Bangkok May Be Uninhabitable In Seven Years

[neverdie]

<br />Isn't Holland below sea level? Is there geological evidence to support his earth-quake claims? Isn't Bangkok the #2 most polluted city city in the world and already considered uninhabitable?<br />

<br /><br /><br />

Bangkok's pollution has been cleaned up greatly in the last decade or so and it is nowhere near being the most polluted city in the world. In fact it is almost on a par with some major Western cities. According to Time magazine, these are the 10 most polluted cities.

# Linfen, China

# Tianying, China

# Sukinda, India

# Vapi, India

# La Oroya, Peru

# Dzerzhinsk, Russia

# Norilsk, Russia

# Chernobyl, Ukraine

# Sumgayit, Azerbaijan

# Kabwe, Zambia

Bangkok is very habitable. And it'd getting better. Public transport and housing has improved tremendously over the last decade.

You can even see BKK's improved air quality with they eye. I recall landing here several times in the late 80ies and the air was so poluted one could barely see the ground when only a couple of hundred metres in the air. Perhaps its only a visual thing as I never had a way to measure what was IN THE AIR, but it looks much clearer these days.

[naiharn]

<br />WhyBother<br /><br />Rick is correct, and sometimes I feel like 'why bother'. Further back in the thread  I already stated that since 1981 the Arctic ice cap has only diminished by 7% and  the Antarctic has grown by over 45% where is the melting?

Rick also posted a graph showing Antarctic ice cover has been growing by about 1.4% per decade over the last 3 decades - a total of 4.2%. That is hugely different from 45%. If he is correct, then care to explain your 45%?

[Thaddeus]

What real empirical data are you talking of? The REAL empirical data or the data used by IPCC, that has been manipulated and doctored to display what they want us to see, the data in which they conveniently did not include the siberian land mass (quite big really, and quite important data), and the data indicating global warming from observation stations all over the world based in inner cities where the effect of urban heating from concrete is huge, or maybe the data on the massive increase of atmospheric CO2 taken exclusively from an observation station on...the side of a volcano in Hawai...you could not make it up I tell you. You have been duped, hook line and sinker. bye the way the data from siberia indicates that Anthropogenic Global Warming is fiction, which it is, that's why it was not included.

May I just add to that.

It has also been discovered that the rise in global temperatures occurs before the rise in CO2 levels, not the reverse as was previously surmised. But you will not find Al Gore and his kin mentioning that little bit of info as it makes a total mockery of everything they have been spouting so far.

[naiharn]

<br />The shifting axis is no big deal.  Magnetic North, shifts by about 24 miles per year, and at that rate, should be at the northern shores of Siberia in a few hundred years, so what.  Why should shifting magnetism affect global climate?<br /><br />

<br /><br />Maybe you want an answer to that: In this case, it is not the magnetic change (which is caused by the internal flow of iron-rich magma.) This is the actual tilt of Earth. Earth wobbles causing the seasons. Each eqinox, Earth ends up a little more or less of a tilt. THe more it tilts in one direction, the further the Sun can reach for a "summer" effect and vice versa. Yep, weather patterns will change dramatically. The magnetic movement is more likely to affect atmospheric conditions (lightning, clouds, rain, ...)<br /><br />HTH<br />

Complete rubbish! The seasons are caused by the fact that the axis of the earth is not perpendicular to the plane of its orbit about the sun (the ecliptic plane), not by wobbling. The minor wobbling of its axis with respect to stars is not the cause of the seasons.

(Your science makes the Doctor's look not-so-bad-after-all)

[RickBradford]

You say it's an ice cap myth, and then you say the ice caps ARE melting. What exactly is the myth?

The myth is that this is caused by man's activities, and that it poses any threat to our current way of life, including the viability of the city of Bangkok.

[whybother]

You say it's an ice cap myth, and then you say the ice caps ARE melting. What exactly is the myth?

The myth is that this is caused by man's activities, and that it poses any threat to our current way of life, including the viability of the city of Bangkok.

Oh. I never said anything about man made global warming.

If you look at one of my previous posts, it points out that the ice has been melting for 10,000 years - just a bit before man could have had much of an effect.

edit: IMO there are two types of global warming deniers - one that denies that it is directly caused by man and one that denies global warming exists at all. I'm in the first group (although man doesn't help the situation).

Edited September 19, 2010 by whybother

[Wonka]

@Thaddeus:

If temperature rises, CO2 is released afterward (~800 years). And when the CO2 rises, it works as a greenhouse gas, amplifying the previous temperature rise. Nothing contradictory in that.

@Rick:

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/416685main_20100108_Climate_1.jpg

Sea ice extent is not really important, it is the volume (or mass) that counts.

Still missing your source.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/20100108_Is_Antarctica_Melting.html

[canuckamuck]

@Thaddeus:

If temperature rises, CO2 is released afterward (~800 years). And when the CO2 rises, it works as a greenhouse gas, amplifying the previous temperature rise. Nothing contradictory in that.

Well then I guess were screwed, you have described perpetual heating. Funny that we had ice ages though with all that C02 from the previous warming.

[nisakiman]

This is a post I lay no claim to authoring - I lifted it in its entirety from the comments section somewhere else. RickBradford is probably aware of it, as he sometimes contributes on the same site.

It is a long post, but those who have an interest in this subject, it makes for compelling reading.

scott_east_anglia Today 03:37 AM Recommended by

42 people The climatology field has not yet developed to the point where it can make reliable predictions about future climate change with enough warning to allow time for useful proactive adaptations. It is therefore ludicrous to give credence to alarmist predictions over the next century.

