[Closed] So who here reckons humans don't cause climate change

When have they ever been wrong?

Depends who is paying me off?

Also the planet was hotter according to samples of ice in the South Pole with carbon dioxide levels that were higher without humans.

We may affect the rate on the carbon cycle though.

Earths orbit isn't circular. Shouldn't the concentration of the Sun's radiation vary regardless of axis tilt?

I thought we were clear that lizards were responsible

or a lack of pirates, I forget

I'm still out on this one.
Yes, climate seems to be changing, but our memories are short.
Mini-Ice age in the 16/1700's.
Hasnt it got warmer (on average) each century since the last Northern Hemisphere Ice Age?
Maybe the current, last 30 years, changes are just a small change to the normal pattern?
The Earth has been here for so long, 100 years is just a small blip.
Was it 10,000 years ago when most of England was under water?

It's a sad fact that in the us climet change has become a political item of belief or non belief. I listened to an interview with a Republican politician who said there was nothing that could convince her that man made climet change existed. Completely closed to any evidence, for her it was a matter of faith.

Don't take this out of context. This was all related to the Keystone XL pipeline which has high political rammifications. They voted that climate change is not a hoax. Good, but voted that the Keystone pipeline would not adversely affect climate changes (i.e. man made). It was highly political aimed at this one contentious subject.

These people have been taking bets on climate change. Apparently the climate change sceptics are on a bit of a losing streak:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/3/22/1372395/-Climate-skeptic-David-Evans-is-going-to-lose-his-shirt

Well I was told my me mate with PhD that we are still coming out from ice age ... ya ... we are melting ... climate change or not it's changing but we just quicken our own death. Woohooo! 😛

Additional co2 in the atmosphere increasing temperature is tied to some fundamental physics. It can be argued that our effect is small, but it can not be argued that we have not increased co2. The problem is even if our effect is small due to the non linear nature of the system small changes in temp can have large climate effects.

I prefer warm weather so a few degrees up in winter is nice without flooding or drowning in the sea from no polar caps :/

How insignificant we would feel if it wasn't our fault.

It's difficult to qualify, yes humans are having a very notable impact, industry etc. But you could argue it's natural evolution.. There's plenty of examples were a species has become so dominant in a micro eco system that they've used up all resource such as food and died back or become extinct as a consequence.

It's just that humans are doing it on a planetary scale.

To quote Kosh:

The Avalanche has already started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote.

PhDs were pretty unanimous that natural cycles were taking us into the next ice age before man made global warming came along Chewkw.

We know the mechanism, we know how many tons of CO2 we are putting up in to the atmosphere, we are observing CO2 rising to levels not seen in millions of years (so our impact is not small)and there are still "sceptics". I prefer "deniers and liars with vested interests".

As I was told climate change or not ... everything is contained within our atmosphere arranged in a different ways. i.e. let's say the amount of water on planet earth is just that ... no increase or decrease unless we are moving closer to the Sun.

Edukator - Troll
PhDs were pretty unanimous that natural cycles were taking us into the next ice age before man made global warming came along Chewkw.

Arrrghhhh ... my head hurts ... bloody PhDs ... his PhD is engineering but he is now studying something about planets (too much time on his hands) so he would lecture about planet to me ... Dammnit! He is old! In his 60s!

Global warming etc ... I hope the animals are safe ...

I blame The Wombles

The earth is in a warming up phase which would be happening if we were about or not. Although I'm sure we're not helping.

There is a whole industry now flourishing on the back of scaring humans with regards global warming, lots of people getting very rich as a result.

Millions of shareholders now rely on your wholeheartedly believing in global warming and the catastrophic effects it will have on 'our children and our children's children'...

Edukator - Troll

We know the mechanism, we know how many tons of CO2 we are putting up in to the atmosphere,we are observing CO2 rising to levels not seen in millions of years (so our impact is not small)and there are still "sceptics". I prefer "deniers and liars with vested interests".

That pretty much.

How insignificant we would feel if it wasn't our fault.

And how significant deniers make themselves feel.

