Is geoengineering the answer to climate change?
November 1st, 2012 at 4:00 pm by David FarrarA fascinating article at Foreign Policy:
These scientists are beginning to look for a Plan B. There are two distinct approaches under consideration — sucking carbon out of the atmosphere, or creating an artificial sun shield for the planet. The former, which involves reversing some of the very processes that are leading to the climate problem, is expensive.
A sun shield?
If the world can’t get its act together to limit carbon emissions, geoengineering may be the only option we have. Distill the climate problem down to the essentials, and it becomes obvious that global warming is fundamentally a market failure: All seven billion of us human beings are “free riders” on a planet that is heating up. We put billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, and largely aren’t required to pay for the privilege. There’s too little incentive to stop polluting. …
“Free riding” also plagues relations between countries. Some, like the European Union have a cap or tax on carbon pollution. Most are still waiting on the sidelines. Why should any single country cut its carbon emissions when it knows that its reductions will only be a drop in the bucket toward solving climate change — and other nations aren’t asking their citizens to pay their fair share? Blame it on short election cycles, partisanship, or fossil energy interests, the political will often doesn’t exist — whether in Washington or the latest global environment gathering in Rio de Janeiro.
Yep, unless China and India are part of any agreement, other countries won;t commit.
“Free riders” are only half the problem. “Free drivers” may be as important. The allure of geoengineering derives from the simple fact that – given what little we know about it at the moment – it appears to be a comparatively cheap way to combat climate change. And it doesn’t take a global agreement to act. It takes one actor – one country – in the driver’s seat.
If, for example, the very existence of an island, nation, city, or agricultural region is threatened by global warming, the question among its leaders will no longer be whether geoengineering is an option, but what the effects, positive and negative, might be and how it could be carried out. That’s also where the science stands today, and the economics points in the same direction.
This makes sense. Something one or more countries can do by themselves, without the need for universal support.
In fact, the price tag of these geoengineering strategies is likely to be negligible relative to the purported benefits: Columbia University’s Scott Barrett, among others, has calculated that it would cost pennies to offset a ton of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. By comparison, it costs dollars per ton to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the first place.
And much cheaper.
What makes scientists believe geoengineering could work? It’s been tried before – by nature, not by humanity.
When Mount Pinatubo erupted in June 1991, it forced the evacuation of 200,000 Filipinos and shot 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere. The added sulfur counteracted the effect of 1,100 billion tons of carbon dioxide that had been accumulating in the atmosphere since the dawn of the industrial revolution. In 1992 and 1993, it decreased global temperatures by a bit less than 1 degree Fahrenheit by reducing the amount of sunlight that hit the earth’s surface. That was about the same amount temperatures had risen at that point from carbon added to the atmosphere by human activity. In other words, Mount Pinatubo alone offset all temperature increases from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
So all we need is to have more volcanoes erupt! 
As the article makes clear, geoengineering has considerable risks and side-effects. But with the major emitting countries unwilling to cap carbon emissions, it may well be that one or more countries turn their attention to geoengineering.
Related posts:
- Frog on Aid and Climate Change
- Contraception to stop climate change
- NZ Herald Editorial on Climate Change
- Lomborg on Climate Change
November 1st, 2012 at 4:08 pm
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 4:23 pm
I know this will start a firestorm but here goes.
Vote:Why are we trying to find a solution to a non problem?
The sky is falling on our heads, again. We must do something about it said Chicken Licken…
I think it is somewhat arrogant of us totally insignificant Humans (in a global sense) to first think we can really affect the climate of this planet, for better or for worse.
The Suns energy alone falling on the planet is roughly 121PW (121,000,000,000,000,000W). To put this in perspective, from Wikipeadia “The total solar energy absorbed by Earth’s atmosphere, oceans and land masses is approximately 3,850,000 exajoules (EJ) per year. In 2002, this was more energy in one hour than the world used in one year.”
November 1st, 2012 at 4:31 pm
That’s a shitload of energy MarkF. Make sure you wear a hat when you’re outside.
This only underscores the need to dig all that coal up and flog it off to China ASAP. It’ll be worthless if we wait too long.
Will the script writers of The Highlander get royalties for having their idea pinched?
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 4:31 pm
What’s that quote from “The Matrix”, humans are a virus and need to be exterminated?
Vote:Totally bizzare, arid nonsense. Man is not changing the climate now, but is going to dream up crap
to totally root the whole planet. Scientist have no idea how the climate works, but seem to want to experiment
through trial and error to find out.
November 1st, 2012 at 4:35 pm
People who actually know what they are talking about seem universally convinced that we are affecting the climate.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 4:39 pm
The only way to include developing nations into a world system is to bring an emissions tax into world trade via the WTO – thus “tariff” penalty when competing against carbon/methane free produced goods. This is as important as inclusion of agriculture, services and investment in the next trade round. We would do better via our grassland agricuture than international competitors. We would struggle against domestic producers if we had a methane tariff (and carbon transport cost) unless the carbon/methane tariff was set at zero if production was a best practice (lowest possible level of emission).
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 4:39 pm
The scientists who work in this area are almost without exception reasonable and objective people. If they say that mankind is affecting the climate then that’s good enough for me. That doesn’t mean that we have to accept that the only solutions available are the Green ones, where we have to give up on progress and live like medieval monks. Geoengineering is the future.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 4:40 pm
Not getting into the arguement about whether climate change is happening a lot.
Vote:But geo- engineering. We would be bound to be in big trouble with that.
You know how it will go.
1. Implement geo-engineering remedy
2. North and South America capsize and disappear.
3. Geo- engineer says “didn’t think that would happen. but I tell you what we should do”
November 1st, 2012 at 4:46 pm
“People who actually know what they are talking about seem universally convinced that we are affecting the climate.”
That’s absolute rubbish. Thats like saying catholics know more about ‘God’ than scientologists. Who cares what they think, they are both talking about sky fairies!
It use to be called ‘global warming’, now its called ‘climate change’. Whatever you want to call it humans have little effect in the long term. The earth has been warming and cooling all by itself for billions of years. No matter how much ‘junk’ science people try and apply to their theories, they are still theories based on junk science.