Around the 17th century we had a cold spell (the Little Ice Age - LIA) when the Thames and other bodies of water froze in cold Winters, allowing ice fairs to be held on them. Such ice fairs have not been possible since the early 19th century. Therefore it is indisputable that there has been a period of warming over the last couple of centuries as we recovered from that cold spell. It is alarmist shroud waving over the cause of the warming that has caused such a panic.

There appears to be a longish cycle of the solar magnetic field that has just peaked. It oscillated through the warmer bronze age, a cooler iron age, the warmer Roman empire, when the Romans brought vineyards to England, the Dark Ages, the Mediaeval Warm Period when there were vineyards in England during Chaucer's time, the Little Ice Age as mentioned above, and now our little warm spurt which according to satellite data has, temporarily at least, ceased.

The IPCC computer models did not predict the cessation of the warming trend, which illustrates that something is driving the climate that the models do not know about. In addition, we are once more starting to hear predictions of cooling and maybe a repeat of the Little Ice Age. Deja vous anyone?

Computer models do not produce evidence - they only produce whatever their programmers want them to produce, in what is therefore a circular argument. So far the models have only proved that the computers are working, and that the output outside of their training data sets has been wrong every time, so far.

Furthermore, there is no evidence, despite every effort to finesse it, of an increased greenhouse effect in the atmosphere (hot spots in the troposphere) that was predicted by the computer models. However, we don't hear much about that from the warming industry.

Meanwhile the case for the AGW hypothesis remains an argumentum ad ignorantium fallacy where it is claimed it must be true because they (the warming industry) allegedly can't think of anything else. This is equivalent to blaming witches for crop failures in the middle ages.

Unfounded fear of man-made global warming, rather than the climate change itself, is the problem.

It had been common knowledge for a couple of years before Al Gore's 'Inconvenient Truth' came out that over geological time periods the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere lagged behind temperature changes, typically by 800 years, so was driven by temperature rather than causing it. His graph was therefore a falsehood. CO2 has never driven climate change, or the Earth would not have cooled as it has after every past warming episode - runaway warming would have occurred instead, a long time ago.

Temperature and other data do not say anything about their causes. In addition correlation is not the same as causation, so neither settle anything either way

CO2 is already absorbing almost all of the energy that there is to be had in the relevant bands. Moreover, it does so fairly close to the Earth's surface. The effect is logarithmic so increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere now only has a slight effect. In addition, CO2 and the other trace gases are pretty unimportant as greenhouse gases go. The warming industry has been concentrating on the wrong atmospheric processes. Water vapour and the atmospheric processes associated with it, especially negative feedback from the cooling effect of low level clouds, seem to be a more fruitful line of research.

Svensmark, a Danish physicist, has found empirical evidence in support of his hypothesis that a weaker solar magnetic field allows more high energy cosmic particles to reach the lower atmosphere, where they enhance the conditions for low level cloud formation, leading to cooling, and vice versa. This has been covered in the book 'The Chilling Stars' by Svensmark and Calder.

Any calculation of greenhouse warming based on CO2 alone does not come up with an alarming figure. Hence the assumption of positive forcing from water vapour, which is the only thing producing a 'doomsday' scenario. There is no empirical evidence to justify such an assumption.

Furthermore, there is no correlation between temperature and CO2 concentration over geological time-scales that supports the contention that CO2 drives climate change. Even if there was, it would not be the same as causation.

In addition, the homogenisation of the surface temperature data was not peer reviewed and there are allegations of the adjustment of data to fit theories rather than the other way round. This is part of Dr Bellamy's, "Fiddling while the Earth doesn't burn." The best example was the hockey stick, which was one of the most spectacular scientific blunders of all time.

There appears to be a roughly 60 year oscillation superimposed on the upward trend in the homogenised surface temperature data, which is explained by the Pacific and Atlantic decadal oscillations. On the last down-swing that ended in the mid 1970s (while CO2 levels continued to rise) we heard portents of doom about an impending ice age. The last upswing that ended over 10 years ago according to satellite readings triggered the current scare about global warming. One thing that stands out is that there is no anthropogenic warming signature in the temperature oscillations since the end of the LIA.

Without real (empirical) evidence of more than an insignificant amount of AGW due to CO2 the warming industry remains dead in the water.

Unheralded in the MSM, solar observers predicted a reduction in the sun's magnetic field about now, which has come to pass as evinced by a paucity of sunspots. In the past the phenomenon has coincided with cooling periods, including the Little Ice Age, as per Svensmark's hypothesis. We could therefore be looking at some real cooling during the next few decades.

In addition, the very low sunspot level might be the start of another Maunder Minimum, and a precursor to a repeat of the LIA. There also appear to be additional longer cycles which are linked to ice ages and warm periods.

Incidentally, there may be evidence that the iron age started because a temperature downturn disrupted the flow of tin to the Middle East, forcing metalworkers in Cyprus in particular to seek alternatives to bronze.

The agrarian and industrial revolutions occurred in Britain while the world recovered from the LIA. The industrial revolution was predicated on two things in particular. The first was an increase in access to energy from burning fossil fuels instead of wood and charcoal, and the second was the development and application of scientific and technical knowledge to harness and make use of energy, where steam power in particular was the major enabler, along with technical ingenuity that led to power weaving looms, blast furnaces, and today's computers, for example. One direct outcome is our ability to support a large increase in the world-wide human population, an increase that is directly dependent for its existence on our increased energy consumption and our artful application of it.

