Scientists find no link between climate change and the sun

[repiV]

I'm asking how you're qualified to dismiss research published in peer-reviewed journals as junk science.
And actually I've at least studied some at uni as one of my options.

What I dismiss is the religion of environmentalism. If you want me to take something seriously, you don't come to me and say "WE HAVE TEN YEARS TO SAVE THE EARTH!!!"
You don't come to me and say "THE ONLY INHABITABLE CONTINENT IN 100 YEARS TIME WILL BE ANTARCTICA!!!"
It's all alarmist bullshit. And given a) how "new" this branch of science is, and how little we actually know b) the vested interests involved, the way that eg. the IPCC takes scientific research and then alters the parts of it that don't suit them, c) mostly it's based on guesswork, I'm really not interested in hearing about "the facts" of global warming. There are no facts in science, to suggest this is an insult to my intelligence.
We don't have any accurate global temperature records that pre-date the industrial revolution. Our contribution of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere is minimal. The scientific aspect usually comes second to the political aspect. The earth has not got any warmer for a decade.

Environmentalism as religion - by Michael Crichton

 

[kattmat]

Hardly alarmist. "Global action on climate change" is authoritarianism/one-world government with a pretty name. We're seeing this already in the form of EU legislation.
Telling people what they can drive or how and where they can drive it, or what else they're allowed to do is taking away people's freedom.
"Cutting emissions" on any meaningful level will destroy our industry and economy. It's quite simple really. The kind of measures that would need to be taken to have any impact at all would turn us into a third world country again. And anything less just means that ordinary people have to pay through the nose in taxes just to live their lives.



Oh, that's just bollocks. Like they're going to give up the modern, wealthy lifestyle they're moving towards because arrogant hypocritical Westerners like yourself tell them it's bad and they can't have what we have.
"If the West acts quickly" - I mean, what the hell does that even mean?
I hope you aren't taking the humanitarian angle with all this, because I find your suggestion that thousands or even millions of lives in the developing world should be sacrified at the environmentalist altar in the name of "cutting greenhouse gases" to be quite abhorrent. A third of the world's population (China and India) is finally finding their way out of abject poverty and into a new and better tomorrow, and you want to take that away from them? You think they will take it away from themselves? Hardly.

Ok, so it's not alarmist to believe in the global socialist-enviromentalist-scientist-EU conspiracy. Sure.
I hopre your aware of that vast amount of emissions can be cut by some very simple measures. More reneweble/nuclear, more efficient heating/lightining, public transportation. I could go on forever. Some of things might not be the best option everywhere, but saying that it would "turn us into a third world country again" is nonsense and a lie.

So you belive the only way to develop a rich socitety is trough fossil fuels? I hate to break this to you, but we're running out of oil. How will the poor, poor indians and chinese give their citizens western-style lives without oil? "a new and better tomorrow"? You actually belive that? Do you actually belive that atleast one more billion people can get a car each? That they can live like you and me? It's not sustainble, it's not even possible. Do you belive in giving all these people false hope of a new and better tomorrow"?

If China and India continue dow this path they won't get very far. Oil is running out, there's no way you can twist the facts to deny that. It might take a few decades before the situation becomes impossible, but two billion people trying to reach western standards will quicken it. Before all these people have risen out of poverty the boom will be over and they'll be in a much worse place then they were before. Massive damage to the enviroment and a resulting shortage of water and food. And then we haven't even talked about the resulting global warming. Because yes, if China and India are allowed to burn our remaining oil and large amounts of coal in one huge bang it doesn't matter what anyone else do.

On one side we have people like you, who can't even accept speed limits and driving regulations since it apparently "takes away your freedom". Then we have the hundreds of millions of poor who (understanbly) wants a life like yours. Both have to move to the middle to make the situation somewhat sustainible.

What I mean with the west acting quickly is that, for once, the advanced nations stop talking bullshit and starts cuting unnessecary pollution and use renweble energy sources. If the "arrogant hypocritical Westerners" no longer were hypocritical or arrogant people might actually listen to us and accept our advice and help. Everyone in the third world can not get our living standards, but using more sustainble energy sources (and nuclear inevetibly) can give them a much better life anyway. Or, as you so poetically put it: a new and better tomorrow.