You do realise over 70% of the earth has been covered in ice thousands of times, and life flourished on this planet when temperatures where 3x the average that they are now. The green agenda needs to be rubbished more for what it is.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 4:52 pm
How ever those who are not making money, or political gain, from the climate change story, seem less convinced. Any scientist who challenges the story is instantly discredited and thrown out, because he endangers the research funding, not for any scientific reason. Then we have the anti business, anti America, anti freedom, anti capitalist, anti people, pro socialists, who are the real force behind the AGW movement.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 4:53 pm
“it may well be that one or more countries turn their attention to geoengineering.”
An act of war against the countries that benefit from these naturally ocurring warm periods.
See what Putin makes of it.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 4:54 pm
Global warming, global cooling, overpopulation, peak oil etc, the solutions are always the same . . more taxes, more regulation and more power given to monolithic, unaccountable, self-perpetuating commissions agencies, quangos and bureaucracies.
Climate change is not about science. It is about politics. Always has been, always will be.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 4:55 pm
@tom1980
“The scientists who work in this area are almost without exception reasonable and objective people. If they say that mankind is affecting the climate then that’s good enough for me.”
OK then explain why so many of these “reasonable and objective people” refuse to turn over their original data sets to others so as they can test the conclusions of there findings. If they have nothing to hide surely they would be only too happy to assist and show others, but they don’t!
One is forced to ask why?
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 4:59 pm
@Urban Redneck.
Vote:Your wordsmanship captures the essence precisely.
We should throw in there Y2K, SARS and Bird Flu as well just for good measure.
November 1st, 2012 at 5:00 pm
Geoengineering is a discredited load of horseshit. At best, the so called “scientists” will extract billions from the world economic system, to no useful purpose.
As for the World Tax proposals…. Well not so far fetched.
ECOSOC, Helengrads rainbow faction UN claven is already proposing just that. It’s April 2012 report has Helengrad rubbing her hands in glee. But there is just one, small little roadblock (thank lord) – the US Senate.,
The idiot Obama administration may want to go along with it, but just last month the US State Department was moved to say: ” it will never happen”.
Neither wlll geoengineering which, as someone correctly observed. is simply spending mioneyion a priblem that does not exist.
Good afternoon!
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 5:01 pm
What a stupid statement
Vote:Can you not think for yourself?
Do you not have free will?
You are basically condemning yourself to slavery
November 1st, 2012 at 5:05 pm
By the time it is a problem we will
a) know whether the planet is getting too hot or too cold, and
b) have infinitely more technological resources to deal with whatever is the problem than we can conceive now.
In the meantime the planet hasn’t warmed since 1997. Let’s enjoy the summer.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 5:13 pm
Here is a couple of quotes from the “news” in recent days :
“This is a Sophie’s Choice: If we respond to the moral imperative to raise public awareness and alarm about climate, we have to be deceptive.
If we are committed to truth and scientific accuracy, we have to talk in hedged, caveat-filled, probabilistic language that is utterly ineffectual in reaching and activating a tuned-out public.” -David Roberts, Grist
Cara Santa Maria (Los Angeles, CA) HuffPost Senior Science Correspondent @CaraSantaMaria [Amusingly, around the 7:00 mark, Santa Maria brings up a "difficulty": If you tell the truth about global warming, "you're giving fuel to climate deniers"]
These come a few days after Dr Micheal Mann claimed he was a Noble Prize winner for his work only to have to crawl back into his hole when the Noble Prize Committee very publically said he did not win a Noble Prize. So his CV had to adjusted
Vote:( abit like some data !!)
November 1st, 2012 at 5:15 pm
It sure is flipper.
Geoengineering is about man influencing climate. Like you say “horseshit”.
Maybe we can one day, but so far we have not.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 5:18 pm
The only problem with that is that sulphur dioxide, in the presence of water, will oxidise. Since there’s lots of water in the atmosphere, if we dump heaps of sulphur dioxide in the atmosphere, it will oxidise and cause acid rain…
Regarding whether climate change is man-made or not, I still have not seen any scientific examination of how much greenhouse gas is emitted every year from natural sources (such as volcanoes) and how much is from human sources (such as cars). I’d really like to know what proportion of greenhouse case emitted yearly is in fact man-made.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 5:19 pm
NIWA dabbled in a bit of iron-fertilisation of the Southern Ocean in the late 1990s.
Vote:http://tracer.env.uea.ac.uk/soiree/
November 1st, 2012 at 5:27 pm
The apparent miracle solution offered by geoengineering comes with one big problem:
About the one think climate change deniers (and most reputable scientists) agree on is that we do NOT fully understand how climate works.
Which means a geoengineering solution might (as KH suggests above) be an even bigger disaster than the climate change it seeks to reverse. Very VERY risky.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 5:29 pm
Its good to see that so far, there have been no playing the man and not the ball in the comments, normally any discussion of this topic brings out the extremists from both sides.
The AGW team can only quote models to provide the ‘data’ of any possible warming. The more sophisticated the actual measuring has become, eg Satelites. The actual raw measurements show a miniscule trend – within the margin of error – of warming, and all genuine scientists accept and acknowledge this trend.
We will often hear on MSM of records broken here or there in the world, but if you look past the headlines, the ‘record’ stated always, without exception, is able to be proven incorrect when the correct information is considered, with the appropriate time frame.
A case in point is Sandy! The 4th ranked storm of 2012, in terms of energy, but it was able to cause such damage through timing and the area of the coast line it struck. Records of October Storms striking the East Coast of USA go back years, so are not unusual at all. Just as Queensland floods are common and droughts often follow, you only need to study the records.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 5:31 pm
This storm in the north east of USA is the best example of the stupidity of carbon taxes.
If – as the scientists tell us – that there will be ocean level rises even if we stopped using carbon now – then this stort is the ideal example of whats going to happen in the next 50 years.
And no amount of carbon taxes is going to stop it.
Stop wastinf time and money on carbon taxes. Build sea walls is the only option.\
And the scientists tell us the rise will be more that the size of the storm surge……..
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 5:40 pm
“Its good to see that so far, there have been no playing the man and not the ball”
Vote:Mostly because I am having a good laugh at the uninformed and damn right stupid comments being posted in this thread
Carry on with the wishful thinking it does my hart good to see ostriches in their natural habitat.
