactly why they should trust you instead of the foremost scientific institution in our country, the Royal Society, could you let us know which other scientists resigned from the IPCC (with names please!), and could you explain to Shropshire Star readers why Christopher Landsea is mistaken in his belief that global warming is happening?
Or will you simply do your job, sow some doubt and confusion in people’s minds and sign off like other ‘sceptic’ contributors to the site?
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Derek Reynolds says ‘I could lead you to many websites and papers set up and written by independent scientists who have lifetimes of work behind them, but I fear it would be to no avail.’
OK. Please do. I’ll call your bluff. Let’s have some names, please, so that I can research them.
However, I must warn you that if any of the websites you provide are listed on the Exxon Secrets website, I’m afraid I will be forced to expose them as fake grassroots organisations as I did in the last debate on this subject on this website.
http://www.shropshirestar.co.uk/2007/04/climate-criticism-unfounded/
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Derek Reynold’s misrepresentation of the facts turns into shameless lying when he talks about the CO2 in ice samples, which I quoted when responding to Mr Biggs.
He said, ‘Those air bubbles had incorrect readings due to factors which led to exaggerated readings of CO2 content, but I’ll let a scientist pick up on that one.’
I quoted Epica scientists. Let’s let them pick up on that.
They stated that CARBON DIOXIDE LEVELS ARE SUBSTANTIALLY HIGHER NOW THAN AT ANY TIME IN THE LAST 800,000 YEARS.
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Huw,
Please allow me to refer you to your comment 25.
You say “Peter Roberts, a man who in Comment 8, denies that CO2 has heat-trapping qualities”
Please show me where I said this.
I did say I would like to see proof CO2 can absorb energy in the way you claim.
Your link to the Royal Society simply repeats the claim; it does not show any evidence. We have also seen a quite plausible argument against accepting arguments from the Royal Society in comment 27 which I find compelling.
I would like to see laboratory evidence where a real value can be attributed to the concentration of C02 against its heat retaining capacity - quite a simple task really.
Surely there must be an experiment somewhere which can give a graph of CO2 concentration against heat absorption and retention. Despite searching for this, I have never found anything anywhere which shows how much energy CO2 can absorb and then radiate for a given concentration in air.
Your responses to my comments are quite robust, but offer nothing new in the way of verifiable facts.
In the spirit of analysing data, I made an analysis of the comments so far, there are 31 in total of which you posted 13 (42%).
There are 2 (7%) questionable as to their support of your position and 15 (50%) opposed. There are no independent comments clearly in support.
As you posted all the comments supporting your position, will you accept now the debate is not over and there is no consensus on climate change?
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The most comprehensive report on climate change has been the Stern Report which was published towards the end of 2006.
This was compiled by Nicholas Stern who was the chief economist of the World Bank.
He took more than a year to examine this complex problem and, in a 579-page document, came to the following conclusion:
“The scientific evidence points to increasing risks of serious irreversible impacts from climate change associated with business-as-usual paths for emmissions”
The report has a simple three-fold message:
- climate change is fundamentally altering the planet
- the risks of inaction are high
- time is running out
There is no point in denying climate change!!
Let’s get on and do something about it!!
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Reading this thread i do see a number of sceptics regarding global warming and climate change. The question repeats itself that why isnt the government therefore doing more?
There is more than just a slight level of naivety in such questions, is anyone going to draw into question that our finite resources of energy will soon run out? Well, why doesnt our government invest every penny into renewable energy and alternative sources then? This government will pay lip service to initiatives, enough to get on the side of potential voters.
Why arent 4×4 vehicles banned? could you imagine what such an action would achieve with Anglo-American relations?, you would be preventing US companies such as Jeep, Range-Rover (Ford) and Chrysler from selling to the UK market! - Not a chance will that happen.
I personally do believe in global warming and climate change and i do welcome that all the publicity surrounding the topic will at the very least make people more concious of the moral obligation that they should all feel towards protecting this planet - in whatever, way, shape or form. Even if climate change is the current WMD ploy (which i strongly feel it isnt), it will still drive a much needed change in attitudes.
One thing that cannot be doubted, it that our future generations will not thank us for the abuse that this planet has gone through thanks to our own consumptive desires and industrialisation.
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Comment 39 from Dave Bingham says,
“This was compiled by Nicholas Stern who was the chief economist of the World Bank”
Precisely! Stern is an economist and the report was commissioned by the treasury.
Surprise, surprise, the conclusion is we have to pay more tax to prevent climate change.
We have already seen a large increase in environmental tax - especially against the motorist and no reduction in taxation elsewhere.
Climate change is happening, we need to adapt, not try and change something which we cannot influence. We in the UK cannot make a difference, globally, we are not a big contributor and even if man was responsible for any climate change, raising taxes on a 4×4 is not going to make any difference whatsoever.
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The views expressed by the sceptics here are very depressing. It is obvious that no amount of evidence would convince you of the rapid and potentially devastating changes that are being caused by carbon dioxide emissions. I’m a science teacher and have published three science text books with OUP and for these I looked very carefully at the evidence. It is overwhelming. Obviously Texas oil man George Bush chooses not to believe any of it and 4X4 drivers probably won’t either!
Of course we should follow the precautionary principle with issues like this. Where the possible, but not proven effects of something would be severe, the onus is on those who would cause them to prove that the effects will NOT occur, rather than those who are concerned about them having to obtain proof that the effects WILL occur. So 4X4 drivers have to PROVE to the rest of us that their carbon dioxide emissions aren’t causing global warming.
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Andrew Allott wants proof, the proof Andrew is in the historical geological and research data about climate.
The proof is in the misrepresentation of scientific research by the IPCC, not once but twice, used to ’sex-up’ the facts about global warming and CO2’s role , as previously posted.
The proof is in that in the last 100 years alarmist have said that science is showing a climate warming or cooling catastrophe is imminent and no such catastrophe has yet occurred.
This latest scam will prove to be no different than the others.
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Ben Heyman (Comment 29) begins his contribution with the extraordinary claim that climate change is an 8 billion year-old phenomenon.
According to wikipedia, this is wildly inaccurate.
Modern geologists think the Earth is around 4.54 billion years old, based on their readings of rock and mineral samples.
What is your source for this information, Mr Heyman?
Are you not concerned that you may lose credibility if you over-state your case in this way?
Do you think other readers are going to listen patiently to your rant about tax and left-wingers if you are unable to get your facts right?
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The reason I have posted so many comments, Mr Roberts, is because I utterly reject what you are attempting to do.
I am not trying to convince you, Mr Roberts, but open-minded readers of this discussion, who are led into believing there is a debate, when the CONSENSUS of peer-reviewed scientific evidence (see Naomi Oreskes) is undeniable.
The Shropshire Star claims there are ‘two sides’ to this debate.
However, any dispassionate observer would surely have to conclude after reading this thread that one side has a firm foundation in peer-reviewed science and the other is based on blush-inducing vehemently-expressed ignorance and flimsy, un-sourced, unsubstantiated pseudo-science, originating from corporate-funded think-tanks.
I have attempted in this debate to peel back the deceptions, the red herrings, the misleading arguments and the bare-faced lies on that side of the debate, and reveal the ugly reality to readers of this debate.
The sceptics in this debate have claimed they possess ‘thousands’ of journals and know of lots of websites, saying global warming is a ‘scam’. These same people then disappear when their bluff is called, and peer-reviewed science is requested.
They smear respected institutions like the IPCC, the Royal Society and individuals like Nicholas Stern and Al Gore with incoherent invective, which the vast majority of people would blush at, and vile lies, which they are unable to substantiate.
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Many readers may choose to stay silent and shake their head in disbelief when rational argument has so little effect on these people, who claim to be ‘open to see the truth’, but I believe appalled silence is the wrong approach.
The silence of decent, ordinary, compassionate people, who know there is a major problem, which we must tackle urgently, is giving the sceptics heart, and making them believe their own propaganda.
Allowing lies and deceptions to go unchallenged lets them fester and insinuate themselves in the public consciousness. This is just as insidious as the low-level racism, which I encounter on Shropshire Star websites.
If you really feel these people are harmless, then get hold of the new film ‘Everything’s Cool’. This is a comedy documentary, which takes a close look at the denial industry, whose websites the sceptics use.
There are MASSIVE vested interests trying to prevent remedial governmental action to prevent runaway climate change.
Every individual action to reject the nay-sayers counts.
I urge the silent majority to inform themselves, get active, stand up to them and stop them.
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In reply to comment 41 by Peter Roberts:
“We in the UK cannot make a difference, globally, we are not a big contributor and even if man was responsible for any climate change, raising taxes on a 4×4 is not going to make any difference whatsoever.”
Indeed, the UK is not the largest producer of carbon dioxide emissions. This makes it all the more important for us to lead by example and reduce our emissions. We cannot expect other (economically) poorer countries to reduce their emissions if we in (economically) richer countries do not. Ignoring any problem because it is too big for one person, or even one country, to tackle is extremely short-sighted, not to say morally questionable:
“To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice” - Confucius.
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Global Warming, Humbug!
The amount of so called green house gasses added by humans is only a fraction of a percent. The climate changes naturally. The normal climate for the UK over the last few millions of years is ice age, we are just in a warm patch at the moment, it may well get warmer and then again colder, what is known for sure is global warming was invented by Margaret Thatcher with no scientific evidence to back it up. And the fools believed it! Now we have every little natural weather change blamed on a myth.
One of the often quoted signs of global warming is that sea levels are rising. James Cook, as part of his charting of the Pacific Ocean and islands put a mark to show mean sea level on a rock over 200 years ago. That level has not changed.
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Huw Peach - you confuse actual measured ‘instrumental’ temperature data with estimated ‘proxy’ data.
If CO2 is higher than it has been for 800,000 years - why has the temperature been higher at times during those past 800,000 years, than it is now? Why do CO2 and temperature move in opposite directions for half of the geological record? Why do ice cores show temperature driving CO2, not vice versa. If climate was as sensitive to CO2 as claimed by the computer modelled scare of ‘big warming’ then we wouldn’t be here now. The Earth’s history demonstrates that a doubling of CO2 to 560 ppmv could only raise temperatures by around 1C as most ‘feedbacks’ are ‘negative,’ rather than ‘positive,’ as assumed by computer models.
As for the Stern Review - written by the treasury for the treasury, using extreme, unverifiable computer models - a new paper from the unsettled science of climate change has been published which further undermines it:
“Mistreatment of the economic impacts of extreme events in the Stern Review Report on the Economics of Climate Change”
Roger Pielke Jr
Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Colorado, Global Environmental Change
“In its Chapter 5 the Stern Review concludes, “The costs of climate change for developed countries could reach several percent of GDP as higher temperatures lead to a sharp increase in extreme weather events and large-scale changes.” (Stern, 2007, p. 137). This conclusion cannot be supported by the Review’s own analysis and references to literature. One error is a serious misrepresentation of the scientific literature, and the second is more subtle, but no less significant. The serious misrepresentation takes the form of inaccurately presenting the conclusions of an unpublished paper on trends in disaster losses. The second error is more complex and involves conflating an analysis of the sensitivity of society to future changes in extreme events, assuming that society does not change, with a projection of how extreme event impacts will increase in the future under the integrated conditions of climatic and societal change. The result of the errors in the Stern Review is a significant overstatement of the future costs of extreme climate events not simply in the developed world, but globally-by an order of magnitude.
In light of these errors if the Stern Review is to be viewed as a means of supporting a particular political agenda, then it undercuts its own credibility and this risks its effectiveness. If instead the Stern Review is to be viewed as a policy analysis of the costs and benefits of alternative courses of actions on climate change, then at least in the case of extreme events it has missed an opportunity to clarify the scope of such actions and their possible consequences, and arguably misdirects attention away from those actions most likely to be effective with respect to future catastrophe losses. In either case, on the issue of extreme events and climate change, the Stern Review must be judged a failure. This short paper documents these errors and suggests how an alternative approach might have been structured.”