I also find it interesting that you of all people call me arrogant.

 

[Tagaziel]

EU is the greatest thing to happen to Europe since potatoes.

 

[VirusType2]

If only we had plastic roads and domed cities.

 

[repiV]

Ok, so it's not alarmist to believe in the global socialist-enviromentalist-scientist-EU conspiracy. Sure.
I hopre your aware of that vast amount of emissions can be cut by some very simple measures. More reneweble/nuclear, more efficient heating/lightining, public transportation. I could go on forever. Some of things might not be the best option everywhere, but saying that it would "turn us into a third world country again" is nonsense and a lie.

There's nothing wrong with developing any of these things, but that's not what's happening. People are being demonised, taxed to hell and restricted with no realistic alternative available.
Developing public transport? Nothing wrong with that. Unfortunately our public transport system is shit, and instead of making it more attractive the government is just trying to kick people out of their vehicles instead (even though, in London at least, the public transport system is full to capacity anyway and if people didn't use their cars, the infrastructure would collapse overnight).

So you belive the only way to develop a rich socitety is trough fossil fuels? I hate to break this to you, but we're running out of oil. How will the poor, poor indians and chinese give their citizens western-style lives without oil? "a new and better tomorrow"? You actually belive that? Do you actually belive that atleast one more billion people can get a car each? That they can live like you and me? It's not sustainble, it's not even possible. Do you belive in giving all these people false hope of a new and better tomorrow"?

If China and India continue dow this path they won't get very far. Oil is running out, there's no way you can twist the facts to deny that. It might take a few decades before the situation becomes impossible, but two billion people trying to reach western standards will quicken it. Before all these people have risen out of poverty the boom will be over and they'll be in a much worse place then they were before. Massive damage to the enviroment and a resulting shortage of water and food. And then we haven't even talked about the resulting global warming. Because yes, if China and India are allowed to burn our remaining oil and large amounts of coal in one huge bang it doesn't matter what anyone else do.

Obviously we need to develop alternative technologies, but right now they don't exist. Right now, we are still dependent on oil. Without an ample supply of it, Western civilisation would implode. And when realistic alternatives for certain energy needs are suggested (eg. nuclear power stations), the green lobby kicks up a fuss - which, IMO, shows it up for what it is - anti-capitalist bullshit. Wind farms suit them because wind farms are a waste of time.

On one side we have people like you, who can't even accept speed limits and driving regulations since it apparently "takes away your freedom". Then we have the hundreds of millions of poor who (understanbly) wants a life like yours. Both have to move to the middle to make the situation somewhat sustainible.

What I mean with the west acting quickly is that, for once, the advanced nations stop talking bullshit and starts cuting unnessecary pollution and use renweble energy sources. If the "arrogant hypocritical Westerners" no longer were hypocritical or arrogant people might actually listen to us and accept our advice and help. Everyone in the third world can not get our living standards, but using more sustainble energy sources (and nuclear inevetibly) can give them a much better life anyway. Or, as you so poetically put it: a new and better tomorrow.

Right, using renewable energy sources is a good thing. But you can't force people to use something that doesn't actually exist.

I also find it interesting that you of all people call me arrogant.

I'm arrogant for wanting to live my own life without interference from meddling wankers? That doesn't make me arrogant, it makes me a man. Arrogance is telling other people how to live their own lives.

 

[Eejit]

What I dismiss is the religion of environmentalism. If you want me to take something seriously, you don't come to me and say "WE HAVE TEN YEARS TO SAVE THE EARTH!!!"
You don't come to me and say "THE ONLY INHABITABLE CONTINENT IN 100 YEARS TIME WILL BE ANTARCTICA!!!"
It's all alarmist bullshit. And given a) how "new" this branch of science is, and how little we actually know b) the vested interests involved, the way that eg. the IPCC takes scientific research and then alters the parts of it that don't suit them, c) mostly it's based on guesswork, I'm really not interested in hearing about "the facts" of global warming. There are no facts in science, to suggest this is an insult to my intelligence.
We don't have any accurate global temperature records that pre-date the industrial revolution. Our contribution of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere is minimal. The scientific aspect usually comes second to the political aspect. The earth has not got any warmer for a decade.

