I think about climate change quite often.
I’m a natural born worrier and it bothers me that humans may be affecting the climate in such a way that it may have a catastrophic effect if it is actually happening.
I’ve listened to the arguments put forward by the large number of scientists who believe that human activity is responsible for a planet that is warming up rapidly. I’ve also read information from various climate sceptics who believe it’s all nonsense and we have nothing to worry about.
To be honest, I’m not sure which side to believe.
When I speak with friends, family and colleagues about man-made climate change few people seem overly concerned, and even fewer seem prepared to change their habits. It worries me that should the world be heading towards a big increase in temperature during this century, then attitudes will have to change or we’re doomed.
I’m interested to know whether people reading this blog believe that global warming is happening, or not. Or, is it more than just me who’s confused. Considering our industry has a vital part to play in helping the UK reduce its CO2 emissions, do we believe there is a problem in the first place.
I’ve added a poll to the right hand side to see what you all think. And please leave any thoughts below that might help me make my mind up 
Tags: Climate Change, global warming
12,000 years ago much of the planet was ice:
Then there really was Global Warming ….. until …..
1,000 years ago when Greenland was just that ….. green land:
It’s icy now, which means it was a hell of a lot hotter then than now ….
and there was no industry making CO2.
So, yes, there has been global warming for thousands of years ….
beats the hell out of living in an ice age!!!!
We’re extremely lucky to be in a ‘warm’ period.
All the hype is just a SCAM
Hi Chris
Thanks for your opinion. As a friend of yours on Facebook, I often click on the various climate sceptic links you put out there, which have helped to get me in my confused state
Matthew
I believe that the Earth has a natural warming/cooling cycle. But I also believe that human activity has sped things up dramatically. What the worrying thing is, is that the Earth’s natural warming/cooling cycle gradually allows the planet to adjust with no huge consequence. What human activity is doing is speeding up that process so much that planertary effects are much quicker and far more profound and dangerous.
DBG
If we buy into the climate change lobby and accept all the arguments for one moment, then I think the intriguing question is what should be our expectation of when things are going to improve?
When is this going to be,in 20, 50, 100, 1000 years time?
How will we know things have stabilized? When it gets colder over a given period?
How will this temperature be maintained?
When is the obvious but politically difficult option of implementing some sort of population control going to happen?
I personally believe that anyone who can answer positively either yes or no is guessing.
I am sure that man’s influence can change local environments, how this affects global patterns and how much the natural cycles of the earth are influenced (or even compensate for it) is anyones guess.
It is interesting that there has been so much deliberate hypeing of global warming even from within the IPCC. See http://wattsupwiththat.com/ for that and a lot more sceptical views.
The natural cycles argument is to be tested shortly as the things that are mainly referenced for this are now entering, or in, their cooler favouring states. The ocean heat content is beginning to go down (the vast majority of the earths atmospheric heat is stored in the ocean).
My advice Matthew would be to wait a couple more years before committing to the argument one way or the other.
And there are a whole host of other things to worry abut besides global warming, some of them much more pressing.
I have an open mind on Global Warming but is it fair for us to leave the problems for our children or should we take the cautious route and play safe. Admitedly we as a country are a small cog in the wheels of global change and our efforts will not make a major difference, but if we can persuade others to join us we may leave the world a better place when we leave than when we came into it.
I believe the issue is sustainability and that we should not deplete natural resources so that future generations are deprived of the lifestyles we now enjoy.
Top 15 Climate Myths
http://www.iloveco2.org/2009/01/top-15-climate-myths.html
CO2 & Climate Facts
http://www.iloveco2.org/2009/01/co2-climate-facts.html
CO2 Absorption Into Atmosphere Hasn’t Changed in 160 YEARS
http://www.climatechangefraud.com/climate-reports/5995-new-scientific-study-co2-absorption-into-atmosphere-hasnt-changed-in-160-years
“World getting cooler, not warmer”, insists Bellamy
http://www.climatechangefraud.com/climate-reports/5573-world-getting-cooler-not-warmer-insists-bellamy
This is a one hour television program that aired in San Diego in four segments.
http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/81583352.html
The Hottest Hoax in the World
http://www.climatechangefraud.com/climate-reports/6255-the-hottest-hoax-in-the-world
The internet is the only area where any discussion is taking place. For whatever reasons the Establisment is comitted to the Green Agenda. There is no difference in policy between the Conservatives the Liberals or New Labour on this issue. Since the revalations of the Climate-gate scandal, the entire AGW theory has been rapidly falling to pieces.