PhDs were pretty unanimous that natural cycles were taking us into the next ice age before man made global warming came along Chewkw.

There's a couple of very different possible conclusions there....

Evening DD

I think it's being caused by cows, we're innocent victims of it all.

Hah! Out of interest, why do you think there are so many cows?

On a serous note we are the only species, that we know of, that has the mental capacity to understand, at least to some extent, what our impact is on local and global eco systems. So we are in quite a novel situation.

worth a look for context and perspective. The size and scale of change is way beyond human cause. One ice sheet was three miles high over London. Change is inevitable and over time will be huge

http://www.bgs.ac.uk/discoveringGeology/geologyOfBritain/iceAge/home.html?src=topNav

There is a whole industry now flourishing on the back of scaring humans with regards global warming, lots of people getting very rich as a result.

Millions of shareholders now rely on your wholeheartedly believing in global warming and the catastrophic effects it will have on 'our children and our children's children'...

If you are going down the vested interests route argument for a reason to think man made climate change is a hoax I think there are many many many more vested interests in denying it.

There used to be hippos living in Yorkshire.

Just saying.

The hippos were forced out of Yorkshire by cows ages ago, all part of the plan they have.

Change is inevitable and over time will be huge

There used to be hippos living in Yorkshire.

Just saying.

You've obviously never been on a night out in Scarborough 😉

Like it matters. Yellowstone will go bang, or we'll get hit by a big rock.

Everything cycles. Just like threads on singletrackworld. See you in 500 pages.

[img] [/img]

Bit from A. And a bit from B. With added C. Really we add heavily too climate destruction more with some of the nasty chemicals we make and dump.

On a serous note we are the only species, that we know of, that has the mental capacity to understand, at least to some extent, what our impact is on local and global eco systems. So we are in quite a novel situation.

Would be quite interesting if animals could talk.... Ask an orangutan what they think about the destruction of their home... Or ask the sea birds and turtles what their opinion is on the amount of plastic they inadvertently ingest which lingers in their stomachs reducing the amount of food they can digest and process.
There was something on R4 a while back where scientists had studied the sea birds in British waters. There wasn't anywhere where they found zero plastic inside a bird's stomach.

Humans are Scheiße.

Humanity is great, yet I have very little faith in us as a race.

It is one of the major reasons I choose not to have kids.

You mean Yorkshire Hippos don't understand they are causing global warming?

It's an interesting conundrum.. Maybe we should actively be accelerating global warming if there's an ice age on the way?

Climate change is not a problem for the Earth. It is a problem for its modern humans though. That's the difference.

Hundreds of millions of people are living in places that will be severely affected. This could cause mass starvation and possibly wars and other types of death.

The Earth won't give a shit, I will though.

Flame me now - I suspect that we are [i]one[/i] of the causes, and we can do something about that bit, but some of it is not of our doing, and outside our control.

Lots of places suddenly becoming more habitable (or attractive to exploitation). There'll be winners and losers.

I won't be giving a shit. Unless it doesn't stop raining.

There is no ice age coming for many tens of thousands of years. There might have been, but we already put paid to that some years ago. Unless we decide to actively remove CO2 from the atmosphere...

I've got 3,000 trees to plant next month. Will I trigger an ice age?

LOLz...are we calling them "contrarians" now? How jolly nice of us! 😀

Starvation, wars, mass migration. Not could happen, already is. Syria case in point.

Change is inevitable and over time will be huge

Beyond contestation. Do you think we're having an effect, though?

everything causes some change, whats the point of the question?

Lots of places suddenly becoming more habitable (or attractive to exploitation). There'll be winners and losers.

I won't be giving a shit. Unless it doesn't stop raining.

I suspect you will when a whole load of Bangladeshis move in to your town.

We can all just move to Bangladesh, our northern European industriousness will find a way to deal with the floods. Plus, the climate is much nicer and we can just pop over to Thailand for a holiday and a wife.

I won't be giving a shit. Unless it doesn't stop raining.

Millions dead and you really wouldn't give a shit?

