But but but, they said the science was settled.

[BHDOGS]

Nah bullshit mate we can only go to the moon pave over most of the planet cut down nearly every rainforest create ozone holes destroy the world with atomic weapons but can't change the climate mate? Nah not possible mate we can just do everything else

[xxx000]

The unfortunate culture that has emerged in recent years is the Internet/ talkback radio 'expert' on almost any topic, this being one of them.
During cold snaps talkback jocks ridicule the science based on the outside temp that day. To them it's about winning over their audience by any means and at any cost to sway voters to the right side of politics.
Even our current conservative govt is doing something towards reacting to climate change despite its own regular jabs at the science around it.
Remove politics and most of the negativity disappears.
Re the argument that China isn't doing anything about it so why should we. Imagine if the whole world worked that way. We'd never change anything and neither would anyone else. What an absurd way to think and run a country that'd be

[Maka]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-1...arming/5262582

(with thanks to the ABC)


US, China to share policy ideas to fight global warming

In a joint statement announced as US secretary of state John Kerry wrapped up a two-day visit to Beijing, both countries said they would work together "to collaborate through enhanced policy dialogue, including the sharing of information regarding their respective post-2020 plans to limit greenhouse gas emissions".

Both sides said that they recognise the need for action "in light of the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change and its worsening impacts, and the related issue of air pollution from burning fossil fuels".
Mr Kerry has arrived in Indonesia where he will again be talking climate change on the final stop of his five-day tour of Asia.

During his time in Indonesia Mr Kerry will meet the president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and deliver a major speech on climate change.

The agreement between the US and China includes the sharing of information regarding their plans to limit greenhouse gas emissions post-2020, the statement said

The two sides have also reached an agreement on implementing five initiatives launched under a joint climate change working group, the statement said.

Those initiatives include emission reductions from heavy duty and other vehicles, smart grids, carbon capture utilisation and storage, collecting and managing greenhouse gas emissions data, and energy efficiency in buildings and industry.

'Unique cooperative effort'

After touring a factory which is a joint US-Sino venture making clean diesel engines for heavy vehicles, Mr Kerry said the two countries were to try to pool their efforts.

"The leaders of China have agreed to join us," he told workers at the new Cummins-Foton factory, which is set to go into production in April.

"China and the United States will put an extra effort into exchanging information and discussing policies that will help both of us to be able to develop and lead on the standards that need to be announced next year for the global climate change agreement..

Mr Kerry said the factory is a "unique cooperative effort" between the two countries and he hoped it would set "the standard for global seriousness" to fight climate change.

US-based Cummins joined with China's Foton to build the $US350 million dollar plant on the edge of Beijing, which will initially produce some 60,000 of the new clean engines a year.

When the second phase comes online next year, it is expected to double production of the engines, which will meet new emissions standards set to be adopted soon by Beijing.

The US and China are the world's two largest emitters of greenhouse gases.

China's cities are often hit by heavy pollution, due to coal-burning by power stations and industry, as well as vehicle use, and it has become a major source of discontent with the ruling Communist Party.

Authorities have become more open about pollution levels, in part as a response to public pressure, but officials have implied that it will take years before the situation improves.

The pollution has been linked to hundreds of thousands of premature deaths, and has tarnished the image of Chinese cities including Beijing, which saw a 10 per cent drop in tourist visits during the first 11 months of 2013.

[gtfpv]

Originally Posted by ltd

Cheap, I love your work as always but mate, you're playing with fire on this global warming hoax that some are slow to wake up to. Did I say hoax? Sorry, that would imply it was harmless. I meant to say money making scam.
Sort of like those who send $5000.00 to Western Union waiting for King Batuuutti to die and transfer 50 bazillion dollars into their account yet can't admit they've been had.

