crimsone

I was merely refering to my observation, from the chapter titles mentioned on the link, that he's visited a number of the areas that might be expected of a scientists that's done a reasonable amount of work on climate change - of course, his stated university position as per his wikipedia article might say the same. The other paper of his that I noticed was something about ice (quite clearly, I didn't read much past the abstract, and wasn't that interested in it.) It's there if you google the surname though. Not sure what borrax is (?), but yes, many of the search results were irrelevant (being related to other entirely different people). The link I posted appears to be a link to a publisher he's used. It would be interesting to know why it doesn't seem to be possible to make a passing remark in a disscussion any more though. I don't really expect the spanish inquisition each time I post (yes - I'm inviting the obvious reply. lol)

I googled the name and flicked through some relevant results - it came up with data on all sorts of things. I don't know what he wrote in his book (if it is indeed the right person), but from the chapter titles, he seems to have been far more thorough than I would expect any of us to be. http://www.whfreeman.com/ruddiman/

Thanks Parmenides That answers part of the human population question at least.

It seems odd to me that anyone would assume that I (of all people) had historic data to show. I was suggesting something - a possibility - (and implying a whole lot of valid points (that I've since explained) by analogy) I'm also of an opinion that data need not always be of a historic nature to be of use or validity (even here in climate science). The people of up to 5 millenia ago lived a lot differently, and so any data may not be relevant to the population explosion of the last 2 or 3 centuries anyway, nor might the data od 300 years ago be relevant to the data of 50 years ago in this particular scenario. As I said myself, part of the reason perhaps that it's not often considered is because it may not be possible for the data to be easily or accurately quantified. There's that issue, but then of course there's a possibility that back 5 millenia ago, there may have been an explosion in a different population of some sort. There could have been a completely unrelated cause for any warming, and the increase in the human population can only claim any part responsibility for the current trends. To be completely honest though, I was hoping that somebody else may have the data if it existed. I'm no Scientist - I have the ideas, and can form a hypothesis, but I can't deal with data in such ways - I simply don't have the patience with it. I respect those that do for it, but I'm not one of them! It's merely a suggestion - yes there's a particular suggestion that an increasing human population may be making a naturla contribution to GW in its own right, but a whole lot more was suggested around the very idea of there being a possibility too. Perhaps this is in part why I took it personally - especially in combination with your (perhaps unfortunate) first reply to my post. If you truly didn't intend to score points, I'll apologise to you sincerely now, but I'll have to calm down later.

OK, My back is strong enough for one person, and that's me. Please get off it before you climb any futher, and stay off it. I am not a scientist, and I have bigger things to worry about than plotting graphs for the satisfaction of other people who apparently can't even see the bulk of what I was trying to say. I don't even profess to know all about the subject - I do know enough to know that there are things missing though. I do know that the 0.5 gigatonne reduction that would result from the entireity of the human population taking only two breaths in three means that there is at least a contribution to CO2 levels from the increasing population. I also know that energy isn't stuck in one form, and that as it moves from temperature in the air to the food of plants and into the animal food chain, it's locked out of the air for that time and eventually moves into the ground with the rest of the decomposing material (and in part the air around said dead carcass in the form of gasses from said decomposition.) I know enough about science to know that we don't know enough, and we don't always realise it. I know enough to know that this can be a problem in the younger fields of science particularly. I also know enough to know when somebody is trying to score anti-AGW points off of a person who is only throwing ideas into the air and trying to suggest that perhaps we ought to look at a more connected picture instead of arguing about either side - that both sides may be connected. Moreover, such inadvertant human involvement is little more than a natural process if in anyway true, and so I find it foolish to try to score anti-AGW points from it. Especially (tell me if I'm wrong) when I havn't even suggested that it's AGW - I personally view it as simply GW, regardless of cause (as should be evident from my earlier posts). More than anything else though, I know when somebody has made me feel sick over my very involvement in a discussion, and when I no longer wish to be part of it. I love ideas, I love discussion, and I love debate. I despise pointless point scoring wherever I see it - especially where it's not warranted and there are no points to be scored.