All you need to do with this scam is to follow the money.
In my view though, it is the Global regulation and control that is the real goal of those who are promoting this alleged problem. They want to regulate mans existance on this planet by taxing him on an essential element to life itself.
There is nothing wrong with promoting energy efficiency, especially with predictions like this.
As with all numbers and statistics, play with them enough and you can get them to say anything you want but there is a ground swell of opinion coming from the scientific community that is very compelling. The recent revelations coming from the climate change lobby based around how some of the statistics have been incorrectly presented or collated doesn’t help to ease the confusion, but as you say Mathew are we just sticking our heads in the sand if we do nothing and leaving a hell of a mess for our children?
There is no easy answer, on the face of it the evidence I have seen suggets that the climate is warming (yes it has been warmer and colder in the past when vast amounts of CO2 were pumped into the atmosphere by massive volcanic activity but the time scale of warming this time is hundreds not tens of thousands of years). I like you Mathew are confused by the different arguments and lobby groups what I do know is that the introduction of WERs is going to make about as much difference to the climate as it is likely to make to household energy bill.
Good win for England at the weekend, good game too still too many errors still too many missed tackles but a fine start, a start to build on and with Italy, France and Scotland away and Ireland at home a good opportuntiy to start building for the world cup next year.
Hi, I’m an architect not a climate scientist, but I have spent a lot of my spare time over the past year looking into the science of climate change, energy issues, and also the swirling mass of political, corporate, media and general public opions sloshing around the media and the blogoshpere.
Well I can sumarise that the only consistent aspect is the science. Latest update:
http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.com/
its a downloadable easy to read report! If you havn’t read the official view of the worlds scientists then I don’t see how you can form your own.
If you don’t believe this science then you must therefore believe that the entire global science community is involved in a huge conspiracy to…. er I’m not sure, but some say to allow governments to increase taxes?? I think there are easier ways to increase taxes…
Nobody wants climate change to be true. It is much easier for everyone if we can continue burning fossil fuels. Our whole wealthy civilisation exists because of fossil fuels and fundamentally depends on it. We currently do not have a plan to get off it. To get a clear understanding of the difficult of the energy problem, there is a free online book by a cambridge physics professor, who is currently government chief energy advisor:
http://www.withouthotair.com/ – again, easy to read, very important stuff. There is no easy answer at all.
Re the recent controversies over the e-mails, the first point is that none of it undermines the science of climate change one bit. This is unfortunate because, as I said, climate change is a baad thing and it is much better if it is not true. I have personally read the e-mails so I know they do not undermine the science, and a good summary of the situation is as this article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/05/climate-change-hacked-emails
Re the uncertainty of predicting the future climate, unfortunately the vast majority of scientists will tell you that a business as usual approach is either very bad news or catastrophically bad news. So uncertainty cannot be an excuse for inaction. Perhaps the most outspoken campaigner of climate change issues is James Hansen (now in his late sixties, he has been a NASA planetary climate scientist his whole career), who believes the IPCC forecasts are underestimated – mainly to do with uncertainty about ice sheet melt. His book ’stroms of my grandchildren’ is not available free online unfotunately but a fascinating read.
Oh and a point for Chris – there have been many climate changes in the past – this is because climate is very sensitive.
Studying how the climate changed in the past actually confirms the problems we face today – as the rate at which humans are changing our sensitive climate is far faster than ‘nature’ would normally.
Here is a good site summarising the usual ’sceptic’ arguments and the science response:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
See item 2) for example re the above.
Hi Canbanjo
Thank you for your comments. I will have a look through the links you have recommended to help me understand the science better.
Looking at the voting on this website (which I appreciate is only a small sample of public opinion) it appears that the majority of people seem to agree that human induced climate change is happening, or maybe happening.
