VincentRJ

Why are the comments so negative? At least planting more trees will improve the scenery and the air quality. "The project plans to cultivate more trees on road islands and pavements across 14 districts, covering 34 kilometres."

The full story implies that the Move Foreward Party was responsible for the 'lack of quorum' because they didn't press the button. Here's the quote from the full story. "A check by pressing a button to certify presence at the meeting showed less than half of the 498 performing MPs were present, leading to House Speaker Wan Muhamad Noor Matha to adjourning it until next Thursday." "While 150 Move Forward MPs were present, they did not press the button to certify their presence."

The abbot is also significantly overweight, which indicates he eats too much, which is against Buddhist principles. ????

If you check the actual data, instead of news stories written to create alarm, you'll find that the number of deaths, world-wide, from floods, droughts, storms, and temperature extremes, have dropped significantly since the 1920s, and those figures in the attached graph do not take into account the dramatic population increase since the 1920s. "This decline is even more impressive when we consider the rate of population growth over this period. When we correct for population – showing this data in terms of death rates (measured per 100,000 people) – we see an even greater decline over the past century." https://ourworldindata.org/natural-disasters#natural-disasters-kill-tens-of-thousands-each-year There are two major issues to consider here. (1) The reporting of an increase in extreme weather events in recent decades is related to an increase in the improvement of recording such events, due to modern technology, when anyone with a cellphone can immediately share news of a storm or flood from halfway around the world. Therefore, an increase in registered disasters does not necessarilly equate to more disasters in reality. (2) The same improvement in technology also reduces the number of deaths from extreme weather events, because of better reporting and predictions of extreme weather events, allowing people to get out of the way before the storm or flood arrives.

If this is true, then man-made global warming must be beneficial. Do you know that, globally, far more people die from cold weather than hot weather? "Cold weather kills 20 times as many people as hot weather, according to an international study analyzing over 74 million deaths in 384 locations across 13 countries." https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150520193831.htm

The above statement is also a product of the human imagination. All opinions and perceptions, including scientific theories, are products of the human imagination. We tend to use phrases like 'the Laws of Physics', as though these are facts of reality that can never be broken, yet the history of science is rife with laws that have been broken and replaced with new laws that will no doubt be broken, or at least modified, at some point in the future. The issue to contemplate and address is 'what laws, opinions, views, and interpretations actually work, and/or are beneficial to our survival and well-being'? When individuals and/or communities suffer, starve, get killed, and so on, it's usually because of wrong views. Exceptions would be certain natural disasters which are beyond anyone's capability to accurately predict.

In other words, God is a creation of the human imagination. ????

Thailand is a Buddhist country. Buddhist principles are opposed to the consumption of alcohol, which is why there are restrictions on advertising alcoholic beverages. However, these restrictions are a compromise, for the sake of the economy. It's too difficult for most people to conform to many of the Buddhist precepts. "The Buddhist layman is expected to conform as closely as possible to certain moral injunctions known as the Five Precepts. These list five immoral actions which a lay-Buddhist should train himself or herself to avoid, namely: destroying life; taking what is not given; wrong-doing in sexual desires; false speech (including lies, harsh words, tale-bearing and idle gossip); and consumption of distilled and fermented intoxicants causing carelessness. "

I asked ChatGPT that question. Here's the answer. "Thai monks are exempt from military conscription in Thailand. The Thai Constitution states that monks, novices, and persons undergoing religious education are exempt from military service."

You seem to have missed the point I've been making. When talking about predatory animals we tend to think only of carnivores such as Lions, Tigers, Snakes, and so on. These are animals that are far more developed than insects, ants, microbes and bacteria, and are far more visible to us humans, so we tend to ignore the incessant predation that occurs amongst the tiny and microscopic creatures whose existence is essential for our survival. All favourable conditions are favourable because the good guys eat the bad guys. Any animal or human can only be in good health as a result of the good bacteria in the biome killing and/or eating the bad bacteria, and the immune system killing, and/or eating harmful germs and viruses. The following article describes the situation. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061002214703.htm#:~:text=CD8%2B T-cells are specialized,as viruses in the body "CD8+ T-cells are specialized white blood cells that serve an important role in the body's immune system. The cells attack and destroy disease "invaders" such as viruses in the body." "If you use a fluorescent dye to stain infected cells, you can literally watch T-cells consume membranes and outer surfaces of diseased cells." "While we don't fully understand why this happens, one possibility is that the T-cell consumes virus-infected cells to fuel itself in the continued fight against an ongoing infection." "Further investigation revealed that the CD8+ T-cells, often referred to as "killer" T-cells, were literally ingesting parts of the virus-infected cells that they were attacking."