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All politicians in democracies are faced with the same problem. Enough of their electorate has accepted the line that carbon dioxide emissions cause global warming to significantly influence the electoral power of the leftie greens.
Dissenters point out that there is no real evidence to support the claims of the doomsayers. Part of the world cooled during the industrial boom after the Second World War and then started warming again after the 1970s, but we are talking about a magnitude of plus and minus 0.5 of a degree over a time span of only some 60 years. A longer view shows a different pattern. The earth has been much warmer and cooler over eons without any help from man. And the wrong part of the atmosphere is warming for it to have been caused by the greenhouse effect. It also appears that the tiny warming effect has stopped, just when it was supposed to have become a catastrophic runaway rise.
The computer models that have forecasted that doom is always just round the corner for decades have consistently turned out to be based on false premises (ie, guesswork), as the assumptions on which they rested were invariably invalidated by increases in mankind’s knowledge. It is a very complex subject. Putting it politely, they have always been wrong. And we are still awaiting armageddon. The doom-mongers made a spectacular goof in the 1990s with the Mann hockey stick, and are now on a face-saving exercise, and showing signs of panic as armageddon refuses to happen.
The big giveaway is the targeting of private motor vehicles, whose contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide is too small to matter in the global scheme of things, according to any of the greenie computer models. But the left-wing political juggernaut rolls on, anyway. The agenda obviously has nothing to do with climate. What on earth are the Cameroons getting muddled up in it for?
To move on, we must first accept that the man-made global warming thing is irrelevant, and drop it. We need to be alert for a bolt by the left from their self imposed carbon dioxide lock-in to some other excuse to justify their continued doctrinaire rich bashing.
As a side-issue here, if the Earth was really going to enter a warmer period again, then a responsible government should be thinking about how to meet any challenges it would raise, rather than wittering on about private motor vehicles.
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Thanks for your point about man-made greenhouse gases, Stuart Fraser. I have 2 replies to that.
1) Maybe you missed the bit when I quoted the Royal Society’s response to your often-repeated misleading argument earlier.
Royal Society: ‘CARBON DIOXIDE ONLY MAKES UP A SMALL AMOUNT OF THE ATMOSPHERE, BUT EVEN IN TINY CONCENTRATIONS IT HAS A LARGE INFLUENCE ON OUR CLIMATE.’
2) If you are not satisfied by that, this is what MIT’s Carl Wunsch, a leading expert on ocean circulation and climate, said about Carbon Dioxide in an interview with the Independent on March 11, 2007.
CARL WUNSCH: ‘[In Global Warming Swindle] a speaker asserts, as is true, that carbon dioxide is only a small fraction of the atmospheric mass. THE VIEWER IS LEFT TO INFER THAT MEANS IT COULDN’T REALLY MATTER. BUT EVEN A BEGINNING METEOROLOGY STUDENT COULD TELL YOU THE RELATIVE MASSES OF GASES ARE IRRELEVANT TO THEIR EFFECTS ON RADIATIVE BALANCE
*(my capitals, by the way, Stuart)
Now to your point about sea levels.
Tuvalu, an island in the Pacific, is already experiencing severe flooding which is damaging people’s homes and affecting their drinking water. The islanders have already started to leave and the rest will have to do so in coming years if the trend continues.
Sea levels are rising already, Stuart, so your James Cook red herring, whose source you did not reveal is already cooked, I’m afraid.
Finally, your most extraordinary departure from reality came in this sentence:
Stuart Fraser: ‘what is known for sure is global warming was invented by Margaret Thatcher with no scientific evidence to back it up. And the fools believed it!’
Come on, sceptics. You’re going to have to do better than this.
No peer-reviewed scientific evidence produced.
Invective rather than rational argument.
An almost psychopathic lack of
compassion for the suffering of others.
And now the assertion that ‘global warming was invented by Mrs Thatcher’.
Who did you say were the ‘fools’ again, Stuart? I must have missed that bit.
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Huw Peach is a very conscientious campaigner on behalf, not only of the Green Party, but of us all. I have three children and worry about the health of our planet too, but without giving it anything like the time and commitment that people like Huw give. I do read a bit about the environment, but I am certainly not in a position to volley facts and figures like the other contributors to this blog. In a way, though, maybe that is a perspective that is missing from this debate. Do we really need scientists or statistics to tell us what we really all know, on a very fundamental - intuitive almost - level: that we are consuming too much; it is not making us happy and it cannot last? I struggle with what we should do about the problem, but just because there is no easy solution, does that mean the problem isn’t real?
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Peter Roberts. I have come to recognise your voice and style of arguing in this debate.
I therefore tried out a ‘plagiarism test’ teachers occasionally use at school and put your first paragraph into Google.
This brought me to a letter by ‘Scott’ from East Anglia on a Daily Telegraph online discussion on June 5, 2007 6:07 PM, entitled Can you and the free market save the planet?
Instead of responding to points made by myself and others in this Shropshire Star thread, Peter simply recycled Scott’s first 5 paragraphs VERBATIM.
I feel therefore it is only fair to respond to Scott’s points after Peter admits to readers of this thread that he copied them.
It was good to hear from Peter again, but I would prefer to hear from HIM, rather than a cut-and-paste version of him, and hear whether he has changed his mind about Carbon Dioxide’s heat-trapping qualities yet.
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Paul Biggs (Comment 49) has retreated from his embarrassing claim (Comment 7) that I rely on tabloid newspapers for my information, and has thankfully adopted a more courteous approach.
Unfortunately he has side-stepped important questions, which I posed in my Comment 14.
I called his bluff on his claim that he only used climate science journals. I asked him if these journals were peer-reviewed.
I also asked him to comment on the work of Naomi Oreskes, who had studied peer-reviewed papers on climate change and whose resulting paper about the SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS on anthropogenic climate change, appeared in the respected magazine Science on December 3rd 2004 (easily found on Google).
For someone who claims that he sticks to the sort of journals, which Naomi Oreskes would have reviewed, I found Mr Biggs’ silence on these questions highly revealing.
Paul Biggs does, however, make some points about ice cores and the Stern Report, which deserve responses.
I will make them after he deals with the questions above.
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It hard to keep teack of Huw’s ‘questions.’ He hasn’t answered mine. Huw is rather out of date with the Oreskes ’study,’which has been replicated with the latest papers:
Dr. Klaus-Martin Schulte recently updated this research. Using the same database and search terms as Oreskes, he examined all papers published from 2004 to February 2007.
Of 528 total papers on climate change, only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the consensus. If one considers “implicit” endorsement (accepting the consensus without explicit statement), the figure rises to 45%. However, while only 32 papers (6%) reject the consensus outright, the largest category (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis.
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Andrew raised Schulte’s work in Comment 11, and disappeared after I pointed out (Comment 19) that the source of this information (Ice Age Now) was unlikely to impress Shropshire Star readers.
What is your source, Mr Biggs?
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Just to re-iterate points I made earlier…
Naomi Oreskes published her findings in a respected journal, ‘Science’.
This is an important point because it means that other scientists were able to read and review her findings.
Did Dr Klaus-Martin Schulte publish his findings in a respected journal like Science or Nature, where his work could be read and reviewed by his peers?
Or was it, as Andrew said, published on an extremist website, Ice Age Now, which is predicting an imminent ice age?
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Don’t think I’ve seen Ice Age Now -the paper is submitted to Energy and Environment, my contact from the US Senate Committee of Environment and Public works alerted to me it.
The point is that Oreskes claim that there are no papers that go against the ‘consensus’ is demonstrably absurd, even at the time of her 2003 study.
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Thanks for that clarification, Mr Biggs.
I have just researched Energy and Environment on wikipedia and have discovered that
1) Energy and Environment is carried by few libraries
2) Energy and Environment’s articles are not listed in the Journal Citation Reports indexing service for academic journals.
3) Energy and Environment’s peer review process has been criticised for allowing the publication of substandard papers
By the way in Comment 49, you quoted the political scientist,
Roger Pielke Jr, and clearly see him as a credible and impartial source of information. Is that correct?
The reason I ask is because Roger A Pielke Jr did indeed publish a paper in Energy and Environment, but since then has, according to wikipedia, said “had we known then how that outlet would evolve beyond 1999 we certainly wouldn’t have published there.”
I wonder if you could comment on this, Mr Biggs.
Has Klaus-Martin Schulte published his work in a mainstream journal, which is well-known and respected?
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Mr Biggs, you claim that Naomi Oreskes’ conclusion that there are no papers that go against the anthropogenic climate change consensus is ‘demonstrably absurd’.
Let’s deal with that first.
Benny Peiser, an anthropologist from John Moore’s University, Liverpool, tried and failed to make a similar criticism to you in 2004. Is this what you are referring to?
Peiser claimed he had replicated Oreskes’s survey and come to a different conclusion.
However, Peiser’s letters were REJECTED by the editors of Science, who STOOD BY THE INTEGRITY OF ORESKES’S ORIGINAL PAPER.
Some of Peiser’s survey results were posted and analyzed by blogger Tim Lambert, and it was discovered that Peiser had used different search terms and parameters from the ones used by Naomi Oreskes and -crucially- he had used articles which had NOT been peer-reviewed.
Oreskes’s article focused explicitly 928 PEER-REVIEWED articles.
Peiser claimed 35 papers contested the consensus position.
However, according to wikipedia, most readers of Peiser’s papers say only one (non peer reviewed ) paper clearly contradicts the consensus position, not 35.
Dr. Peiser later conceded that his survey contained some errors, and recently conceded in a letter to the Australian Media Watch that he no longer maintains one of his criticisms.
Could you explain what you mean by ‘demonstrably absurd’?
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Huw - no one knows what the consensus actually is - and interesting survey of working climate scientists from 2003, is about to be repeated (visit dvsun3.gkss.de)
Also, a couple of very recent interesting papers:
Spencer et al:
‘Cloud and radiation budget changes associated with tropical intraseasonal oscillations’.
Geophys. Res. Lett., Vol. 34, No. 15, 9 August 2007
Instead of creating more clouds as climate models currently envisage, individual tropical warming cycles that served as proxies for global warming actually saw a decrease in the coverage of heat-trapping cirrus clouds “To give an idea of how strong this enhanced cooling mechanism is, if it was operating on global warming, it would reduce estimates of future warming by over 75 percent,” Spencer said.
Tsonis et al:’A new dynamical mechanism for major climate shifts’
Geophys. Res. Lett., Vol. 34, No. 13, 12 July 2007
Major climate shifts have occurred or will occur around 1913, 1942, 1978, 2033, and 2072 they also predict a 0.2 Celsius cooling between 2005 and 2020 which should be followed by a 0.3 Celsius warming until 2045 or so - then cooling for the rest of the 21st century.
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Paul:
I find it odd that CO2 is being declared as a cause for warming. When reading about CO2 sinks you find that most living sinks die if temperature becomes too great - certainly the important ones such as Phytoplankton. In which case the CO2 cycle should spiral out of control as less CO2 is absorbed and temperature rises heating the oceans that then release more CO2 etc, as the alarmists would have us believe.
Yet there have been times in the pre-industrial era where global temperatures have been greater than today by quite a margin in some cases and we still have not seen this catastrophic positive feedback mechanism happen.
This clearly illustrates the lack of understanding in climate science - but with the Ice Core data showing a lag of 800 years in the trend behind temperature, would suggest that CO2, as part of a climate system, may cause cooling and not warming acting as a negative feedback mechanism - do you know of any science that is following this line of thinking?
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They DO know what the consensus is.
Remember Science magazine REJECTED Peiser’s claims and stood by Oreskes.