GLOBAL WARMING IN MY OPINION IS A CRUEL HOAX . it takes the real issue of POLLUTION off the agenda while everybody whinges about hoax or not ? the pollution is fact , rather than the hoax of cooling the planet , what about the real issues of clean air and drinking water /vegetation .
more emphasis is put into this warming HOAX , than the reality of declining human health and sea /air pullution .
A VERY CLEVER TACTIC IN DISGUISE . ( SOMETHING WE'VE ALL COME TO EXPECT)

[gtfpv]

FORGET WHAT ALLAN JONES AND RAY HADLEY . tell us about pathetic clean energy waste of time and carbon tax blah blah .
it's a clever disguise to keep us dumbed down society away from reality.
this video is took 5 seconds to find on youtube , and its 6 years old . nothing to do with climate change/ global warming which we all waffle on about .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcWpkWBX04E

[gtfpv]

Originally Posted by xxx000

The unfortunate culture that has emerged in recent years is the Internet/ talkback radio 'expert' on almost any topic, this being one of them.
During cold snaps talkback jocks ridicule the science based on the outside temp that day. To them it's about winning over their audience by any means and at any cost to sway voters to the right side of politics.
Even our current conservative govt is doing something towards reacting to climate change despite its own regular jabs at the science around it.
Remove politics and most of the negativity disappears.
Re the argument that China isn't doing anything about it so why should we. Imagine if the whole world worked that way. We'd never change anything and neither would anyone else. What an absurd way to think and run a country that'd be

brilliant post . sometimes i even relate this into internet propoganda !!! a place to vent your steam , and blow your top on the keyboard instead of really do something . it works in the political favour , ( simulated reality) . becomes an internet slagging debate rather than an action of the public . get on FB and see all the women sending petitions via facebook . wow like thats very nasty stuff indeed . i'd be scared about those if i were in politics LOL.
Or some old bat . ringing in to 2GB selected of course out of a list of callers , to side with these radio JOCKS and tell them she wants to kill Julia gillard .
and then of course theres the high percentage of people that believe that if they agree with these high paid celebrety monkeys . then somehow they are more intelligent and higher educted as well , so be it the slanging starts on media talkback . internet etc etc . the reality once again deep seeded is very different from the truth . unemployed people, or underpaid white collar beurocrate paper stampers criticising penalty rates siding with high paid right wing radio jocks , believing they are the higher intellectual people . just dont get a flat on the way home , otherwise they're FU....D

[Syndrome]

I don't care if the planet is warming or cooling. The debate whether mankind is influencing the planet's weather patterns is irrelevant. The focus should be on reducing the impact we make on the planet - consumption of resources, creation of pollution/rubbish, excess population growth and the destruction of nature both flora and fauna. This is something we should focus on.

[Lotte]

Originally Posted by Syndrome

I don't care if the planet is warming or cooling. The debate whether mankind is influencing the planet's weather patterns is irrelevant. The focus should be on reducing the impact we make on the planet - consumption of resources, creation of pollution/rubbish, excess population growth and the destruction of nature both flora and fauna. This is something we should focus on.

Quoted for truth.

[chamb0]

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

Humans have indeed experienced dramatic changes before.
After the Toba Event a bit over 70,000 years ago, humans were reduced to approximately less than 10,000 individuals worldwide. This is why we are so genetically similar all over the planet.

Thanks for the correction. It does highlight how vulnerable we are. I wonder how things would play out if the same thing happened today. I’ve just finished reading the post-apocalyptic book ‘The Road’ by Cormac McCarthy which explored that theme… pretty grim.

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

Then, amongst other events, quite recently there was a "melt water pulse event" where sea levels rose by about 120 meters over a short period of time. This was only 14,000 years ago and amongst other worldwide changes, is what flooded the low lying coastal planes of what is now Queensland and allowed the Barrier Reef to develop (that's right, it's not "millions of years old", the Barrier Reef is only 14,000 years old).
I could go on.

Are you implying the Reef's age determines how valuable or expendable it is? 14,000 years ago there were no major coastal cities at risk of inundation. Humans had not yet even settled into a sedentary agricultural lifestyle. Researchers tell us the sea level rise you refer to was probably caused by collapsing ice sheets in the northern hemisphere - we're on track to causing a repeat ourselves.