And my point was that no life-form can exist in a non-predatory environment, as far as I understand. Every life-form is either directly predatory, or indirectly predatory in the sense they rely upon others (whether microbes, insects, animals, or humans) to do the killing on their behalf.

That's an interesting concept. If one uses the broad definition of 'predatory', which includes "seeking to exploit others', then it would be difficult, and perhaps impossible, to discover any form of life which is not predatory. For example, vegetarians might feel good because they don't rely upon the killing of other animals for their survival. However, they do rely upon the killing of plants, and the plants rely upon trillions of predatory microbes, ants, worms, fungi, and so on, in the soil, which provide the necessary nutrients in the soil, for the plants to grow. Some plants are directly predatory. Consider the following link: https://www.bbcearth.com/news/10-of-the-planets-most-predatory-plants Also, many species of fungi, are predaceous. Fungi perform important functions within the soil in relation to nutrient cycling, disease suppression and water dynamics, all of which help plants become healthier and more vigorous. Along with bacteria, fungi are important decomposers of hard to digest organic matter. From the following wiki link: "Carnivorous fungi or predaceous fungi are fungi that derive some or most of their nutrients from trapping and eating microscopic or other minute animals. More than 200 species have been described, belonging to the phyla Ascomycota, Mucoromycotina, and Basidiomycota. They usually live in soil and many species trap or stun nematodes, while others attack amoebae or collembola." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivorous_fungus In summary, most people who eat fish and meat, do not kill the animals themselves, but rely upon others to do the killing. Likewise, whilst most plants are not directly predatory, they all rely upon massive numbers of predatory 'soil animals' to provide the essential nutrient for them to survive and flourish.

Good quote, which highlights the problem. "It's an established fact...'', in other words 'the science is settled'. Many people believe that. It's the new religion. The continued existence of the IPCC organization is based upon an assumption that human-induced greenhouse gas emissions are bad for the climate, so claiming it is an established fact is understandable, and is required for continued funding, or increased funding. However, you should also pay attention the the following part of the quote; '..have led to an increased frequency and/or intensity of some weather and climate extremes'. I checked the details in the AR6 report which you linked, to find what those 'some weather and climate extremes' are. Here are a few quotes from the report. Temperatures Extremes "The additional observational records, along with a stronger warming signal, show very clearly that changes observed at the time of AR5 (IPCC, 2014) continued, providing strengthened evidence of an increase in the intensity and frequency of hot extremes and decrease in the intensity and frequency of cold extremes." Now that does seem very worrying. Since the previous report (AR5), the evidence that shows an increase in hot extremes, has strengthened. My Gosh! That is alarming. But wait! The strengthened evidence also shows that there has been a decrease in the intensity and frequency of cold extremes. There is so much evidence available on the internet which shows that a far greater number of people die from extreme cold than from extreme heat, globally. If this is true, then an increase in heat waves, linked to a decrease in cold waves, should be beneficial. Wouldn't you agree? "Floods There is low confidence about peak flow trends over past decades on the global scale , but there are regions experiencing increases, including parts of Asia, Southern South America, north-east USA, north-western Europe, and the Amazon, and regions experiencing decreases, including parts of the Mediterranean, Australia, Africa, and south-western USA." Droughts "Some AR6 regions show a decrease in meteorological drought, including Northern Australia, Central Australia, Northern Europe and Central North America (Section 11.9). Other regions either do not show substantial trends in long-term meteorological drought, or they display mixed signals depending on the considered time frame and sub-regions, such as in Southern Australia (Gallant et al., 2013; Delworth and Zeng, 2014; Alexander and Arblaster, 2017; Spinoni et al., 2019; Dunn et al., 2020;" If you read the details in the linked AR6 report, you should see that there are a lot of uncertainties regarding the trends and the degree of changes in extreme weather events, globally, so I would suggest that this uncertainty contradicts the beginning of the quote, 'It is an established fact..." This will be my last post in this thread because it feels like I'm trying to convince a person who believes in a Creator God, that there is no sound scientific evidence for the existence of a Creator God. Such discussions can be endless, so what's the point?