Environmentalism as religion - by Michael Crichton

So because some people use rhetoric to encourage people to act on the dangers of climate change the whole science behind it is to be dismissed?

We do actually have a whole lot of date about previous global temperatures due to analysis of ice cores and sedimentation layers.
It's funny how anti-global warming people are generally quick to use such data when it suits them but pointing out the natural cycles of climate change.

Genetics is a relatively new science too, I guess we can safely ignore it as well.

If you were familiar with the science behind this you'd understand that climate shifts generally work based on thresholds due to multiple positive feedback effects. It doesn't necessarily mean that because we haven't seen a large mean temperature increase so far that one isn't going to happen.


Also, cutting fuel use isn't the only way to reduce CO2 emissions, carbon dioxide scrubbers can be fitted to factories and power plants. They would increase costs somewhat to have the filters replaced, but hardly by an unbearable amount.

 

[bbson john]

Of course it can. Developed economies depend on industry, which depends on energy. The only realistic way we have of cutting emissions at the present time is to take away energy. In fact, our entire lives depend on energy. Your PC and internet connection uses energy, your house uses energy, getting to work uses energy (and in fact, taking the bus is actually a hell of a lot less efficient than using your car), everything you do is anti-green.
We don't have any realistic alternatives to the way we currently do things.

So, you are comparing increasing taxes and replacing fire power plants with a total outage of energy. Who is playing sensationalism and hyperbole now?

We have lots of green bullshit in this country, and all it does is make people poor. It doesn't accomplish anything else but to take money away from everyone and line the government's pockets. Environmentalism is also a convinient excuse for any hair-brained scheme you care to think of - like a 25 quid daily congestion charge to use a family car in central London, even if you live there. Or a 200 quid charge to drive a lorry full of supplies into London.

Have you ever seen poor people? Truly poor people in Mainland China, or countries like Ethiopia and Yemen don't even have a car of household electrical appliance. They barely know what is electricity. Eco-policy won't affect them at all. They only care about whether their crops grow healthily, which global warming makes the crop grow less sound.

And yea, charging 25 quid congestion charge and 200 quid to lorry kills millions; but increased intensity of hurricane, deteriorate of quantity and quality of harvest, and flooding don't. Keeping your luxury is the utmost important issue. Broken a nature and human future should be put aside.

Yeah, I'll believe it when I see it. 1.3 billion people seeing rapid industrialisation - doesn't take a genius to figure out that nothing we do here is going to make the slightest bit of difference in the face of that.

1.3 billion people depend on industry? you must be joking. You should really come to China to take a look on how most people depending on farming and other non-industry.

Please take a look at the following table.

The west don't need to do a thing? It should be the west which needs to do the most. The USA has the smallest population amongst all superpowers, but it shares the most amount of greenhouse gas emission. As for UK, the total emission may not look significant, but it is already 1/7 of China's emission, despite her population being 1/20 of Chinese. Western countries should not only take the lead on eco-policy, but also truly and wholeheartedly do their part for planet Earth.

 

[VirusType2]

I had an idea the other day.

Wouldn't it be great if someone would invent an enormous device that turns carbon monoxide into carbon dioxide through some kind of de-ionizer?

Put some of these in each city to scrub the air.

Then, the trees convert the carbon dioxide into oxygen.


I can only assume that it isn't possible or feasible unfortunately, because I think it's a great idea.

 

[repiV]

So because some people use rhetoric to encourage people to act on the dangers of climate change the whole science behind it is to be dismissed?

It's not some people, though. It's the entire movement. Al Gore won a Nobel Peace Prize for his factually incorrect, alarmist rhetoric. 99.9% of people just listen to the rhetoric and parrot "global warming is a fact". Their belief is religious, not scientific.
You're the only person I've ever spoken to on the subject who agrees with the whole global warming theory, who actually understands anything about it.
The movement isn't driven by science, it's driven by faith - ultimately, global warming has the credibility it does because of the media flooding people's minds with alarmist stories. Not because a smart dude with glasses came up with a smart conclusion.
What I do know is that there is enough controversy, enough guesswork, enough political tampering to throw serious doubt on any conclusion.

