Off Topic Greta Thunberg

pars and birdies

 

I don’t honestly know but can we keep your reply on topic.

 

Jesus as opposed to Beelzebub?

 

Handicap? Pars and birdies.! Scratch +1, +2..?

 

If we’re not careful we’ll revisit the Crone Dorty love in thread from last year.

 

It was a reply to a question, having a bit of a laugh with another poster...

BTW it was on topic.

I didn't know she is a keen golfer....

 

The shtick of using kids to scare the ****e out of other kids, is an old one.

starts at 50 in

 

Mine was an attempt at humour as well...which obviously wasn't successful.

 

World looks pretty ****ing far from "on fire" where I'm sat.

 

Sorry mate, I thought you just hadn't read all my posts... thats my fault.

I wondered why you were digging me-out

 

In the age of information ignorance is a choice.
(Donald Miller)

Who in their right mind would let a kid who has dropped out of school, never had a paper round.. and has got no qualifications
tell them how to do you're job, it just doesn't happen, but when it comes to the climate


Or you can listen to the professionals and make you're own mind-up

 

Out of interest, who do you think are the professionals in this case?

I don’t think anyone can argue with listening to the experts and then making up your mind. I think even Ms Thunberg has made that point in between rants.

On the other hand, making up your mind in advance and then looking for YouTube videos that confirm what you’ve already decided is not exactly scientific best practice...

 

Looks like a great video. I don't have time to watch it yet, but it's now on my watch list. In the meantime, I think this could be right up your street....

Climate Conspiracy

 

Totally agree mate...

As for Thunberg... she's defiantly not an expert or a professional scientist is she?
At best she's a script reading actress.

Who do I think the professional are... did you watch the video?
it's an old one so you shoot it down halfaheed

 

Still haven't watched it, but just googled it and found out that two of the professional scientists used to support the claims of the documentary filed complaints against the filmmaker for misrepresenting their views, and the documentary had to have amendments made to correct mistakes before it was released on DVD to avoid further legal action. The version on youtube you linked to is the original before corrections were made. However, even the amended version was criticised by many major scientific organisations.

 

So you haven't watch it then...

How dare you!!!!!!!!

 

Watched it years ago. It’s brilliant - as an example of how to twist facts and present soundbites to suit an agenda. There are some very clever people working to discredit the mainstream science on the topic.

Rather out of date these days alas.

I base my opinion on two things:

My understanding of the scientific literature on the subject, which is limited but not zero. (I work in a related field).

The opinions of the scientists I’ve spoken to, who are all extremely concerned about it.

That was enough for me to take a big pay cut and decide to spend my career trying to help fix the problem. I tend to laugh hollowly when people claim that scientists are only in it for the money. I wish that were true.

I don’t think anyone is stupid for being sceptical or trying to think for themselves - and I get pissed off at the people who treat environmentalism like a religion. But I do insist they apply that scepticism equally to both sides.

One thing I like to ask is the following: which bit(s) of the science don’t you believe and why?

1) Do you think CO2 traps heat in the atmosphere at approx 5.35ln(C/Co)W/m2?

2) Do you think the CO2 levels have changed from ~200ppm pre-industrial to ~405ppm today?

3) Do you think that human beings release approximately 33x10^9 tonnes per year of CO2?

4) Do you think that maintaining this rate of increase in CO2 concentration will lead to ~4C of warming?

5) Do you think an overall temperature increase of 4C would be bad for the planet? For people? For the economy?

These numbers more or less add up by the way (ie if 1-3 are true then they would logically lead to 4 etc).

Interested in your opinion.

 

The argument works great up to points 4) and 5) and then it gets a bit less easy to back up with science. We know that we have had far higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than 405ppm and it didn't seem to have caused a global average temperature increase of 4degC.
We also know that the planet isn't going to be destroyed by increased carbon dioxide levels - at least it certainly hasn't in the past. Plants thrive on increased CO2 levels - currently its on the low side for them.
Effect on people - certainly there will be cities that will be underwater as global warming increases and that could lead to a clamour for dry ground.
The potential economic effects are also much harder to define and its where the developed and the developing world diverge which makes a global solution difficult. What the developed world does to reduce fossil fuel use of course has an impact but the projected growth in fossil fuel use through to 2050 is mostly in Asia and the developing nations and the forecast change from fossil fuels to renewables in the energy mix is not that significant.
In order to achieve any global decrease in CO2 levels in the atmosphere you are going to have provide those countries with a reliable and economic alternative to fossil fuel use, subsidise them to stop using fossil fuels or provide them with the technology to trap the CO2 and put it back in the ground. You can’t expect them to forego their economic growth to help developed nations out.
Of course you could just let things continue as now, suffer the climate effects, which would probably lead to a decrease in fossil fuel demand which causes lower prices and stops exploitation of new resources.

 

You've hit the nail on the head for the biggest obstacle to tackling climate change and mitigating the effects of it. One of the biggest arguments used against the developed world making changes is people saying 'we need to stop China and the rest of Asia creating so much greenhouse gas first or any changes the west makes is pointless.' It is unrealistic and unreasonable to demand that we just draw a line under development and put a stop to it now, and is something that could only be put forward by people who already occupy a privileged position in terms of development. It will take a seismic change in international cooperation to make effective changes that allow countries to develop their way out of poverty in ways that limit the production of worldwide greenhouse gas production in a fair and balanced way. Anything else would be unsustainable. To put it in local terms, to accept that the rest of the world stops development would also mean that we would have to accept forgetting about redressing the North/South divide in development in this country and accepting that it's just tough that we have less facilities than down south. We wouldn't accept that, and we are already in a relatively privileged position, so why should anybody else?

I liken it in some ways to the financial fair play rules in football. We know we need them or the world of football will be unsustainable. However, we also know that in practice it means we have drawn a line under development of clubs and it just means that the current rich clubs are protected from anyone else ever catching up. We need to find fairer ways to implement it.