Some people are determined to ignore the bigger picture and to link the slight global warming since the 19th century to the industrial revolution, extrapolating a doomsday climate scenario despite a total lack of real evidence that one begot the other in any significant way. In particular they tend to focus on the years since about 1975 and to ignore all else, primarily because it doesn't fit their theory. They have built an entire industry on the hypothesis. However, they cannot find empirical evidence to support their increasingly threadbare theoretical conjecture.

A false perception was created in our society that there was a defined, legitimate job to do, based on sound science. In fact the carbon dioxide global warming concept had become fixed in people’s minds as a result of relentless propaganda generated by those with a great variety of pre-existing agendas - some legitimate, some less so, for example: energy efficiency, reduced dependence on Middle Eastern oil, dissatisfaction with industrial society (neo-pasteralism), international competition, governmental desires for enhanced revenues (carbon taxes), and bureaucratic desires for enhanced power.

The whole western lifestyle is predicated on burning fuel to produce a lot of energy. Take that energy away and our lifestyle would collapse. Without electricity, for example, everything stops - literally. By claiming that we could be destroying the world by pumping combustion products from burning fossil fuels into the air, anti-west movements can attack us at the roots.

Various groups that would not normally give each other the time of day banded together in an unprecedented manner behind the CO2 flag, some good, some bad, some, like HRH Prince Charles, well-meaning but mistaken, but all with their own agendas. This has generated political implications.

Once politicians were involved, especially from the left, money followed in huge quantities. This created a 'positive forcing' and blew the whole structure out of all proportion. A lot of people now depend on the AGW industry for their living, creating a vast vested interest. Worse, the EU has bought into the illusion, which is dangerous since it is not subject to democratic control. There are also a lot of ex-communist apparatchiks seeking new ways to power since the USSR collapsed, and who see democracy as a problem, not a solution.

Unfortunately, after a huge campaign over decades, including in the education system, by many organisations with many different agendas (mostly anti-west or anti-industrialisation) there are a large number of brainwashed voters out there who erroneously believe that mankind has some control over these natural climatic changes, and where the voters go, the politicians follow, and they are not all benign beings under democratic control.

It now appears that the cover was recently blown on a covert 'Moriarity' organisation intent on imposing a non-democratic New World Government on the West initially through carbon rationing. It was hidden the the text of the draft Copenhagen treaty document. Similar intentions were revealed in the document published with a restricted circulation for the recent Bali conference. Such a mindset would suit ex soviet bloc apparatchiks intent on punishing us for the collapse of their beloved Soviet Union, and, of course, it was attractive to Bottler Brown and his kind.

Reducing energy consumption willy nilly in the short term appears to mean that the size of the world-wide human population that we can support must also reduce. An analogy would be forcing agriculture back to wooden ploughs, thus reducing the food supply, and therefore the number of people that can be fed. If so, then those who talk about short-term carbon saving measures (ie reducing overall energy consumption) are also talking about sentencing people and their children to death in their millions or perhaps even billions, while dismantling western civilisation and wasting trillions of money, all for a negligible impact on the climate. Without real evidence of significant AGW, and since the climate appears to be about to cool anyway, if enacted this could eventually land our beloved leaders into the dock at somewhere like the Hague.

As a final note, if the UK stopped CO2 production tomorrow, then China's increasing CO2 production would cancel out the sacrifice within a year. We would have destroyed our country for nothing. Other countries are laughing at the west and its AGW illusions all the way to the bank.

Reality is dawning in the corridors of power, and in academia. Face and reputation saving exits are being sought, and taken. We are seeing the beginning of a paradigm shift away from the IPCC alarmism, and towards an approach of adaptation to climate change (if any) rather than the hubris that we can control it.

However, politically it is too soon just to to dump the Zeitgeist of CAGW due to CO2 . That will have to be fed in gently as perceptions gradually change in the electorate as it dawns on them that writing computer programs to produce alarmist output does not affect the climate. So meanwhile we can pretend to blame the Chinese for warming, floods and all the rest of the alarmist stuff, while slowly withdrawing from the nutty renewable energy sources ideas, especially as the odds are that we heading for a cooling phase.

[Tigs]

<br />WhyBother<br /><br />Rick is correct, and sometimes I feel like 'why bother'. Further back in the thread I already stated that since 1981 the Arctic ice cap has only diminished by 7% and the Antarctic has grown by over 45% where is the melting?

Rick also posted a graph showing Antarctic ice cover has been growing by about 1.4% per decade over the last 3 decades - a total of 4.2%. That is hugely different from 45%. If he is correct, then care to explain your 45%?

Naiharn

Yes I would care to explain, although you could always get your internet backside of its metaphorical chair and let your fingers do some walking. If you want more info, just ask, your tone is a little aggressive..no need. The National Snow and Ice Data Center in the US used to be an excellent independent research unit until it was recently given major funding by NASA, however you will still find as much data as you wish to search for. There are many things to quantify in Ice coverage. Sea Ice, Ice Concentration, Ice anomolies etc etc. I don't know what Ricks graph shows when it says Southern Hemisphere.. What I can tell you is about the Antarctic. In 1980 there were 3.5 million sq Km of sea ice there are currently 5 million sq km of sea ice, I think the sums for percentage increase are easy enough to guestimate in your head. In terms of ice concentration there were 2 million sq Km, there are now 2,9 Million sq Km, again the sums are easy to guestimate in your head. The figures I gave for the North are equally as accurate.

[prometheus]

How much are we prepared to take the climate crisis ?

Just look at financial crisis

[Wonka]

@Canuck:

No perpetual heating. Just instability. It also works the other way around when cooling.

When combined with small perturbations in solar insolation, it has been enough to cause ice times (and inter glacial times as well).