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

The basic fact is that our entire civilisation has arisen during one brief 10,000 year unseasonably temperate period of Earths history. The planet is normally much hotter or colder than we have seen over that short time span. The climate will change, one way or the other, hotter or colder, and there's literally nothing we can do to stop it. Our best bet is to adapt if things change too much, as we have done before.

Yes it's been hotter before, with more CO2 in the atmosphere... but then again, there were no ice sheets and sea level was tens of metres higher than today. Enough to submerge most major cities. The fact that it's been warmer in the past doesn't mean we have nothing to worry about now. Climate changes in the past show us that it’s sensitive to energy imbalances and will react to whatever is influencing it at the time. Humans are now the dominant influence and we're overriding the natural cycle. The natural pace of change would have been over many thousands of years, arguably sufficiently slow for organisms to better adapt.

I think your belief that there's nothing we can do to stop it is demonstrably false, and sits awkwardly with your own comment on adapting to our circumstances. We can and have been doing something about it, and that's because we know both why it's happening (mostly the burning of fossil fuels, cement manufacture and land use change) and how to adapt our behaviour (ie. burn less and control deforestation).

Humans can be good at adapting provided we have accurate information. Considering the hierarchy of hazard controls, can you think of a better single way to respond and adapt than eliminating the worst of the hazard itself? Why do you believe it's not possible at all to control it, and what sort of other adaption you have in mind? How will we adapt to an increased economic cost as further pressure is placed on our public health systems, infrastructure and farmers, and as we struggle with a reduced ability to produce food, more extreme weather events, bushfire costs, more heatwaves combined with the reduced productivity resulting from all these things? Can we rely solely on passive adaptation without running the major risk of soon reaching a climate tipping point, or even just maintain our quality of life?

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

The other annoying fact is that Australia doesn't matter, despite what we're told that we're "the worst" emitters of pollution. We're not...we're way down the list at something like 17th.

As at 2010 we were producing 373,000 tonnes of CO2 annually (1.19% of global total, ranked 18th). This is estimated to have risen to 430,000 in 2012.

Using excel I quickly calculated the following (based on the 2010 data):
- In 2010, Australia combined with those countries emitting less than us (i.e. less than 1.19% each) accounted for 23.86% of the global total.
- Countries outside the top 5 emitters accounted for 45.15% of the total.
- For all greenhouse gas emissions, the relative totals for the above scenarios were 31% and 55.45%.

Ignoring the role these minor countries play (and that includes us) won't get us to where we need to be.

Most developed countries including us outsource much of their emissions to rising economies like China so I think it’s reasonable to say that we share some responsibility.

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

We could literally shut down every business, close all factories, shut down all power stations, and scrap all cars, and it would not make one bit of difference to the world. China and India to our north comprise nearly three billion people.

I think you’re oversimplifying the issue down to just two options - close everything down or continue as normal. How about adapting to clean energy to power these things where we can, and encouraging other countries to do the same? Maybe we underestimate how sensitive international climate change politics and diplomacy are to the actions of individual countries. At Kyoto we helped undermine global efforts. We clearly signalled our lack of resolve with our stalling tactics and failure to send a senior representative to Warsaw late last year. However deniers everywhere awarded us a gold star while we supplied them with more ammunition. Backing away from our 2020 targets and being the first country to ever wind back a carbon price will rightly relegate us back to the diplomatic fringes. Other timid countries standing feebly on the verge of taking stronger action will be watching and may well reduce their own efforts.
We can’t be a proactive member of the global community helping to forge solutions and expecting others to act when we won’t ourselves.

Are we happy with a complacent approach which will in effect spoil the efforts of other less wealthy countries, and further increase the burden on others? When I was in the army, we called those who were happy to sit back and let others do the heavy lifting ‘jack c***’s’. They lost legitimacy and respect in the group because they failed to live up to the values of shared responsibility. Maybe Australia is becoming an international jack ****?

