20 years after warning the US about global warming, James Hansen told US Congress today that "the situation has got so bad that the world's only hope is drastic action."
and the current Federal government proposes an appalling carbon tax to reduce everyone living standards by increasing the cost of energy.
and if anyone thinks I am making a political statement, the previous Federal government also proposed the same, only their time frame was more relaxed.
What with massive increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the last few decades, you would think that temperatures should be several degrees higher?
perhaps the CO2 forcing used in the IPCC models are horsemanure
What with massive increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the last few decades, you would think that temperatures should be several degrees higher?
Latent heat and global dimming are two major reasons.
I Think this climate change and global warming is just a natural occurance through out the Earths history, it has happened before, and it will happen again.
Although we are probably not helping the situation, we just happen to be in the middle of the cycle.
I think the hysteria we hear of dome and gloom, is a load of crap.
Fossil fuel burning was much greater back in the early days, when it was the only source of heat for the millions of homes across the globe.
Try riding a bike, or motor bike through the the streets of London when all the coal fires were gushing out plumes of thick black smoke, within ten minutes your face would be black with soot.
Today, there is not a chimney in sight, well maybe a few, and although motorised vehicles have increased 50 fold, the levels are less.
I will probably be shot down in flames here, but I for one am not holding my breath, to look for cleaner air, I'm happy with what we have now.
theres vested interests on both sides... i dont think its healthy to have a firm opinion either way. the logical conclusion is "we may well be impacting the earth lets look at ways to ensure we dont stuff it further"
i tend to believe science as it has led us out of the dark ages to where we are today
Phew, thanks fellas! Here I was thinking doom and gloom, but obviously the very best science we've got has completely stuffed up again, despite decades of data collection & modelling. Idiots! Dunno why they didn't just ask you guys in the first place!
Hey these guys invented the atomic bomb and where has that got us !!! Scientists in some ways are no different to most people their ego tends to take control, "Hey look at me , see what I've invented" without any thought to the 10th degree as to the ulitmate outcomes of their creativeness.
The Earth will take care of itself after man is long gone.
It's not so much a case of hysteria as it's a case of the media not understanding any of the science behind it and reporting on what little they do know. That some climate scientists are pushing this the way they are is more the case of them being over zealous about their beliefs than the real science. Sure, concentrations of CO2 have risen over the last 100 years, and especially over the last 50 or so years. However, what they don't tell you is that there's a lot more to the way the climate works (both short and long term) than they're saying. It's not just the simple "we've pumped CO2 into the atmosphere and it's causing global warming". It does, that is not a disputed fact, but there are many other factors which go into the warming and/or cooling of our planet. Quite a few of which they're still yet to get their heads around.
However, given that we are pumping CO2 into the atmosphere at an ever increasing rate, we should be erring on the side of caution. In any case, there are other reasons as to why we should be looking for alternative energy sources, and doing it quickly. One is...we're running out of oil and there are better ways of using it than burning the stuff. Oil is so important in many other manufacturing processes that we'd be better of conserving what we have for those purposes. I would much rather see us develop energy alternatives that'll replace oil and nuclear fission as our main sources of power. And I don't mean wind or tidal power because they're never going to be anything other than stopgap sources of energy for smaller scale, regional power supply systems. They're not as reliable as what many people think. However, what we need to do is concentrate on perfecting solar energy, new forms of power storage and look to some of the more exotic possible ways of generating power and put research money into those. They're for the medium to long term, but solar and power storage are shorter term solutions. In the meantime, we should try and cut down on petrol/diesel usage and move more towards LPG and hybrid technologies.
decentralised energy production is where it is at.
all the forms of alternative energy put together. one i think is particularly exciting is harnessing all the wasted kinetic energy - convert that to electricity and we wont have to think about power again.
e.g. making the turnstile at a train station a mini generator. ive heard of spring technology in floors - just walking on them creates energy. such brilliant ideas!
in 100 years the idea of a central power station burning coal to make electricity will make us look like cavemen!
Sounds like you all haven't travelled overseas much Try visiting some of the world's most populated cities where there are more souls in one city than the whole of Australia combined.
