Do YOU believe in global warming?

[Harpodom]

Interglacial period or not, the problem is the climate is warming NOW, there's ample evidence for it in nature, with species becoming extinct/near extinct due to changing habitats as a result of climate change.

 

I probably makes Tony feel quite smug when it's winter, cos its cold! "Of course, the earth is cooling, just like my adviser bloke said!"

[Bibbs]

The geological record indicates the earths normal state is much colder and we are currently in what we call an interglacial period.

 

We may be headed back that way.

 

Hundred-Year Period Of Increased Solar Activity Coming To An End

 

At the moment, the space climate is undergoing an extremely interesting phase. Now a 100-year period of heightened solar activity is coming to an end.

Juha Merimaa, Helsinki Times, 18 August 2014

 

 

Solar Cycles Linked To Global Warming Pause Says New Paper IPCC Gurus Tried to Quash

 

Long-Term natural cycles linked to the sun could explain the pause in global average surface temperatures and offer a better guide for coastal planners to predict sea level rises, storm surges and natural disasters. Publication of the findings in Ocean and Coastal Management follows a decade-long struggle for the lead author, Australian scientist Robert Baker from the University of New England, whose work has challenged the orthodox *climate science view that carbon dioxide is the dominant factor in climate change. His latest paper with his PhD student faced a *series of objections from scientists close to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change but was published after an 11-member peer review panel voted 8-3 to publish.

Graham Lloyd, The Australian, 16 August 2014

 

And another paper on the Sun vs Temperature :-

 

http://www.reportingclimatescience.com/news-stories/article/astronomy-paper-implies-solar-role-in-climate-change.html

 

The implications of this result are controversial as they appear to fly in the face of evidence presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and accepted by many climate scientists that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) have been the main factor driving up global temperatures in the industrial age and that the sun has played a minor role.

[MARYROSE02]

When the 'big players' get together and 'do something', then is the time for Australia to fall into line. Even if Australia went totally 'green', it would be such a miniscule contribution, nobody would notice, apart from the UN!

 

It would be like one bloke trying to empty a bath with a tea spoon whilst another man was filling it with both taps going full blast.

[Bibbs]

When the 'big players' get together and 'do something', then is the time for Australia to fall into line. Even if Australia went totally 'green', it would be such a miniscule contribution, nobody would notice, apart from the UN!

 

It would be like one bloke trying to empty a bath with a tea spoon whilst another man was filling it with both taps going full blast.

 

Totally agree. Australia is a resources provider, this is generally a dirty process. Why would we be the first to make ourselves expensive and therefore uncompetitive?

[Guest]

Yes.

[robfromdublin]

When the 'big players' get together and 'do something', then is the time for Australia to fall into line. Even if Australia went totally 'green', it would be such a miniscule contribution, nobody would notice, apart from the UN!

 

It would be like one bloke trying to empty a bath with a tea spoon whilst another man was filling it with both taps going full blast.

 

That is absolutely true. Except that Australia has the capacity to influence the behaviour of the two blokes with taps going full blast (USA & China). Persuading them to do something would have a much greater effect that doing something ourselves. Of course, Australia has no chance to persuade them to do anything unless she shows some leadership first.

 

Nevertheless, Australia is hamstrung by being a resources provider. How do you show leadership when your government and largest companies (e.g. BHP) are bankrolled by things like coal, gas, etc.? It's very difficult. You don't see Saudi Arabia out there telling the world to stop using oil.

[Guest Guest66881]

Unless the horse and cart makes a massive come back, that coupled with a total worldwide ban on all petrol/derv consumption i can't see it ever changing, no matter what government tries to lead from the front.

Most of the ones trying to promote a global reduction in usage of fossil fuels etc are the ones using the most?

[Nikey]

http://carbonfootprintofnations.com/

is interesting. Oz uses more than the uk per capita for everything....even water which surprised me. It must be irrigation or something. Oz needs to clean up a bit. We all do but Oz is fairly bad.