November 1st, 2012 at 5:42 pm
People who think (and proclaim) they know what they’re talking about usually have other agendas at work.
Vote:These so called abberations in climate are nothing more than natural earth cycles – The earth has been there, done that, many times over in times past. Dont be fooled by these proclaimers, who have nothing but self interest at heart ! Follow the money
November 1st, 2012 at 5:45 pm
Spot on Urban Redneck !
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 5:49 pm
Griff, still peddling that Doomsday cult I see.
How about you team up with Penny (just tone your crazy talk down a bit, or you will put her off) and build your stone age socialist utopia together ?
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 5:57 pm
Insurance industry and climate change
http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2012/06/limited-coverage-climate-change-and-the-insurance-industry/
Vote:The insurance industry is famously, intentionally, even proudly, backward-looking: Its assessments of risk traditionally draw from data on prior losses over long periods of time.
In a world of extreme weather and non-linear trends, however, the times, and with them the actuarial tables, are changing in some quarters. International insurance firms and big reinsurers like Swiss Re and Munich Re are incorporating projections for more unpredictable and extreme weather.
http://www.insurancenetworking.com/news/insurance-climate-change-risk-ceres-30007-1.html
Stakeholders from the insurance industry met with members of the U.S. Senate to acknowledge the role global warming plays in extreme weather-related losses, and to issue a call for action.
November 1st, 2012 at 6:03 pm
So insurance companies want to raise insurance levies. And that is your evidence the world is ending.
Your such a little Troll sometimes Griff
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 6:11 pm
Kea go tell the coastal community’s on the Atlantic seaboard that climate change is not happening. They will not be rebuilding quite so close to the coast this time around because they will not get flood insurance.
Vote:New York will have to spend the money to water proof the subway system again no insurance if they dont. Dont you just love reality, capitalism and the insurance industry.
November 1st, 2012 at 6:12 pm
Yeah the world certainly needs another environmental disaster caused by nut bar scientist putting up reflecting satellites?
Or let’s tax the,rich nations so they become poor and being,everyone down, that’ll work.
Since all,the solutions,are wet dreams,and,fairy tails, doesn’t that get the bullshit receptors going?
Bt oh here we go
The report recommends…
“Relevant UK government departments, in association with the UK Research Councils, should together fund a 10 year geoengineering research programme at a level of the order of £10M per annum.”
QED.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 6:17 pm
Griff shame on you. That storm is not evidence for or against climate change and the damage suffered has absolutely nothing to do with climate change. It,is because more and more people are,in the way with more cameras to snap the destruction.
Just like katrina had nothing whatsoever to do with climate change. It was a man made,disaster resulting from building a city below sea level in a frecken hurricane zone.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 6:23 pm
Ok so there were no storms before we started liberating co2 back into the atmosphere from organic matter Griff?
So is it part of the scientific consensus that “capitalism” is to blame, or is that just you letting slip your real motivation for supporting the AGW cult ?
I would appreciate any reference to a “climate science” peer reviewed paper that showed the link between political belief and global climate.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 6:26 pm
Yes kevin keep it up just ignore two little facts
Vote:1 The storm regenerated as it crossed a warmer than usual gulf stream
2 Due to sea level rise the surge was effectively 1ft higher than it would have been 100 years ago
November 1st, 2012 at 6:29 pm
FFS, there is NO CLIMATE PROBLEM.
These guys are going to create one though, with all this talk of creating sun shields and stuff.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 6:33 pm
Tut tut tut Griff.
You know bloody well that your fellow climate alarmists are always telling us that “weather is NOT climate”.
(Just google it dear readers, there are thousands of articles, from “climate scientists” saying that very thing)
Or how are you going to explain away all those record cold snaps in the Northern Hemisphere ?
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 6:38 pm
Kea are you really that stupid? My post was pointing out the capitalist system is wakening to the reality of climate change. The costs in specific the cost of insurance will force the changes in coastal development that are needed to mitigated the effects.
Vote:The link between conservative america and climate denial is documented in quite a few peer reviewed papers.
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/students/envs_5000/mccright_2011.pdf
http://books.google.co.nz/books?hl=en&lr=&id=XfTISxCa6SwC&oi=fnd&pg=PA240&dq=climate+change+denial+and+conservative+views&ots=HbyOj63pb8&sig=1mdziA60GaGMthBF
http://www.fraw.org.uk/files/economics/jacques_2008.pdf
November 1st, 2012 at 6:39 pm
There is no way sea levels are 1ft higher griff. Even if,they were it is minimal compared to the fact that they built New York at sea level and now have to suffer the consequences of periodic flooding even if there was no warming.
Of course the insurance industry swallows it all hook line and sinker because they are trying to line up energy companies to contribute to the compo feeding troughs.
Even if a small amount of warming is true, you can’t join these scams like trading in thin air because they are scams. Or extensions of wealth redistribution like most of our internal taxes go on.
And finally, if you want to worry about problems facing mankind AGW doesn’t make the top ten. They are all occupied by overpopulation, with AGW being one of the smaller consequences.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 6:39 pm
So far we have the following proofs of climate change:
1) Too hot (global warming)
2) Too cold (global warming)
3) A storm (global warming)
4) Reduced storms (global warming)
5) No change in temperatures for 15 years (global warming)
Here are some more things to do with global warming. Just click a link and laugh. Its great fun
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 6:40 pm
Here’s a time proven rule: don’t fuck with nature.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 6:42 pm
Kea seems to have dropped into the ozone hole that toad has apparently abandoned!
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 6:42 pm
Yes Griff I see your point, I wondered if you meant that.
But to answer your question, yes I am very very stupid. Thick as Pig Shit. But not so thick I would buy into all this, as you have done
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
It is noted you then DID go onto try and link politics to climate. Talk about an own goal !
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 6:44 pm
Oh and you forgot kea…
If bad consequences of global warming happen, we told you so.
Vote:If they don’t, we acted in time, hallelujah.
November 1st, 2012 at 6:47 pm
I thought L.Ron Hubbard was dead, but no, he’s obviously still churning out SF.
Vote:A new religion perhaps – The Holy Church of the Geoengineers – a couple of Hollywood types on board and it’ll fly
November 1st, 2012 at 6:47 pm
God you guys are,in good form today. Tom Hunters first post is a classic
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 6:50 pm
Tom Cruise has quit being top gun since his last marriage failure PEB!