There's a 50-50 chance that the North Pole will be ice-free this summer, which would be a first in recorded history, a leading ice scientist says. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...sn=001&sc=1000
Polar bears are not happy.
There was another interesting article in the SF Chronicle recently suggesting we are about to see the onset of a new Maunder Minimum. The Maunder Minimum refers to reduced solar activity that led to the "Little Ice Age" a few hundred years ago. We should be so lucky.
I totally agree with Leon and I expressed my views on Global Warming many times before. More then that I’m convinced that some people and corporations will make heaps of money from this current fashion and great majority of us will pay for it. Housing boom is over for long time to come, so there is a need for some new scheme how to part me and you from our cash.
Recently watched the Al Gore movie "An Inconvenient Truth".
Found it most illuminating and by no stretch of the imagination hysterical doom and gloom.
From the data presented in the movie, global warming would appear to be a problem quickening it's pace - easily demonstrated to run hand in hand with booms in population growth and mass industrialization
Climate patterns are cyclical as stated, but it would seem the human race is helping this current one along a bit - the graphic depletion of North and South polar ice caps and the projected effects really would create some doom and gloom for many people.
As I don't follow the climate debate religiously I'm at a loss to explain the polarization of opinion as there surely can't exist 2 sets of opposing data concurrently!!??
Or perhaps like Mr Gore's analogy, we are all just frogs sitting in the slowly heating water!
Frog 1: "Jeez mate, it's getting a bit hot,eh?"
Frog 2: " Shut-up you idiot, where's your evidence!"
Show us the graph before 1998! A bit selective. Otherwise I will.
What is it about global warming skeptics that they cannot see the data when it is put in front of them!
Just like those mental giants of science that pass for commentators at the Australian newspaper you are totally wrong! Or is that commentators that pass for mental giants at science!
I'm sitting here shaking my head at the continuing scepticism. The climate is changing (I avoid "Global Warming", it only covers part of the problem). It is without doubt a combination of natural cycles and human activity making it worse. Melting ice caps, increasingly violent storms, record flooding, record drought conditions, the list goes on. We need to start planning for the changed conditions. Politicians, Bean Counters and Stock Exchange suits seem to only see it as a means of making money (Taxes, Carbon Trading Schemes, Doubtful "Green" inventions etc). To coin that old saying "You can't eat money"
Keep your heads in the sand guys, so when it really gets going and bites you on the bum, you won't see it coming.
Does it really hurt to have a cleaner greaner world?
Think globally, act locally.
No it doesn't and I agree wholeheartedly. However, it's been something that for most part has fallen on deaf ears because most people either can't give a hoot, don't understand what to do (if anything) or don't want to change because it's all too hard and inconvenient.
One is...we're running out of oil and there are better ways of using it than burning the stuff. Oil is so important in many other manufacturing processes that we'd be better of conserving what we have for those purposes.
I agree. The burning of crude oil is almost criminal when you consider that we have no viable replacement and the extent to which many compounds only found in crude and coal play in our manufacturing processes. Fact is that aromatic compounds such as benzene, a large number of alicyclics and aliphatics are very difficult if not impossible to make in a lab and if you think alternate methods to harness energy are expensive.....
I strongly suspect that our actions are having an effect on climate but do not believe that we are the sole cause. We have at best a couple of centuries of data and the cycles which govern the worlds climate are bound to be a little more complex than that. You only need to watch the weather forcasts on the nightly news to see that we clearly do not understand nor have the ability to accurately predict our climate, even in the short term. But you must admit that a large portion of the worlds biodiversity is being adversley affected by our actions and that is never a good thing. That said I am all for renewable energy sources as they present a great technical challange and will in time become far more efficient than just setting things on fire to create heat for whatever purpose. As they become more common the expense will fall and the greedy people will still get rich so its win win.
got it wrong?
Here I was thinking doom and gloom, but obviously the very best science we've got has completely stuffed up again, despite decades of data collection & modelling. Idiots! Dunno why they didn't just ask you guys in the first place! 
Try visiting some of the world's most populated cities where there are more souls in one city than the whole of Australia combined.