[Paul1Perth]

http://carbonfootprintofnations.com/

is interesting. Oz uses more than the uk per capita for everything....even water which surprised me. It must be irrigation or something. Oz needs to clean up a bit. We all do but Oz is fairly bad.

 

It's not surprising we use more water Nikey. Just about everyone's garden has a reticulation system that's connected to mains supply. A few people have bores but not many. Used to be able to have it on every day in summer. Last few years restrictions have come in where we get to use it 3 times a week (I think). Our house is fairly typical I suppose. We have a front and back lawn and 5 watering "stations". Each one comes on for about 10 minutes and it's like 4 showers going full bore.

 

We don't have a pool but a lot of people do, so that's where a lot of water goes too.

 

The houses are bigger here and a lot of them are lit up with fancy outdoor lighting. In general cars are bigger with bigger engines, a V8 is not unusual here still. Petrol is half the price is it in the UK so it's still doable with a V8.

[Lambethlad]

Filling the atmosphere with filthy poisonous muck and destroying the world's rainforests upsets me but natural forces really control our fate. Sun activity, volcanic activity, meteorite strikes and changes in the tilt of the earths axis have all had devastating affects in the past and it will happen again. 10,000 years ago sea levels were so low due to the ice cap in the north of the planet we could walk to Tasmania. In the time of the Pharaohs, Egypt was green and lush until a sudden change in the tilt of the Earths axis stopped the monsoon rains and turned it arid.

[VERYSTORMY]

Interglacial period or not, the problem is the climate is warming NOW, there's ample evidence for it in nature, with species becoming extinct/near extinct due to changing habitats as a result of climate change.

 

I probably makes Tony feel quite smug when it's winter, cos its cold! "Of course, the earth is cooling, just like my adviser bloke said!"

 

The problem is that although the climate "may" be warming. It may not be due to any man made factor and therefore impossible to do anything about. The earth warms and cools regularly.

 

Most of the animals that have ever lived are extinct and a lot of them due to past changes in climate. Have a walk along any Perth shore line and you will see limestone full of fossils of extinct animals.

 

The big issue as I see it, is that putting lots of effort into stoping climate change may be futile if we are just going through a normal cycle when them resources would be better spent on looking at how we are going to manage the change as a species.

[flybyknight]

will overpopulation cause the same immediate stresses to an individual as climate change?

a lot of the issues will be the same, such as energy generation, food production etc.

where's the harm in adjusting now?

[MARYROSE02]

Leave it to 'Mother Nature;' there will be another major war/disaster soon enough. I'm far more worried about the likes of ISIS, Ebola, and all the other nasty diseases. In fact, I would rather all the world's scientists concentrated on finding a cure for those diseases than the highly spurious claims about climate change. Why should we care what future generations think anyway? Any more that the generation that caused WW1 (and WW2) cared what we think of them.

[Guest rikimilton]

Yes I believe in global warming . in present global warming is increasing very fast and change weather circle in all over the world.

[Pabloz]

The denial of global warming just doesn't withstand scrutiny. In 2013 there were over 9,000 scientific papers on the subject and not one disputed global warming. There is not an expert

body anywhere in the world that denies global warming.

 

Denial is mainly a phenomenon of nations with coal. If those in the media who promote denial were truly inquisitive sceptics, they would present some of these thousands of widely accepted research reports

confirming global warming and they would do so fairly. But they don't. Some Aussie media has been analysed and it has been shown that they have hardly ever presented the mainstream, dominant view. Deniers will say 'oh but

consensus and the dominant view aren't everything' and they are at least right on that point. Alas the sceptic scientists tend to be just one or two relatively obscure guys. But modern science tends not to work like that;

you get in the best scientific journals by doing the best research. Those members of the public who don't accept the science tend never to have read any of the science even though scientific journal articles, IPCC reports etc are free on line. Not only is it all on line but so is the supporting evidence, and pages and pages of references, etc. As for 'scientific conspiracy', that is nonsense. Three men in a pub can't keep a secret. Look at what the ICAC unearths with ease. The 'conspiracy' if any is by the 'doubt industry' that wants to delay any action that will impact on corporate profits. Australia, the developed nation hardest hit by global warming also per capita the biggest polluter, will suffer - its environment, its native animals, through drought and more frequent bushfires and it will hit our economy. But Tony sacked our scientists to prevent the delivery of bad news, so we won't know.