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 6:52 pm
Some of you who want to blame the evil “right wing conservatives” for climate change. (like Griff)
I invite you to have a look at the environmental record of socialist countries, both current and past. China increases co2 production daily, by more than NZ’s yearly output. They have serious environmental pollution on an epic scale. The former USSR was an environmental disaster zone. Forget Chernobyl, that place is a health camp compared to many other sites.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 6:58 pm
The leaders of Europe are all sitting around a table at another Climate Change summit.
Vote:After the initial pleasantries, David Cameron speaks first. “I will end climate change, just like I ended boom and bust! I will be tough on climate change and tough on the causes of climate change! Britain will spend “£200 billion on fighting climate change this year!”
Before he has even sat back down, Angela Merkel of Germany begins to speak.
“That’s nothing! We will spend €300 billion on fighting climate change!”
Francois Hollande of France speaks next; “We will end zis climate change. We will spend €1 trillion on fighting climate change!”.
Attention now turns to the president of Armenia, he stands and meekly announces: “We have budgeted to spend $1,000 on fighting climate change over the next 10 years.”
People around the table begin to snigger. Embarrassed, the Armenian president slams his fist onto the table and shouts “Ok, ok, we will spend $100 trillion on climate change!”.
The sniggering around the table has now become hysterics; “How will you afford that?”
“Well” the Armenian president began, “The real figure was bit low, so I just made some up. Isn’t that how it works around here?”
November 1st, 2012 at 6:59 pm
The warmists can see the writing on the wall for the ‘climate change’ boondoggle. So, they seek something to replace it. No surprises here then. I was wondering how long it would take.
cheers
David Prosser
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 7:00 pm
Kevin the bad will happen nothing will be done until its to late and I will be dead so I don’t really give the proverbial about the consequences of my lifestyle.Its the perversion of science by the denial camp that pisses me off
Vote:I love two stroke diesels and two stroke outboards the bigger the better
My favorite motor 24v71 detroit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m48vyc5beNg&feature=related
November 1st, 2012 at 7:00 pm
Some history just for Griff.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/oem/html/hazards/storms_hurricanehistory.shtml
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 7:17 pm
Nice motor Griff.
I want to put one in a boat, so I can chase down those racist pirates on the Sea Sheppard.
I hope I don’t run over and kill any poor fisherman in their canoes, paddling out to feed their families, as Pete Buthune and his boys did while promoting saving the planet (from global warming) by racing around it in speed boats.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 7:18 pm
Griff without population control there is no solution. But the UN can’t stomach that because it would mean the wealthy nations telling those third worlders what to do again and spc would get upset because no wealth redistribution.
Kea but I bet those socialists won’t mind spending all that capitalist money when they get into power. Wussell will say McDonald’s good, my bank account happy.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 7:21 pm
A true greenie would kill them self
Vote:Voluntary Human Extinction Movement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_Human_Extinction_Movement
November 1st, 2012 at 7:26 pm
I am a “greenie” but not a communist. My type have no party or organisation
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 7:27 pm
Citation required.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 7:34 pm
Ross12
The trouble with science is that it is true, whether you believe it or not.
From those who place the cause of increasing weather extremes to natural variation, without offering specific, plausible factors in support of that hypothesis, to those who say climate models, which only play a marginal role and ignore that the observed facts stand without resort to models, misrepresent reality, to the Tom Hunters of this world who deny the reality of storm surges, even with eyewitness testimony flooding the airwaves.
From the malcontent to the malintent to the willfully ignorant, we behold the reason why humans are eventually doomed as a species.
Alone amongst all the species that ever existed and currently exist, we have the intelligence to ensure our prolonged survival but unlike the dinosaurs, who perished from without, we will implode.
God speed in the name of the planet!
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 7:43 pm
Talking about models, this pdf file is a recent presentation James Hansen made to that ultimate idiot who has the GOP tied up in knots:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2012/20120917_GroverNorquist.pdf
Here is an important extract:
Discussion. Global temperature simulated by climate models depends upon a number of
factors, especially the model’s climate sensitivity and the forcings used to drive climate change.
Scientific understanding about climate sensitivity and about climate forcings have improved
substantially over the past few decades, but enough uncertainty remains to allow cherry-picking
among many different climate model results. However, an important point is that climate
models are not the principal basis of our concerns about future climate change, as
made clear in my presentation (Appendix B), which relied on observations, not climate models.
Those not in one of the three categories in my previous should follow the link and familiarise themselves with the facts.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 7:51 pm
Sadly, it’s not that simple. Ocean acidification will proceed apace and somewhere on the path to burning all the fossil fuels, methane clathrates will rise up and destroy everything, except, possible, cockroaches…oh dear…no, I won’t say it. DPF might get upset
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 8:00 pm
The trouble with science is that it is true, whether you believe it or not.
Well, that’s a self-evident false statement.
Yes, in the long term science is about finding the truth.
But in pratice, it’s trial and error. What is “truth” and “good science” today is “false” tomorrow. Spontaneous generation was once considered scientific remember.
Climate science has produced model after model which has predicted more warming than has actually happened. In reality, science can give us the best data available, and goverments need to balance that data with other data in other areas (say, a housing shortage) as they make their decisions on where to put their effort and money.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 8:08 pm
Luc — you are not saying the historical record I posted is not real and all the computer models are real science !!!
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 8:09 pm
If human induced climate change was real the developers would be building for it, so it can’t be.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 8:12 pm
I’d just like to also point out that saying the climate is changing is like saying water is wet.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 8:17 pm
Dont bother with the science luc the nutters don’t believe in science witness some of the crap posted as fact above
I have found that just laughing at them stops a lot of the stupidity.
look at Wilkes no warming since 1997
1 Is wrong global surface temperatures are warmer we have twice broken the twentieth century record in the last ten years once a century is now happening once every five years
2 The sea is still warming far more energy is going into the sea then into the air 3 Hiroshima bombs a second worth
And Ross sandy was a ex tropical cyclone before she hit the warm gulf stream She then increased back to cat one storm not even a strong cat one storm yet she still caused record flooding. What will happen when New York gets a cat three or more?