My concern is that if it is happening then humans are do not have the desire to solve the problem. For example, assuming fitting energy efficient double glazing saved a family £200 per year off their energy bill. What would that family do with the £200? Book some cheap flights? Buy more electrical products that have been shipped from the other side of the world and will use more power? etc etc
Matthew
Hi Mathew,
The scale of the problem is massive and the solution is to tackle it from all fronts, as you can see is necessary from your example.
1) efficiencies in everything as quickly as possible
2) generating clean energy as quickly as possible
3) regulation to ’smooth’ these through as quickly as possible
And with these it is important to target the things that make the biggest difference first. ‘Without the hot air’ covers a lot of this – and shows how government policy does not come close to having a ‘plan that adds up’. Not even the green party do – i know because I had an e-mail exchange with the green party policy coordinator who admitted the party did not have a policy which ‘adds up’. They have an ideology….
James Hansen similarly targets 2 of the biggest issues. 1 is coal, the worst C02 (and various other nasties) polluter. Whilst our governments are publicly pointing fingers at China, we are busy planing to build new coal fired power stations! They greenwash this with an idea that they will be C02 capture ‘ready’, but then add get out clauses in case economic realities do not suit. Again there is a section on this in ‘With out the hot air’. The second major point that Hansen makes is about how to tax C02 emissions. The problem is that fossil fuels are too cheap and the price in no way reflects the damage done to the environment, or to put it another way, the price does not reflect the cost of putting it right. Cap and trade is failing miserably, Hansen proposes ‘Fee’ and dividend. I won’t say anymore but strongly recommend the book, actually you can read about fee and divided here: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/
So flights have to be more expensive, especially short flights, but the trains should be subsidised etc etc. Interestingly the most efficient way of getting to the other side of the world is by flying (but still needs to be more expensive to make it more of a luxury, and I have family in japan and australia… oh dear, better not lose my day job). Sorry to bombard you with info, I hope you have time to look into all this.
Cheers
Canban
PS re public opinion, see:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus.htm
info on surveys – see 97.4% of climate scientists believe AGW is significant, against 58% of the pubic (probably now less than 50% because of the ‘controversies’). How could this be!? Its a matter of science surely – how can anyone have a better understanding than the scientists which spend there lives studying it? Another big question so I’ll definitely stop writing this time.
To put your minds at greater ease I study climate change and write on this issue every day and have done for over four years. I have two teenage children I think the world of and I’m not paid by ‘big oil.’ I have studied in great depth the various reports written by the IPCC and I have conducted a thorough analysis of the leaked Climategate emails. Before I studied climate I worked in law- particularly government corruption- for ten years. There was never a ‘consensus’ on climate change among scientists – it was hyped just like the phoney data.I can assure you that there is enough evidence of climate data fraud to put at least half a dozen key climate scientists behind bars.
Even our corrupt and self-serving British government admits climate scientists involved in Climategate broke the law. These criminal won’t be prosecuted because it would run counter to the political policies of government. If anyone still genuinely believes that man made global warming is a serious threat when so many crooked ’scientists’ have striven so hard for so long to hide their fake data, then I guess you deserve to stay worried for your childrens’ future.
Frankly, you’ve been conned by a disparate alliance of self-serving, tax hungry politicians. energy companies who would rather you and me pay for alternative energy research via taxes than they from their profits, extreme environmentalists and high-powered business sharks who are angling to make a killing from carbon trading.
There are many people like John O’Sullivan out there propogating myths about climate science. The bottom line is he is not a climate scientist, he writes a website with 1 goal – to discredit the science of climate change – by repeating the same old tosh that is regurgitated throughout the blogosphere.
Believe this and you believe in the largest most unprecedented global conspiracy theory ever. Not only did nasty politicians all over the world manage to all get together to concoct this theory, they actually managed to involve academics – infiltrating the world of science and buying off almost everyone on board to falsify results and produce lies.
Why? to increase taxes. GOT IT
[...] on from my previous post about whether humans are influencing climate change, I’ve been doing quite a lot of reading up [...]