I forgot to say that the Nation should not bring such low quality stories as this. It is not credible science - more like a mor doo prophesy.

[bkkjames]

I vote we move this thread and pin it in Hypathetically page.

At this rate 7 years will be up by the time the climate/space/??? Experts on TV come to a consensus.

In the meantime point me to the drought in thailand thread please.

[dobadoy]

1981 the Arctic ice cap has only diminished by 7% and the Antarctic has grown by over 45% where is the melting? The media coverage of collapsing ice cliffs in the arctic is just utter sensationalist rubbish. greenland is experiencing a warming phase but it will grind to a halt. The earth warms and cools in cycles and there is absolutely nothing, nada, zero, zilch we can either do about it or influence it. Apart from buying extra warm clothing or extra cool clothing depending on where you are.

You sound very confident and knowledgeable.

What I want to know is how come all the respected scientific authorities the world over, with access to real empirical data, don't agree with you? Is it that "they are all consipiring to lie to the public so they can get their research grants?"

Well thanks, and yes I am very knowledgable. Also, the thing is that what I have said IS in agreeance with all the 'respected authorities' all over the world. For the purpose of Carbon tax fraud, do not include as respected the IPCC, NASA or any other Government sponsored organisation. Of the 2500 'respected Scientists' who allegedly supported the IPCC documents most have threatened legal action in a bid to remove their names from the list of supporters. IPCC documents and research were never peer reviewed, they are a scab on the side of Science, and the Chairman of IPCC Dr Pachauri (a train engineer, I kid you not!), has made millions from the IPCC publishings and the shares he holds in major Indian energy firms that have been advantaged by his 'findings'. He should go to jail for 50 years.

What real empirical data are you talking of? The REAL empirical data or the data used by IPCC, that has been manipulated and doctored to display what they want us to see, the data in which they conveniently did not include the siberian land mass (quite big really, and quite important data), and the data indicating global warming from observation stations all over the world based in inner cities where the effect of urban heating from concrete is huge, or maybe the data on the massive increase of atmospheric CO2 taken exclusively from an observation station on...the side of a volcano in Hawai...you could not make it up I tell you. You have been duped, hook line and sinker. bye the way the data from siberia indicates that Anthropogenic Global Warming is fiction, which it is, that's why it was not included.

Now you sound less like a knowledgeable person and more like a ranter. Ranting usually occurs when people are a bit insecure about their assertions.

What I was talking about was respected scientific bodies like the British Antarctic Survey, The Royal Society, The Meteorological Office, NASA and yes all those conspiratorial gov't offices. I have yet to see any global warming skeptic give one believable reason why the Americans, the Chinese, and the Russians who can't agree on anything at all are all happy to agree on something that is so blatantly (if you lot are to be believed) false.

It's certainly not in ANY of their interests to start scratching around for alternative fuels when so much of their wealth is tied up in the carbon economy. I also have 100% confidence that any theory that says all these scientists are involved in some worldwide conspiracy theory is about as believable as the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

As I understand it, a lot of the complaints about the IPCC are to do with transparency and procedure and not a dispute about the findings.

[Thaddeus]

@Thaddeus:

If temperature rises, CO2 is released afterward (~800 years). And when the CO2 rises, it works as a greenhouse gas, amplifying the previous temperature rise. Nothing contradictory in that.

Well then I guess were screwed, you have described perpetual heating. Funny that we had ice ages though with all that C02 from the previous warming.

No, it just means that there is a cut-off point, where that point lies on a temperature scale will be controlled by all the other factors that contribute to dictating what the average global temperature is.

You could probably double the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere right now and it wouldn't make a difference.

//edit/added a bit.

Edited September 19, 2010 by Thaddeus

[dobadoy]

This is a post I lay no claim to authoring - I lifted it in its entirety from the comments section somewhere else. RickBradford is probably aware of it, as he sometimes contributes on the same site.

It is a long post, but those who have an interest in this subject, it makes for compelling reading.

scott_east_anglia Today 03:37 AM Recommended by

42 people The climatology field has not yet developed to the point where it can make reliable predictions about future climate change with enough warning to allow time for useful proactive adaptations. It is therefore ludicrous to give credence to alarmist predictions over the next century.

Around the 17th century we had a cold spell (the Little Ice Age - LIA) when the Thames and other bodies of water froze in cold Winters, allowing ice fairs to be held on them. Such ice fairs have not been possible since the early 19th century. Therefore it is indisputable that there has been a period of warming over the last couple of centuries as we recovered from that cold spell. It is alarmist shroud waving over the cause of the warming that has caused such a panic.

There appears to be a longish cycle of the solar magnetic field that has just peaked. It oscillated through the warmer bronze age, a cooler iron age, the warmer Roman empire, when the Romans brought vineyards to England, the Dark Ages, the Mediaeval Warm Period when there were vineyards in England during Chaucer's time, the Little Ice Age as mentioned above, and now our little warm spurt which according to satellite data has, temporarily at least, ceased.

The IPCC computer models did not predict the cessation of the warming trend, which illustrates that something is driving the climate that the models do not know about. In addition, we are once more starting to hear predictions of cooling and maybe a repeat of the Little Ice Age. Deja vous anyone?

Computer models do not produce evidence - they only produce whatever their programmers want them to produce, in what is therefore a circular argument. So far the models have only proved that the computers are working, and that the output outside of their training data sets has been wrong every time, so far.

Furthermore, there is no evidence, despite every effort to finesse it, of an increased greenhouse effect in the atmosphere (hot spots in the troposphere) that was predicted by the computer models. However, we don't hear much about that from the warming industry.