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 8:18 pm
Talking about models, I heard Michael Mann has a model of a Nobel prize.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 8:28 pm
Griff –damage from storms depends on its direction, relation to tides ,other weather systems nearby ( like what occurred with sandy ) etc etc . The actual figure put on its strength is not a guarantee of more or less damage.
We learnt this from the Christchurch earthquacks —you have a earthquack of 7.0 at 100 kms depth that will result little or no damage but you have one of say 4.0 at 5 kms depth and we know what can happen.
BTW. Some bedtime reading for you
Vote:http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n10/abs/ngeo1580.html
November 1st, 2012 at 8:31 pm
I tend to duck all the earthquacks if I can!
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 8:31 pm
If humans weren’t here it would even be called damage, ot would just be erosion.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 8:34 pm
Most sane comment tonight Kevin if you change it to “wouldn’t” as you meant!
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 8:38 pm
No, ot should be it though. Damn iPad.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 8:43 pm
“If humans weren’t here it wouldn’t even be called damage, it would just be erosion.”
That’s what you meant to say Kevin and true as well as fuckin profound into the bloody bargain!!
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 8:43 pm
If they try to put some satellites into orbit to shield us from the sunlight I wonder if pwenny will help us pwotest.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 8:45 pm
Climate change religionists like Luc and his mate Al are deriving great heart from the Curiosity photos!
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 8:45 pm
Thanks Johnboy, not only the iPad having problems tonight.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 8:47 pm
All those little green Martians denied climate change and what happened to their great civilisations… gone!
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 8:48 pm
Even their great canal systems have eroded away!
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 8:57 pm
Speaking of misrepresentation, that statement is a great example. Here’s Luc’s original dopey comment praising New York mayor Bloomberg:
The usual Luc snark of course, to which I pointed out that Brendan Loy – warmist and self-proclaimed Weather Nerd – considered that Bloomberg’s statement that “With this storm, we’ll likely see a slow pileup of water rather than a sudden surge” was an incredibly stupid thing to say since a surge had been predicted. Loy, identifying Bloomberg name as the author of that quote, added the word “idiot”.
In fact Loy was so pissed off with Bloomberg saying this, combined with a decision not to order an evacuation of certain areas of NYC, that he also posted another twitter comment, which I also quoted;
You’ll notice the key bit in there that I bolded, to draw attention to the fact that Loy, somewhat more of a weather and hurricane expert than Bloomberg, considered the latter to be anything other than someone able to grasp the science. In short, a direct rebuttal of Luc’s standard, pulled-from-his-ass assessment of a person’s scientific judgement – and a rebuttal from a warmist like Luc no less.
Instead, I discovered that – in addition to all his other limitations – Luc has a reading disability, because he then posted an incredibly stupid counter that cut and pasted the above and then added some inane argument about how a surge had actually been observed – as if that had been the original point of argument.
This seemed so sad that I did not respond, but obviously I should have, for now I find that Luc has wrapped this up in his own mind as some weird additional “fact” about denying observable reality.
If this is the standard of argument and reasoning on the Left it’s no wonder that AGW and so many other lefty causes are going down the tube.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 9:09 pm
Billions of UN dollars to travel the globe proposing bullshit solutions like using energy to bury carbon underground vs not a red cent for the counter opinion doesn’t look like these lefty causes going down the gurglar to me.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 9:18 pm
So Tom, I’m sure I recollect seeing Bloomberg on Fox or CNN warning of the storm surge. Are you sure Loy didn’t make his bit up as part of a political agenda?
Anyway, although it appears I understandably misread the intent of your post , given the constant stream of drivel you post here on AGW, do you disagree that Bloomberg gets the science?
Do you disagree that that this storm was accentuated by AGW?
Do you disagree that NYC has been engaged in a long process of costing defences against the inevitable rising sea level, including the defence of moving?
Just asking.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 9:19 pm
I haven’t caught up with this whole thread, but surely speculation about geo-engineering is at best an amusing diversion. The costs of significant geo-engineering are likely to outweigh by a long, long way the costs of addressing climate change in the short term.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 9:26 pm
Yep that’s what the scientists are saying. Give us one hundred million pounds and we’ll go away and amuse ourselves for 10 years. It’s all about jobs and wealth redistribution and not about conservation, just like the whole of the modern “green” movement.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 9:27 pm
I think I’ll take the first post you put up before you deleted it ….. Luc
Hide the decline!
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 9:27 pm
You have that a little crossed I think luc tom has toned down the climate denial except for political expediency
Vote:Bloomburg definitely ignored the advice he was giving re the chance of the subways going.Tom and I both watched the storm closly and knew of the risk far before bloomberg admited it.
Bloomberg still is in denial about the time and cost it is going to take to get it all back up and running
November 1st, 2012 at 9:29 pm
I thought my second was better.
But that one is still pretty good!
No answers forthcoming from the master of diversion, I see.
Does performing disservices to the human race come naturally to you, Tom, or do you have to work at it?
I’m curious.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 9:33 pm
Thanks Griff.
That switch had passed me by.
My brain has been busily engaged elsewhere recently (exam week) so I think he’s got one on me here.
So Tom, what’s your current take on climate change?
Do try to get past the gotchas!
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 9:33 pm
Kevin
Vote:Yep. those bad scientists eh? Why bother investing trillions now when if we do nothing for a few decades we could, possibly, spend a few thousand trillions on some magic beans that are yet to be invented. And if that doesn’t work maybe we’ll be able to terraform Mars in about 150 years for only a few trillion trillions just in time for a few thousand people to bugger off there. Or time travel or practical interstellar flight might be viable options by then too…
November 1st, 2012 at 9:35 pm
We are going to live to see this AGW hoax exposed. I will enjoy taunting the lefties with this to their graves.
The more serious issue is how it will undermine the credibility of science in the public eye. We have now all seen how some are willing to lie for political reasons and to gain much needed research funding.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 9:36 pm
Hope you pass NCEA Luc!
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 9:40 pm
Kea
Vote:yes it a massive global conspiracy I am in the pay of the UN and luc works for the one world government
Every major scientific body in the world and all major government have been infiltrated at the highest level
We will take over the world MAHhahahahahahahahahahhahahhahahhahahhaha ha ha
November 1st, 2012 at 9:42 pm
Helen is your boss Griff?