The IPCC, the Royal Society, the US National Research Council, New Scientist magazine, Geophysical Research Letters (who published the papers you quote above) and both Roger Pielke’s whom you have quoted as sources you trust ALL say that we have got to reduce our carbon emissions.
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Mr Biggs, I notice that in comment 61, you quoted dvsun3.gkss.de.
This is the website of the GKSS Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft, the largest scientific association in Germany.
The GKSS is another organisation whose public proclamations affirm that HUMAN-INDUCED CLIMATE CHANGE DOES EXIST AND NEEDS TO BE TACKLED.
I wonder if you could comment on this.
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Mr Biggs, the papers you quote above are NOT REFUTATIONS of the scientific consensus on climate change.
I believe you are simply using the common contrarian tactic of taking science out of context.
Could you comment on this, please?
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The link didn’t get posted properly, it’s a survey of working climate scientists by D. Bray and Hans von Storch:
“in 2003 only 7.9% of those scientists responding to the
question ‘I feel the most pressing issue facing humanity today is …’ claimed climate change/global warming as the most pressing issue.
Figure 30 suggests there is quite some hesitance about putting all of the blame on humans.”
Climate change can’t be tackled by tryibg to manipulate atmospheric CO2, particularly unilaterally using the UK’s 2% contribution to global man-made CO2 emissions.
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You don’t have to agree on climate change to see that humankind, especially in the rich world, needs to change the way we live. We need to stop seeing possession and consumption of ever more material goods as a good thing. Standard of living is not the same of quality of life; we can consume less and have a better quality of life, as well as helping people in poor countries, and future generations, to have better lives.
Leave out the issue of climate change and all these things will still be true:
Supplies of raw materials for consumer goods, including the fossil fuels that make most plastics, are finite. What plans do the climate change sceptics have for when the oil runs out?
Oil comes from politically unstable areas of the world. Do we want to have to go to war more often to secure our future supplies?
We are running out of holes in the ground where we can bury our mountains of rubbish.
Increasing traffic creates congestion in built-up areas. This puts people off visiting those areas and harms local businesses.
Traffic is responsible for increased ill-health and thousands of premature deaths a year in the UK caused by air pollution from vehicle emissions.
We have an epidemic of obesity among children in the UK partly because they don’t get enough exercise. Parents can’t let them walk or cycle to school, or play out on the street, because of traffic danger.
Communities are less sociable and less safe because of our car-oriented society. Older people are housebound, with fewer local shops to go to if they don’t have the use of a car. People don’t talk to each other in the street because it’s noisy and unpleasant; they don’t know their neighbours. We all lose out from the lack of those social networks.
People travel longer and longer distances to work; and their employers expect them to travel further during the working day. This means more stress, more accidents, and long hours away from their families who lose out.
We don’t need the climate chamge arguments to show us that letting cars dominate our towns and our lives is bad for us.
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Emma - we shouldn’t be wasting resources on trying to control the climate using a single small factor such as CO2. We do need to develop VIABLE energy alternatives. We didn’t leave the stone age because we ran out of stone. When something better comes along, we use it.
Your anti-car rant lacks facts. People are living longer due to the net benefits of modern life and fossil fuels.
Potential danger on the rosds relates to the actions of all road and pavement users, not just drivers. Local shops are mostly long gone because they can’t compete on price with supermarkets. Local businesses suffer from anti-car measures such as congestion charging and parking space removal. Don’t try and dictate to people what is the most appropriate way for them to travel.
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Paul Biggs (Comment 66) quotes research by Bray and Hans von Storch. This was conducted on the internet in 2003.
According to blogger Tim Lambert ‘the URL and password were posted to a sceptics’ mailing list. This obviously biases the results and means that reponses from people who were not climate scientists were included’ in the findings.
Paul Biggs clearly does not trust climatologists’ computer models.
I wonder if he might comment on the methodology used by Bray and von Storch.
Was it robust enough? Should readers invest the same amount of trust in it as he does? And if so, why?
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Paul Biggs says Emma Bullard’s contribution ‘lacks facts’.
Most readers who have just read Emma’s letter will rapidly confirm that saying this shows Paul Biggs’s statement LACKS TRUTH.
Here are a few facts which I have recycled from Emma Bullard’s letter, just in case you missed them first time round.
If they are not FACTS, then you will need to say why not or admit that your credibility is disintegrating before our eyes, Mr Biggs.
1) ‘Supplies of raw materials for consumer goods, including the fossil fuels that make most plastics, are finite.’
Have you heard of PEAK OIL, Paul?
Do you think this phenomenon would exist if oil was not finite?
One hour ago, according to AFP Brent crude in London topped 80 dollars a barrel for the first time.
Should politicians behave like you do, Mr Biggs, and just bury our heads in the sand, when talking about the issues Emma Bullard raises?
Or shouldn’t we be considering the long-term viability and sustainability of an oil-addicted, globalized economy and instead accelerating the promotion of green alternatives through taxes and incentives?
2) ‘Oil comes from politically unstable areas of the world.’
Is this not a fact, Mr Biggs?
Or would you say the countries under-pinning our car-economy, Algeria, Iraq, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria are all hunky-dory?
3) ‘Increasing traffic creates congestion in built-up areas. This puts people off visiting those areas and harms local businesses.’
Emma might also have mentioned that the supermarketization of the food chain means that our food travels further and further, generating even more congestion, as Andrew Simms demonstrates in his excellent book, TESCOPOLY.
Or should increased sales of 4×4s and each new supermarket-opening be a cause for celebration, Mr Biggs?
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4) Emma Bullard says ‘Traffic is responsible for increased ill-health and thousands of premature deaths a year in the UK caused by air pollution from vehicle emissions.’
I know you want to play down carbon’s effect on the climate.
Do you also feel that PARTICULATE pollution, low-level OZONE and NITROGEN DIOXIDE are harmless as well?
If you do, you may need to start subscribing to some other journals, because there is a wealth of scientific research which stands in your way.
5) ‘We have an epidemic of obesity among children in the UK partly because they don’t get enough exercise.’
The US Surgeon General explicitly blamed the car culture (among other factors) just 2 days ago. Is Emma’s point not a fact, Mr Biggs?
6) ‘Communities are less sociable and less safe because of our car-oriented society.’
I have far more conversations when I walk or cycle, than when I drive. Is this not a fact?
7) ‘People travel longer and longer distances to work; and their employers expect them to travel further during the working day. This means more stress, more accidents, and long hours away from their families who lose out.’
Could you explain to readers what is factually incorrect about this statement, Mr Biggs?
You said Emma Bullard’s ‘anti-car rant lacks facts’.
This is quite blatantly not the case, as any reader will quickly attest.
Please could you defend this indefensible claim, or admit -with your silence- that your position is no longer tenable?
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Thank you Huw Peach for the last 2 posts.
I don’t accept any of the points made by Paul Biggs (68)but will just respond to one.
It’s not about ‘dictating” to people how they travel, it’s about setting rules and regulations for the benefit of everyone. That’s why we have a rule to tell people which side of the road they can drive on and another to tell them what vehicles they can and can’t use on a motorway; it makes us all safer. In the same way we need to make rules to reduce the amount of damage done by our ever-increasing use of cars.
Some people would argue that it’s our current car-favouring policies which “dictate” to people how they travel, by making the roads unsafe for walking and cycling, and by having a transport policy which has led to car use being cheaper and easier than public trasnport, regardless of the consequesnces for the environment, the economy and social exclusion.
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Mr. Peach,
There is not much point in boycotting oil, gas and other fossil fuel extraction companies if you, or your comrades on this side of the Atlantic, invest in these businesses for profit.Indeed your silence was conspicuous when OTPP invested millions in the Sudan - therefore supporting a regime intent on destroying Christian and animist communities who just happened to be in the way of your company oil pipelines.
Your solution to environmental problems is fascinating but typical of the theorist - we went through this “thought process” some 15 to 20 years ago on this side of the Atlantic - a kind of deja vu when I read the Shropshire Star today.
Here in western Canada the main sources of income are oil, gas, coal and lumber. Without these we would be in a very depressed state. There would be no money for hospitals, infrastructure such as roads and water supply. No money for schools and education - are you seriously saying we should - from one day to the next - become vegetable farmers, ride bicycles to work - and heat our houses by solar energy. Winters here last six months and the temperature can be 30 below from December ’til March
I get the impression that you live in a privileged and protected environment and have no real understanding of the world outside of your comfortable (and heated) classroom.
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Chris Legget wants to “…..’compliment’ our traditional text and picture output, and set new standards in journalism.”
I wonder where he learnt to spell - certainly not Featherbed Lane in the 1940s. He then prattles on about “wave after wave of extreme weather” - the problem it seems was a couple of inches of snow. Does he not remember the winter of ‘47?
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Hi again, Mr Lewis.
Good to debate with you again.
I’m sorry but I didn’t fully understand your point about Sudan.
Could you explain your accusation again a little more clearly for the benefit of other readers?
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Mr Lewis, you mock green solutions to environmental problems and mis-represent them.
Cycling, growing vegetables and going solar are just three of thousands of practical solutions that Greens promote for people to reduce their environmental footprint.
What is so threatening for you about solutions like this? If I am privileged and protected living in Shrewsbury, then cycling to work allows me to enjoy my privileged and protected environment rather than polluting it.
I find the fact that there seem to be more and more people cycling and taking full advantage of their privileged environment rather encouraging. Don’t you?
None of us believe that that alone is the solution from one day to the next (please do not mis-represent my argument), but we all recognise that small things add up when they become cultural.
You are, of course, right to say what works here in a Shropshire climate won’t necessarily work in a cold Western Canadian one, but I know for a fact that Canadian Greens are working hard on practical solutions which are appropriate for your country.
The leader of the Canadian Green Party standing against your Foreign Minister in next year’s Canadian general election. Do you not think that Canadians might find her contributions to the debate a refreshing change?
That is what is so inspiring and exciting about the Green movement.
Simultaneously in countries all over the planet green parties and pressure groups are thinking up practical ways out of the undeniable ecological problems which confront us.
They are initiating debates, doing vital education work, influencing policy-makers and presaging a massive, rapid and global shift towards less harmful technologies.
Economies of scale will bring the costs of these technologies down if governments commit internationally to accelerating the coming green industrial revolution.
And economies of scale are more likely to be possible if the voice for change is pushed by an articulate, optimistic, grass-roots movement with a can-do attitude, acting simultaneously across the planet.
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Mr. Peach,
You are really too funny!
On Cycling:
I cycled to school - from Shrewsbury to Wolverhamton in the days when those romantic old steam trains were never on time. The trips usually took me 1.75 hours. I admit I took the steam train when the weather was really bad. How many miles do you cycle to and from your school? Not 60 a day that’s for sure. I’ve used a bicycle, weather permitting, everyday since that time - likely before you were born? During the winter months I sometimes ski to work - or if the lake is frozen I skate.
On solar energy:
I built a solar panel which, though somewhat primitive, provided hot water for my family for three years - likely before you and your cohorts had heard of solar energy.
I learnt to grow vegetables at school during the war and post-war period in Britain - that’s how we fed ourselves in those days. I compost and grow vegetables to this day!
On environmental projects:
I’ve worked on many in various parts of the world but one I do on a yearly basis is the “honeypot” run.
Unlike Europe or the United States we have devised a method of extracting human waste from the alpine environment - so that our glaciers, creeks and rivers are not polluted to the extent of most other countries.
This entails some rather smelly work. The “honey” is “deposited” in plastic drums - we ‘honeypotters” slide, and then sling the drums onto hovering helicopters that then deposit them into trucks. From there we drive the trucks over bumpy backcountry roads for perhaps 2 or 300 hundred miles to a human-waste-disposal site. It’s a smelly dirty job - Huw - you should join us sometime!
Please don’t give me this crap (no pun intended) about the “inspiring and and exciting green movement.”