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

China is increasing it's CO2 emissions each year by more than Australia's entire annual output. Another interesting fact is that Chinas population grows each year by a larger number than Australias population in total.

What’s your source for the population growth? Their growth rate ranks around 159th at about 0.47%. I calculate that as roughly 6.3 million annually.



Countries like China feel rightly or wrongly that developed countries should bear most of the burden because they initiated the problem, have higher per capita emissions and placed demand on their polluting industries in the first place. I personally feel that the blame game on either side isn’t productive though, it was one of the reasons Copenhagen was a failure. Anyway China have still pressed ahead with rolling out pilot ETS’s covering around 250 million people (and you can bet they watched our carbon tax very closely beforehand).

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

The entire global warming industry is just that...an industry. Massive government funds are freely available to any group who claims to be doing something for the "climate change mitigation" industry. Huge amounts of taxpayers dollars get poured into black holes to subsidise things we just don't need, and which just don't work.

Show some evidence for your claims. Are you talking about clean energy investment and a carbon pricing mechanism? Why don't we need better access to clean energy? A market based carbon pricing mechanism is widely recognised outside of politics as the cheapest way to reduce carbon. I really don't believe in trusting a politician over a scientist or economist on this issue. Can you demonstrate that governments which already have such a scheme aren't seeing effective results, and can you quantify the failures?

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

SO yes, try and reduce pollution, but don't believe for a second that the planet is somehow this finely tuned instrument set at one particular unchanging point, which will never get hotter or colder, and is specially set just to suit humans. It isn't...

This is a classic straw man argument. Scientists clearly aren't telling us that. We're causing changes that otherwise wouldn't have happened, and on a human timescale, not a geological one.

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

we're just another animal, but we have a big brain and can change our environment to suit us, and if any "changes" need to be made to the planet, it is in modifying things to suit for when the climate, inevitably, changes again. That's life.

Indeed we have changed our environment, and we're finding that in many respects, not in a good way. That’s unfortunate and preventable. What type of modifications do you reckon we should make?

[xxx000]

Originally Posted by gtfpv

FORGET WHAT ALLAN JONES AND RAY HADLEY . tell us about pathetic clean energy waste of time and carbon tax blah blah .
it's a clever disguise to keep us dumbed down society away from reality.
this video is took 5 seconds to find on youtube , and its 6 years old . nothing to do with climate change/ global warming which we all waffle on about .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcWpkWBX04E

New words in that youtube clip Distroy and emmissions
makes you wonder about the claims made in it

[Pedro]

chamb0, I hope you are as passionate about eliminating emissions from your toxic green house gas emitting Marquis as you are about championing the global warming hoax. Remember ... get your own house in order first.

[chamb0]

Originally Posted by Pedro

chamb0, I hope you are as passionate about eliminating emissions from your toxic green house gas emitting Marquis as you are about championing the global warming hoax. Remember ... get your own house in order first.

Don't worry, I've fitted it with the latest fuel ionizer and fuel line magnets.

[robertjp]

Originally Posted by chamb0

Don't worry, I've fitted it with the latest fuel ionizer and fuel line magnets.

But has it got the colourful sticker? This is very important.

[UberKnee]

Originally Posted by Lotte

Whoever says science is settled is thinking of pseudo science - the science of absolutes (so not science at all).
The science is never settled, probabilities/theories/assumptions/possible outcomes are just changed as more data comes to light.

/end rant about linguistic misrepresentation about science

Besides. I thought topics about religion were taboo here?

Its true science never truly is settled. We constantly rediscover and redefine things we once believed as truth as we make new discoveries. I dont deny climate change though, I do deny this idea that mankind is 100% responsible for climate change and the idea of what climate change is. Its just that human life, particularly our C02 creating industry sectors are relatively new additions to the planet in the grand scheme of things. Yet millions upon millions of years before there were even primates of any kind the earth went through drastic climate changes. At worst we are marginally speeding up a natural process.