Nothing. I wasn't addressing temperature predictions. I was addressing the claimed consequences of a gradual warming trend which is causing great alarm, especially amongst children and the scientifically illiterate. Scientists who are political activists are promoting an existential threat, and the media latches on to that, claiming that every extreme weather event is caused by anthropogenic climate change. The IPCC, for example, have stated in their previous reports, that climate is a complex, chaotic and non-linear system and that predictions are very 'challenging'. They now use the term 'projection' instead of 'prediction', as a consequence. They've also stated in previous reports, in their scientific summaries, not their political summaries, that there is low confidence that extreme weather events such as floods, droughts and hurricanes, are increasing on a global scale. "And your link looks like just another attempt at cherry-picking. Or is all of Australia contained in the Brisbane-Ipswich areas What about, say, Western Australia?" I've just checked the history of floods in WA, and the first government site that came up, begins with the following statement: "Since the mid-1960s Western Australia has been experiencing below average annual rainfall and has had relatively little major flooding especially in the more populated areas of the south-west." https://www.water.wa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0012/5313/11445.pdf However, this report is dated July 2000, so it doesn't include the most recent flood that has occurred during this triple La Nina event. This latest flood is claimed by the media to be a 'one in a hundred year flood'. If this is true, then the logical conclusion is that one hundred years ago, when CO2 levels were much lower, there was an equally bad, or worse flood, which means that the flood is not necessarilly a consequence of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Got it?

What predictions and by whom? Can you answer that? Here's one example, that I've personally experienced. During the Millennium Drought in Queensland, Australia, from 1997 to 2009, there were a number of proposed projects to build more dams to prepare for the future flooding, because Australia has a well-known history of droughts and floods. However, during this drought, a major advisor to the Australian government, who was a so-called climate expert, named Tim Flannery, advised that such droughts would become more prominent and extended due to Climate Change, and that there would be little purpose in building new dams because they would never fill. As a result of this advice, desalination plants were built instead. Then in 2010-11, massive flooding events occurred, causing billions of dollars of damage, and the desalination plants were placed in hibernation. If the proposed dams had been built, there would have been much less damage to homes and properties, and perhaps none at all. The flood, of course, was described by the media as unprecedented, and the worst on record. Curious, as I usually am, I checked the BOM records, and was amazed to discover that the flood was not the worst on record, but the 7th worst. In other words, there were 6 previous, worse, floods going back to the worst flood that occurred in 1841. Of course, the degree of flooding was not the same throughout the state of Queensland. In some areas the flooding was only the 5th worst. Here's a detailed record of the history of flooding in the Brisbane and Ipswich areas, if you're interested. http://www.bom.gov.au/qld/flood/fld_history/brisbane_history.shtml

My belief is in the effectiveness of the scientific method which must include experimentation which has to be replicable if the theory is correct, and falsifiable if the theory is wrong, so of course any interpretation of data which contradicts my belief (in the methodology of science) causes me to be skeptical. The evidence that the Earth, overall, has been in a slight warming trend during the past 100-150 years is probably correct and I don't dispute that, although I am aware of the enormous difficulty of getting a continuous and accurate, average, temperature of the entire planet, including land, sea and atmosphere, over that 150 year period. Since I'm relatively unbiased, unlike alarmists, I consider both the positive and negative aspects of the current warming trend. I haven't yet seen any reliable evidence that shows the claimed 1.1 C rise in average global temperature during a 150 year period is anything to worry about. If the temperature in my house were to rise by only 1.1 degrees C during the course of just one day, I wouldn't even notice it.

What's also significant is that elevated CO2 levels allow plants to grow much better in drier areas. That's because increases in CO2 levels reduce the size of the leaf spores which allow evaporation. With smaller spores (or stomata) the plants lose less water from evaporation and therefore need less water to grow. Whilst a doubling of atmospheric CO2, from say 300 to 600 ppm, or 600 ppm to 1200 ppm, causes approximately a 35% increase in plant growth under normal water conditions, the increase in plant growth under water-stressed conditions results in a 65% increase in plant growth. This is no doubt at least part of the reason why the southern part of the Sahara Desert, known as the Sahel, has been greening in recent decades. Here's an article that provides details. https://www.thegwpf.org/images/stories/gwpf-reports/mueller-sahel.pdf "In spite of the gloomy predictions of even more frequent and severe droughts and famines caused by global warming, vegetation in the Sahel has significantly increased in the last three decades." "Climate scientists do not agree how the future climate of the Sahara and the Sahel will look like. Some climate models simulate a decrease in rainfall; others – for example Haarsma et al mentioned above – predict an increase in rainfall. According to Professor Claussen, North Africa is the area of greatest disagreement among climate scientists. Claussen explains that forecasting how global warming will affect the Sahel is complicated by the region’s vast size and the unpredictable influence of high-altitude winds that disperse monsoon rains. Claussen has considered the likelihood of a greening of the Sahara due to global warming and concluded that an expansion of vegetation into today’s Sahara is possible as a consequence of CO2 emissions."