Yours is likely the same as it is in this country:
Full of pompous old farts (again no pun intended) with an axe to grind - the majority of which are retired or semi-retired university and college profs or school teachers who continually complain about the lack of government funding and resources for education - meanwhile earning (or demanding pensions) two or three times more than the average citizen.
There’s of course the odd vegy farmer (eeking out a living) amongst this cult who deserves everybody’s respect and admiration - they are the really “green” people who walk the talk!
Don’t preach this conceited nonsense about global warming and how the green party is going to stop climate change - meanwhile living the life of Riley in the compfort zone of dear old Blighty!
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Hi again, Mr Lewis.
I’m glad that I have cheered you up, and sorry if you feel that what I say about the Green movement is ‘conceited’.
I was talking about other people in the Green movement.
I think they have done valuable work, getting the issue of climate change, along with green solutions, debated and discussed.
Individuals like me in the Green movement may not be as perfect as you, Mr Lewis (I, for instance, only have a 5 minute cycle ride to work, have never made a solar water heater and have never scooped poop on a mountainside), but I commend your desire to make a difference, and feel that the Green movement does this, too.
If it was up to some of the contributors on this thread we would be doing nothing whatsoever about climate change.
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Now then Mr. Peach,
Who is mocking who in this debate?
And getting the “valuable work” of green solutions discussed is - all very well - but only if it comes from people who live and take part in green solutions.
Respecting and appreciating the earth and its natural environment is a way of life - there is no grandstanding or claims of - making a difference.
Today’s Green movement is a feel good - self-righteous organization of privileged people living in the first world. Who indeed would be the ones to complain if their substantial paycheques didn’t arrive on time or if local or state infrastucture broke down.
And if climate change is indeed caused by mankind these (same)people are amongst the biggest offenders.
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Mr. Peach!
It is almost a week since my last post. In this one I should remind you of the “investment for profit” of your colleagues on this side of the pond.
Have you heard of the Cheviot coal mine - in south eastern BC? Well this is an open cast coal mine covering an area of several thousand square miles. The mine is an ecological nightmare and perched aside the waterways of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans - on critical wildlife habitiat. This coalmine will have negative impacts on Jasper, Banff, Yoho and Kootenay national parks. The proposed mine area is prime habitat for grizzly bears.
The mine is owned and run by teachers and their associations for profit - and I repeat the word profit. Considering that teachers ( at least in this country) are already at the top of the human food chain what are your views and interpretations of this post?
Or have you (n)ever heard of Kootenay and Jasper national parks?
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Hi again, Mr Lewis.
Apologies for not responding earlier.
You made some sweeping accusations of the green movement in your contribution #79.
Could you substantiate them, giving examples, please?
Then I will comment on them.
Thank you.
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In response to your comment #80, I had never heard of the Cheviot open coal mine.
However, I have just done a little research and found your point about the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Fund interesting and valid.
However, were you unaware that the Canadian Green Party opposes this mine?
See the website of the Green Party of Canada, click on the tab at the top of the page marked Policy, then click on Vision Green, then click on Preserving and Restoring the Environment, then 3. National Parks (2nd paragraph).
I applaud the fact that you are opposed to this mine.
What are you doing to oppose it?
Don’t you think it is positive that the Canadian green movement (Sierra Club + Green Party of Canada among many others) is so opposed to it?
I’m sure lots of teachers feel very uncomfortable that their pensions are linked to such a destructive plan.
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Mr. Peach,
Sorry, I have the location of the Cheviot mine wrong. It is in western Alberta and on the east side of Jasper national park. The Fording-coal (open-pit) mine is in SE BC, it is of equal concern to environmentalists particularly in regard to wildlife corridors. The major shareholder of Fording-coal is the teachers’ pension plan!
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Mr Lewis. To respond to your original point (Comment #73) about green activists campaigning against things which their savings and financial investments fund, I wonder if you can flesh it out with evidence.
Have you heard of banks like the TRIODOS BANK, which is very popular with green activists?
Look for it on Google and you will find a bank that is determined to change the way that money flows, so that savers fund only projects which match their values.
Triodos Bank ‘only lends to organisations which create real social, environmental and cultural value – charities, social businesses, community projects and environmental initiatives. Each one is a practical and well-grounded initiative dedicated to social aims which benefit the community, care for the environment, respect human freedom and develop individual talents and capacities.’
I’m sure there are banks like this in Canada. If you are campaigning against the mine and want the teachers’ pension plan to move their money, this sort of investment would, I’m sure, be popular with teachers.
With the wealth on information about climate change and environmental destruction in the public domain, I’m sure you would be pushing against an open door, if you were to call on the teachers to move their investments.
What is your job by the way?
You never said exactly.
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In Bali today (11 December, 2007) at the United Nations-sponsored negotiations on climate change, this paragraph has been proposed for the final statement.
The UN spoke of “the unequivocal scientific evidence that preventing the worst impacts of climate change will require parties to the convention (industrialised countries) … as a group to reduce emissions in a range of 25-40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020.”
I’m sure that teachers would be the first to recognize that keeping coal locked in the ground and not releasing it into the atmosphere is vital if we are to prevent runaway climate change.
It is hard to see how we can reduce our emissions by 40% by 2020 if we carry on with the mistakes of the past.
In comment #79 you said ‘if climate change is indeed caused by mankind’.
Yet the UN is using the words ‘unequivocal’.
Returning to the subject of this blog, do you really doubt the scientific consensus, Mr Lewis?
Is this really an intellectually honest and defensible position when the evidence is so overwhelming?
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Mr. Peach,
Teachers’ pension plans have been under public scrutiny for over a decade but the first major campaign (against the plans) came from the Sierra Club of Canada, Greenpeace and the Sierra Youth Coalition in 2004.
“Teachers have become Canada’s coal barons, profiting from asthma, mercury poisoning and global warming” - accordidng to Rob Milling of Greenpeace Canada.
Here are just a few ot the things teachers profit from:
Tobacco; $190 milion in shares in Altria (Phillip Morris) with a history of marketing cigarettes to children.
Oil: Imperial Oil, the Canadian subsidiary of Exxon Mobil known for its careless disregard for the environment. Talisman Energy: known for its role in the Sudan, where government troups used the company’s landing strips and roads to annihilate Christian and animist peoples whose villages were ‘in the way’ of oil exploration.
Water: $916.6 million invested in the Northumbrian Water Group (in Great Britain). Profits have skyrocketed since the takeover by Teachers’. Esval (in Chile)controlling most of the (former) public water supply - now in foreign hands and for the benefit of Canadian teachers’ pensions.
The list goes on and on.
My point of course Mr. Peach is if you and your teacher comrades believe that humans are causing global warming why don’t you do something about your own gigantic carbon footprint?
My job: I’ve spent much of my life either mountain guiding or in outdoors instruction such as rock climbing, skiing and search and rescue; today I own a business in the graphic arts industry.
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I agree with you, Mr Lewis.
Canadian teachers need to get their savings out of fossil fuels and into sustainable technologies, AS DO WE ALL.
Renewables have massive growth potential. The climate change debate has brought about a definite shift in thinking worldwide, and I believe this will lead to radical and unprecedentedly rapid changes in the way we organise our lives.
By highlighting the investments made by Canadian teachers you are helping accelerate the shift, Mr Lewis, and making all of us question the way our money is invested.
The more the issue of climate change is discussed and debated, the swifter the change will be to a sustainable society.
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Mr Lewis, in comment #79 you said ‘Today’s Green movement is a feel good - self-righteous organization of privileged people living in the first world. Who indeed would be the ones to complain if their substantial paycheques didn’t arrive on time or if local or state infrastucture broke down.
And if climate change is indeed caused by mankind these (same)people are amongst the biggest offenders.’
It is a pity that you decided to side-step my request for examples (comment #81) to flesh out this argument, that you decided not to comment on the fact that the Canadian Green Party oppose the Cheviot mine (Comment #82), and that you also avoided answering several of my other questions.
Your principal misunderstanding seems to be that all teachers are green activists.
This is sadly not the case. If only they were…
I totally reject your argument (quoted above).
The people I have met in the green movement are doing their best to walk the talk. Calling them ‘the biggest offenders’ does not do a lot for your credibility.
Environmentalists are fully aware of the challenges ahead and are doing their utmost to spread that knowledge in the hope that their activism will bring about the changes required to prevent catastrophic climate change and mitigate its effects.
Have a look at the site of the Canadian Green Party. Then ask yourself your question again, ‘Who would be the ones to complain … if local or state infrastucture broke down?’
Who is more likely to complain if things DO break down?
People in the Canadian Green Party who spend their time looking the twin challenges of peak oil and climate change squarely in the eye and warning about potential breakdown? People, in other words, trying to make Canada more resilient to peak oil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate the effects of climate change?
Or the people on this thread who are living in denial?
Who is more likely to complain, Mr Lewis? Could you please answer your own question?
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You said the Green movement is ‘a feel good - self-righteous organization of privileged people living in the first world.’
What about the South Korean, Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary General?
On December 12th 2007 he said this of the need for an agreement on climate change this week in Bali,
“The world’s scientists have spoken with one voice: the situation is grim and urgent action is needed.
The situation is so desperately serious that any delay could push us past the tipping point, beyond which the ecological, financial and human costs would increase dramatically.
We are at a crossroads: one path leads to a comprehensive climate change agreement, the other one to oblivion.”
Does South Korea count as the ‘first world’?
Should we ignore what he has to say because he might be ‘privileged’, Mr Lewis?
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30 years ago, in Kenya, 90% of the forest had been chopped down. Without trees to hold the topsoil in place, the land turned to desert.
This state of affairs was stopped by a woman, Wangari Maathai, who started planting trees and teaching Kenyan women and girls to do the same, even paying them to do so.
Soon she organized women all over Kenya to plant trees, and a movement took hold called the Green Belt Movement.
Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt movement were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.
Hers is one of the most important voices in the international green movement.
Yet she doesn’t fit into your caricature of the green movement as ‘privileged people living in the first world’.
Could you possibly comment on this please, Mr Lewis?
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Would you call Wilson Pinheiro, Vicente Cañas, Chico Mendes and Dorothy Stang -all environmental activists murdered because of their activism defending the Amazon rainforest- ‘privileged people living in the first world’, Mr Lewis?
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Mr Lewis, which of these ‘privileged people living in the first world’ has the greatest credibility in the climate change debate?
President George W. Bush, whose contention that carbon dioxide was not a pollutant was rejected in April 2007 by the US Supreme Court?
Or Al Gore, who said this week, that the position of the administration in the US right now appears to be to try to block any progress in Bali?
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My Goodness Mr. Peach, You do have your bloomers in a bowline?
Let’s backtrack a bit.
I was working on humanitarian/environmental projects (in the Balkans) when Al Gore was a kid of 9 - and you were likely a twinkle in ya Daddy’s eye?
So P L e a s e do not take the high-moral-ground with me.
I could’ve, perhaps, done more in the past 50 odd years to help the earth’s environment - but on the other hand - I could’ve done much less.
What I do know is that I became very much aware of the human destruction of the the earth by an instructor at Shrewsbury Technical College in 1956. And have tried to live my life with as little impact ever since.
Your attempts to undermine my views and humiliate me before others on this forum are unfortunate.
You should perhaps take a moment to review exactly what you have written.
I agree there are exceptions to the rule and there are great “greenies” from the first world. But the majority hang on the coat-tails of those that have gone before - and (it seems Mr. Peach) you are one of those!
Have you ever worked in the third world - if so in what capacity?
In my mind the greatest threat to the earth’s environment comes from the Mega financial corporations which invest without any concern for the environment or of any social responsibility.
AT the very top of my list is the teachers’ pension plan
Please comment!