[Lotte]

I don't know any actual scientists who have said climate change is 100% human influenced?

What the hell ever happened to, you know, protecting the environment, because it's sort of necessary for survival?
I remember in the nineties reduce, reuse recycle was taught at school. We ran with it. There was no argument as to whether waste was a left agenda with hidden socialist bents. It just was, because it was, well, right? Why the hell is it that the moment we want the big polluters to reduce their emissions, develop opportunities to recycle the energy given to us by the sun/wind/geothermal properties of the earth and reuse whatever they can, it suddenly becomes a politically contentious argument where every man and his dog has a say because "it might push my electricity bills up". News flash. Power bills tend to go up every year anyway, and as end users, we're responsible for the amount of power we choose to/not to use; so yeah, we should pay for that privilege.

Seriously, what has happened in the last ten years or so that suddenly so many people want to sit on their ***** and destroy the planet, not necessarily through climate change, but through sheer misuse and overuse of finite resources, when we have renewable resources right at our fingertips?

[CoupeKing]

Climate was changing regardless if we were here or not. Wont argue the fact that we`re speeding the process up though. Its when conditions change super fast after having slowly evolved is what we need to be concerned about, creates a sudden imbalance.

[UberKnee]

Because of the way its presented, thats where the argument rests. Recycling and reducing emissions is a good thing all round, but this idea thats presented to us is wrong, and its not an idea presented by the scientists, most of them do say that its not all out fault, but their findings are relayed onto the masses as "climate change 100% mans fault", "every car kills a thousand elephants a day", "the earths climate has never ever changed before", etc. Most of the supporters as well run with the idea of we're all too blame as well. If the genuine facts as they are discovered and concluded were relayed to us, no one would have an issue. If the media, gubments, etc. just said climate change is a natural phenomenom that we may be speeding up with our wasteful society, that's fine. That's not the line that's toed though.

[Syndrome]

Originally Posted by Lotte

Seriously, what has happened in the last ten years or so that suddenly so many people want to sit on their ***** and destroy the planet, not necessarily through climate change, but through sheer misuse and overuse of finite resources, when we have renewable resources right at our fingertips?

It is the devolution of society in action.

[Lotte]

Originally Posted by UberKnee

Because of the way its presented, thats where the argument rests. Recycling and reducing emissions is a good thing all round, but this idea thats presented to us is wrong, and its not an idea presented by the scientists, most of them do say that its not all out fault, but their findings are relayed onto the masses as "climate change 100% mans fault", "every car kills a thousand elephants a day", "the earths climate has never ever changed before", etc. Most of the supporters as well run with the idea of we're all too blame as well. If the genuine facts as they are discovered and concluded were relayed to us, no one would have an issue. If the media, gubments, etc. just said climate change is a natural phenomenom that we may be speeding up with our wasteful society, that's fine. That's not the line that's toed though.

The facts are there. Scientific papers relay them accurately. Perhaps general society should stop relying on people who don't know what they're talking about (pollies/journos) to tell them what's happening; and use the internet for what's is for instead of looking up cat pictures? I mean, at the end of the day, the carbon price was implemented to invest in renewables, but for some reason people think that's a terrible idea. Comes under the "forcing us to change" heading. That's the argument against any form of ets I hear and it's absolute ******* bull ****.

Perfect example of people listening to media. Stephen hawking makes a discovery that indicates black holes may not exist as we know it. Media turns that into "ZOMG BLACK HOLES DON'T EXIST HERP DERP". Now half my friends actually believe that -.-

This whole notion that people have that since its only a possibility we're contributing to ******* up the planet they can wipe their hands of any responsibly. Hell, I'm reading it in this thread.

It appals me thar I read my electricity bill and find I'm using less than a third of a one person household with two people here most of the time. And I don't go out of my way to conserve energy. What the hell are people doing?

