Better mining methods. Where we before could not mine x amount because of y, we now can. We have approx the same amount of reserve we had in 1970.
Ah I see. I wondered why they'd gone quiet on it.
__________________ "I won't come on tv and speak or write about anything and say words only half the people listening understand. In our language there's a similarity, words that are spelt differently but mean the same thing. Words that mean the same thing and the big men use these words, knowing full well that maybe only 10% of the people listening will understand. Well we don't. We speak the language that everybody understands. Instead of me saying somebody was avaricious, I'd say he was bloody greedy."
Just lazy journalism. It is way easier to get published if you show some sceptisism rather than following the orthodox view.
That's an interesting point. I think there are a few factors that help to get studies published; you have the sensationalist factor, (which is why some projections show that the world will have melted like a chocolate fireguard by the time I finish this sentence), you have those that are published because they are funded by big business or other interests, and you have those that are published because they go along with the general appetite within the scientific community - which is to prove that they were right all along.
I have looked at all your links (apart from the BBC one that wouldn't render) and they all seem to contradict the findings from the initial link I posted. How can NASA say that the global temperature is so warm when the IPCC's figures don't bear this out? Well, the answer seems to be that they can do it by using unscientific methods. They don't have enough weather stations in the Arctic to produce accurate figures.
Anyway, rather than getting bogged down in the minuscule details, I'll just make the following points:
As mentioned earlier, Gore, the UK and the US to name but a few have all used the IPCC's figures for global temperature to make their views. When those figures suddenly stop showing you what you want to see, you can't suddenly just switch to a new set of figures.
I don't doubt that the temperature of the planet is changing, it always has and it always will. I just don't believe we have any real understanding or control of how it is changing. Going by the basic principles of the increase in carbon in the atmosphere leading to warmer temperatures then the global temperature should be rising and should be rising with some relationship to the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, and it should take twenty years - but it's not.
Speaking of the twenty years, that seems like a sensible way to go about things, and yet many of these 'scientific' article use extreme conditions of one year, displayed by a particular set of figures to make their point.
I can see what will happen now, the twenty year average will show soon enough that the the sky is not going to fall in. Al Gore will be elected God, everyone will pat themselves on the back for their efforts and someone somewhere will tell us that unless we start producing more carbon then the sky is going to fall in.
PS. It is obvious that the temperatures on a rolling twenty year cycle are going to be showing an increase because not much more than twenty years ago we were all in fear that the iceman cometh.
__________________ Patches I'm depending on you son
I'll tell you why I labeled it as lazy journalism. It just doesn't quote any sources against global warming. It's all his hearsay, such as "some commentators". You should always question articles without references and especially those without references that aren't pulled from respected science journals. I believe his motive is just to get paid and published. It is much easier to achieve that with an anti-global warming article than it is one that is for it.
There is a perfect example of what he is doing and its effect on this thread. kop said that his mate had calculated that humans produce more CO2 going to the shops than cars which is pretty unblievable. But you didn't question it at all, it went straight into the memory bank as you said, and became gospel. If I hadn't shown you an alternative calculation, how many people would you have told that interesting fact and how many would the have told?
How many people are you going to tell now that it seems that the opposite is true? I guess no-one as it is just what you would expect and not interesting at all. It's much easier to disseminate and publish something that is unorthodox, even if it doesn't have sources.
As for NASA, if any agency is going to produce data against global warming it is them. They recently removed the words "To understand and protect our home plane" from their mission statement. This is believed to be from pressure applied by the Bush administration. And temperature data is also gathered from satellites, and they have plenty of those.
And if you don't believe the NASA data, why not use the other sources I posted. All these well respected scientists can't be wrong can they?
Last edited by kelster; 30th December 2007 at 11:21 AM.
Fair points, and you are probably right about Kop's post, but I would only have repeated it as a sound bite in the pub.
I understand how you made your assumptions, but I know that in Bali recently there were a number of scientists in agreement with the article, which is why I took the 'some commentators' point as gospel.
I heard something on Radio 2 about it. I don't recall names, but it was David Bellamy (not the greatest scientific mind ever I know) who was actually interviewed. I subsequently posted a link on here with some of the theory behind it:
This might be incorrect, but it shows how the science is incomplete & yet huge assumptions are being made.
I am not totally disregarding the NASA findings (or any of the others). What I am saying is that you can't make your assessments by taking a range of figures from different places which will then fit your argument. You need to use consistent data.
__________________ Patches I'm depending on you son
This might be incorrect, but it shows how the science is incomplete & yet huge assumptions are being made.
I am not totally disregarding the NASA findings (or any of the others). What I am saying is that you can't make your assessments by taking a range of figures from different places which will then fit your argument. You need to use consistent data.
Now I see where you are coming from. I think you may be expecting far too much of scientists. Nothing in science is absolute, unless it's maths. Everything is pretty much a theory.
Black holes are just a theory, no-one has ever seen them because by their nature they are almost impossible to detect, although if Hawking radiation is correct, we might. You can only observe their effects on the surounding region. Our knowledge is incomplete and therefore some scientists may argue that their is no such thing as black holes.