Oh! And by the way. Al Gore lives in a 20 room mansion - Bush on the other hand - in a modest house with solar and other sustainable energy components.
Go Figure!
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Hello again, Mr Lewis.
Nice to have you back again.
Sorry if I sounded a little excitable, but it is so rare for people to actually engage meaningfully with green arguments, that people like me who, you say, ‘hang on to the coat-tails of those who have gone before’, positively leap at the opportunity to debate the issues.
I might get my bloomers back under control if you actually responded to some of the points I made:
1) A request for evidence from you of how, you say, green activists are investing in destroying the earth (#73) when one of the planks of green policy is to make faceless corporations accountable
2) A comment from you after I AGREED (Yes, agreed!) with you about the Ontario Teachers’ Pension plan.
3) A comment from you about the fact that the Canadian Green Party oppose the Cheviot mine, which the teachers’ fund is investing in (#82)
4) A comment from you on ethical investments like the Triodos Bank (#84), which are very popular with green activists. Think of it as one of the ways that we hang on to the coat-tails of those who have gone before.
Could you respond please?
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Perhaps you might also comment on the Canadian Green Party’s policy on economic globalization, which seems to correspond very closely with your views about unaccountable corporations.
You said, ‘In my mind the greatest threat to the earth’s environment comes from the Mega financial corporations which invest without any concern for the environment or of any social responsibility.’
Perhaps, then, you will be interested in the GLOBAL GREENS CHARTER, which chimes absolutely with what you say.
To read it get on to the website of the Canadian Green Party, click on to POLICY, then click on to Global Greens Charter, and look at article 5, the relevant sections of which I have copied for you below:
5.6 Will create a world environment where financial and economic institutions and
organisations will nurture and protect environmentally sustainable projects that will
sustain communities at all levels (local, regional, national and international).
5.7 Demand that international agreements on the environment, labour conditions
and health should take precedence over any international rules on trade.
5.9 Will work to require corporations to abide by the environmental, labour and
social laws of their own country and of the country in which they are operating,
whichever are the more stringent
5.10 Will work to ensure that all global organizations, especially those with
significant capacity to define the rules of international trade, firmly adhere to
principles of sustainable development and pursue a training program of cultural
change to fully realise this goal.
5.11 Want corporate welfare made transparent and subject to the same level of
accountability as social welfare, with subsidies to environmentally and socially
destructive activities phased out altogether.
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You are right to say George W. Bush’s house is sustainable.
However, surely the lack of any concern for the environment or of social responsibility in his POLICIES should preoccupy us just a teensy bit more.
His illegal invasion of Iraq has led to the deaths of anything between 655,000 deaths (as reported in The Lancet, November 2006) and 1.2 million deaths (as recorded by the UK-based polling agency, Opinion Research Business, September 2007).
And his determination to block UN-sponsored climate agreements, using bogus science such as that thrown out by the Supreme Court in April, is nothing short of irresponsible.
I think, in the long run, people will consider Al Gore’s longstanding advocacy of the environment, his immensely influential film, An Inconvenient Truth, and his Nobel Peace Prize as more important than the number of rooms in his house.
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Mr. Peach, You really shouldn’t take a lot of notice of the Greens’ policies - like Al Gore the Greens don’t practise what they preach. I have been aquainted with them for over 25 years - in business, socially and, to a lessor extent, politically. I know personally two of the (former) party candidates. As I’ve pointed out before - the bulk of the Green party is made up of privileged and protected people few of which have any idea of risk or what it is like to be poor.
I certainly don’t support America’s and Britain’s foreign policy - I merely pointed out that Bush’s house is a better example than Gore’s when is comes to the evironment.
Perhaps more than most I’m concerned at what is happening in the middle and far east. I spent quite a bit of time in Afghanistan (Herat) before the Russian invasion. I enjoyed the Afghani people and got to know some of the remote and mountainous areas of the country. How lucky I was compared to the young Canadian, British and American men that must fight and die there.
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Mr Lewis. Although I never ceased to be amazed -and genuinely impressed- at how many different jobs you have done, I am disappointed that you still disregard the positive ways that Greens have contributed to society.
The focus of green policies is on making transnational corporations accountable to the localities and people of the places where they operate.
This chimes with what you said about multinational corporations. Most people would be glad to hear their views being taken up by political parties. Yet you dismiss their policies.
Greens oppose the Cheviot mine, which YOU brought up, yet you still refuse to comment on this.
I agreed with you and support your campaign to get Ontario teachers to get out of coal mining and into something sustainable. Yet you would not say how you are campaigning against this mine or what you think of me agreeing with you on this point.
Greens are pleased to be able to invest in green investments like those offered by the Triodos Bank, because they want to see their investments reflect their values, contrary to what you were saying about greens not practising what they preach. Could you comment on this this time?
I understand what you said about George Bush’s house, but I’m still not sure what you think about George W Bush’s POLICIES on the environment. Do you think trying to scupper the Bali climate change conference was a responsible position? The delegates at the conference from the other 180 or so countries certainly didn’t.
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Mr. Peach,
On Wednesday I joined an old friend on the ski hill. He is now about 85 years old and he, at least in my mind, has done quite a bit for the environment. In the late 30s he took over his father’s blacksmith’s shop. In the following years he manufactured sawmills and eventually designed a comuterized system that produced the most timber with as little wastage out of each log (or tree).
My company assisted a little bit in the marketing area by producing the visual graphics for the machinery and the translations for the information brochures going to the shows etc., in Brazil, Chile, Germany etc.
Getting the most (lumber) out of each tree in our forests is important - you must admit.
My friend’s view on global warming … “…. if they can’t tell us what tomorrow’s weather is - then they can’t tell us what it will be like in another 20 years!”
It is always refreshing to hear a realistic view after listening to the pompous moralizing of academics!
To prove my friend’s point re. weather. Yesterday we woke up to some 10 inches of snow - the forecast was for a few flurries.
The skliing - well it’s just great!
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Thanks for that, Mr Lewis.
It’s a shame you have chosen to side-step the questions I posed and that you engage with not a single one of my arguments, even when I highlighted some common ground between us.
And I’m sorry if you think I am ‘pompous’.
If the warnings of the world’s scientists count for nothing next to the home truths of your 85 year-old friend, then it’s very hard to know what to say to you except Happy Christmas.
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Likewise Mr. Peach - a Happy Christmas.
Oh - and I didn’t have you in mind regarding the pompous fellows.
I will answer your questions in a day or two - meanwhile we have had another 10 inches of snow so I hope to get into the backcountry. After which I will be in even better humour.
Cheers…..T.
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Mr Lewis, what do you and/or your 85 year-old friend think of Nicholas Stern’s 6 recommendations taken up and publicised on 29th November 2007 by the Canadian Green Party just before the international climate negotiations in Bali?
Nicholas Stern, as you probably know, is the former World Bank chief economist whose paper on the economics of climate change for the British Government showed the world just how grim the implications of not addressing climate change were.
He recommended
- 80 per cent reductions in global emissions by 2050
- Better carbon-trading system
- Major reform of Kyoto’s Clean Development Mechanism
- Anti-deforestation campaign
- Rapid advance on technologies for electricity generation
- 0.7 per cent GDP in aid from first to developing world by 2015
It would be great to have some clear answers from you -or your friend- on the main topic of this thread, in the absence of answers to my earlier questions.
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Quote
My friend’s view on global warming … “…. if they can’t tell us what tomorrow’s weather is - then they can’t tell us what it will be like in another 20 years!”
This is a misunderstanding of statistics and trends compared with short term waether variations.
Put another way, I can’t tell you exactly what the temperature will be on any day of this year’s Summer. Nor can I tell you what the temperature will be on any day of this Winter. I can tell you that this year’s Summer will be warmer than this Winter though.
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Mr. Peach,
To answer one of your many questions:
It is all very well for the Sierra club to challenge the OTPP for its unethecical investment programme but for individuals it is another matter.
The teachers’ unions here have enormous political and economic clout and those of us who question their policies must be extremely careful. I have, nevertheless, penned many letters to the editor on this subject and have had four published to date. I have one coming up on their investments in the tobacco industry - we’ll see if it gets published.
Moreover, students who question their policies are also singled out with attempts to stifle their (students’) critical thinking skills. This happened to my daughter who was in grade 11 at the time. The president of the provincial union went so far as to send her a letter - which I still have!!!
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Good to have you back, Mr Lewis.
I thought we had lost you for a couple of weeks and by the third week I thought that you were NEVER going to engage with the points you repeatedly side-stepped earlier.
Even after your return, it seems that you are determined to deny the fact that we were in the middle of a discussion, and that -while I had attempted to engage with your arguments and had even found some common ground that we could agree on- you chose to side-step my arguments and rebuttals.
You even ignored Harvey Unwin’s point that your friend clearly misunderstands the difference between short- and long-term weather variations.
Could you engage with these important points now, Mr Lewis?
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It’s very hard for me to comment on the OTPP, beyond what I have written already on their fossil fuel investments and -without seeing the letter, you say, your daughter received - I would not want to comment on that case.
Like your DIY solar panel, your daily bike ride from Shrewsbury to Wolverhampton and your exploits in Afghanistan, I will just take your word for it.
However, there is a problem with your argument.
If a newspaper editor is willing to publish 4 letters from one individual exposing OTPP investments, it rather undermines your argument that the OTPP has ‘enormous political and economic clout’, doesn’t it?
In the climate change debate, the players with the ‘enormous political and economic clout’ are not the teachers’ unions but the hydrocarbon and the automobile industry.
I think any attempt to divert attention from the big players in this debate rather punctures your credibility, Mr Lewis.
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Mr. Peach,
Please excuse me but I’ve had an incedibly busy schedule over the Christmas and post-Christmas period - unable to take any time to get into the backcountry and recharge my batteries. Hence very little time to continue this debate.
However, I certainly feel extremely offended if you are suggesting that what I have written is untruthful, you discredit yourself - not me - and that is no way to carry on a civilized, honest debate on this issue.
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Apologies. I’m sorry if you feel I am impugning your integrity.
There is so much mis-information about climate change put about by vested interests (documented in Sharon Beder’s excellent book, GLOBAL SPIN), that one would be foolish to take at face value every claim, which is not instantly verifiable.
However, to get back to the subject of this string, CLIMATE CHANGE, my view is that it is better for the quality of the debate to discuss things which are in the public domain, and which can easily be checked for their veracity.
Like Harvey Unwin, whose argument you again ignore, I tend to feel that long-term weather patterns give us more of an idea of the overall situation than taking your word for it that a snow dump in Canada means we are wrong to be concerned about climate change.
And I personally also feel that the scientific consensus on climate change in the peer-reviewed journals is more persuasive than the insights of your 85-year-old skiing partner.
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Finally can I suggest that the best way to carry on a civilised, honest dabate about climate change is for us both to engage with each other’s arguments.
I have made an attempt to do that with your points.
You, on the other hand, have studiously avoided doing so with my points and questions.
So I ask once again, by now more in hope than expectation, for some answers/comments/arguments from you on these questions:
1) A request for evidence from you of how, you say, green activists are investing in destroying the earth (#73) when one of the planks of green party policy across the world is to make destructive corporations accountable
2) A comment from you on the fact that I AGREED with you that the OTTP should move its savings out of fossils and into renewables.
3) A comment from you about the fact that the Canadian Green Party oppose the Cheviot mine, which you also oppose
4) A comment from you on ethical investments like the Triodos Bank (#84), which are very popular with green activists.
5) A comment on the international Green Party’s policy on economic globalization, which seems to correspond very closely with your views about making unaccountable corporations answerable to the local people in the places where they operate.
6) Which is the biggest threat to the world’s climate: the world’s hydrocarbon industry employing PR firms to spread confusion about man-made climate change OR the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan? Are you not trying to divert attention with this?