Meanwhile the case for the AGW hypothesis remains an argumentum ad ignorantium fallacy where it is claimed it must be true because they (the warming industry) allegedly can't think of anything else. This is equivalent to blaming witches for crop failures in the middle ages.

Unfounded fear of man-made global warming, rather than the climate change itself, is the problem.

It had been common knowledge for a couple of years before Al Gore's 'Inconvenient Truth' came out that over geological time periods the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere lagged behind temperature changes, typically by 800 years, so was driven by temperature rather than causing it. His graph was therefore a falsehood. CO2 has never driven climate change, or the Earth would not have cooled as it has after every past warming episode - runaway warming would have occurred instead, a long time ago.

Temperature and other data do not say anything about their causes. In addition correlation is not the same as causation, so neither settle anything either way

CO2 is already absorbing almost all of the energy that there is to be had in the relevant bands. Moreover, it does so fairly close to the Earth's surface. The effect is logarithmic so increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere now only has a slight effect. In addition, CO2 and the other trace gases are pretty unimportant as greenhouse gases go. The warming industry has been concentrating on the wrong atmospheric processes. Water vapour and the atmospheric processes associated with it, especially negative feedback from the cooling effect of low level clouds, seem to be a more fruitful line of research.

Svensmark, a Danish physicist, has found empirical evidence in support of his hypothesis that a weaker solar magnetic field allows more high energy cosmic particles to reach the lower atmosphere, where they enhance the conditions for low level cloud formation, leading to cooling, and vice versa. This has been covered in the book 'The Chilling Stars' by Svensmark and Calder.

Any calculation of greenhouse warming based on CO2 alone does not come up with an alarming figure. Hence the assumption of positive forcing from water vapour, which is the only thing producing a 'doomsday' scenario. There is no empirical evidence to justify such an assumption.

Furthermore, there is no correlation between temperature and CO2 concentration over geological time-scales that supports the contention that CO2 drives climate change. Even if there was, it would not be the same as causation.

In addition, the homogenisation of the surface temperature data was not peer reviewed and there are allegations of the adjustment of data to fit theories rather than the other way round. This is part of Dr Bellamy's, "Fiddling while the Earth doesn't burn." The best example was the hockey stick, which was one of the most spectacular scientific blunders of all time.

There appears to be a roughly 60 year oscillation superimposed on the upward trend in the homogenised surface temperature data, which is explained by the Pacific and Atlantic decadal oscillations. On the last down-swing that ended in the mid 1970s (while CO2 levels continued to rise) we heard portents of doom about an impending ice age. The last upswing that ended over 10 years ago according to satellite readings triggered the current scare about global warming. One thing that stands out is that there is no anthropogenic warming signature in the temperature oscillations since the end of the LIA.

Without real (empirical) evidence of more than an insignificant amount of AGW due to CO2 the warming industry remains dead in the water.

Unheralded in the MSM, solar observers predicted a reduction in the sun's magnetic field about now, which has come to pass as evinced by a paucity of sunspots. In the past the phenomenon has coincided with cooling periods, including the Little Ice Age, as per Svensmark's hypothesis. We could therefore be looking at some real cooling during the next few decades.

In addition, the very low sunspot level might be the start of another Maunder Minimum, and a precursor to a repeat of the LIA. There also appear to be additional longer cycles which are linked to ice ages and warm periods.

Incidentally, there may be evidence that the iron age started because a temperature downturn disrupted the flow of tin to the Middle East, forcing metalworkers in Cyprus in particular to seek alternatives to bronze.

The agrarian and industrial revolutions occurred in Britain while the world recovered from the LIA. The industrial revolution was predicated on two things in particular. The first was an increase in access to energy from burning fossil fuels instead of wood and charcoal, and the second was the development and application of scientific and technical knowledge to harness and make use of energy, where steam power in particular was the major enabler, along with technical ingenuity that led to power weaving looms, blast furnaces, and today's computers, for example. One direct outcome is our ability to support a large increase in the world-wide human population, an increase that is directly dependent for its existence on our increased energy consumption and our artful application of it.

Some people are determined to ignore the bigger picture and to link the slight global warming since the 19th century to the industrial revolution, extrapolating a doomsday climate scenario despite a total lack of real evidence that one begot the other in any significant way. In particular they tend to focus on the years since about 1975 and to ignore all else, primarily because it doesn't fit their theory. They have built an entire industry on the hypothesis. However, they cannot find empirical evidence to support their increasingly threadbare theoretical conjecture.

A false perception was created in our society that there was a defined, legitimate job to do, based on sound science. In fact the carbon dioxide global warming concept had become fixed in people's minds as a result of relentless propaganda generated by those with a great variety of pre-existing agendas - some legitimate, some less so, for example: energy efficiency, reduced dependence on Middle Eastern oil, dissatisfaction with industrial society (neo-pasteralism), international competition, governmental desires for enhanced revenues (carbon taxes), and bureaucratic desires for enhanced power.

The whole western lifestyle is predicated on burning fuel to produce a lot of energy. Take that energy away and our lifestyle would collapse. Without electricity, for example, everything stops - literally. By claiming that we could be destroying the world by pumping combustion products from burning fossil fuels into the air, anti-west movements can attack us at the roots.

Various groups that would not normally give each other the time of day banded together in an unprecedented manner behind the CO2 flag, some good, some bad, some, like HRH Prince Charles, well-meaning but mistaken, but all with their own agendas. This has generated political implications.

Once politicians were involved, especially from the left, money followed in huge quantities. This created a 'positive forcing' and blew the whole structure out of all proportion. A lot of people now depend on the AGW industry for their living, creating a vast vested interest. Worse, the EU has bought into the illusion, which is dangerous since it is not subject to democratic control. There are also a lot of ex-communist apparatchiks seeking new ways to power since the USSR collapsed, and who see democracy as a problem, not a solution.

