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Posts Tagged ‘global warming’

Is Anthropogenic Global Warming really a hoax?

Sunday, February 28th, 2010

When I suggested in a previous post that ‘Humans are responsible for Global Warming’ I wasn’t expecting the degree of debate the issue of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) would generate on my site.

The main debate involves ‘canbanjo’ an architect who stumbled upon my site while searching for information about the Part L requirements for small extensions, and John O’Sullivan, an experienced climate sceptic who believes global warming is history’s biggest scam.

John’s profile on his blogger webpage states that he is a:

British crime writer and legal advocate, John O’Sullivan was born in 1961 in Berkshire, England, the son of immigrant Irish parents. An avid scholar, John taught and lectured for twenty years at various schools and colleges in the east of England. He litigated, with his second wife, a former New York correction officer, in one of America’s longest and most extraordinary sexual harassment cases. He has gleaned a wealth of knowledge and experience in filing court petitions, motions, mandamus and appeals in the New York State Division of Human Rights, mandamus petitions in the New York State Supreme Court, as well as US federal court. John has also prepared analysis and arguments used in UK criminal court that concerned police officer malfeasance. He has written two ‘Cupboard 55′ novels including ‘Summit Shock’ based on his wife’s epic story. Among the author’s other published credits are; ‘The Jimston Journal’, ‘Invisible Ink,’ ‘The Secret Attic,’ ‘Big Ugly Review and’ ‘The Zip Book.’ John is a prolific writer with over 100 publishing credits relating to his analysis of the ‘Climategate’ data fraud scandal involving criminal conduct by an elite clique of climate scientists.

I find it very difficult to take John’s comments seriously, and if you read some of the nonsense on the ClimateGate.com website of which he is a contributor it is very worrying.  John contributes to many blogs on climate change – he must have ‘Google Alerts’ (or similar) set for terms like ‘global warming’ which allows him to easily identify relevant content where he can copy and paste from a library of tosh (whilst building links and traffic to the ClimateGate.com website at the same time).

Basically, John believes he’s in a battle against the ‘religion of settled science’.  According the the ClimateGate website:

The goal of Climategate.com is to provide a daily dose of information regarding the world’s greatest scam, climategate, and other information and news to help you in your battle against the Religion of Settled Science to dispute their views on Anthropogenic Global Warming, and in addition, to battle the one-world socialist agenda, which is the movement’s leaders’ real goal.

So, Climategate.com publishes material that they hope others will spread across the internet, creating as much confusion as possible so that the normal man or woman in the street is unsure about the real science.  I’ve never been one for conspiracy theories, and to suggest that 97.5% of the world’s climate scientists are conspiring to create a one-world socialist government seems so far fetched it sounds laughable.

An example of the desperate measures the ClimateGate.com team undertakes is when they supported Nick Griffin from the BNP stating he ‘tells it like it is’.  They later decided to pull the article when even their normally supportive followers pointed out they’d gone a bit too far this time.

John O’ Sullivan states that he is pleased that the BNP have chosen to support the idea that AGW is a hoax.  You can see his comment here.

Here’s Mr Griffin in full flow:

Well, I don’t think it was John O’ Sullivan’s intention, but the more I’ve looked at what he and his colleagues have to say, the less respect I have for their arguments.

A rather boring post with little controversy

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

The last few posts I’ve added to the site seem to have ruffled a few feathers at times, and as I’m chilled out and half way through a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon I thought I’d write a few thoughts which are unlikely to cause any controversy whatsoever.

[I guess at this point I've probably lost half of my readers].

6203 steps

This morning I was surprised to receive a gift from the marketing department at Profile 22. I’m not sure what they’re trying to tell me, but they have supplied me with a little device that clips on my belt and counts how many steps I take. Since around 10am this morning I have walked a massive 6203 steps.

Are you impressed? Well, I was really surprised and quite pleased with myself, but then I googled ‘average steps per day’ and found that the guidelines state I should be walking 10,000 steps per day! As I’m now sat on the couch with a glass of red wine, it’s unlikely I’m going to hit my target. (I have to confess also that I have actually fiddled the figures by finishing work early and taking the dogs for a long walk).

PIGS

No, don’t worry my wife has not gone out and bought some pigs to keep our donkeys company. No, I’m talking about the next Publicity in Glazing Society meeting next Thursday in London. The details are on the Glazine at this link.

Any excuse to socialise with industry professionals, I’ve booked train tickets and the hotel and am attending with our kid.

According to the press release:

Everyone who wants to socialise, network and yes, even talk business, is welcome to join editors, advertising, marketing, PR, event organisers and suppliers from the industry on Thursday 4 March.

If you’re going – I’ll see you there!