7) Do you think long-term patterns or short-term weather variations are a more reliable indicator of a changing climate?
I’m glad that the man who says I have ‘no understanding of the world outside the classroom’ (Comment #73) and that my party, the Green Party, is ‘full of pompous old farts’ (Comment #77) would like this debate to become more civilized.
Please help me avoid getting my ‘bloomers in a bowline’ again by addressing one or more of the questions above.
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Well - it is nice to be back on line. Inclement weather ( the temerature dropped to some -50c just north of here) my server seems to have been on vacation (I can’t blame him) my emails weren’t going through, and to add to this drama my wife spilled her red wine over the keyboard. Getting a new keyboard is a lot more difficult in this neck of the woods than, perhaps - in dear old Shrophire.
Now, Mr. Peach, in regards to the ‘pompous old farts’ comment I would have to say that if anybody called me a pompous old fart I might well agree. For a start I’m old (remember I was at school during the 2nd world war) I admit that I’m pompous, but, whatismore I have great experience in grinding an axe.
It could well be an Austrian Stubai axe that I used to chop countless steps for my buddies and clients when climbing such peaks as the Jungfrau, Eiger, Matterhorn or Mt. Cook. On the other hand the broad axe that I used to shave the perlons and floor joists of my log cabin which I built from the cedar logs cut from my own property. But, most likely it was simply to cut the wood to feed into the wood stove which heated my family’s home.
Then, again, Mr. Peach my comment about you not understanding the world outside of your (heated - if you remember) classroom was of course intended - to bring you out - as it were. You could’ve, just as an example, explained to all of us on this list, exactly what you have done to assist the world and indeed mankind in hampering the arrival of … armageddon. Besides riding your bicycle for five minutes each day (to your heated classroom) we are none the wiser. Is it possible that you have - put ya money where your mouth is - and risked your short life’s savings, given up your cosy income of course, and invested in some kind of sustainable energy. You know, geothermal, solar , windpower - whatever. But so far you have not included the members of the forum in your endeavours. Do please entlighten us.
Now, as regards the dreaded OTPP and why I use them as an example:
The first thing is that our government uses taxpayers’ dollars (therfore my dollars) to supplement the teachers’ pension plan. So it is my money they are investing. Therefore, Mr. Peach, I must have my say. Don’t you think?
Moreover, I never refer to the OTPP in my letters - common sense should tell you that - da!
As I have explained to you several times: you cannot point fingers at anybody unless you walk the talk. Visibly well fed (or should I say overfed) people like your friend Al Gore hold no weight with thinking people who have nature and the environment at heart and have a life long love of the nature.
My guess is Mr. Peach that you and your kind will continue to live the life of Riley and would never take any risks (have you ever perhaps mortgaged your house in order to pay your staff?) to further the cause of a better more suststainable world environment.
But then I live in a very differnt world - out here closely connected to nature - not one that you could possibly understand.
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Good to have you back after another long absence, Mr Lewis.
I was starting to wonder whether your bête noire, the ‘powerful’ OTTP, might have kidnapped you after one of your 5 letters outlining their investments was published in the local press(Comment #104).
But then, as I said earlier, your credibility is starting to look very shaky, anyway. On this point, too.
In Comment #101 (Christmas Day), you said ‘I will answer your questions in a day or two’
You didn’t answer them.
In fact in over a month you still haven’t answered them.
Even in your 6 paragraphs above, you don’t touch on a single one of the arguments/questions/comments I requested from you.
Could you do so now, please, in order to retain any credibility in this debate?
Otherwise we will have to conclude that when you say ‘I will answer your questions in a day or two’ you in fact mean ‘I am not going to answer ANY of your questions, even Harvey Unwin’s one about long-term patterns being better indicators of climate change than short-term weather variations’.
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Could you also help me out here?
Which of your comments below should readers believe?
1) In Comment #104 you said that you had a letter coming up about OTTP investments in the tobacco industry.
2) In Comment #110 you say ‘I never refer to the OTPP in my letters - common sense should tell you that - da!’
Which one of these is the true one, Mr Lewis?
Or if they are both true, how do you write letters about OTTP investments to the press without mentioning the OTTP?
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You asked what I am doing to prevent climate change.
ENERGY: Most carbon emissions come from energy.
We save energy at home by using energy-saving lightbulbs and get our electricity from a company called GOOD ENERGY.
If you look at their website you will see that all of the electricity that Good Energy supplies, comes from renewable sources.
Last summer we had our roof repaired and invested a lot in extra insulation, using local lambswool. This should also cut down on heat loss.
—————
TRANSPORT: We have made a commitment as a family to avoid flying, if practicable alternatives exist.
We have a car, but we try to get around as much as possible by bike or on foot. Shrewsbury is really good for that -social and friendly- and will get better still after the Sustrans bike network is extended.
POLITICS: I am a member of a party with nearly 40 years of policy-making on these sorts of issues. Mainstream parties are picking up and running with Green Party policies on things like carbon-budgeting and contraction and convergence. That shows just how vital pompous old farts are.
Wouldn’t you agree, Mr Lewis?
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Now that I have responded to your points, could you now answer those 7 questions in Comment #109?
‘I will answer your questions in a day or two’ won’t wash any more, I’m afraid.
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Mr.Peach, When I asked about your efforts in the area of climate change I wasn’t thinking of things such as wool-in-the-attic, but more in the lines of a wonderful fellow who lives a stones-throw from my home. Dave Birmingham is his name, and at 92 can still clearly remember the very first voyage of the “Greenpeace” or Phillis Cormack - as the vessel was called at that time. Without regard for his own safety he(and his shipmates) journeyed up the BC coast and across the Gulf of Alaska to Amchitka Island - protesting the imminent nuclear test (250 times the size of the Hiroshima bomb). That was the birth of Greenpeace of course.
Let’s face it Mr. Peach! The British are latecomers when it comes to any concern for the environment. Visiting Great Britain in 1973 I was somewhat dismayed at the attitudes of British people most of whom seemed totally unconcerned about pollution etc. How long have you, Mr. Peach, been involved with environmental issues?
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Mr. Peach - (hoping that this post goes through) you are beginning to sound more and more like Tomas de Torquemada (inquisitor general of the Global Warming inquisition).
But - nevertheless I will answer a few of your interrogative qusestions.
Let’s start with your friends at the OTPP.
Whenever I write accusing them of this or that - you know - investing in coutries such as the Sudan with its brutal regime in Khartoum, I use, instead of OTPP .. unions’ pension plans, or teachers’ pension plans etc. And whilst I don’t expect to be kidnapped they do have enough supporters to make one’s life difficult - especially those of us who work in small business.
And what do we know about Nick Stern? Not much - but he does have many critics even within his own faculty. Maybe you could name some of those for the benefit of other readers Mr.Peach! What is most likely is that he lives higher off the hog than most of us - which should make his argument - invalid?
Amongst several reasons that I don’t get back to you as promptly as I perhaps should, is a continuing involvement in promoting a less destructive lifestyle - especially amongst young people. The past weekend I spent with teenagers from overseas and introduced them to our mountain environment and encouraged self-propelled recreation such as snowshoes, skis how to build snow caves etc. This kind of influence could have a long term benefit - fostering a love of the outdoors - nature etc.
So far you haven’t explained your committment to this earth we live in (wool, bikes and less airplane rides don’t really count). You are obviously not prepared to take any serious risk in developing new techniques in - well whatever - be it windmills or solar energy. Perhaps too afraid of losing your shirt - or your life as part of the crew say of the Rainbow Warrior.
Mr. Peach neither your views nor your lifestyle will assist addressing environmental issues and concerns in any meaningful manner. Perhaps it’s time for change and you gave up your very compfortable existence and joined people like Dave Birmingham - the real heroes of the green movement.
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Astonishing, but true.
Despite 9 days waiting for answers to 7 questions, the above is all we got -more diversionary tactics, taking us away from the fact that you, Mr Lewis, are incapable of answering simple questions, which any ordinary person would find completely unthreatening.
Here they are again.
1) Could you please give EVIDENCE of how, YOU SAY, green activists are investing in destroying the earth (#73) when one of the planks of green thinking across the world is to make destructive corporate practices transparent and make the responsible corporations accountable.
2) Did you notice that I AGREED with you that the OTTP should move its savings out of fossils and into renewables?
3) You oppose the Cheviot mine. The Canadian Green Party oppose the Cheviot mine. Do you not think it is a positive development that a political party is opposing this damaging development?
4) What do you think of the banks and ethical investments which Greens invest in? Is this not a positive delopment which could -if generalised - start to change thew way that money flows? See comments on Triodos Bank (#84).
5) Do you not regard it as positive that the international Green Party’s policy on economic globalization corresponds very closely with your views about making unaccountable corporations answerable to the local people in the places where they operate.
6) Which is the biggest threat to the world’s climate: the world’s hydrocarbon industry employing PR firms to spread confusion about man-made climate change OR the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan? Are you not trying to divert attention with this?
7) Do you think long-term patterns or short-term weather variations are a more reliable indicator of a changing climate?
An answer to these questions would be nice for me.
But surely, from your point of view, some answer is vital for your credibility in this debate.
I look forward to hearing from you.
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In Comment #86, you said, ‘My point of course Mr. Peach is if you and your teacher comrades believe that humans are causing global warming why don’t you do something about your own gigantic carbon footprint?’
Above in #113 I attempted to show how I AM trying to do something about my carbon footprint.
In #116 you said that my family sourcing our electricity entirely from renewables, supporting local sheep farmers, cycling and avoiding the most carbon-intensive mode of transport (flying) ‘doesn’t count’ and concluded, ‘Mr. Peach neither your views nor your lifestyle will assist addressing environmental issues and concerns in any meaningful manner.’
I would be really grateful if you could explain to readers of this thread, (and, in absentia, the millions of people who are taking small but important steps to cut their carbon footprint), which of these 2 contradictory statements you really mean.
I think, like you in #86, that I should be doing something about my carbon footprint. You are right to expect me to be practising what I preach.
And at the same time I totally reject your view that this will have no effect.
You seem to expect a lot of me, yet dismiss real attempts to cut carbon.
Could you explain this contradiction?
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Dave Birmingham’s actions on behalf of Greenpeace were truly inspiring to millions of people.
Greenpeace’s call on their international website for a green industrial revolution is similarly exciting and inspiring.
Surely it would inspire someone like you who claims to be concerned with pollution.
I will quote Greenpeace’s vision for tackling climate change just to give you a flavour:
‘We want you to take part in an energy revolution. To go from a world powered by nuclear and fossil fuels to one running on renewable energy.’
(Bearing in mind your denial that climate change is a problem, this next bit might be interesting for you)
‘Human caused climate change is a reality.
Fortunately, there are proven energy solutions we can put to use today to provide sustainable development and energy for all.
Will this energy transformation occur rapidly enough to avert the worst effects of a warming world? You will help decide the answer to that question.’
You cite a Greenpeace activist as a true green hero. Could you please give some comment on Greenpeace’s long-standing climate change campaign as their appears to be a rather stark contradiction.
Could you also comment on Greenpeace’s excellent work exposing the way that Exxon and other oil companies have funded PR companies and think tanks to deny climate change (Google Exxonsecrets to read the full exposé).
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Mr. Peach,
Why don’t you give everybody a break on this forum by walking the talk instead of your silly claims about climate change. You work (if you can call teaching modern languages to high school kids work) in an industry that is - at best wasteful. You expect a living standared far above others in your community - and then claim you are involved in the environmental movement. Cut the crap - for goodness sake. Admit that you have done nothing meaningful to advance the environmental movement - and instead continued your self-serving role as at teacher in the thoroughyly wasteful public service - unionized education system of Geat Britain!
Perhaps if you left your green a and soggy island for a year or two you would understand what it takes to be a true member of the environmental movement - but as I said before - wool in the nether regions of your household doesn’t count.