Don't be silly! If you chop down forests to mine Lithium for car batteries, or for timber to burn because you are lacking coal resources, or to get access to the forest to build windmills, or build solar farms on rich grasslands, or build new roads and housing estates, then obviously those areas are becoming less green. The satellite imagery show that the total amount of greening of the land has increased by an area equivalent to the USA, despite the numerous areas where greening has been reduced due to human activity. Crikey! Got it?

Of course I understand the concepts of trends. Climate always changes over any given period of time. It changes locally and globally. However,the change is never 100% coherent, globally. There will always be certain areas which are cooling, whilst other areas are warming, and there will always be some areas that are becoming drier whilst other areas are becoming wetter. What you don't seem to understand is the complexity of the situation and that the role played in the current warming, by increases in minuscule amounts of a trace gas, such as CO2, cannot be accurately quantified, and that future predictions of changes in climate are unlikely to be accurate, and that many past predictions from the Alarmists have already been proved wrong. However, what can be accurately quantified are the benefits of increased CO2 levels for plant growth and crop production. We can apply the true scientific method by experimenting with crop growth in true greenhouses. No computer models are required. Satellite imagery has also shown that during the past 30 years, the additional greening of the planet due to the increase in atmospheric CO2, is equivalent to an area the size of the USA. CO2 is one of the essential molecules for the existence of all life. For God's sake, get real!!

I think it's you who is confused. I was addressing the flaw in the following article you linked. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1401-2 "No evidence for globally coherent warm and cold periods over the preindustrial Common Era. "This provides strong evidence that anthropogenic global warming is not only unparalleled in terms of absolute temperatures, but also unprecedented in spatial consistency within the context of the past 2,000 years." The point I've been making is that warm and cold periods are never globally coherent, whether in the past or the present, although it makes sense that the degree of the 'lack of global coherency' is never the same at any given point in time. The greatest threat to humanity in the future (exluding the possibility of a World War 3), is the foolish notion that we can make the climate of the planet benign by reducing our emissions of C02 from fossil fuels. The historical records from the fairly recent past, say 3,000 years, which include proxy records from tree rings and sediments, newspaper articles, the memories of indiginous populations, and so on, indicate that sudden and rapid changes in climate have destroyed past civilizations, or at least made life very uncomfortable. Imagine what it would be like if we had another 39 year drought in South Eastern Australia when energy supplies were unreliable and expensive due to the move towards unreliable renewables, and the shutting down of coal and gas plants. We need to protect ourselves from the recurrence of known, extreme weather events of the past. To do this requires plentiful supplies of cheap energy, in order to build more elevated roads, strengthen people's homes, relocate homes that were foolishly built in flood plains, build more dams, reshape the landscape, and so on.

Far more than one glacier is advancing. I'm not disputing that we are currently in a warming phase, and that more glaciers are retreating than advancing. I'm making the point that the current rate of warming is not uniform and synchronous, globally, and not unprecedented, and that there have been fare worse and much more sudden 'changes in climate' in the past. For example, studies of ice cores from Law Dome in the Antarctic have provided a 1,000 year history of droughts in Australia, indicating that the worst drought in that 1,000 year period occured during the Medieval Warm Period in the 12th century AD, and was 39 years long.