Isn't it down to personal/political preference? Seems to be all the rage 🙄

Did anyone watch that thing on C4 the other year back, the consipiracy thing where the goverments were spreading a virus to effectively sterilze a very sizable portion of the population? Oh for the days scaring myself reading about the forthcuming culling of all the useless eaters. And business... is it always such a terrible thing if the growth of the growth rate is in decline? We've finite resources! Hellooooooo!??!?!?

We're all doomed.

According to many we're now in the Anthropocene ... defined as the point where man's activities are having a lasting effect on earth systems - atmosphere, oceans, ecosystems, etc etc. Looks pretty convincing to me ..

[url= http://www.anthropocene.info/great-acceleration.php ]the anthropocene[/url]

Maybe it's a tool to aid slowing down industrial growth of competing world powers/interests and to help us first worlders transition away from our unsustainable reliance on finite imported fuels and wanton wastage. As a bonus it's a convenient tax tool for governments to prop up flagging incomes.

The people need a cause to fight for and who can argue the climate isn't changing, it clearly is and always has been.

I wouldn't doubt that.

It is one of the major reasons I choose not to have kids.

Earths orbit isn't circular. Shouldn't the concentration of the Sun's radiation vary regardless of axis tilt?

I'm not sure, but I reckon that "some scientists" may have taken this into account already. Probably

Though our affect on the climate could be debated, shirley its beyond doubt that we are polluting it to such a level, and breeding in ever increasing numbers, that climate change may just be one of the factors that would have an effect on all life in the near future?

Quite nickc. Always makes me laugh when folk talk about Earth's orbit, or solar activity, or natural cycles, or "the climate has always changed" in a way that suggests they think those silly climate scientists, who do this for a living, have overlooked these things.

Like they are going to read this thread and go:
"Dave, we did remember to account for Milankovitch cycles didn't we??",
"I thought you were going to do that.",
"No, I distinctly remember saying I'd do solar flares."
"I dunno, what are we like eh? We better call Al Gore"

😀

[img] [/img]
I think this really sums it up, the things we are doing to reduce carbon and pollution and end a dependence on fossil fuels has so many added benefits. As many have said oil is far too valuable a resource to simply burn.

Ming The Merciless, you abject [i]nerd[/i].

It is one of the major reasons I choose not to have kids.

Stone cold serious, me too.

same here

Should've kept the hole in the ozone layer, all the CO2 could have escaped then...

Depressing thread

I'm not sure, but I reckon that "some scientists" may have taken this into account already. Probably

Well indeed. I doubt there's anyone on this forum actually qualified to judge the details of the climate change science - I know I'm not - so beyond a certain point we have to trust a process that leads to the current consensus among those who do have the time and ability to do so.

It does seem that more and more STW members are convinced anthropogenic CO2 is a problem. Still only a tiny number letting it influence their lifestyle decisions though. Take a look at any car thread, the 174ps + models are still the ones to have. Take a look at heating threads, gas central heating is still the favourite and properly insulating walls dismissed as too expensive. Check out the utilities threads where somewhere around a grand seems the norm - but it's not hard to make individual houses energy positive. People still have to have a long list of countries visited on their Facebook page even if people are universal in slagging off many of the destinations as tourist infested hell holes.

DrJ you are referring to Milankovitch cycles

Edukator summarises it quite well, which means we will have a very difficult future.

I think it's pretty likely that some on this forum are well qualified. It seems a diverse bunch. The problem is the ones who are not qualified, but think that they are. (I don't mean "qualified" in any formal sense.)

As for house insulation, I'd like to see anyone's ideas for making my draughty stone house energy positive. Got a lovely south facing roof, perfect for solar...but in a conservation area facing a road, isn't possible (being in a particularly wet and cloudy bit of the country doesn't help much either).

If the earth was round we wouldn't have this problem 😉

Starvation, wars, mass migration. Not could happen, already is. Syria case in point.