Try gettin’ ya hands dirty for once you might learn something about the world we share - but on the other hand - I doubt you’d be prepared to leave a lifestyle that provides a fancy income, holidays and benefits that most of the world’s population can only dream of.
Bah humbug!
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Mr Lewis, you said, ‘Visiting Great Britain in 1973 I was somewhat dismayed at the attitudes of British people most of whom seemed totally unconcerned about pollution etc. How long have you, Mr. Peach, been involved with environmental issues?’
In answer to your question, I have been interested since the late 70s, when an eloquent classmate stood for the Ecology Party (which later became the Green Party) in a mock election at my school in the late 1970s. Greenpeace campaigns to stop the dumping of radioactive waste in the North Sea were also very inspiring to me, and their campaigning on global warming at the end of the 1980s was very compelling.
Returning to your point about Brits not being concerned about pollution in 1973, I would be interested in your view on the myopic lack of concern about climate change displayed 34 years later by Chris, Paul Biggs, Peter Roberts, Bruce Young, Bob Dennish, Andrew and Andy L (earlier on this thread).
These people are thankfully highly untypical, but what do you think of their lack of concern about pollution today?
Scientists tell us greenhouse gases are rapidly transforming the world’s oceans by increasing the temperature and acidity of seawater, and altering atmospheric and oceanic circulation.
If you were truly concerned about pollution in 1973, I would be ’somewhat dismayed’ if you were not concerned about the effects of ever-increasing greenhouse gases in 2008.
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All people who want to do their bit for the environment find their own particular niche.
Some -like Dave Birmingham- are activists, who protest and demonstrate, some carry out experiments and publish their scientific observations in journals which are then reviewed by other scientists, some use those observations to lobby for change in policies, some campaign in elections on a green platform, some send money to green groups, some invest in green energies and buy environmentally-friendly products, and some carry out the slow, but effective work of education.
Now I know that in your eyes, teaching is not real work (Comment #120). And in your eyes saying this sort of thing to a teacher, rather than engaging with the teacher’s arguments, is the way to carry out a ‘civilised, honest debate’ (Comment #107).
However, education about green issues has brought about a massive change in UK culture -as you will testify- since 1973. And being rude to teachers in 2008 is not going to change that, I’m afraid.
The massive change has happened because the issues have been discussed in schools and in the media, the EVIDENCE has been weighed up, arguments and counter-arguments have been produced and the kids have come to their own conclusions.
Any schoolkid used to classroom discussion would realise that debaters who refuse to engage with arguments, rely on invective, and who cannot substantiate claims with evidence, end up looking rather foolish in front of their peers because their credibility by the end of the debate is in tatters.
Your continued refusal to engage with simple, unthreatening questions, I’m afraid, puts you in that category, Mr Lewis.
Oh and, by the way, ‘nether’ means ‘lower’. The sheep’s wool is not ‘in the nether regions’ of our household, but in the ‘upper regions’, under the roof.
There.
You’ve learnt a new word.
That’s the beauty of education.
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Thank you so much Mr. Peach for improving my vocabulary, I believe in life long learning! However, pedagogical methods in Shrophire seem to have changed little in the past 60 years. Rather than engage students by fostering good relationships teachers obviously prefer the “let’s make an exmample of this dunce because he can’t spell niedergeschlagen”. Pity!
This is likely the reason so many Shropshire Lads have difficulty reading and writing - check out the emails on the various Shropshire forums and you may get my point!
You suggest that I don’t believe or agree with (an) education - but forget that like most people of my generation an education was hard won. Most of us went to schools that had few amentities and certainly no posh libraries or wonderful text books that one finds in schools today. At age 15 we were shipped off to work in factories and scoffed at if we had other ambitions.
That’s why I had to make the 30 mile (bicycle) trek to Wolverhampton College of Art when I was 16 - to try and improve on my education - I took typing, shorthand, German, French as well as the standard City and Guilds courses - that - after working 40 to 48 hours in the factory. At age 17 I begged (summer) time off to work for UN in Austria and Greece - that’s what education is really about Mr. Peach - not sitting in a classroom listening to a pedantic schoolmaster.
Nevertheless, this part-time education enabled me to get work in places such as Heidelberg, Vorarlberg, Bern, Grisons and Vaud - places where I improved my language skills - as well as other skills including ski instructor and mountain guide. I also continued to go to Greece whenever I had the chance to help out a bit down there.
A beautiful education…..?
When my kids started school in the 1980s I revisited some of my earlier studies so that I had a better understanding of the public system. I read Rousseau’s “Emile” and had another look at the influence of Pestalozzi through his experimental schools in Burgdorf and Yverdon. In particular to this continent was the progressive movement - started by John Dewey.
All of this, and much more, has given me an insight into the public system of schools today - both here, in Great Britain and of course Germany and Switzerland.
I remain a critic of public systems - the criticism Mr. Peach is well deserved.
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Thanks for that, Mr Lewis.
I thought it only fair to be a little pedantic with you, when one of your first contributions (Comment #74) criticised the manager of this website for not spelling correctly.
Is this not a case of the pot calling the kettle black?
Surely, though, when we are discussing vitally important subjects like climate change, it is important to get the detail right.
How can we arrive at the truth in the end of this debate if the facts are not accurate?
Goethe said ‘A clever man commits no minor blunders.’
I try to be rigorous with the people I teach on grammar, punctuation and spelling.
Aren’t you contradicting yourself, when you criticise me for being too punctilious, then in the same breath making me responsible for Shropshire’s poor spelling.
Anyway this is all totally unimportant compared to the subject of this thread: CLIMATE CHANGE.
I am not going to be distracted by any more red herrings and diversionary tactics from you.
You have refused to answer any of my 7 questions above.
Could you then just answer Harvey Unwin’s simple and unthreatening question on this subject:
DO YOU THINK LONG-TERM WEATHER PATTERNS OR SHORT-TERM WEATHER VARIATIONS ARE A MORE RELIABLE INDICATOR OF A CHANGING CLIMATE?
Further invective towards me and a refusal to engage with arguments will not look good for you, I’m afraid.
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Oh Dear Mr. Peach,
My somewhat humorous chiding of a professional’s spelling was not the least offensive. And after all, as an advertizer, buyer and reader (you know a paying customer) I feel that I have a right to - complain! As you would if the plumber you’d paid to fix a leaky faucet didn’t do a good job.
My grammar and use of English is, as I well know, not perfect. But then, unlike you and the site manager, I’m not a professional, also I am not paid to write on this forum - though it is certainly a privilege.
Your criticism of my use of language was sarcastic rather than witty. Pity.
You then start shouting (using caps). Given that I do live on the other side of the Atlantic and on the Pacific side of the Rocky mountains I can still hear you quite well. Moreover, loud language usually denotes anger. I have always considered anger to be a negative force!
You ask for facts: Fifty years ago DDT was invented by scientists and we all know the tragic consequences. Five hundred years ago scientists believed the earth was flat. Galileo was imprisoned because he had other theories.
Thirty years ago scientists invented Agent Orange - sometimes I think the world would be a better place without some of our scientists.
Indeed, science is, at best, a humble art - there are no facts or figures Mr. Peach.
If you think I have used ‘invective’ towards you - you are surely mistaken. Frankness and transparency yes - indeed Mr. Peach we are all hypocrites when it comes to the environment - and the sooner we all realize this the better.
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OK, let’s try small letters to see if it is any more effective about getting a response from you.
Do you think long-term weather patters or short-term weather variations are a more reliable indicator of a changing climate?
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Still no reply?
What is so difficult about this question, Mr Lewis?
Is it the fact that your position would be untenable if you answered it?
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In comment #120 you lectured me, ‘Perhaps if you left your green a and soggy island for a year or two you would understand what it takes to be a true member of the environmental movement.’
Talking of leaving islands, I wonder if you could comment about the people, who have been forced to leave their islands against their will because of rising waters, caused by global warming: TUVALU (South Pacific), LOHACARA (India) (as reported in The Independent on Christmas Eve 2006) and most recently the CARTERET ISLANDS (Papua New Guinea).
The people of the Carteret islands –with no cars and no electricity- have contributed little to the environmental pollution which is contributing to global warming.
In your view of the world, people who are ‘higher off the hog than the rest of us’ cannot possibly have valid opinions (your comment #116).
As you are definitely ‘higher off the hog’ than these climate refugees, I wonder what you think of these words from Bernard Tunim, chief of Piul Island in the Carterets, who blames global warming for the plight of his people.
He said ‘We are victims of something we are not responsible for.’ (as reported in the latest edition of the New Internationalist magazine in the Currents section)
Do you think that these climate refugees are, in your words, ‘silly’ when they make this claim, Mr Lewis? Or is your opinion on this subject invalid because you are higher off the hog than them?
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When the World Health Organisation reports that 150,000 people die every year as a result of climate change, and that these people tend to be the poorest people living in the developing world, do you not think that ‘true members of the environmental movement’ should be SHOUTING ABOUT THIS?
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At a conference on climate and migration in Geneva on February 19 organised by your former employers, the United Nations, speakers said climate change threatens the human rights of millions of people who are at risk of losing access to housing, food and clean water unless governments intervene early to counter its effects.
According to Kyung-wha Kang, the U.N. deputy high commissioner for human rights, rising sea levels and intense storms, droughts and floods could force scores of people from their homes and off their lands — some permanently.
“Ultimately climate change may affect the very right to life of various individuals,” she said, pointing to threats of hunger, malnutrition, exposure to disease and lost livelihoods, particularly in poor rural areas dependent on fertile soil.
Kang, a South Korean, said countries had an obligation “to prevent and address some of the direst consequences that climate change may reap on human rights”.
These are some of the poorest people on the planet, Mr Lewis.
I agree with Kang that dealing with climate change is a moral obligation.
Could you explain why you don’t.
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Mr. Peach - I’ve not been avoiding your questions
but have not been able to get into this site/page for several weeks. It could be due to a very cold winter here and unusually heavy snowfalls in the Rocky Mountains - blocking highways etc. But I will get back to you - promise!
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I’ve waited 3 days for your promise to materialise. As you have been unable to answer any questions since before Christmas, it is perhaps not surprising that you have not got back to me.
Perhaps when you do attempt to do this, as you have promised, you can give your comment on reports in yesterday’s news that the world’s glaciers, which billions depend on for drinking water, agriculture, industry and power generation, are melting at an alarming rate.
According to your former employers, the United Nations, the rate at which some of the world’s glaciers are melting has more than doubled.
Average glacial shrinkage has risen from 30 centimetres per year between 1980 and 1999, to 1.5 metres in 2006.
Achim Steiner, Under-Secretary General of the UN and executive director of its environment programme (UNEP), says: “There are many canaries emerging in the climate change coal mine. The glaciers are perhaps among those making the most noise and it is absolutely essential that everyone sits up and takes notice.’
I assume you live higher up the hog than the billions who depend on the glaciers, Mr Lewis.
Is it not incumbent on those who live higher up the hog to do their bit to alleviate the problems of those less fortunate than them?
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My goodness Mr. Peach - I thought I’d explained the reason for my not getting back to you on this; the site/page was not available for a month, maybe more. Besides that, I obviously live a far busier and perhaps more fruitful life than you do so I’m not able to devote quite as much time to this topic as you obviously do.
As regards small islands in the Pacific and glaciers I assisted geologists in the early 1970s measuring the depth, growth and, recession of glaciers in New Zealand’s Westland and Mt.Cook national parks. At about that time I joined with other likeminded people in opposing nuclear tests on south Pacific islands. Where were you and the British people - kow-towing to the French because you knew which side your bread was buttered on?
Regarding long term and short term weather forecasts: My - 85 year old friend’s tongue in cheek comment was meant to - what do the Brits say? Take the Michael! And here we are again - Mr. Peach - getting excited. Woolly for you Mr. Peach if you can’t take a little bit of what you so fondly dishout.