Erm, no. Such people (if they exist as a group) are in a very insignificant minority, and to put it bluntly, are completely off their rockers. Genocide is without a doubt not the answer anybody reasonable and sane is looking for. However, responses such as yours to my earlier post serve to show why even discussing such things as population explosions as a possible part of the dynamic is completely taboo. My first post was based on a tongue in cheek article on a piece of tongue in cheek science which was fairly reasonable in its conclusion. It made a valid point, when looked at from another perspective, that the increasing human population had at least a role to play. As to the post you quoted, my suggestion wasn't even meant to be correct (as I said). It was given as an example to suggest that there are things that don't sem to get looked at for various reasons, and things we don't even know about, and that we need to be putting the jigsaw together for the bigger picture. Not just looking at gases in the air OR solar activity, but to be putting them together with a whole bunch of other factors and looking to see what we're missing - the science sometimes does that, but rarely will anyone mention just how much we don't know. I wanted to say that if we're ever to move passed the "gases in the air cause warming" general perception, science needs to concentrate on other issues too. Overpopulation is a BIG problem. It has been for quite some time now. I've mentioned it because I feel that there may, in part at least, be a contribution to GW through the exploding population, or perhaps an indirect relationship. That, and the fact that it demonstrated, in my mind, the possibility of factors not normally considered, but are there under our own noses. As to what "access to land and community currency with which to exchange goods and labour in the global south" has to do with Global Warming, I'm not sure. It's undoubtedly a problem, but does it say anything about climate change?

The process reverses diurnally. As it happens though, I remember reading an article about a paper that showed that planting trees does little for reducing global warming unless they are planted in the tropical zones (oddly enough where the rainforests happen to be!). I can't remember the reason off-hand, but I do remember that it was one of those obvious things we should all have known in the first place

Back to my earier post - the human population has grown substantially, and that uses up energy - contrast the figures on the CO2 sink gained by reducing the worlds population by a third with this idea, and the amount of energy caught up in the expanding human population alone is substantial at least. Nobody ever seems to talk about such things because such things can't be quantified, and worse still, it's a bit of a taboo to talk in such terms. It seems to me though that if AGW exists, it may occur by semi natural means... Sun offers more energy -> expanding human population accounts for much of the energy -> temp increases -> human CO2 emmissions increase and help perpetuate the cycle of absorbing more energy from the sun -> leads to growth in marine/animal species (such as humans per example) -> leading to... OK, it's not a flawless suggestion, nor one intented to be scientific or even intuitively correct. I do feel though that such a suggestion may demonstrate that there may (and undoubtedly are!) HUGE factors in the process of climate change that either we aren't aware of or simply don't link into the process. The science of climate change has come a long way since the days where "the greenhouse effect" was the only game to be played, but yet, I still feel as though the science has those same sorts of constraints. We know a little more about causes and effects now, but fundamentally, to most people, it still seems to be all about gases in the air alone and a direct causal relationship between warming and those gasses, with relatively little (compared with what there is to find out) knowledge of what happens in between.

This probably doesn't fit directly into this thread, but it's very much related to the subject of doing more to reduce energy waste. There were discussions about hypocrisy earlier, and discussions on policy, taxation, and how it's always the "average person" being targetted for reductions in energy use. I think perhaps the media should offer a few more articles like this one - we all know it happens, but few of us ever complain about it! The system itself needs to change... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/12/lights_budget/

Even if AGW didn't have any mainstream doubt (a fallacy - in science, untill something is proven absolutely there's always some element of doubt on any subject by the nature of how science works), there are still disagreements even between the large body of scientists that support AGW. If a video should be shown in schools, it should be one of the actual science, indicating the differing viewpoints. It should be a video that not only shows the disagreements that the scientists have over AGW, but should also show the agreement that exists that regardless of cause, climate change is happening. Above all, the video should be completely factual and relatively inclusive. The emphasis placed on each "fundamental issue" should also be a reflection of the relative support that issue has. Propagandist documentaries are all well and good (actually - that's probably a lie! lol ), but regardless of which extremity they occupy, they aren't for showing in schools.