Of course there are cyclical climate changes but I think it's undeniable that we as a species are having a huge impact on the environment and climate. All lifeforms do and we are a pandemic. Hopefully we'll run out of fossil fuels to contribute to global warming before it's too late.

Oh, we won't run out. Not with the shale oil and fracking, not to mention that lovely oil and methane in the arctic. Enough fossil fuels to get from our current 400ppm CO2 to about 5000ppm. Yes there's an extra zero in there.

It's a sad fact that in the us climet change has become a political item of belief or non belief.

Its more a question of political expedience. Climate change denial in the US is a republican position, the reason of that is its a goal of the republicans to shrink government and deregulate industry and generally pander to the kind of ****-you individualism that the right wing defines as 'freedom'. The problem with climate change for them is if they recognise that it exists at all, or more so recognise that its man-made, then with that recognition comes the requirement for government to do something about it. Doing something would require growing government, imposing regulation and taxation, limiting peoples choices to consume and so on, all things fundamentally opposite to the republican cause.

So the issue is not so much whether climate change is real or not, the issue is the Republican party don't know how to be a Republican party in the face of climate change.

Flame me now - I suspect that we are one of the causes, and we can do something about that bit, but some of it is not of our doing, and outside our control.

That's about the size of it, AIUI.

"Global warming" would be happening right now irrespective of our actions. However, we are making it worse. This is the danger - it's easy to trot out the first sentence and conveniently ignore the second.

i've looked, but can't see anyone claiming that there's been no warming for 18 years.

"Avalanches and pebbles", etc.

this, basically.

(a bit of leadership from our ... er, leaders, wouldn't hurt)

oh, and this:

"It is one of the major reasons I choose not to have kids"

"Stone cold serious, me too."

"same here"

ditto.

I read that, although we are about to enter another every-10,000-year ice age cycle that would result in ice sheets covering most of the northern hemisphere (imagine what a catastrophe THAT would be!), the event will not now occur for another 50,000 years due to it being held back by.... (drum roll)...

mad-made global warming.

Drill baby, drill.

Global warming is the worst phrase ever associated with climate change, there seems to be a one in a hundred year flood every year now, more cyclones, longer hotter summers down here in Oz, more drought bigger more frequent fires. Things are Changing and it's not in a good way.

On the upside, the Arctic ice is retreating and uncovering vast swathes of tundra, presenting new opportunities for exploitation by all sorts of flora and fauna (including us), so it's not all bad...

I remember I once saw the cover of an oil industry magazine which basically said: "Retreat of Arctic ice opens up new drilling opportunities" 😕

Like I said...

[url= http://mattbruenig.com/2011/12/21/environmentalism-poses-a-problem-for-libertarian-ideology/ ]Environmentalism poses a problem for libertarian ideology[/url]

Climate change was a major part of my degree and it baffles me that people can think we're nothing to do with it. But it is complicated and when I think about it if you've not seen all the graphs, data and read the reports I can see why you may be a little reluctant to accept that we are a major factor.

Yes, the global temperature does go up and down on a cycle. But the temperatures now are higher than they have been in the last 10,000 years. (2009 is the cross in the top right of this graph).

[img] [/img]

This graph shows very neatly how it is our fault. There is a very clear link between CO2 and global temperature and the increase in atmospheric CO2 since 1855 and the slightly offset increase in temperature is clear. All the research points to the rise in CO2 being the cause of the rise in temperature.

[img] [/img]

Here's a graph showing the historic link between CO2 and temperature.

[img] [/img]

It's difficult to explain without getting into some fairly serious science and bamboozling people. But the evidence points to it, almost all scientific papers on it say that it exists and once you read some of these it becomes very difficult to deny.

The big scare for the future in terms of climate change is really what we're doing to the ocean. The amount of CO2 we are producing is increasing the acidity of the oceans- the oceans draw down a large amount of the CO2 we pump out, limiting the global temperature rise. Unfortunately this increases their acidity which impacts on calcareous life (corals etc) in the ocean. They are a major cause of the oceans drawing down CO2 and without them what would go into the oceans will go into the atmosphere. Then we're really stuffed.