But as I’ve said several times already - though I doubt that you listen (listening is not exactly something teachers are very good at) to be squeaky green you have to walk the talk - if I live high-off-the-hog then you most certainly live much, much higher.
But if you are trying to win friends and influence people try another tactic - you have failed - could it be your - method?
Just asking!
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You claim –absurdly- that listening is something that teachers are not good at.
So how good are you at listening?
The IPCC won the Nobel Peace Prize in December 2007.
Its warnings on climate change have been in the public domain since as far back as 1988.
Have you been listening to its findings?
Evidently not.
You claim you worked on a study of New Zealand glaciers.
So hopefully you are aware that in the last 30 years, NZ’s glaciers have lost almost 11 per cent - 5.8 cubic kilometres - of their ice, according to research released in November 2007 by the National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (Niwa).
Niwa said ‘the warming climate is responsible’.
Are you listening, Mr Lewis?
The Plymouth Marine Laboratory has done research (reported in the Daily Telegraph on 4th November 2007) which shows that the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is causing the oceans to grow more acidic as increasing amounts of the gas dissolve in sea water.
Climate change is therefore likely to have a profound effect on human ability to use the oceans as a source of food.
The fishing industry will struggle to find supplies of scallops, mussels and oysters because these shellfish use calcium carbonate to make their shells; the more carbon dioxide in the ocean, the less carbonate is available to those organisms that use it.
Are you listening, Mr Lewis?
If you had listened –or even read- my comment #121, you would realise that I had not even been born when the first French nuclear tests took place in 1966.
I did write letters to protest at the French nuclear tests in 1995.
But the French government didn’t listen.
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Do I hear the g-nashing of teeth coming from the mother country - skimming the Atlantic and over the Rocky and Selkirk mountains to grind to a halt here on the western slopes of the magnificent mountain chain that separates this great continent?
Must be Mr. Peach again! And again he tries to insult - by questioning my honesty - about my assistance in glacial data on the Franz Joseph and Tasman Glaciers in the Southern Alps. Too bad.
Yes - we all know that glaciers are receding Mr. Peach - in fact I will be in the Selkirks this coming Saturday on the Illacillawaet and Sapphire glaciers - I have seen the changes over the past 30 years. However, it seems that this year with the huge snowfall that perhaps, just perhaps, there might be a slight reversal to the trend.! Let’s hope so.
Mr. Peach - I assure you that you are far more removed from the affects of climate change than we are here in interior BC. Here the economy still relies very much on lumber. Because of warmer winters the infestation of the pine beatle has virtually destroyed the pine forests in this province. It is incredibly sad to see the forests turn a kind of rusty-red. It is also sad to see the mills close laying off hundreds of workers in towns whose lifeblood is the forest industry.
Forest fires are also a consequence (of pine beatle infestation) and a few years ago we evacuated our town, including, of course, the sick and the dying.
The Greens’ answer to this is to introduce a carbon tax. And what will this do. It will help destroy small business, it will hurt families getting by on minumum wage - and relying on food banks for many of their meals.
Of course it will make the Greens, sitting in their offices in warmer climbs such as Victoria and Vancouver - and earning ten to twenty times the minimum wage, feel just that much more smug about what they have done to reduce carbon emisions - and ’save the planet’…
Humbug! ..Bah humbug.
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No gnashing of teeth from me, Mr Lewis; just a statement of the facts, motivated by a desire to see the truth about climate change prevail in this debate.
If you heard teeth-gnashing, it seems that your listening skills are deceiving you -again.
You admitted, ‘we all know that glaciers are receding’.
It is encouraging that even you couldn’t deny that glaciers are melting rapidly.
However, your hope that ‘perhaps, just perhaps’ this trend was reversing flies in the face of the facts, and is thus totally unconvincing.
To see just how out of touch you are with the real situation, just Google the World Glacier Monitoring Service, a service supported by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
You are right. The glaciers are receding, and the world needs to do something about it.
The UN, your former employer, wants massive cuts in carbon emissions. If you don’t like the carbon tax, how would you bring about these needed carbon cuts?
Billions of people depend directly or indirectly on these glaciers for drinking water, agriculture, industry and power generation, so I hope that you will also concede that cutting carbon emissions worldwide is vital for the future livelihoods of these people.
I spoke about research into the acidification of the oceans, and that increased carbon emissions were causing this problem.
I pointed out that ocean acidification could put our food supply from the oceans and the livelihoods of shellfish-dependent communities at risk.
To reverse this trend we need to reverse the growth in carbon emissions. How would you cut carbon, without using fiscal tools, Mr Lewis?
I spoke about the IPCC whose 2007 report highlighted simultaneous changes in sea ice, glaciers, droughts, forest fires (which afflicted your community), floods, ecosystems, ocean acidification and wildlife migration.
What really worries the scientists is that we are already seeing these major disruptions despite having only increased CO2 by 30% since pre-industrial periods.
The IPCC recommends radical cuts in carbon emissions. Do you agree with the UN, the IPCC and the world’s governments at Bali last year that we have to drastically reduce carbon emissions?
And if so, how would you do it equitably, so that the poor, and those on minimum wages, are not hurt unduly by government action?
I cannot speak for the Canadian Green Party, but the Green Party of England and Wales does not support a carbon tax. Instead it supports the Contraction and Convergence model as a method of reducing carbon emissions worldwide.
Within Britain the Green Party supports a system of tradable carbon quotas. A proportion of the quotas would be distributed on a per head basis. The remainder would be sold to firms and organizations. The quotas would be reduced on a year by year basis in line with the ‘Contraction and Convergence’ model.
Solutions like this are not dreamed up by smug people sitting in offices, but by people who want to ensure that the response to climate change is fair and equitable.
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I ought just to clarify the taxation point.
Any carbon tax brought in by the Green Party of England and Wales would be offset by the phasing out of VAT, which we feel puts a disproportionate burden on small and medium sized businesses.
Very broadly, this carbon tax, among other eco-taxes will aim to correct the existing market so that the price of goods and services
reflects, more accurately, the ‘externalities’ and environmental costs of production and consumption.
Their aim is to encourage behaviour that contributes to long term sustainability.
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Oh Dear Mr. Peach,
How about the ‘behaviour’ of the education industry. Likely the most ‘misbehaved’ industry on the planet - especially when it comes to (over consumption) of fossil fuels.
It would be kinda nice if you (and your comrades) looked some unpleasant truths in the face and admitted the failings and impacts of your own industry on the earth’s eco-systems.
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Great to have you back in this predictably one-sided discussion on climate change, Mr Lewis.
However, your last contribution is more absurd than anything you have said thus far.
For you, this represents quite a nadir.
Here is a breakdown of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (CO2, methane + nitrous oxide) for the year 2000 from the latest IPCC report on climate change(2007).
Power stations: 21%
Industry: 16.8%
Transport: 14%
Agricultural byproducts: 12.5%
Fossil fuel retrieval + processing + distribution: 11.3%
Residential, commercial property: 10.3%
Land use and biomass burning: 10%
Waste disposal and treatment: 3.4%
No mention of education for some reason or other…..
Could you provide some evidence for your absurd claim that schools are the biggest threat to the stability of the world’s climate or finally admit with your silence that your position is now completely untenable?
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I doubt, Mr. Peach, that anybody has ever accused you of intellectualism - in fact that is the trouble with far too many Greens. They see the world only in black and white, no grey areas and no room for compromise. All industry has an impact on the environment - on this continent the education industry is a multi-trillion dollar industry and indeed ranks with the largest.
You - most unfortunately - choose to abort debate and communication on the subject by calling my suggestion absurd.
This is all very well, but as a teacher of languages Mr. Peach - and the only purpose of language is to communicate - you are not setting a very good example.
Educators in North America, in spite of what you say, rank with the very top when it comes to the consumtion of energy - yet achieve very little in the process. Over 30% of young Americans leaving high school are unable to read and write - in their own language. Judging by the correspondence to this newspaper you have a similar problem in the United Kingdom.
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As you avoid my questions, Mr Lewis, I’m sure you will indulge me if I go off on a bit of a tangent of my own.
The subject of this string is climate change, so I would just like to take this opportunity to mention a talk by the author Mark Lynas, who is coming to Church Stretton School (sorry about having to mention one of those dreadful institutions, Mr Lewis!) at 7.30pm on Saturday April 19th to talk about his book ‘6 Degrees’, which is about life in a future of global warming.
Mark Lynas won the National Geographic Explorer of the Year award in 2006, and I recommend his book even if the last two chapters ‘5 Degrees’ and ‘6 Degrees’ are a bit depressing.
The evening, where the audience will be able to sample local cheese and wine, is organised by Stretton Climate Care, who run carbon footprint classes every Monday afternoon at Church Stretton library from 2:00pm - 3:30pm.
Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.
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136 - “but the Green Party of England and Wales does not support a carbon tax”
137 - “Any carbon tax brought in by the Green Party of England and Wales”
This policy seemed to change in 1 hour 20 minutes, what is the Greens policy a month later?
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Hi, Geoff.
Thanks for your interest in Green Party policy, and apologies for the lack of clarity above.
First of all, I should make it clear that #136 is a mistake.
Then I should make it clear that the fault is all mine.
That is why I wrote #137 shortly afterwards, but your point is well taken.
Below is the Green Party policy on carbon taxation.
‘Greens will use the tax system progressively to discourage pollution and to fund the shift to renewables.
We will phase out regressive VAT to its lowest level, and replace with eco-taxes on (for example) plastic bags and aviation fuel.
A carbon fuel tax - which would replace the climate change levy - would cut down on carbon emissions.
Meanwhile our aviation fuel tax would initially raise £9bn a year, to be ploughed into renewable energy.’
(Quoted from 2005 Mini-manifesto.)
Again, thank you for your interest, Geoff.
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Mr. Peach,
You avoid my questions and accusations about the industry you work in. Tell us - do people who work in the education industry have more-or less impact on the earth’s envrionment than the average joe - say working in forestry or the gas industry?
Here in BC we have recently been informed by federal scientists that the pine beetle has killed so many trees that an extra billion tonnes of carbon dioxide will be wafting through the atmosphere. That is five times the annual emisions of airplanes, automobiles, trucks, trains, computers etc.
The area deforested up until 2006 was 130,000 square kilometres - interestingly about the size of England.
What does this tell us?
That measuring carbon emisions is becoming more and more complex - and that using wool for insulation may not, after all, save the planet!
What does this tell us?
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I have not avoided your question about education, Mr Lewis; I answered it in #139, quoting from the IPCC report (that’s the IPCC which won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize).
My conclusion, as you missed it the first time around, was that your question was absurd.
Going back to the subject of this thread, climate change, the Mark Lynas evening in Church Stretton School was a great success.
There were about 120 people there, including the actor Pete Postlethwaite, and the questions were challenging and interesting.
Mark Lynas was much more optimistic and positive, than in his book, about the rapid pace of change towards a renewable economy.
Dave Green from the local Friends of the Earth also spoke to us. He said that at the latest regional transport meeting he had been to, it was not just the environmentalists who were talking about climate change and peak oil.
The message is spreading rapidly into local government, ordinary people (like those in Stretton Climate Care) are taking action, education is ensuring that the work on reducing carbon will continue in the next generation, and this is happening simultaneously across the world, despite the best efforts of people like Mr Lewis to slow down the pace of change with red herrings.
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By the way, Geoff, you were interested in Green Party policies, did you see the Observer newspaper on Sunday April 27 2008?
It might be time to start reading up on Green Party policies, because in its editorial The Observer recommended that readers vote in the London mayoral election for Sîan Berry, the Green Party candidate.
This historic endorsement is the first from a national newspaper for any Green candidate.
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