Didn't I mention in my previous post that warming and cooling periods are never completely synchronous, globaly? Your linked article fails to mention that there's also no 'sound and reliable' evidence for globally coherent warming during the industrial era. For example, whilst most glaciers might be melting and receding, the Hubbard Glacier, which is the largest glacier on the North American Continent, has been advancing for more than 100 years and has twice closed the entrance to Russell Fiord during the last 16 years by squeezing and pushing submarine glacial sediments across the mouth of the fiord. https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-001-03/fs-001.03.pdf Here's another example of an advancing glacier. "No one in the world has seen a glacier grow from virtually the very first snowflake. The 25-year-old Tulutsa Glacier is the fastest growing new glacier in the world. While most of mountain glaciers are shrinking or disappearing because of global warming, this US glacier keeps advancing at an accelerated pace." "Over the recent decades this baby glacier grew into the Hulk it is today and it’s growing in thickness by up to 15 meters per year." https://www.severe-weather.eu/cryosphere/earth-youngest-glacier-healthy-cryosphere-losing-battle-global-warming-rrc/ And of course, there's the example of the Antarctic, which has a general trend of increasing ice. From the following article: https://eos.org/science-updates/new-perspectives-on-the-enigma-of-expanding-antarctic-sea-ice "The extent of Antarctic sea ice varies greatly from year to year, but 40 years of satellite records show a long-term trend. Although some Antarctic regions have experienced reductions in sea ice extent, the overall trend since 1979 shows increased ice."

That's quite correct. Most of the sea level rise (and presumable temperature rise) occurred between 20,000 and 7,000 years ago. The last Ice Age began about 2.6 millions years ago, and during that period there have been a number of Glacial Maxima and Interglacials. We are still, technically, in an Ice Age because the poles still have ice, but the warming and the sea level rise have slowed down significantly, which has presumably helped humans to create our civilizations. Why you think this point is disingenuous is very puzzling. Are you a true 'Climate Change Denier', believing that climate only changes when humans burn fossil fuels'? ???? "And from about 3000 years ago until some time after the advent of the industrial revolution, sea levels were quite stable. As was the global temperature average. Only in the last 100 years or so has the rise resumed at a much higher pace. What's more , the rate of increase is getting higher." I'm guessing you still believe in the Michael Mann Hockey Stick graph which covered up, and excluded research which shows that during the past 3,000 years, or so, there have been a number of warm periods at least as warm as the current period, and that such periods were 'approximately' global, although not perfectly synchronous. From the following article: https://est.ufba.br/sites/est.ufba.br/files/kim/medievalwarmperiod.pdf "...as revealed in the ‘Climategate’ scandal, advocates of the CO2 theory were very concerned about the strength of data that showed the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was warmer than the 20th century and that global warming had occurred naturally, long before atmospheric CO2 began to increase. The contrived elimination of the MWP and Little Ice Age by Mann et al. became known as “the hockey stick” of climate change where the handle of the hockey stick was supposed to represent constant climate until increasing CO2 levels caused global warming, the sharp bend in the lower hockey stick."

Good question, which I'll try to answer. The answer is found in the history of past changes in climate, which the alarmists can't be bothered to investigate because it's so much easier to accept what the mainstream media reports and/or what so-called scientific authorities, who are actually political activists, report. For example, whenever there is an extreme weather event, whether flood, drought, hurricane, or heatwave, how often have you heard on the news that it is the worst event since records began, or it is unprecedented? If you search for the actual, real, historical records on the internet, you'll usually find that the extreme weather event is not the worst on record, as reported, and is sometimes even the 6th, 7th or 8th worst on record. However, the mainstream media does not want to report the facts if they go against the alarmist agenda and propoganda. Bad news sells better than good news. Regarding sea level rise, it's generally accepted in the sciences of Geology, that around 20,000 years ago, at the end of the last Glacial Maximum, sea levels were at least 120 metres lower than they are today. Some studies report 130 metres lower. Those who are able to do basic maths should be able to calculate that a 120 metre rise over 20,000 years is an average rise of 6mm per year. However, for most of the time since the industrial revolution began, sea level were rising very slowly, at a rate of 1 to 2mm per year. Currently, the rate is estimated to be around 3mm per year, just half of the avarge rate over the past 20,000 years. How very alarming! ???? The attached graph of past sea level rise is from the following site. https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth107/node/1506

There are always examples of islands sinking due to geological reasons, and/or erosion taking place due to poor management, such as cutting down trees on the shore line, or removing mangroves, but the data show that, on average, the islands in the Pacific are growing in size. Check out the following article. "Using rich collections of Landsat imagery, this study analyses changes in land area on 221 atolls in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Results show that, between 2000 and 2017, the total land area on these atolls has increased by 61.74 km2 (6.1 %) from 1007.60 km2 to 1069.35 km2." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2213305421000059