(I’m afraid I don’t have as long today so this’ll have to be a quicker one than previously.)

You’ll probably be glad to hear that I’m not going to oppose you merely for the sake of it. If the link between CO2 is indeed logarithmic, that would be a good thing as far as I’m concerned, though I am as yet unconvinced that this is the case. I have seen graphs that suggest the opposite, and I think at best, we’re unlikely to really find out until it’s too late to do anything about it.

What it seems we do know (and agree on) is that there is a tangible link, and that we appear to be of significance in it. I think our significance is sizeable, and it seems you don’t – fair enough.

I think the uncertainty should suggest we proceed with caution, which is impossible under the type of “continual growth” society that virtually all corporate and government interests are based around – hence the need to take action against that.

Of course it’s crazy that we’re shipping recycling off to China, or planting monocultures for biofuels, and these are things that I would never support. If anything, they are prime examples of the braindead realities of global industrial capitalism, where short term profit (facilitated by exploitation of the environment and impoverished cheap workforces elsewhere) always comes before doing what is clearly better for humanity in the long term bigger picture.

Capitalism does not care about these things, which is why it and it’s profiteers must be opposed.

The Climate Camp is all about people-based solutions: empowering us to make our lives and our communities more self-sufficient, less resource hungry, more efficient, less polluting, and more rewarding and enjoyable.

The solutions to climate change and resource depletion are very simple, and in the long term I think will actually make nearly all of us all a lot happier with our lives and our place in the world.

That there is so much opposition to them from the corporate sector, and only token “support” from government which switches to outright oppression in reality is a sign of just what is at stake here.

Because if we realise we can have fantastic lives, work far less and far closer to our actual needs, not really need short periods of escape called “holidays” when every day is enjoyable… we won’t need their products or their control of our lives (green taxes!?), and their gravy train will come off the rails.

That’s what’s really at stake here, and as with every type of “alternative” culture that has emerged and briefly flourished before being mercilessly crushed in the UK over the years, why the corporations and authorities are so determined that we won’t succeed in our aims.

But there are ALWAYS more of us than there are of them – our dream never dies, and we are already winning.

Our way of life is the opposite of what they wish it was. We can sustain our actions, because they are based around human communities living sustainably (both environmentally and cohesively). Everything that corporate capitalism strives for depends on the exploitation of people and the environment, and thus, at some point (I think it’s happening already) it will come crashing off the rails, as the things that have supported it begin to fall away one by one.

Capitalism is always teetering on the verge of collapse – all we have to do is wait, and hope that it’s collapse comes soon enough, aided by our efforts to give it the final shove.

Cheers,

~Dave

(Perhaps that was no shorter than usual!?)

The links and the accompanying remarks) were addressing Douglas’s particular question of whether the relationship between CO2 and temperature is exponential or not. I think I’ve shown that the scientific community agrees that the relationship is logarithmic, which is considerably less alarming, or course. Do you accept this?

The other part of my earlier comment was that most skeptics reckon the effect of all that CO2 is small. It may be that you have seen people claim that humans can have no effect, but there is all sorts of nonsense out there isn’t there? Among the saner sorts, around whom we should base our discussion, the argument is made that the effect is likely to be small because, as I’ve said, the concentration of CO2 is small.

If this is correct, then your comment about what we should do is horribly misguided. You say:

“That the exact amount is hard to calculate is no excuse for inaction and carrying on as we are now, in my opinion. If one possible and highly likely outcome is disaster and the rest are at best rather uncertain, it makes sense to proceed with extreme caution, given what is at stake, no?”

This is very bad economics and very bad environmentalism. If the impact of your proposed actions are worse than the impact of doing nothing then you will damage the environment, not make it better. We currently have rubbish shipped to China in the name of recycling; we have proposals to plant monocultures of biofuels in the name of fighting global warming. This is immensely damaging to the environment and it’s environmentalists who are to blame.

Thanks for the links. You said: “I’m interested to know whether any of this shakes your confidence in what you are being told?”

Well, I’m afraid it doesn’t – if anything, the links you posted seem to back up my side of the argument (that we are indeed having a significant effect, though the amount is hard to work out exactly).

That the exact amount is hard to calculate is no excuse for inaction and carrying on as we are now, in my opinion. If one possible and highly likely outcome is disaster and the rest are at best rather uncertain, it makes sense to proceed with extreme caution, given what is at stake, no?

So, the stuff you posted is helpful, because I have seen it stated in various forms all over the internet “humans are too small to have any effect on the environment”, when really it’s self-evident if you look out of your window that we have a massive effect, and the graphs you posted appear to back this up (just differ on the exact amount).

I still haven’t seen this successfully refuted, because really, I don’t think it can be. Such is the body of observable evidence that it speaks for itself.

Here’s a few more examples of humans having massive effects on our environment: dams, landfill sites, mining, pollution of rivers and seas, airborne pollutants, deforestation, nuclear contamination, the Panama Canal(!!)… and that’s just off the top of my head.

I mean, can any living thing not affect it’s environment? I really wish it were so easy as a one-way process which contained us and that we had no influence over, but it seems to me that it’s an observable fact that we are involved in a multi-way process.