Unfortunately, after a huge campaign over decades, including in the education system, by many organisations with many different agendas (mostly anti-west or anti-industrialisation) there are a large number of brainwashed voters out there who erroneously believe that mankind has some control over these natural climatic changes, and where the voters go, the politicians follow, and they are not all benign beings under democratic control.

It now appears that the cover was recently blown on a covert 'Moriarity' organisation intent on imposing a non-democratic New World Government on the West initially through carbon rationing. It was hidden the the text of the draft Copenhagen treaty document. Similar intentions were revealed in the document published with a restricted circulation for the recent Bali conference. Such a mindset would suit ex soviet bloc apparatchiks intent on punishing us for the collapse of their beloved Soviet Union, and, of course, it was attractive to Bottler Brown and his kind.

Reducing energy consumption willy nilly in the short term appears to mean that the size of the world-wide human population that we can support must also reduce. An analogy would be forcing agriculture back to wooden ploughs, thus reducing the food supply, and therefore the number of people that can be fed. If so, then those who talk about short-term carbon saving measures (ie reducing overall energy consumption) are also talking about sentencing people and their children to death in their millions or perhaps even billions, while dismantling western civilisation and wasting trillions of money, all for a negligible impact on the climate. Without real evidence of significant AGW, and since the climate appears to be about to cool anyway, if enacted this could eventually land our beloved leaders into the dock at somewhere like the Hague.

As a final note, if the UK stopped CO2 production tomorrow, then China's increasing CO2 production would cancel out the sacrifice within a year. We would have destroyed our country for nothing. Other countries are laughing at the west and its AGW illusions all the way to the bank.

Reality is dawning in the corridors of power, and in academia. Face and reputation saving exits are being sought, and taken. We are seeing the beginning of a paradigm shift away from the IPCC alarmism, and towards an approach of adaptation to climate change (if any) rather than the hubris that we can control it.

However, politically it is too soon just to to dump the Zeitgeist of CAGW due to CO2 . That will have to be fed in gently as perceptions gradually change in the electorate as it dawns on them that writing computer programs to produce alarmist output does not affect the climate. So meanwhile we can pretend to blame the Chinese for warming, floods and all the rest of the alarmist stuff, while slowly withdrawing from the nutty renewable energy sources ideas, especially as the odds are that we heading for a cooling phase.

That post is interesting, but also worthless, since it's author's creditential are unknown. Could it have been written by the petroleum industry, perhaps?

[Thaddeus]

This is a post I lay no claim to authoring - I lifted it in its entirety from the comments section somewhere else. RickBradford is probably aware of it, as he sometimes contributes on the same site.<snip>

That post is interesting, but also worthless, since it's author's creditential are unknown. Could it have been written by the petroleum industry, perhaps?

Ok, you want the same sort of stuff from a place where the credentials are well known, here you go....

http://www.usc.edu/uscnews/stories/14288.html

I'm going for a beer now, play nice while I'm out, defrost the ice=box maybe

[Tigs]

1981 the Arctic ice cap has only diminished by 7% and the Antarctic has grown by over 45% where is the melting? The media coverage of collapsing ice cliffs in the arctic is just utter sensationalist rubbish. greenland is experiencing a warming phase but it will grind to a halt. The earth warms and cools in cycles and there is absolutely nothing, nada, zero, zilch we can either do about it or influence it. Apart from buying extra warm clothing or extra cool clothing depending on where you are.

You sound very confident and knowledgeable.

What I want to know is how come all the respected scientific authorities the world over, with access to real empirical data, don't agree with you? Is it that "they are all consipiring to lie to the public so they can get their research grants?"

Well thanks, and yes I am very knowledgable. Also, the thing is that what I have said IS in agreeance with all the 'respected authorities' all over the world. For the purpose of Carbon tax fraud, do not include as respected the IPCC, NASA or any other Government sponsored organisation. Of the 2500 'respected Scientists' who allegedly supported the IPCC documents most have threatened legal action in a bid to remove their names from the list of supporters. IPCC documents and research were never peer reviewed, they are a scab on the side of Science, and the Chairman of IPCC Dr Pachauri (a train engineer, I kid you not!), has made millions from the IPCC publishings and the shares he holds in major Indian energy firms that have been advantaged by his 'findings'. He should go to jail for 50 years.

What real empirical data are you talking of? The REAL empirical data or the data used by IPCC, that has been manipulated and doctored to display what they want us to see, the data in which they conveniently did not include the siberian land mass (quite big really, and quite important data), and the data indicating global warming from observation stations all over the world based in inner cities where the effect of urban heating from concrete is huge, or maybe the data on the massive increase of atmospheric CO2 taken exclusively from an observation station on...the side of a volcano in Hawai...you could not make it up I tell you. You have been duped, hook line and sinker. bye the way the data from siberia indicates that Anthropogenic Global Warming is fiction, which it is, that's why it was not included.

Now you sound less like a knowledgeable person and more like a ranter. Ranting usually occurs when people are a bit insecure about their assertions.

What I was talking about was respected scientific bodies like the British Antarctic Survey, The Royal Society, The Meteorological Office, NASA and yes all those conspiratorial gov't offices. I have yet to see any global warming skeptic give one believable reason why the Americans, the Chinese, and the Russians who can't agree on anything at all are all happy to agree on something that is so blatantly (if you lot are to be believed) false.