You poor c**t !
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 9:44 pm
No Griff. It is all about money and power. Simple really.
Would it help if a grown up made a little computer model to “scientifically prove it”, sort of like your playstation
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 9:46 pm
Griff
Vote:Well, we all know that there were successful conspiracies to conceal extraterrestrial landings, assassinate JFK, fake the moon landings and stage an attack on 11 September 2001. It’s only reasonable that given the large numbers of people who continue to deny those well-known facts that many would still be taken in by the conspiracy you so succinctly described.
November 1st, 2012 at 9:47 pm
Before on kiwiblog here I have contributed –
I too perouse the atmosphere
And ask the quintessential ‘Where
May global warming cease, and nuclear winter begin
To keep solar heat out, rather than hold it in?’
So it’s evident, so very clear
The answer to global warming
Is to get more krap up there
forgive me – “creating an artificial sun shield for the planet”?
Vote:Holy Krap! it was a fucking joke, alright?
November 1st, 2012 at 9:49 pm
Why kea. The socialist hoax has been exposed but many of them still worship at the frecken altar.
Indeed the poor human race has been scammed so often it doesn’t know wtf to believe – piltdown man, obesity pandemics, psychic surgery, …..
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 9:51 pm
Mike makes the assumption that climate,change is one of the top issues facing mankind. It isn’t. It’s a small symptom of overpopulation, that’s all.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 9:52 pm
Psychic surgery worked for me. I have been far more sensible since the faulty part of my brain was removed.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 9:56 pm
Yes Kevin, we have all been wrong too many times in the past to ever be confident that anyone might be right about anything. Given this conundrum, who can we trust on any issue? Obviously we should just believe whatever we want to – what could those pesky scientists know about the real world with their ivory-tower theories?
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 9:56 pm
Kevin is quite right. The world is being fucked by too much rooting, particularly by the poorer classes.
Something that pleasurable should be reserved for the rich and only on special occasions.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 9:58 pm
Johnboy
Vote:Was the psychic surgery a prerequisite for settling in Wainui?
November 1st, 2012 at 10:03 pm
Not at all old chap it cured me from a phobia regarding the odour of lanolin and dags which made it very difficult to continue in my present situation.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 10:09 pm
No yvette, unfortunately there are nut bars out there seriously proposing that if we can’t get get carbon emissions down we will waste valuable resources doing dangerous experiment unilaterally trying to cool the planet down. It beggars belief that anyone can think of such things but there you go.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 10:11 pm
“lie for political reasons”
Vote:I think you will find more lies on the side of denial than from actual scientist kea
Climate e mails after nine reviews and the only fault found was being pissed of with time wasting fuck around by the denial networks and still its on the denial blogs as true.
Four interdependent temperature records and still we are told that the figures are fudged Even after BEST came out the same as the other three.
Arctic melt drought extremes recorded world-wide sea level rise growing costs due to weather advents all point to global warming still not enough.
Look above notice that it’s the same old discredited arguments trotted out time and again Here is the list of denial arguments and the rebuttal http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2008/07/how-to-talk-to-a-sceptic/#Types of Argument
November 1st, 2012 at 10:23 pm
Ok I will play along Griff:
Who is behind the denial movement. Let me guess some ill defined murky “big business” or “big oil” or George Bush, America, The Bilderburg Group, America, America… working with the illuminati and the lizard people ????
Look Griff, if you hate democracy, freedom, science, people and capitalism, then just say so man !
Your among friends, just blurt it out
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 10:29 pm
Oh I still think it’s as screwed a piece of “science” as I’ve ever seen in my life Griff – and I say that as someone who actually graduated with a science degree: setting up experiments, trying to control all the variables in order to lock down the hypothesis, sweating the endless detail of seemingly straight-forward tasks such as calibrating measuring instruments and the measurements themselves, repeating the tests endlessly to compile a swath of statistical data, followed by the effort of sorting through that to exclude the “outliers” (and all the arguments that had to be run through to justify that). And this was before building the computer “model” to sort through it all, with all the tweaks involved there.
That’s for lab experiments of course: multiply that a thousand-fold when modelling the real world and you’ve got some idea of the traps that lay in wait – and that’s assuming the damned variables are not changing their interactions as they themselves change values.
All those were technical arguments I waged years ago on this blog before you or Luc turned up. However I also pointed out that AGW had the same characteristics as previous “doom” campaigns and would likely meet a similar fate.
It’s not simply a question of political expediency. I’m not even sure what you’re implying there, since it has been a non-issue for both US Presidential campaigns in 2012, as just one example. And that’s no surprise to me. In parallel with the inadequacies of the science as the building blocks of the demanded solution, were the other-worldly solutions themselves that were being demanded to “solve” AGW. Here’s a quote from moi years ago on this blog:
And this in 2009:
By the time you arrived on KB it had become clear that the whole thing was dead on arrival: Kyoto stuffed, Copenhagen a failure as I predicted, carbon-trading markets collapsed, Cap and Trade dead in the US House and Senate, wind and solar power subsidies being withdrawn as countries as varied as Spain and Germany stared down the barrel of tight budgets and unstable power networks. I see the ETS here in NZ is now forcing some farmers off their land because they bought (literally) into the whole scam.
Luc yammers about “observable reality”, but he and the rest of the AGW crew never recognised the one identified by Peter Huber in City Journal:
Indeed – and that’s before the fracking revolution kicked in. That’s reality and it simply works its way into “political expediency”. And the great irony is that fracking first hit the Natural Gas market, resulting in vast increases in recoverable reserves and huge drops in price, which in turn has led the USA to the verge of cutting GHG emissions in line with Kyoto anyway.
Fracking is alive and the Chevy Volt is dead.
Which brings me to my last point:
Yes. That’s me again, about eight years ago on this blog, and all is proceeding as I have foreseen. Muhahahhahaahha
So if you, Luc and Wat Dabney want to continue to chuck AGW science papers at eachother, and stats, knock yourself out. I’m not interested in continuing to fight a war that my side has long since won.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 10:37 pm
In other words, Mount Pinatubo alone offset all temperature increases from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
Vote:So we just need some scientific/political arsehole to cotton onto the fact that war is not only geoengineering, also a means of population reduction that returns a lot of living material to the ground as fertilizer – a three prong solution.