Not necessarily arguing with you uber, I see your point. But by **** am I sick of my parents generation not giving a **** when we have to clean it up later. It's disgusting.

[Lotte]

Disclaimer: not all my parents generation. Mum would throttle me for that but you know, the ones with the power stick anyway

[UberKnee]

The internet isn't very reliable though. You can find papers, supposed scientists, reports, etc. that back up every single possible claim ever. It would help if all bias was taken out of media/gubment and the vehicles we rely on to rely us information, just relayed it without any agenda. The only way we could genuinely be informed in modern society of the genuine scientific theories/discoveries is basically to speak to the scientists themselves, even then you have to speak to the right ones. Any website/media platform that reports it can pick and choose lines to suit an idea/create headlines

[Syndrome]

Science is never settled. Knowledge is an ever expanding pool and as such things we believe today may be totally discredited by future generations due to new discoveries.

[Lotte]

Originally Posted by UberKnee

The internet isn't very reliable though. You can find papers, supposed scientists, reports, etc. that back up every single possible claim ever. It would help if all bias was taken out of media/gubment and the vehicles we rely on to rely us information, just relayed it without any agenda. The only way we could genuinely be informed in modern society of the genuine scientific theories/discoveries is basically to speak to the scientists themselves, even then you have to speak to the right ones. Any website/media platform that reports it can pick and choose lines to suit an idea/create headlines

Agreed. However one of the things I learnt at school , that should probably be taught to everyone, is how to find credible sources. And to question everything. As an engineer I'm all too familiar with data being manipulated to suit your desired outcome. Hell, we did it in one of our labs because the computer simulation was wrong (user input issues, but we knew what outcome we needed, so we swapped the orientation of the model in paint. SHHHHHH). Thanks to that though, I've learnt to take the data and make my own decisions from it. I also know that opinion pieces and blogs aren't the best source of info (and are frequently being used to support claims that go against scienctific evidence in my experience). But hey, if the pollies can use wiki as a credible source and that's good enough for the general public...

I dunno, society I feel are incredibly lazy, and will run with whatever means they have to make as few changes to life as necessary, because god forbid something may inconvenience you slightly. It's disappointing to say the least. Maybe I just care to much about the future. But I'm certainly reluctant to bring children into this hell hole becausr they'll be dealing with the brunt of it, and I don't want to risk putting someone through that. Not saying it's a given, but the probabilities are concerning, and becoming more accurate as we acquire more data.

Anyway. That's my piece. Comes down to laziness and resistance to change. *sigh*

[2011G6E]

Originally Posted by Syndrome

Science is never settled. Knowledge is an ever expanding pool and as such things we believe today may be totally discredited by future generations due to new discoveries.

Precisely.
Global warming would have to be the only science subject I have ever heard of which is solidly described as "the science is settled, no debate is needed".

All of science absolutely is not settled. Scientists, ones who follow the normal rules anyway, follow a few basic tenets of science.
The main one is that if new evidence comes along that disproves an old well loved theory, they should be happy to throw out everything they followed before and go along with the new evidence.
The best example would be evolution. It's proven, all the evidence says it is correct, and so far all the new evidence that is being discovered backs it all up as being the best explanation for the rise of life on Earth. However, as the great J.B.S. Haldane reportedly said when asked "What evidence would destroy your confidence in evolution?", and he replied "fossil rabbits in the precambrian".
On other words, if even one reputable example was found of an out of place animal in fossil beds which appeared to disprove evolution, scientists would check the new evidence to see if it was accurate, and if it was, then they would happily shrug, throw out all the old theories, and start formulating new ones that aligned with the new evidence.


However, with global warming, we are repeatedly told that there can be no doubt, there can be no debate allowed, there is no dissention allowed. You must believe, and that's it. Full stop.
This can honestly be said about no other area of science anywhere...everything is set at the moment to suit current evidence. However, scientists are...or should be...constantly checking the evidence and looking for new theories that suit evidence. It is never, ever "settled".

Except for global warming...that's apparently "settled"...