Now realistically speaking, it shouldn't make a great deal of difference whether we are causing it or not because we need to develop sustainable energy sources as a matter of urgency anyway. In the meantime, environmentalism is just being used as an excuse to levy heavy taxation upon ordinary people, restrict freedom of movement, centralise political power and scare people into submission. It's a mild form of fascism.

We do actually have a whole lot of date about previous global temperatures due to analysis of ice cores and sedimentation layers.
It's funny how anti-global warming people are generally quick to use such data when it suits them but pointing out the natural cycles of climate change.

Genetics is a relatively new science too, I guess we can safely ignore it as well.

Ignore it? No. Believe in every crazy scare story the media prints? Also no.

If you were familiar with the science behind this you'd understand that climate shifts generally work based on thresholds due to multiple positive feedback effects. It doesn't necessarily mean that because we haven't seen a large mean temperature increase so far that one isn't going to happen.

Right, but how can I possibly trust that these predictions are accurate? Most scientific scare stories ultimately amount to nothing. 20 years ago it was global cooling we're supposed to be worried about.

 

[Eejit]

I suppose that people believe without understanding because not everyone is interested in understanding science, but are willing to accept the conclusions it offers. Another example would be evolution. The more you know about it the more potential problems you discover, but then you also find solutions to them. Most people don't need to understand all the intricacies to know it works.

As for how you can trust the predictions? An overwhelming majority of the experts in the field tell us. Same as how we trust that the universe is expanding, that we are made up of atoms, all these things that most of us will never see and/or understand the primary evidence due to the specialist knowledge, understanding and access you'd need first.
I can tell you this - none of my lecturers in the "Earth Science" module I took (which included basic climatology, geology etc as they're all linked) had a problem believing in global warming. They were smart people far more familiar with the subject, the science and the research than I'll ever be - so personally I'm going to trust their evaluation of it.


I've seen newspaper clips posted by some of my biology lecturers showing us how the media can misrepresent even simple genetic research they carried out. The media are there to make a story, sometimes they distort things either intentionally or through ignorance but it doesn't actually change the science they are reporting.
You should take the details of what the mainstream media tells you about any branch science with a huge pinch of salt... but don't completely disregard it offhand.

 

[Omnomnick]

It is propablly just that cycle between Ice ages, what is it, every 10000 years and apparently we are due for another so its just that I say.

 

[Sedako]

Urban pollution (localised climate change) is a completely separate issue from "global warming". London's climate is nowhere near that bad, on the whole I assume it's not too difficult an issue to keep within acceptable limits providing you have money to spend. You should see the Chinese cities - many of them are so polluted that they are dangerously toxic environments in which to live.

I never said they were a related issue. I was simply implying that any form of pollution can lead to adverse effects.

"Cutting emissions" on any meaningful level will destroy our industry and economy. It's quite simple really. The kind of measures that would need to be taken to have any impact at all would turn us into a third world country again. And anything less just means that ordinary people have to pay through the nose in taxes just to live their lives.

It's better that the developed nations do what they can now to cut down on this pollution and energy use than suffer for it in the future. Nuclear power, hybrid/electric cars, further increasing energy efficiency of household appliances... These are all ways to cut down on emissions and power consumption without eliminating the need for it. It will also result in more money in the hands the people, which will mostly go right back into the economy.

 

[Dan]

You guys are still not arguing the original research published in a peer reviewed journal. You are arguing about the news article which is wildly extravagant and only loosely based on actual research which is based on physical reality. It's like watching a movie based on a video game that was based on a book and then criticizing the book.

 

[Sedako]

You guys are still not arguing the original research published in a peer reviewed journal. You are arguing about the news article which is wildly extravagant and only loosely based on actual research which is based on physical reality. It's like watching a movie based on a video game that was based on a book and then criticizing the book.

Your point? Where is it written that arguments must stay confined to a particular focus?

 

[Dan]

Your point? Where is it written that arguments must stay confined to a particular focus?

My point is that people are taking the legitimacy of an article in a scientific journal and using that to validate arguments far beyond the scope of that article. It is a false argument.