November 1st, 2012 at 10:40 pm
Tom Hunter, Don’t think you can prove anything with facts , your proven smart arse “accurate predictions” & observable reality.
The promoters of the global warming doomsday cult have MODELS !
Beat that smarty pants.
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 11:10 pm
Naughty boy Kea – your baiting me to comment further on this nonsense ….
….
So I will. But merely to say that this “proposed” solution – and let’s acknowledge that it’s simply a discussion topic from 2009 among a bunch of scientists at the Royal Society – is simply another result of the complete and utter failure of the AGW campaign.
Now we’re flailing around with Green Mars planet-sized sunshades? Admittedly this science and technology geek loves the SF nature of it but …
Vote:November 1st, 2012 at 11:23 pm
Lets hope we don’t get three or four Mount Pinatubo’s in a decade then eh… Burning coal and driving big V8′s for miles everyday will be fashionable again …. The impending ice age will dominate our media for a few decades then … Eventually a new Al Gore will arise and disciples will
Vote:selectively publishpoorly peer review scientific conclusions about man’s effect on the planet.November 2nd, 2012 at 1:03 am
That’s just a liberal plot. The Bible clearly states that people who actually know what they are talking about are agents of the Devil sent here to mislead and befuddle the righteous.
Vote:November 2nd, 2012 at 1:05 am
Domestic Science doesn’t count.
Vote:November 2nd, 2012 at 2:46 am
AGW is a con. No action is required.
Vote:November 2nd, 2012 at 4:32 am
It’s fascinating to see tom hunter post some fairly average personal credentials, dismiss an overwhelming current scientific consensus as a doom campaign and declare that humanity just needs to wait it out. Oh, and it seems to be the fault of those nasty Arabs too.
In the world of rationality, many people still argue that it is sensible to pursue efforts to move towards a more sustainable human impact on the environment. Only a true Pollyanna would expect success from the initial attempts to address the problems. Sure, Kyoto has died and prospects of a successful revival seem dim. That doesn’t imply that efforts in the medium term to achieve low-impact solutions might be prudent considering their likely trivial cost in the face of the much higher impact and much higher cost of long term solutions that won’t move beyond a concept for many decades, if at all.
Vote:November 2nd, 2012 at 6:14 am
OECD,
you are absolutely right. I can understand how some people however still think there is something to this given the poor reporting we have on the issue. For example, how many papers did we read about the UK met office releasing the stats showing no global temperature increase for the last 16 years? There is so much information debunking this nonsense that we are simply not told by the MSM.
Then of course we have the Geobels trick that “if you repeat a lie often enough it will be believed.” Never a truer word said when mentioning the “consensus” among all the scientists that study this. From memory, the original IPCC paper that triggered this ridiculous claim had only 70 contributing scientists, and less than 16 when asked, agreed with it. But when did you hear about the 700 climate scientists who recently authored a petition rubbishing this nonsense.
All I can say is, thank goodness for the blogs. The MSM becomes more irrelevant every day.
Vote:November 2nd, 2012 at 6:25 am
Yep, geo engineering is a fix for climate change. But its anathema to Greens because they don’t actually want the problems fixed – they want an excuse for controlling other peoples lives (like all religions and priests do)
Want to lower the sea level? Just pump sea water up onto the central Antarctic plateau (would only cost about 1% of earth’s GDP)
Want to cool the tropics and warm the temperate regions? Use millions of floating solar or wind driven pumps to pump cold water from the depths to the surface – can create a La Nina any time we want it, or kill an El Nino, again for less than 1% of global GDP. This would also make it possible to stop typhoons, hurricanes and cyclones – by cooling the sea surface. Such control exercised over long periods of time would probably enable us to reduce desert areas and generally improve the habitablity/productivity of other land.
To put that cost in perspective we currently spend something like 3% of Worlds GDP on oil.
Hopefully we’ll be able to use techniques like this to prevent onset of next ice age, which is the real concern now that it’s obvious that IPCC models have all greatly exaggerated the amount of warming that increasing CO2 produces (due to their erroneous and excessive water feedback assumptions, and their total failure to include the dominating effects of global oceanic heat circulation). Eg a mathematical demonstration of how far IPCC models have missed the mark (in many cases to the extent that they can be totally dismissed as failures using statistical tests):
Vote:http://rankexploits.com/musings/2012/observations-v-models-model-weather/
November 2nd, 2012 at 6:43 am
What percentage of the world’s GDP is currently expended one fforts to control climate change?
Vote:November 2nd, 2012 at 6:48 am
It goes to show how wedded people truly are to their disposable plastic shit that they could see this as a preferable option to cutting down on hydrocarbon emissions in the first place…
Geoengineering sounds like a means of maintaining an atmosphere of ever-increasing chemical density and complexity at about a constant temperature. I wonder how thick and tasty the air would need to get, before the political right would acknowledge there was a problem?
“No no no, we’ve fixed climate change by geo-engineering, so there’s no problem anymore, stop being socialist luddites, all you greenies. COUGH, cough cough cough cough. HACK. Spit….
Vote:November 2nd, 2012 at 7:00 am
It’s going to develop as a more powerful political approach to something that’s many would like to put in the too-hard basket. I still prefer that we look at terraforming Mars – likely to be just as practical and cost-efficient, i.e. not at all.
Vote:November 2nd, 2012 at 7:01 am
I thought the issue was the climate, not peoples political beliefs ?
I suggest; you believe in AGW on the basis of faith, not evidence. You do so in order to identify with the political left, as you imagine it makes you look liberal and enlightened. But it does neither.
If climate alarmists really believed in AGW, they would make it a climate issue not a political issue. They would be careful not to create a them and us mentality, for the good of the planet. Clearly they have not done that and breathlessly rant about America, big business & capitalism. Nothing to do with climate science.
Vote:November 2nd, 2012 at 7:25 am
As Kea succinctly put it in his 7.01, if such a thing as AGW exists it has been obscured by the political Greens. The whole spurious argument was taken over & used as a smokescreen to introduce a concept of socialist world government.