It's certainly not in ANY of their interests to start scratching around for alternative fuels when so much of their wealth is tied up in the carbon economy. I also have 100% confidence that any theory that says all these scientists are involved in some worldwide conspiracy theory is about as believable as the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

As I understand it, a lot of the complaints about the IPCC are to do with transparency and procedure and not a dispute about the findings.

Where do we start.? Well it is not a rant, you asked a question with a stupid pi** taking smiley, and you got an answer to your question. The IPCC is totally discredited and it is nothing to do with transparency or procedure. They lied and they committed fraud. As far as governments wanting to be involved in such a scam then think before you write. there are trillions of dollars that will have to be paid in Carbon taxes, and that will be paid by you, me and every other one of the 6 billion suckers out there. By imposing the restrictions on green house gases, the African continent has essentially been committed to remain in the stone age. Developing nations with massive resources can not actually develop, instead of building coal or oil power stations for electricity they have been told that solar panels should be used...on mud huts!! I can't put them on my house because of the cost, let alone a mud hut. Africa is condemned and all of the continents resources will be fed in to the coffers of the super powers, when in truth some nations could develop independently and with much wealth, making the west pay top prices, when now we have them over a barrel.

NASA has fudged data (something to do with being a government financed organisation perhaps?), The Met Office has been caught blatantly fudging data and lying (something to do with being a government financed organisation perhaps). It is the major energy and finance corporations that run the countries you mention, nothing to do with national politics. AGW policies mean an end to cheap oil ever again. Build all the wind farms you want, it wont make a blind bit of difference to energy needs. There are many many alternative energy solutions out there already, and guess who own all the patents? The oil companies. I am not a conspiracy theorist, i deal in facts, take it or leave it, no skin off my nose.

[canuckamuck]

@Canuck:

No perpetual heating. Just instability. It also works the other way around when cooling.

When combined with small perturbations in solar insolation, it has been enough to cause ice times (and inter glacial times as well).

So what you are saying is C02 causes warming and cooling, fascinating.

Or perhaps you are saying that C02 amounts are insignificant because other factors (the sun for example) control climate.

Well we already knew that 5000 years ago.

[PatLogan]

You can even see BKK's improved air quality with they eye. I recall landing here several times in the late 80ies and the air was so poluted one could barely see the ground when only a couple of hundred metres in the air. Perhaps its only a visual thing as I never had a way to measure what was IN THE AIR, but it looks much clearer these days.

Or simply try to fly from Beijing to Bangkok once a month like I do and see how you feel when back in Bangkok. At least you can see the sky and not only greyish colors.

And since Beijing air pollution has decreased quite a lot lately, it must mean than Bangkok is not so bad.

And on a side note, I have no reason to not believe the people I know in ERTC when they tell me their monitoring stations show improvements, and that the data they have corroborate their say. Too bad they don't put their data online.... http://www.ertc.deqp.go.th/ertc_en/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=24&Itemid=38

[dobadoy]

Where do we start.? Well it is not a rant, you asked a question with a stupid pi** taking smiley, and you got an answer to your question. The IPCC is totally discredited and it is nothing to do with transparency or procedure. They lied and they committed fraud. As far as governments wanting to be involved in such a scam then think before you write. there are trillions of dollars that will have to be paid in Carbon taxes, and that will be paid by you, me and every other one of the 6 billion suckers out there. By imposing the restrictions on green house gases, the African continent has essentially been committed to remain in the stone age. Developing nations with massive resources can not actually develop, instead of building coal or oil power stations for electricity they have been told that solar panels should be used...on mud huts!! I can't put them on my house because of the cost, let alone a mud hut. Africa is condemned and all of the continents resources will be fed in to the coffers of the super powers, when in truth some nations could develop independently and with much wealth, making the west pay top prices, when now we have them over a barrel.

NASA has fudged data (something to do with being a government financed organisation perhaps?), The Met Office has been caught blatantly fudging data and lying (something to do with being a government financed organisation perhaps). It is the major energy and finance corporations that run the countries you mention, nothing to do with national politics. AGW policies mean an end to cheap oil ever again. Build all the wind farms you want, it wont make a blind bit of difference to energy needs. There are many many alternative energy solutions out there already, and guess who own all the patents? The oil companies. I am not a conspiracy theorist, i deal in facts, take it or leave it, no skin off my nose.

So your theory is that oil companies are undermining the sale of oil, is that it? And your idea is that by increasing the number of alternative energy sources and taxing people, the oil companies can make more money from patents on technologies that really aren't that efficient than they can from selling oil. And I suppose you can tell me how those taxes which go directly to gov't will end up in the oil companies pockets better than sales of oil will?

Can you name me a single developing nation that has coal /oil resources and is not using them because some external power has said they must put solar panels on mud huts> ..Of course not. Is this an example of the facts that you deal in?

I see, right...

Guess what buddy, here comes another pisstaking smile for you, or two :lol::lol:

[Wonka]

@Canuck:

No perpetual heating. Just instability. It also works the other way around when cooling.

When combined with small perturbations in solar insolation, it has been enough to cause ice times (and inter glacial times as well).

So what you are saying is C02 causes warming and cooling, fascinating.

Or perhaps you are saying that C02 amounts are insignificant because other factors (the sun for example) control climate.

Well we already knew that 5000 years ago.

The perturbations in solar insolation are small and daily variations averaged over time even more so. Wobbling of the earth's axis are more long lasting, but the changes in insolation are still fractions of a watt.

Every doubling of CO2 content in the atmosphere gives a change in radiative forcing of 3.7 watts. Since the start of industrial era, the CO2 concentration has risen about 30%, corresponding to a rise radiative forcing of 1.4 watts. Which is considerably much more then the changes in solar insolation.