 

[Direwolf]

I think it needs to be pointed out that in ANY movement it's always the loudest and most outspoken who receive most of the attention, regardless of their validity. For ever person you see running around saying "giant tidal waves will kill us all!" you can also be confident that there are a thousand quieter people taking a rational look at the information and deciding that something important and concerning does seem to be occurring. Just because we don't proclaim our conclusions from the mountain tops doesn't mean that we think something isn't happening.

Also, it needs to be pointed out that "thirty years ago it was global cooling" argument it bologna. Aside from the fact that if we really stuck to that kind of logic no one would ever act on anything, theres still the point that global cooling was a nearly opposite phenomenon where the hype existed in a vacuum without any real science to back it up (see: Killer Bees).

Although there was a cooling trend then, it should be realised that climate scientists were perfectly well aware that predictions based on this trend were not possible - because the trend was poorly studied and not understood (for example see reference[6]). However in the popular press the possibility of cooling was reported generally without the caveats present in the scientific reports.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling#1970s_Awareness

 

[Pesmerga]

My point is that people are taking the legitimacy of an article in a scientific journal and using that to validate arguments far beyond the scope of that article. It is a false argument.

But those people are scientists, man. Are you a scientist? DIDN'T THINK SO.

 

[Sedako]

My point is that people are taking the legitimacy of an article in a scientific journal and using that to validate arguments far beyond the scope of that article. It is a false argument.

Except that the article does allude to the global warming debate at multiple points. We're simply using the article as a supplement to expand upon our own arguments.

 

[Dan]

From the article:

The research contradicts a favoured theory of climate "sceptics"(spelled wrong for the entire article), that changes in cosmic rays coming to Earth determine cloudiness and temperature.

The data does not contradict the theory, it simply does not support it. They checked 3 different correlations between sun activity and climate.

If such a link did exist, it would undoubtedly be part of a very complex system, probably time lagged and non-linear, and I would doubt scientists would be able to pin down a correlation without an actual understanding of the system of interactions.

They later go on to say that there was actually a weak direct correlation between solar flares and cloud cover that only accounted for 25% of the variance.

But the article takes the fact that the research was scientific, and uses that to back up it's assertion that we should cut carbon emissions. It used fancy science to make people accept what they say as truth. It's called appealing to a higher authority and it's a logical fallacy. And that is why I hate newspaper science. It takes the hard work of others and turns it into something that is no more substantial than an editorial.

 

[Sedako]

Sceptic is the British spelling of skeptic I believe (it's in the dictionary as an alternate spelling of skeptic). To contradict can also mean to deny the statement of, and if this article is true, it would deny the theory that changes in cosmic rays coming to Earth determine cloudiness and temperature. Also, where did you 25% from? From the graph:

But over the last few centuries, the variation has been in the order of 0.1%, too small to cause directly the temperature changes we have seen on Earth.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Septic.

 

[Atomic_Piggy]

From the article:


The data does not contradict the theory, it simply does not support it. They checked 3 different correlations between sun activity and climate.

If such a link did exist, it would undoubtedly be part of a very complex system, probably time lagged and non-linear, and I would doubt scientists would be able to pin down a correlation without an actual understanding of the system of interactions.

They later go on to say that there was actually a weak direct correlation between solar flares and cloud cover that only accounted for 25% of the variance.

But the article takes the fact that the research was scientific, and uses that to back up it's assertion that we should cut carbon emissions. It used fancy science to make people accept what they say as truth. It's called appealing to a higher authority and it's a logical fallacy. And that is why I hate newspaper science. It takes the hard work of others and turns it into something that is no more substantial than an editorial.

Look, are you are a climate scientist? Whats more, do you have thousands of other climate scientists supporting you?

Right.

 

[Pesmerga]

Argument by popular consensus? Come now...

 

[Eejit]

You guys are still not arguing the original research published in a peer reviewed journal. You are arguing about the news article which is wildly extravagant and only loosely based on actual research which is based on physical reality. It's like watching a movie based on a video game that was based on a book and then criticizing the book.

As I said, the journal's site wouldn't let me access the article, some kind of error. So, how did you actually read it?