Huddersfield Town v Leeds United

I’m not sure if you’re aware but I’m a big fan of West Yorkshire’s best football team – Huddersfield Town. On Saturday we host local rivals Leeds United. It’s all set up to be a great game for the following reasons:

Huddersfield are unbeaten in the last 10 games
Huddersfield are the only team unbeaten at home this season
Huddersfield have won their last three games all away from home!
Leeds are in really poor form, although they won on Tuesday night
Of the last 4 times the two teams have played Town have won three and drawn one

With all this in mind, Leeds are bound to win!!! Conservatory Outlet and West Yorkshire Windows share a hospitality box at the Galpharm Stadium and we’ve got 5 town fans and 5 Leeds fans attending on Saturday. A few beers, friendly banter and hopefully a good game. I can’t wait!

Climate Change

I’ve enjoyed the debate on this website about whether climate change is human induced. I accept I need to do a lot more reading up, but at this stage having listened to all the arguments I’m becoming more and more convinced that global warming is happening.

But, if it isn’t then I think the following picture highlights why we should take action anyway:

climate change hoax

Humans are responsible for global warming

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

Following on from my previous post about whether humans are influencing climate change, I’ve been doing quite a lot of reading up on the subject.

An architect stumbled upon this site and added a number of links to resources which I have since looked at. I have also looked at a number of skeptic websites and tried to make my mind up as to whether humanity is responsible for global warming.

To me, the science appears to stack up and human activity is clearly affecting the global climate in a very worrying way.

I refer people to the Copenhagen Diagnosis Climate Science Report. This report covers the range of topics evaluated by Working Group I of the IPCC, namely the Physical Science Basis. This includes:

•an analysis of greenhouse gas emissions and their atmospheric concentrations, as well as the global carbon cycle;
•coverage of the atmosphere, the land-surface, the oceans, and all of the major components of the cryosphere (land-ice, glaciers, ice shelves, sea-ice and permafrost);
•paleoclimate, extreme events, sea level, future projections, abrupt change and tipping points;
•separate boxes devoted to explaining some of the common misconceptions surrounding climate change science.

For me, it is difficult to argue with the majority of scientists on this matter. I’ve also found reading the following website very informative:

http://www.withouthotair.com/

Without Hot Air is a free online book by a cambridge physics professor, who is currently government chief energy advisor, which seeks to outline the difficult energy problems we need to deal with urgently.

I also found a series of YouTube videos which helped me understand the topic in more detail, and dispel some of the arguments of the climate skeptics. Visit: http://www.youtube.com/user/potholer54?blend=1&ob=4

Potholer is a retired science correspondent, with a degree in geology, and argues a strong case that people should look at the real science, rather than listening to the various nonsense written in the media and blog sites. This is the first in a series of videos he has produced which are easy to understand and informative:

Interestingly, people have been voting on this blog for a couple of weeks now and providing me with feedback as to whether they believe humans are responsible for climate change and the results so far are:

climate change poll

Quite frankly, this is very worrying. If the majority of people don’t believe the science, or are unsure about the science, then it is unlikely that the politicians throughout the world will take the difficult decisions needed to radically overhaul the way we use energy in such a short period of time.

Random thoughts

Monday, February 8th, 2010

I’ve been so chilled out today. Nothing seems to be getting me wound up at all, even my wife seems to be making sense.

Unfortunately, others around me seem to be losing their heads. I’m particularly referring to some of the comments on this blog recently. One of the problems with the internet is that people often rant at each other in ways they wouldn’t do if they were face to face. I had to disable comments on our YouTube videos as many of the comments were completely out of order. Generally, on this website, people are civilised, although I do delete a number of comments each month which are not suitable.

It’s great that people are passionate, and the debate between various contributors is mostly better than any content I write. But, I would prefer people to show a little more restraint in some instances.

Fair Trade Hardware

A few weeks ago I wrote about my concerns that people in the Far East were being exploited while manufacturing hardware products to fit to UK windows and doors. I’ll be honest, I haven’t made any progress with my thinking, albeit I do have a meeting with my main hardware supplier to discuss in the near future.

I did put a comment on here that I would welcome the opportunity to visit any UK hardware supplier’s factory in China to see the conditions for myself. As yet, I haven’t had any offers ;-)

Global Warming / Climate Change

I’m still trying to get my head around whether human induced climate change is actually happening. There’s been some very informed comments on the original post I wrote, and many thanks to those who have voted. At the moment, it looks like people are equally as confused as myself. If you haven’t voted yet, you can do so at the right hand side.

Why I don’t watch TV any more

Many thanks to John Keleher at Crittall Windows for mentioning this post on Twitter, which very much sums up why I continue adding content to this website:

http://ow.ly/14Qaz

I often get asked why I bother, and sometimes it’s difficult to explain why I feel the need to keep writing all this stuff. Well, it’s difficult to fully quantify, and I have questioned many times why I bother, but I feel the above post pretty much sums up why I prefer blogging to watching TV.

GlassTalk

I haven’t mentioned GlassTalk for a while, mainly because the dust has been settling from the last event. Tomorrow we’re finishing early and travelling down to Warwickshire to view a rather posh hotel. Nothing is fixed yet, but it is more than likely going to happen on May 27th, so if you’re thinking of attending it would pay to leave this day free in your diary. More news to follow.

Is global warming happening? And are humans causing it?

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

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 :-)

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