[MARYROSE02]

The denial of global warming just doesn't withstand scrutiny. In 2013 there were over 9,000 scientific papers on the subject and not one disputed global warming. There is not an expert

body anywhere in the world that denies global warming.

 

Denial is mainly a phenomenon of nations with coal. If those in the media who promote denial were truly inquisitive sceptics, they would present some of these thousands of widely accepted research reports

confirming global warming and they would do so fairly. But they don't. Some Aussie media has been analysed and it has been shown that they have hardly ever presented the mainstream, dominant view. Deniers will say 'oh but

consensus and the dominant view aren't everything' and they are at least right on that point. Alas the sceptic scientists tend to be just one or two relatively obscure guys. But modern science tends not to work like that;

you get in the best scientific journals by doing the best research. Those members of the public who don't accept the science tend never to have read any of the science even though scientific journal articles, IPCC reports etc are free on line. Not only is it all on line but so is the supporting evidence, and pages and pages of references, etc. As for 'scientific conspiracy', that is nonsense. Three men in a pub can't keep a secret. Look at what the ICAC unearths with ease. The 'conspiracy' if any is by the 'doubt industry' that wants to delay any action that will impact on corporate profits. Australia, the developed nation hardest hit by global warming also per capita the biggest polluter, will suffer - its environment, its native animals, through drought and more frequent bushfires and it will hit our economy. But Tony sacked our scientists to prevent the delivery of bad news, so we won't know.

 

So what do you want Australia to do? Close down both its coal mines and its coal/oil/gas fired power stations? How is an industrial nation like Australia going to provide enough power for itself? Solar and wind are not a viable option. Nuclear is but politically not viable.

[flybyknight]

So what do you want Australia to do? Close down both its coal mines and its coal/oil/gas fired power stations? How is an industrial nation like Australia going to provide enough power for itself? Solar and wind are not a viable option. Nuclear is but politically not viable.

 

sadly it's already happening, we will soon be in damage mitigation mode.

the Queensland government gave a coal fired power station away a few days back, sold it to AGL for $0.

the coal price is in freefall, economical devices are using far less power than the networks predicted, when they spent huge on upgrading the network.

so, an over invested, under utilised asset, hinged on a fuel the world hates and is moving away from.

if renewables aren't viable, then we should be looking hard at what is, flogging the old way to death can't last.

 

personally i find it unlikely almost every other world government doesn't know something Australia and Canada does.

renewables must have a place, or why would the rest of the world be investing so heavily?

[Pabloz]

Nations including Australia will have to go nuclear. I'm not keen on that, however, it's about atmospheric physics and chemistry and how we respond to what we are doing. The build-up of man-made CO2 is like a car heading towards a cliff, so we either take evasive action sooner i.e. begin to reduce coal usage in particular or brace ourselves for the worst, which is ever more extreme climatic conditions and all that brings. Renewable energy is far from the full answer but still, Australia could do a lot and be a world export leader in that field. The government is effectively strangling it for ideological reasons at a time when new revenue streams and jobs are needed too.

[Harpodom]

The denial of global warming just doesn't withstand scrutiny. In 2013 there were over 9,000 scientific papers on the subject and not one disputed global warming. There is not an expert

body anywhere in the world that denies global warming.