We are part of a living, breathing ecosystem – it contains us and it allows us to live. The sooner we stop denying that and keep up our part of the bargain (I mean really, it’s not hard: take good care of your home), the better.

“What I am being told” is of little significance compared to what I can easily observe myself, and our destruction of our planet (the thing that’s keeping us alive) is absolutely rampant.

Can anyone really fail to see that, or would we rather just not think about it?

Cheers,

~Dave

Here’s one from an AGW skeptic. The graph includes references to the original papers.

Here’s another from a pro-AGW site.

Here’s an excerpt from a colloquium of the US National Academy of Sciences.

Is that enough?

I’m interested to know whether any of this shakes your confidence in what you are being told?

You said:

“I’ve also seen it pointed out that the effect will not rise linearly with increasing CO2, but will tend to a maximum. As I understand it this second point is not in dispute.”

As my understanding was exactly the opposite – in other words that it was exponential – I’d be obliged if you could provide some references. Maybe we’ve all been worrying about nothing much, eh? Though I suppose it depends on what that maximum might be.

I think this is something of a straw man. The argument that tends to be made is that the effect is small, because CO2 represents a small proportion of total greenhouse gases. I’ve also seen it pointed out that the effect will not rise linearly with increasing CO2, but will tend to a maximum. As I understand it this second point is not in dispute.

Anyone?

Nope, that’s not going to help anything.

When you take into consideration the amount of CO2 released in the mining, refining, processing, transportation, decommissioning and storage of nuclear fuel, it’s actually about 70% as polluting as burning natural gas.

Furthermore, although there’s a lot of uranium in the world, most of it is U-238 and nuclear power needs U-235, which makes up only 0.7% of available uranium.

I went to a talk by expert Paul Mobbs, and he said that if enough nuclear power plants were built to pick up the slack from the depletion of fossil fuels, we’d run out of usable uranium in about 10-15 years anyway.

Newer reactor designs aren’t proving very successful – only last year, Japan closed it’s Fast Breeder prototype, the last in the line of all the countries that have tried it, as far as I know.

To the best of my knowledge, there isn’t currently a viable “new type of reactor” that has got past prototype stage.

Finally, there’s the waste legacy. We’re not even sure we can store radioactive waste safely for 50 years, let alone several thousand years. Remembering that uranium is toxic as well as radioactive – does this seem like a good idea?

Is sweeping our dirt under the carpet and expecting our children and grandchildren (to the Nth generation) to deal with it a sustainable (meaning can be carried on forever) way of life? Hardly!

Nuclear power is the epitome of stealing from future generations to feed our own insatiable greed. What’s more, any ideas that nuclear is in some way “green” or “sustainable” are pure fantasy.

Forget it!!

(And that’s before we even get onto the risks of long-term radioactive contamination of a large area of land if there’s ever another accident.)

(*And* and that’s before we even get on to the sizeable government subsidies that the nuclear industry enjoys in the UK, without which it wouldn’t exist, and also without which there would be far less fissile material produced for Britain’s nuclear missiles. Seems the “innovative” way to deal with the waste problem is to turn it into weapons of mass destruction, because that’s obviously the path to a sustainable future for all humanity… NOT!)

ChrisC: “what exactly is everyone doing in the main climate camp picture?!”

You weren’t there? They’re sticking their heads in the ground and ignoring the problem.

Dave – what exactly is everyone doing in the main climate camp picture?! Yoga against climate change?

And how do we know these aren’t the kind of “scientists” that ended up on The Great Global Warming Swindle?

Nir Shaviv
Willson & Scafetta

Links to the appocolyptic shrillness?

Besides, what has Madonna or or any other pop star got to do with this? No one is citing them, people jumping on the band-wagon doesn’t mean the wagon isn’t real.

That hyperbole just turns people off, I’m afraid.

Calmer language and small steps are the only way to get people to do anything.

ChrisC you do know that fossil fuels will run out eventually and that if you want electricity you will have to find new ways to get it ie renewable.

Asd for the hyperbole argument that is another straw man. Just because you don’t like the truth does not make it hyperbole. Heres an idea Chris why not watch science programmes that cover the topic of global warming. The best programme on Global warming was entitled global dimming which dealt with the effects of pollution such as sulpher on rainfall.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dimming_prog_summary.shtml

As for the small steps argument, George Monbiot ridiculed it as being for people who don’t work. Middle class fads are not going to prevent/minimise global warming.

Renewable energy is required as for the greens they have to drop their opposition to nuclear power.

Listening to some of the more shrill proponents of global warming is quite akin, at times, to reading Revelations.

I’m sure you’re in favour of maintaining a solid barrier between hard science and soft religious sentiment, are you not?

However, some of the higher profile promoters of this issue have effectively fudged that distinction by appealing to emotions and irrational fears, rather than science fact, in an effort to further the agenda.

What, exactly, motivated Madonna ( not that she’s a global warming point-man) to hop abord a private jet, thereby spewing tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, to come to London for a global warming concert? Concern about the enviroment?

Naw, she was moved by a bout of good, old-fashioned, crypto-Catholic guilt about her wealth, that’s what.

Her gesture was an irrational and self-centered act of pennance beamed into millions of gullible households in an effort to support a supposedly rational, science-based theory of climate change.

We should be wary of that as we attempt to separate fact from fiction.