@Thaddeus:

There is no cut-off point.

[Otis]

We should be frightened of Global Warming, it is no joking matter. Anyone with eyes, ears and half a brain can see well documented reports of people losing their homes and/or livelihoods due to rising temperatures and sea levels. Many progressive signs leave no doubt that a great change is taking place.

What might be debatable are the causal relationships with human activity. Which implies the possibility or not of our ability to affect the change or its rate.

The separation of evidence for these two hypotheses is extremely important and often obscure. This raises the temperature of political and scientific communities somewhat! The mistaken stand that because the cause is not completely clear no action is possible or at least a waste of money cannot be right. That we must take defensive action against Global Warming cannot be denied by intelligent informed people.

There is a global warming???? Who says this??? We shouldn't be that arrogant and believe that we know anything. If humans becoming too nasty, nature will wipe us out. Sure we have to care what is going on, sure we should be carefull with our environment, but stop teaching ordinary people to do better ...and the high end lobby give a sh_t.

Yeah, and it's all Bush's fault. (sarcasm) OC

[RickBradford]

So your theory is that oil companies are undermining the sale of oil, is that it? And your idea is that by increasing the number of alternative energy sources and taxing people, the oil companies can make more money from patents on technologies that really aren't that efficient than they can from selling oil. And I suppose you can tell me how those taxes which go directly to gov't will end up in the oil companies pockets better than sales of oil will?

The oil companies are pushing alternative energy for all they are worth, for numerous reasons:

1) to colloct the enormous government subsidies on offer for 'green energy' (which is neither green or very reliable energy), this being the only way that alternative energy can compete

2) PR aka greenwash, to improve their image and to try to mitigate the harsh taxes being proposed for their industry

3) subterfuge, as the oil companies know perfectly well that there is no viable alternative to fossil fuels for decades to come and they will make heaps of money selling it, while positioning themselves neatly in case 'green energy' ever does take off

The other main groups interested in green energy are the big global banks (carbon trading is like finding money in the street for them) and the Mafia, who have already cashed in big-time on EU 'green energy' subsidies

[dobadoy]

So your theory is that oil companies are undermining the sale of oil, is that it? And your idea is that by increasing the number of alternative energy sources and taxing people, the oil companies can make more money from patents on technologies that really aren't that efficient than they can from selling oil. And I suppose you can tell me how those taxes which go directly to gov't will end up in the oil companies pockets better than sales of oil will?

The oil companies are pushing alternative energy for all they are worth, for numerous reasons:

1) to colloct the enormous government subsidies on offer for 'green energy' (which is neither green or very reliable energy), this being the only way that alternative energy can compete

2) PR aka greenwash, to improve their image and to try to mitigate the harsh taxes being proposed for their industry

3) subterfuge, as the oil companies know perfectly well that there is no viable alternative to fossil fuels for decades to come and they will make heaps of money selling it, while positioning themselves neatly in case 'green energy' ever does take off

The other main groups interested in green energy are the big global banks (carbon trading is like finding money in the street for them) and the Mafia, who have already cashed in big-time on EU 'green energy' subsidies

All of which is true and makes sense if the science about global warming is credible, and none of which explains why they would 'start a global warming conspiracy theory' if there wasn't any real science behind it to begin with.

Edited September 19, 2010 by dobadoy

[RickBradford]

All of which is true and makes sense if the science about global warming is credible, and none of which explains why they would 'start a global warming conspiracy theory' if there wasn't any real science behind it to begin with.

I'm sorry, I can't even begin to understand what you're saying there.

BP and the rest are interested solely in shareholder return -- if the nimrods who run Western governments are getting their undies in a bunch about 'global warming', BP will go along with it, play the green game, pocket subsidies and continue to sell the oil and gas which everyone with the capacity for rational thought understands is inevitably going to power global industry for the foreseeable future.

Edited September 19, 2010 by RickBradford

[dobadoy]

(double post, sorry)

An' i already answered it above!

[RickBradford]

And I still don't understand what you're saying....

[dobadoy]

All of which is true and makes sense if the science about global warming is credible, and none of which explains why they would 'start a global warming conspiracy theory' if there wasn't any real science behind it to begin with.

I'm sorry, I can't even begin to understand what you're saying there.

BP and the rest are interested solely in shareholder return -- if the nimrods who run Western governments are getting their undies in a bunch about 'global warming', BP will go along with it, play the green game, pocket subsidies and continue to sell the oil and gas which everyone with the capacity for rational thought understands is inevitably going to power global industry for the foreseeable future.

Apologies there, buddy. You must not be towing the same line as that guy 'Tigs' on this thread who's saying its all a conspiracy by the gov'ts and oil companies to raise taxes, which just like you say makes no sense when its shareholders that they're responsible to.

Oil companies are interested in selling oil, and the only reason they're interested in green technology is from a purely practical business sense that if CO2 has to come down, then you'd better start selling something that don't produce it.

I'd also point out that its not even vaguely in dispute that the oil companies have been campaigning hard against all the evidence for AGW and are well-known to have sponsored lots of the "independent research" that aims to undermine what pretty much everybody else agrees is happening.

My fault for confusing posters. :jap:

Edited September 19, 2010 by dobadoy

[RKASA]

I would like to make two prediction which will not be refuted.

A. The sun will super nova

B. I won't be here when it does.

Need to add one thing:

The aliens that have been watching us are the ones that sent Al Gore to bother us. They plan to pull us out just before the planet dies, but after watching a Harry Reid and Polosi interview - they are having second thoughts. Whats the point.

good night dick