 

Denial is mainly a phenomenon of nations with coal. If those in the media who promote denial were truly inquisitive sceptics, they would present some of these thousands of widely accepted research reports

confirming global warming and they would do so fairly. But they don't. Some Aussie media has been analysed and it has been shown that they have hardly ever presented the mainstream, dominant view. Deniers will say 'oh but

consensus and the dominant view aren't everything' and they are at least right on that point. Alas the sceptic scientists tend to be just one or two relatively obscure guys. But modern science tends not to work like that;

you get in the best scientific journals by doing the best research. Those members of the public who don't accept the science tend never to have read any of the science even though scientific journal articles, IPCC reports etc are free on line. Not only is it all on line but so is the supporting evidence, and pages and pages of references, etc. As for 'scientific conspiracy', that is nonsense. Three men in a pub can't keep a secret. Look at what the ICAC unearths with ease. The 'conspiracy' if any is by the 'doubt industry' that wants to delay any action that will impact on corporate profits. Australia, the developed nation hardest hit by global warming also per capita the biggest polluter, will suffer - its environment, its native animals, through drought and more frequent bushfires and it will hit our economy. But Tony sacked our scientists to prevent the delivery of bad news, so we won't know.

 

Exactly

[robfromdublin]

So what do you want Australia to do? Close down both its coal mines and its coal/oil/gas fired power stations? How is an industrial nation like Australia going to provide enough power for itself? Solar and wind are not a viable option. Nuclear is but politically not viable.

 

It's not either/or. You can reduce reliance on coal by reducing the number of coal-fired stations and shifting to renewables. The electricity network is based on peak demand. If you can reduce the level of peak demand you can reduce the total investment in the network. That has been happening with the shift to solar and now it looks like a lot of that good work is being undone with this 'review' run by a climate denier.

[MARYROSE02]

It's not either/or. You can reduce reliance on coal by reducing the number of coal-fired stations and shifting to renewables. The electricity network is based on peak demand. If you can reduce the level of peak demand you can reduce the total investment in the network. That has been happening with the shift to solar and now it looks like a lot of that good work is being undone with this 'review' run by a climate denier.

 

 

'Renewables?' The sun and the wind? Name me an industrial nation, any nation in fact, that has done this, successfully? It is just not feasible. Some countries 'talk the talk' about doing it, but never in practice. China probably SHOULD do it, given their levels of pollution, but by comparison to China, Australia is a gnat on the hide of an elephant.

[robfromdublin]

Countries that have introduced some form of renewables? Almost all nations have done this. Despite what you say, China is the world's number one producer of renewable energy.

 

Here's a list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_production_from_renewable_sources

 

The top ten are China, USA, Brazil, Canada, Russia, India, Germany, Norway, Japan and Spain in that order.

[MARYROSE02]

Countries that have introduced some form of renewables? Almost all nations have done this. Despite what you say, China is the world's number one producer of renewable energy.

 

Here's a list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_production_from_renewable_sources

 

The top ten are China, USA, Brazil, Canada, Russia, India, Germany, Norway, Japan and Spain in that order.

 

What proportion of their total energy needs are supplied by renewables?

[Harpodom]

'Renewables?' The sun and the wind? Name me an industrial nation, any nation in fact, that has done this, successfully? It is just not feasible. Some countries 'talk the talk' about doing it, but never in practice. China probably SHOULD do it, given their levels of pollution, but by comparison to China, Australia is a gnat on the hide of an elephant.

Germany is 'an industrial nation', powerhouse (scuse the pun) of the EU

 

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5430

 

[h=1]Germany Leads Way on Renewables, Sets 45% Target by 2030[/h]

[Ellie 2]

This planet's climate has been in constant change since it was formed and will be so despite anything that we do. We do however need to clean the air that we breathe to protect human and animal health. Much more harmful things than CO2 are spewed into the atmosphere. Those are what we need to get rid of - we do need CO2 to survive. I do believe in the proliferation of solar energy and the like to achieve this.