One of the great unmentioned sources of CO2 in the world are human beings themselves. The populalation explosion of the last century or so may have a lot to answer for. When Richard Branson first announced a huge cash prize for the first person/group to find a way to sink CO2 from the atmosphere efficiently and cheaply, the first answer that came back (which besides its obvious problems actually works out quite well on paper) was that CO2 would be reduced immensly if human beings avoided taking 1 breath in 3. That would equate to a reduction of the human population by one third, either version resulting in a 0.63 gigatonne reduction in global CO2 emmissions. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/01/bo...climate_wibble/ As even the article says, it's all a little tongue-in-cheek, but none-the-less does suggest that a growing human population may well have something to answer for. As for the whole pro-AGW/AGW cynic debate, I find it entirely null and void. Compared with a near complete relative majority, a person would be hard pressed to find a scientist who believed that the planet isn't warming - regardless of whether it was anthropomorphic or not. As such, either we try to do something about it, or we resign ourselves to significant hardship at best (or at least, relative significant hardship), or extinction at worst. Only human beings could see a world changing to their detriment but avoid the issue by sitting around arguing about whether human beings themselves were responsible for it. It very much reminds me of "The People's Front of Judea".

lol Mondy. Just as I noticed too Surely thoughthe example of AL-Gore's film doesn't "counter" it. It simply shows that there's an entirely different program out there of an equally propogandist nature made by somebody else? The link that had already been mentioned serves best to demonstrate an agenda behind the programming. The only obvious comparison is that both programs are as rubbish as each other, and by deduction, the program in the title of this thread was rubbish.

I can show that something on that program was rubbish - one of the MIT scientists involved in it is now considering suing the program makers for misrepresenting him. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/sto...2031455,00.html (oops - I see it was recently posted. My apologies.)

I like to keep an open mind. I like to stop and consider for a moment that some things are beyond human perception, and those things that aren't beyond it aren't nessecarily yet within the realms of human (let alone scientific) knowledge and/or understanding. Leylines (assuming their existance) may not nessecarily be even geo-magnetic. They could be something else entirely that doesn't have a name yet.

I was kind of enjoying the spurious bits of information regarding the NEO. The point is taken though At the very least, the rough subject of this thread is NEOs. Niether Aztecs or Mayans are near earth anymore.

the real question here I think (and the ONLY question regarding Aztecs and Mayans), is what on earth do they have to do with this thread? "2012" was a quite obvious humorous throwaway comment making a reference that everybody recognises. I really can't understand why a mountain is being made of such a small molehill. Why would anybody want to insist on debating such a thing?

Ouch!

Thanks again Magpie! I guess I'd better park my car at the bottom of the road, just in case, and hope nobody hits it! lol

Sounds ominous! lol. What did you take that to mean in terms of geography Magpie? (still haven't had chance to watch it, but I'm supposed to be taking my mum to work later, and I live on top of a windy hill with cars parked either side of the road!) In one way, I pray that it keeps snowing. but in another way, I'm really hoping to be able to get down the hill! lol

Thanks magpie

Snowing moderately to heavily here in Kenfig Hill again at 89m asl and 3 miles inland. Temp is 1.1 and dewpoint at 0.1. As todays lowest is a mere 1.1, I'd guess it's falling. EnE wind at about 12 MpH Does anybody have any idea if this is going to e another prolonged event lasting more than a couple of hours, or is it just a flurry? As I said, I wasn't expecting this, though realised it was marginal from the TV forcasts last night. I've just woken up to find it.

Snow falling moderately here. settling to grass, roofs, pavements, cars, and starting to settle on the roads.

I have a sleep problem at the moment, and so wasn't physically able to stay up past 230am. I would have if I could have though! The last time I recall staying up untill I could no longer for a weather event was during Wilma! It puts it in context! Wilma and a moderate UK snowfall appear equally exciting! lol

For a brief spell last night, the snow turned to grauple, befor turning back to snow again. My understanding of grauple is fairly limited, and so I perhaps incorrectly assume that it's like poorly formed hail. Could anybody telll me (for interests sake) what was happening to cause the change/what it signified (if anything)?

I just woke up 20 mins ago to find that even though a very slow thaw has started, it's still a winter wonderland out there with an inch or two of lying snow everywhere.