With evolution, we also have an incomplete knowledge and gaps in the data. So what has happened is a hypothesis has been produced and what we know now has been made to fit that hypothesis. You observe what you observe and then make a very educated guess at what is going on. It might be right or it might be wrong. Until someone comes up with something better than evolutionary theory, and note it is called a theory, then it stands. Because the knowledge is incomplete it can be attacked by creationists. It doesn't mean it is wrong.
And that is how science works. A hypothesis is formuated, a consensus is reached and it is agreed until something better comes along or it stands the test of time. While the hypothesis stands you'll have all sorts of people rightly trying to prove it wrong. And all this time you will have data that is variable and conflicts, even if they are measuring the same thing. Data is a very variable thing, especially when different people use different methods of data collection. Funnily enough, most science is not an exact science. Assumptions will always be made. That is the nature of things.
Do you know where most temperature measurements are done? I once read a weather sience paper about how to measure various parametres. I don't remember all it said, but one thing I bit my mark in was the topic about temperature and how it was almost always measured relative close to the ground, and at or close to asphalt or concrete (read in cities or on airports). They concluded that temperature measures if being used in historical comparison should be measured away from cities and airports, and ideally at least 100 meters above ground (at least I think it was 100 meters, can't remember exactly). The heat rays from the concrete made the temperatures unnaturally high and gave a wrong picture of the developement of temperature increase.
Now, I'm not one of those who in any way are against doing environmental work to better the situation we have today, but I really believe that when the public world community decides that something is right, then there's no opening for different views, and all facts should be either pro- "insert public opinion" or else beaten down in flames. In Norway we have a semi famous ex-politician named Gro Harlem Bruntland, and she has even started to use a Bush-approach to the discussion, saying that everyone now knows the truth about the environment and those who tries to forward a different view are ignorant/have an agenda/are stupid/etc. It's "either you are with us or against us". That's the kind of attitude that makes me angry, and I look at as extremely historyless.
Also Kop, the number of weather stations has dramatically decreased since the early nineties. The ones that are no longer operational tend to be in rural areas, meaning that the ones that are operational tend to be in urban areas. I'm sure I don't need to join the dots.
__________________ Patches I'm depending on you son
Do you know where most temperature measurements are done? I once read a weather sience paper about how to measure various parametres. I don't remember all it said, but one thing I bit my mark in was the topic about temperature and how it was almost always measured relative close to the ground, and at or close to asphalt or concrete (read in cities or on airports). They concluded that temperature measures if being used in historical comparison should be measured away from cities and airports, and ideally at least 100 meters above ground (at least I think it was 100 meters, can't remember exactly). The heat rays from the concrete made the temperatures unnaturally high and gave a wrong picture of the developement of temperature increase.
Now, I'm not one of those who in any way are against doing environmental work to better the situation we have today, but I really believe that when the public world community decides that something is right, then there's no opening for different views, and all facts should be either pro- "insert public opinion" or else beaten down in flames. In Norway we have a semi famous ex-politician named Gro Harlem Bruntland, and she has even started to use a Bush-approach to the discussion, saying that everyone now knows the truth about the environment and those who tries to forward a different view are ignorant/have an agenda/are stupid/etc. It's "either you are with us or against us". That's the kind of attitude that makes me angry, and I look at as extremely historyless.
It sheds some light on the opposite theory that for sure. But it does acknowledge that there is an opposite theory, and it didn't say anything about wheter or not the "cool island" were warmer than they would've been if they weren't "an island" in an unnatural environment. Whichever theory is correct; they are research done by others and should be treated as a part of what we all base our opinions on. We can choose to believe them, or we can choose not to. Either way we should listen to both "sides". The best "fact" there is, is the fact that all scientists have a theory and tries to prove it by doing tests. That "fact" alone should make us skeptic to all sience reports. I also noted that this wikipedia-article presents the global warming view, and has a condescending tone towards "skeptics of global warming".
Just to make one thing clear: what I really am discussing here is how we take sience as fact, when the question just as often should be who are presenting these facts and why. If there were a clear overweight on the "skeptics of global warming"-side in an important discussion like this, I would have looked for arguments and facts towards global warming. It's the discussion itself I find important, and nowadays I fell that the discussion is pretty much over which in itself is very dangerous when we're talking about sience.
There is a well documented opposing theory, I was just reading about a particular weather centre in Brisbane, which is a good example of how common sense tells you that the (localised) temperature of a place must have changed with time.
There is no point debating that for ages anyway. The debate from both sides is well documented already.
__________________ Patches I'm depending on you son
Don't those famous hockey-stick graphs of Gore omit to show that the increases in carbon dioxide follow increases in temperature rather than the other way round? It's the sun like it always has been.
__________________ Patches I'm depending on you son
Last edited by aws; 29th January 2008 at 06:46 PM.
Anyone got a patio heater by the way. I see they are the next target on the basis they emit more CO2 than amotor car - presumably if you leave it on all year ?
But sustainable charcaol in a chimenea is ok.
*Rubs hands and pops marshmallow onto toasting fork.*
Anyone got a patio heater by the way. I see they are the next target on the basis they emit more CO2 than amotor car - presumably if you leave it on all year ?
But sustainable charcaol in a chimenea is ok.
*Rubs hands and pops marshmallow onto toasting fork.*
By them now. As I understand it it wont be illegal to use them it'll just be illegal to sell them. So, presumably I could get one free with every patio heater cover I buy.