[CoupeKing]

Originally Posted by Lotte

I dunno, society I feel are incredibly lazy, and will run with whatever means they have to make as few changes to life as necessary, because god forbid something may inconvenience you slightly. It's disappointing to say the least. *

1. Get thirsty, open the fridge.
2. Get hungry, ^ same or ring a pizza
3. Feeling cold? Turn on the ducted heating.
4. Get hot? Turn on the Air Con
5. Lets sit in the shower for 20 minutes.
6. Use hand sanitizer( LOL )
7. If all that fails, watch Top Chef.

[2011G6E]

It always amuses (in a tragic way) me that this bright shining 21st century future we all looked forward to is filled with people telling us to do without, to make do with less, not to want modern electrical conveniences that make life more comfortable or easier, and to stop wanting "better things".

We're not short of power...nuclear is cheap, safe, and easily done with modern plants (not the poster child Chernobyl type thing which was fifty year old tech run by drunks, or the Japs building on the coast in an earthquake zone), if a government has the will to do it. Coal is "virtually inexhaustible" by most studies, at least lasting for many hundreds of years more...one smallish mine I have seen figures for estimates a 200 year supply at current rates of year on year demand increase, and if you have seen the maps I have seen, Queensland alone is packed with staggeringly vast areas of the stuff, and that's just "easy access" coal. Oil is being discovered in more and more places, when we were assured back in the seventies that it would all be gone by the late nineties.

There is plenty of energy, and making people feel guilty and ashamed for leaving a bloody light on in an empty room is just denying people the future that we should be enjoying.
The climate change industry has a vested interest in keeping people worried and uncomfortable and paying higher and higher (artificially increased) bills for energy.
Because an upset uncomfortable populace is an easily controlled populace.

[cheap]

Charts can sometimes help





A favorite of mine



And then we have this chart, which has been the subject of much controversy which fewer people are prepared to side with. Yet this is the chart which became the cornerstone of AGW and conclusive proof.

[karj]

Armchair experts **** me.

If you were diagnosed with cancer and told you have 6 months to live unless you undergo treatment, you would probably seek additional independent opinions from qualified medical professionals. If the 2nd, 3rd and 4th opinion indicated the same thing, you would recognise a consensus exists amongst the highly qualified professionals and you would undergo treatment. You wouldn't say this: "I don't feel dead now, so I'll just wait for a bit more evidence to back up the diagnosis" or this: "It's a conspiracy amongst surgeons to make money through unneccessary surgery and suck on the teat of taxpayer funded Medicare."

When you or a loved one is next diagnosed with cancer, you wouldn't counsel them (against medical opinion) into waiting for symptoms to worsen to confirm the diagnosis. Yet this is the bizarre logic that some people apply to climate change and the scientists involved in that area of research.

I couldn't put it any more simply than this: There is a consensus in the scientific community about climate change and human impact. It is settled to the extent that the consensus is based on the best information available at this point in time. It is the responsibility of policy makers to respond to that with "evidence based policy." If additional information comes to light in the future and a scientific consensus is built that contradicts the original consensus, then policy makers have to respond to that change.

Actually, on second thought... you guys make perfect sense... Why bother with evidence based policy when we can just formulate policy on the back of unqualified opinion?

[BHDOGS]

dont bother karj people fail to realize that governments act on scientific advice that sometimes isnt 100 percent certain and rather then paying 20 dollars a month in there electricity bills for a nasty carbon tax theyd rather just pay 20 dollars a month extra for electricity companys pockets.

[cheap]

Unfortunately it isn't clear cut, there are rafts of information and opinions which contradicts all sort of things. The AGW theme has also morphed into climate change which could mean anything, I think this was done on purpose because it was increasingly evident that the original AGW predictions were full of holes and hot air. One thing is for sure, and that is the climate has changed and will continue to change regardless of how much we limit CO2. Civilisations, cities and species have come and gone due to changes in climate/weather this is the norm.