Shortly, if not now, we’ll see this proved as the proponents of a NWO abandon the good ship AGW in favour of something else they think will scare the sheep back into submission.
Vote:November 2nd, 2012 at 8:09 am
Now that I laughed at!
But on a more serious note is mikenmild …
Meeee… Yowww. As opposed to all the liberal arts graduates who dumped math and science when they were 14 because “it didn’t float my boat” (i.e. they couldn’t do it), but who now lap this stuff up and run around telling people like me that “you don’t understand the science”.
However, that response does sum up one of the standard left-wing approaches to almost any such argument: that qualifications and expertise count for all and more importantly, that one must not question your betters – until they start promulgating a cause the left objects to, like nuclear power or genetic modification. In those cases it’s any skeptic to hand and bugger the personal credentials.
Read what I wrote. Humanity does not stand still. We are solving this “problem” in many small, incremental ways, as shown by the NG revolution in the USA that has succeeded in reducing GHG emissions where all the rest of the nonsense pushed by the doomsters has failed. What I object to is the usual dopey left-wing desire for more government effort as the solution, in whatever form it takes.
And as an aside on that aspect: doing nothing rather than Think Big would actually have been the optimal solution in that case, so I would not be so entirely dismissive of the former approach.
Vote:November 2nd, 2012 at 8:25 am
Scientists on the make is what this is. There’s taxpayer’s money to be had from thicko politicians who feel the need to be seen to be tackling a problem.(That doesn’t include Greens who want to control and manipulate the populace on the back of this alarmism).
Anyway there’s nothing humans can do about climate change. Climate is always changing, currently we are in an interglacial,enjoy it.
Vote:November 2nd, 2012 at 9:01 am
As I said tom you have posted a very weak rebuttal of the science then gone on to why the solutions purposed will not work. That is the political expediency I was referring to. In that you have my support. I don’t support the movement to limit oil use. I have repeatedly posted that we In new Zealand will burn the coal we have. If the greens were real they would be crying for every river to be dammed for power not stopping one of the clean cheap solution we have available in NZ.
Vote:As to the science its real it’s happening get used to it and most important plan for it because in the next fifty years the world will have to respond to a changing climate. There will be war, starvation and death not for us In new Zealand but the tropics and continental climes will find their food and resources shrinking at an alarming rate
November 2nd, 2012 at 9:09 am
Griff, climate change is a fact. It always has been and always will be. The history of earths climate has been one of constant and never ending change.
It is wrong to assume that nature will provide a climate conductive to maintaining our current way of living. Underlying the AGW cult, is the mistaken belief that humans are a cumulation of something, the pinacle of life. We are not. If climate change wipes out humanity, it won’t bother nature. Life will go on. Personally I think we will survive as a species for a long time yet, though there may be big changes in our way of life in order to adapt.
.
Vote:November 2nd, 2012 at 9:13 am
You just came out with the Gaia hypothesis, naughty naughty kea we dont do that on the right
Vote:November 2nd, 2012 at 9:18 am
As we always have Griff ….
Geo-engineering is not exactly new – but past efforts did not acquire such a glamorous title.
Vote:November 2nd, 2012 at 9:26 am
Maybe one day we will see a blue-green conciseness evolve in this country were we build hydro and geothermal energy capacity
Vote:Killing the RMA would be a good start Let the market decide on cost benefit rather than stop good development because the nimbys don’t want to scare the horses
November 2nd, 2012 at 9:36 am
Well I SUGGEST that your mother didn’t give you enough hugs as a small boy, and when you were 13 you got caught wanking in the toilets while on a school camp.
So THERE, Mister I’ve-got-my-opponents-all-figured-out
Vote:November 2nd, 2012 at 9:44 am
news just in
http://tvnz.co.nz/world-news/bloomberg-endorses-obama-over-climate-change-5188267
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has endorsed US President Barack Obama for a second term, citing the importance of Obama’s record on climate change.
The endorsement follows the devastating blow dealt to the New York area by superstorm Sandy.
“Our climate is changing,” Bloomberg wrote in an opinion article for Bloomberg View .
“And while the increase in extreme weather we have experienced in New York City and around the world may or may not be the result of it, the risk that it might be – given this week’s devastation – should compel all elected leaders to take immediate action.”
Vote:November 2nd, 2012 at 10:05 am
American Presidents are not the driver of climate change. Natural process is.
Vote:November 2nd, 2012 at 10:07 am
Environmental scientist James Lovelock, renowned for his terrifying predictions of climate change’s deadly impact on the planet, has gone back on his previous claims, admitting they were ‘alarmist’.
The 92-year-old Briton, who also developed the Gaia theory of the Earth as a single organism, has said climate change is still happening – just not as quickly as he once warned.
He added that other environmental commentators, such as former vice president Al Gore, are also guilty of exaggerating their arguments.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2134092/Gaia-scientist-James-Lovelock-I-alarmist-climate-change.html#ixzz2B0WPO2BL
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
Read it and weep commies
Vote:November 2nd, 2012 at 10:17 am
The daily mail
Tits and bums for weirdos
The 92-year-old Briton, who also developed the Gaia theory of the Earth as a single organism, has said climate change is still happening – just not as quickly as he once warned.
If you had read his books you would put this comment into context He originally was talking total doom and gloom in a very short time frame.
Vote:November 2nd, 2012 at 10:18 am
Denial is the first part of the grieving process Griff.
On your on the way to healing. I am here for you brother
Vote:November 2nd, 2012 at 10:24 am
A picture is worth a thousand words
Vote:daily mail= http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/11/01/article-2226241-15CD1949000005DC-131_634x512.jpg
November 2nd, 2012 at 10:34 am
OMG! Is that what happened to you?
You’re still my favourite lefty on Kiwiblog (although Ryan Sproull is a contender)
Vote:November 2nd, 2012 at 10:35 am
She is representative of a typical climate alarmist Griff.
Vote:November 2nd, 2012 at 10:37 am
I agree RightNow. RRM has lifted the standard, of climate alarmist debate, with that observation.
Vote:November 2nd, 2012 at 12:04 pm
This kind of argument, which allows development while saving the environment, nicely separates actual environmentalists from watermelons. Hint: if you instinctively reject these kinds of proposals then you’re probably a watermelon.
Vote: