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Climate Chaos ? Don't believe it


Mr Sleet

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Posted
  • Location: Thame, Oxfordshire
  • Location: Thame, Oxfordshire
I don't know about maize being a warm weather crop but certainly I have seen sunflowers grown since I was a kid, my father, a Czech, grew them every year to eat the seeds. I am now 57 so that was at least 50 years ago, so I would definitely dispute that fields of sunflowers are a sign of global warming. More to do with the greater call for sunflower oil I would have thought.

Couldn't you suggest they fit thermostats :lol: :lol: :lol: , I have only just put on the heating a few days ago, now that is one aspect of possible global warming that I am quite happy to keep. Especially in view of energy prices.

Why, oh why, does the government not insist that all new houses are built with solar panel on the roof, the cost would be small compared to the cost of fitting it later.

You are right. It's another tiring case of "everything" being due to global warming.I have yet to see a commercially grown sunflower field down here , and I get around a bit.

I have heard that they are on the increase, but this will be purely down to economics. There is a good market for sunflower oil, and it is an easy crop to grow. It doesn't need a vet and it doesn't get foot and mouth and banned by the frenchies.

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Posted
  • Location: Near Newton Abbot or east Dartmoor, Devon
  • Location: Near Newton Abbot or east Dartmoor, Devon
You are right. It's another tiring case of "everything" being due to global warming.I have yet to see a commercially grown sunflower field down here , and I get around a bit.

I have heard that they are on the increase, but this will be purely down to economics. There is a good market for sunflower oil, and it is an easy crop to grow. It doesn't need a vet and it doesn't get foot and mouth and banned by the frenchies.

The fact is you can't grow sunflowers unless the weather is right. It's not an 'easy' crop to grow - strong winds will flatten it, damp and rain rot the seed heads. I guess sunflowers also needs a certain number of 'degree days' to grow a viable crop (certainly one problem with maize is having a warm enough seedbed early enough, very touchy about that it is I understand).

Try growing sunflowers in the fridge if you think it's 'purely' down to economics :lol: ...

Edited by Devonian
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Posted
  • Location: Thame, Oxfordshire
  • Location: Thame, Oxfordshire
The fact is you can't grow sunflowers unless the weather is right. It's not an 'easy' crop to grow - strong winds will flatten it, damp and rain rot the seed heads. I guess sunflowers also needs a certain number of 'degree days' to grow a viable crop (certainly one problem with maize is having a warm enough seedbed early enough, very touchy about that it is I understand).

Try growing sunflowers in the fridge if you think it's 'purely' down to economics :lol: ...

All right I will, good job I've got one of those full height ones.

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Monkton has now had to issue an apology for screwing up facts. Some of them are in a paragraph half way down page 1 where he admits he made a series of mistakes: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml....xml&page=1

Other errors he admits through the article, which I have to say is written in incredibly poor English.

He's now trying to move the agenda onto something else, but the fact is he distorted information in the first place.

Not surprising to have seen it published in the right of centre, industrial-supporting, D Tel either ...

Edited by West is Best
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Posted
  • Location: South Woodham Ferrers, height 15 metres
  • Location: South Woodham Ferrers, height 15 metres
Monkton has now had to issue an apology for screwing up facts. Some of them are in a paragraph half way down page 1 where he admits he made a series of mistakes: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml....xml&page=1

Other errors he admits through the article, which I have to say is written in incredibly poor English.

He's now trying to move the agenda onto something else, but the fact is he distorted information in the first place.

Not surprising to have sees it published in the right of centre, industrial-supporting, D Tel either ...

Thanks for the link.

PS: Sod's Law of the grammer Nazi strikes again.

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Posted
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey
Monkton has now had to issue an apology for screwing up facts. Some of them are in a paragraph half way down page 1 where he admits he made a series of mistakes: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml....xml&page=1

Other errors he admits through the article, which I have to say is written in incredibly poor English.

He's now trying to move the agenda onto something else, but the fact is he distorted information in the first place.

Not surprising to have seen it published in the right of centre, industrial-supporting, D Tel either ...

I didn't find the article badly written - there were a couple of instances that could have been clarified by a comma or two, but generally it was an easy-to-read and well thought-out article. If you had read the notes he links to in the first article then you would see that he isn't "moving the agenda onto something else" but is concluding the argument that he began in the first article.

There is a difference, also, between "screwing up facts" and "distorting" facts. If he has "screwed up" facts then he has misinterpreted or misunderstood them in the course of his research. If he "distorted" facts then he made a deliberate, conscious decision to spread false information. It seems funny to accuse Mr Monkton of distorting facts as a way of discrediting his accusations of climatologists distorting facts.

And finally, what difference does it make where it was published? If the article has been researched thoroughly and presented intelligently then it doesn't matter whether it was published in the Telegraph or the Sun. A very interesting article, and one with plenty of references to follow up - if it is foundationless twaddle then the references will bear that out... :blink:

C-Bob

Here is the link to the notes, BTW, just in case a link hasn't yet been posted!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2...5/warm-refs.pdf

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I didn't find the article badly written - [...]

And finally, what difference does it make where it was published? If the article has been researched thoroughly and presented intelligently then it doesn't matter whether it was published in the Telegraph or the Sun. A very interesting article, and one with plenty of references to follow up - if it is foundationless twaddle then the references will bear that out... :blink:

Hi - I meant this latest piece. I thought the syntax was pretty dire. Very sloppy stuff, but then I suppose it was in a tabloid. Oh, I mean the Daily Telegraph.

I do think it matters very much where something appears. The newspapers are not the place generally for serious debate, and it isn't exactly peer reviewed. The D Tel will always tend to promulgate right of centre material, as the Guardian and Independent will tend to do the same the other way. This piece has all the hallmarks of a sloppy editorial fist all over it, so it may not be Monckton's fault at all.

You don't tend to find balance from one newspaper imo. Each has it's own clientelle to massage (more than challenge) and, more importantly, they have their paymasters to please. In the case of the Barclay brothers, and before them the complete crook Conrad Black, I wouldn't hold out too much hope for fair play. However, there are some signs at last that the Barclays might be moving the paper's idiotic support for the disastrous Iraq war, so there are signs of hope that change is possible.

In general though I'm always very suspicious when I read things in the British media ...

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Posted
  • Location: South of Glasgow 55.778, -4.086, 86m
  • Location: South of Glasgow 55.778, -4.086, 86m
You don't tend to find balance from one newspaper imo. Each has it's own clientelle to massage (more than challenge) and, . . . . .

That’s a thought that, if you don’t mind me saying so, would only occur to an academic. I suppose it’s obvious, now you’ve mentioned it, that most people select their preferred newspaper in the hope of being entertained with only the curious few making that choice in anticipation of being educated. The fact that a very curious few may buy a newspaper to be challenged is almost unbelievable, continuous mental gymnastics being tiring and all.

I suppose, getting back on topic, that it’s the general public’s unwillingness to be force educated that leads to endemic ignorance on complicated subjects, like global warming for instance. And it certainly doesn’t help if the information they’re given is either misrepresented or misinterpreted.

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Posted
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey
Hi - I meant this latest piece. I thought the syntax was pretty dire. Very sloppy stuff, but then I suppose it was in a tabloid. Oh, I mean the Daily Telegraph.

I do think it matters very much where something appears. The newspapers are not the place generally for serious debate, and it isn't exactly peer reviewed. The D Tel will always tend to promulgate right of centre material, as the Guardian and Independent will tend to do the same the other way. This piece has all the hallmarks of a sloppy editorial fist all over it, so it may not be Monckton's fault at all.

You don't tend to find balance from one newspaper imo. Each has it's own clientelle to massage (more than challenge) and, more importantly, they have their paymasters to please. In the case of the Barclay brothers, and before them the complete crook Conrad Black, I wouldn't hold out too much hope for fair play. However, there are some signs at last that the Barclays might be moving the paper's idiotic support for the disastrous Iraq war, so there are signs of hope that change is possible.

In general though I'm always very suspicious when I read things in the British media ...

Well, I appreciate where you stand. :) I am also generally very suspicious of an average, run-of-the-mill newspaper article, but this seemed something different. It wasn't just an undirected attack on Global Warming (which we've seen in numerous articles in numerous papers on numerous occasions), but a specific attack at aspects of the theory that are contentious or that, in his opinion having studied source material, have been deliberately skewed.

It is refreshing to see an article of this type that actually bothers to include notes of sources and references, and I look forward to spending some time checking up on them to see how and why he has reached his conclusions. If it's twaddle then it's twaddle, regardless of the number of references! ;) But if he's actually right... :blink: ...!!!

Out of interest, besides the apparently apocryphal story of the Chinese Navy and the inadvertent insertion of a redundant term in one of his measurement units, where has he actually distorted facts? It's always worth following up faulty points!

TTFN

:D

C-Bob

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Posted
  • Location: South Woodham Ferrers, height 15 metres
  • Location: South Woodham Ferrers, height 15 metres
However, there are some signs at last that the Barclays might be moving the paper's idiotic support for the disastrous Iraq war, so there are signs of hope that change is possible.

In general though I'm always very suspicious when I read things in the British media ...

You just can't help spreading your out-of-the-ballpark far left politics everywhere, can you WIB? The war to remove Saddam was a magnificent achievement and a necessary one as Saddam's links to terrorists was proven and his history of fascist violence extensive. Our brave troops in Afghanistan and Iraq are doing a great job providing security in regions of the world that otherwise would have NONE. Stop whining and support your troops.

This is off topic but what WIB said was outrageous. Carry on with the climate discussion.

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Posted
  • Location: Bognor Regis West Sussex
  • Location: Bognor Regis West Sussex
The fact is you can't grow sunflowers unless the weather is right. It's not an 'easy' crop to grow - strong winds will flatten it, damp and rain rot the seed heads. I guess sunflowers also needs a certain number of 'degree days' to grow a viable crop (certainly one problem with maize is having a warm enough seedbed early enough, very touchy about that it is I understand).

Try growing sunflowers in the fridge if you think it's 'purely' down to economics :o ...

I have grown sunflowers for many years, admittedly not commercially but my garden is most definitely not sheltered, it is very close to the sea and the SW gales blow straight across it, however I have never had a sunflower blown over. They have very, very strong roots, I know as I am considering not growing them anymore as the roots are a pain to dig out.

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You just can't help spreading your out-of-the-ballpark far left politics everywhere, can you WIB?

That's hilarious AF.

Those who were around during the General Election will be having a chuckle. Let's just say I wasn't exactly renowned for supporting the Labour party ...

(p.s. you must be the only person left in the west, other than Blair, who thinks the war in Iraq served any worthwhile purpose. Even those who supported the war have long since moved on, including both the Telegraph and Times. But if you really want to know, that war has fulled antipathy to the west for decades and probably hundreds of years. It was the most stupid crass action ever envisaged. Thank goodness the NeoCon experiment is over. Long life the pragmatists!)

Edited by West is Best
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Posted
  • Location: South Woodham Ferrers, height 15 metres
  • Location: South Woodham Ferrers, height 15 metres

OFF TOPIC -

That's hilarious AF.

Those who were around during the General Election will be having a chuckle. Let's just say I wasn't exactly renowned for supporting the Labour party ...

Sorry, I should have specifically cited the liberal democrats.

(p.s. you must be the only person left in the west, other than Blair, who thinks the war in Iraq served any worthwhile purpose. Even those who supported the war have long since moved on, including both the Telegraph and Times. But if you really want to know, that war has fulled antipathy to the west for decades and probably hundreds of years. It was the most stupid crass action ever envisaged. Thank goodness the NeoCon experiment is over. Long life the pragmatists!)

Suddenly the Corrupt Elites That Control Our Media™ became the Oracle at Delphi...

WIB have you been to Kurdistan? They really hate the West there. They much prefered it when they were having their villages shot at from the air by Ba'athist helicopter gunships, family members strung up on meat hooks, whenever they were not being gassed by the thousands with cyanide. This new-fangled voting thing? They say that sucks too.

9/11 cost $1.5bn. Three years in Iraq? Less than $500bn. Plus we turfed out the Hitler and got a sort of democracy and peace for the Kurds and killed a lot of terrorists and invested heavily in education and modernised the Iraqi economy. The Sunnis and Shias are still at each others throats in a low intensity civil war but, hey, what's new? At least the Shias can now fight back.

When Saddam invaded Shia Iran one million died in the ensuing war. One million. This wasn't an accident - Saddam was a dictator. Things like that happen when vicious, murdering dictators with huge egos and access to the best military technology oil money can buy want something to do. The corrupt leaders of the local Arab states are delighted a post-Saddam world they use the dollars that would have gone into tanks and artillery pieces can now be spent on more palaces, wives and Mosques in Manchester, Leeds, and Birmingham.

When Saddam wasn't invading he was conniving with the UN to steal millions of dollars that should have been going to Iraqi hospitals but instead went into his palaces and those of his two muderous sons. 200k were dying a year under Saddam's reign. What's the death total in three years of occupation 50k? Seems on the numbers alone Iraqis are better off with the occupation.

Our troops are doing a great job in a no-win situation. They're getting shot at for no thanks at all; in fact you, WIB, have derided their work for making Iraq a "disaster". If we pull them out, security vanishes and Iraq dissolves into Rwanda.

The "NeoCon" project BTW was one supported by a lot of non-neo Cons. Even France.

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AF - I'm not a Lib Dem my friend and have never voted for them in my life. By my reckoning that leaves 1 of the 3 main parties left, which makes your original assertion look a little flakey. Hint: I made a lot of money on Dave Cameron getting the top job.

As for 'our boys', I support them. But only Murdoch's Sun and The Daily Malicious these days use that weary tactic to try and coerce public opinion. Support for the troops is not the same as support for the cause. A good friend of mine's son is out there now, and as he said to me the other day 'they just shouldn't be there Richard'. Quite.

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Posted
  • Location: South Woodham Ferrers, height 15 metres
  • Location: South Woodham Ferrers, height 15 metres
AF - I'm not a Lib Dem my friend and have never voted for them in my life. By my reckoning that leaves 1 of the 3 main parties left, which makes your original assertion look a little flakey. Hint: I made a lot of money on Dave Cameron getting the top job.

As for 'our boys', I support them. But only Murdoch's Sun and The Daily Malicious these days use that weary tactic to try and coerce public opinion. Support for the troops is not the same as support for the cause. A good friend of mine's son is out there now, and as he said to me the other day 'they just shouldn't be there Richard'. Quite.

Are you sure? Goodness.

I would have rested easier had you told me you were a liberal democrat.

Anyway, back to the discussion.

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Are you sure? Goodness.

I would have rested easier had you told me you were a liberal democrat.

:blink:

I know quite a few Conservative supporters who utterly oppose the war. The rationale for this lies I think in the Pragmatist vs NeoCon agenda in foreign policy. In the good old days we pretty much knew that you do not go around traipsing through other countries without an absolutely rock solid reason and with huge international backing. Even then it's fraught. So the Pragmatic approach meant you sometimes did business with people with whom you didn't necessarily see eye to eye. You did a little under-hand trading, turned a blind eye here and there, and had brilliant espionage in place. The NeoCon agenda by contrast was characterised (gosh it's good to use the past tense!) by a fanatic zeal that our way is right. It was inspired by the evangelical right in the US, and Bush and Blair swallowed it hook line and sink. It meant imposing our own ("Christian") ways on others, including through the use of force. As a well-known commentator suggested, it was really liberal imperialism in new guise. The fact that our own moral vaccuum was lost on Bush and Blair is part of the supreme irony, and folly, of the enterprise.

Cameron, I'm delighted to say, is anti-NeoCon. And it was NeoCon's who got a thrashing in last week's mid-term elections. Pragmatism will be the new watchword, and I reckon Bob Gates is a very good thing (he always opposed the war, and yet is right of centre!).

I'm not so sure this is as off topic as you might suggest, in that we're talking about the role of the newspapers in this. The D Tel published the Monckton piece and it's useful to try to work out their stance, and who owns them. Their agenda has been to support this war, and I see the anti-AGW piece as in-keeping with a number or positions they have taken up. However, let's drag this back to the climate change article itself!!!

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Posted
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey

I agree - I think we were talking about climate change! :blink:

Going back to the fact it was printed in the Telegraph - so what?! Let's face it, a pro-GW newspaper wouldn't run the article anyway (and I don't think I've found a paper yet that is genuinely unbiased one way or the other), so the fact it was published in an anti-GW newspaper is neither here nor there, as that's the most likely place to find it. So long as the piece is scientifically accurate (dependant on correct presentation of the facts, true, but also on whether or not there has been any willful distortion of those facts) and not founded on baseless claims then its information is useful.

If the Telegraph (or, worse yet, The Sun!!) were to print the full text of Einstein's Theory of Relativity, would that invalidate the work? No. So, as I said before, check his references, follow his lead and see if his sources and his conclusions are reasonable - if they are then who cares where it was printed?!

:blink:

C-Bob

Edited by Captain_Bobski
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Posted
  • Location: Rossland BC Canada
  • Location: Rossland BC Canada

That was an interesting diversion about Iraq, but I prefer to stick to the easy stuff like climate change -- getting Iraq to function as a parliamentary democracy under the rule of law sounds like the last question on the final exam to me.

Instead of debating global warming, is it real? how much of it are we causing? what can be done to reverse it? ... I would propose that perhaps the world community should start to think about management of the problems as they develop.

Let's say for the sake of argument that global warming is real, not totally caused by human activity so therefore a natural variability is involved, and so therefore this warming may not be a permanent feature. But what if it lasts for decades for whatever reason, and the ice caps start to melt, with a rise in sea levels of anything greater than half a metre, the threshhold (in my opinion) of serious problems.

For the moment, leave aside other concerns such as shifting climate zones, drought, the theorized increase in major storms, etc. And assume that the global community does all that it can do to reduce greenhouse gases, but even so, this seems unlikely to halt global warming, let alone reverse it.

So then we're stuck with the problem that ocean levels are going to rise, in stages probably, because first the north polar sea ice may melt, then Greenland and other northern land masses may lose large amounts of land ice, while there is also some melting of the Antarctic ice; finally, a stage might come where the Antarctic ice melts as well. The time frames of these events might reasonably be estimated as 40, 100 and 400 years, so rises in sea level might be on the order of 1 metre, 2 metres, and 8 metres over those time frames.

What clearly needs to be done, besides any kind of greenhouse gas reduction, is to plan on national and international scales for barriers to rising sea levels that will preserve as much of low-lying heavily populated and industrialized areas as possible. There should also be some thought given to creating some kind of reservoir for additional ocean water, created through blasting away some large land mass and replacing it with a large basin that could store the excess water. Possibly through desalinization and other major engineering, this and other ocean water could be converted to fresh water and used to irrigate large tracts of arid land; north Africa seems the most logical place to attempt this solution.

It would take massive spending and perhaps some technological advances, but over the next century, I believe this is what we should be planning to do, then if it just naturally turns colder and there is no rise in sea level, at least we have the desalinization projects and some of the irrigation and sea-level defences to show for our troubles, and who knows, it might then warm up again later, when everyone in China and India have SUVs and who knows what else.

So to summarize, my plan is:

-- build lots of walls

-- dig lots of holes

-- cross our fingers

-- enjoy the next version of the Little Ice Age if it comes our way

-- colonize Venus and Mars, just in case

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Going back to the fact it was printed in the Telegraph - so what?!

So what? So a lot. It's a serious debate and he's popped it into a newspaper.

I would much rather that attempted rebuttals of AGW appear in peer reviewed journals. Otherwise you tend to end up with the situation he is now in of being ridiculed by all and sundry because he didn't check his facts carefully, and misrepresented others. Debate should spill over into the public domain of course, but he's just another example of an attempt to muddy the waters. I jest not when I suggest that this is deliberate. The industrial-capitalist west want to obfuscate the issue for as long as they possibly can ... so they can rake in the dosh. It certainly doesn't suit either the Barclay brothers or, for that matter, Rupert Murdoch to have the AGW argument pummelled too much ...

Instead of debating global warming, is it real? how much of it are we causing? what can be done to reverse it? ... I would propose that perhaps the world community should start to think about management of the problems as they develop.

[...] So to summarize, my plan is:

-- build lots of walls

-- dig lots of holes

-- cross our fingers

-- enjoy the next version of the Little Ice Age if it comes our way

-- colonize Venus and Mars, just in case

Yes I'm not a Spooks watcher, but apparently this last episode was about how the Gov't can best manipulate the situation for gain. There are certainly some sharp people who are making a fortune out of AGW by marketing AGW products - several reports this week about that!

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
Yes I'm not a Spooks watcher, but apparently this last episode was about how the Gov't can best manipulate the situation for gain. There are certainly some sharp people who are making a fortune out of AGW by marketing AGW products - several reports this week about that!

Maybe the only way the 'big players' in the west will make moves to change is by the dangling of the 'profit' carrot in front of them to make them realise how they can gain out of the planets misery.

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Posted
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey
So what? So a lot. It's a serious debate and he's popped it into a newspaper.

Obviously it's a serious debate, but since the government's plans to push through radical policy changes demand at least a tiny bit of public support (for fear of a revolt, worst case scenario - there's the politics thing again!), it is important that the public isn't beaten into submission by the media (or climatologists) over GW. The fact is, most of the population of England don't read scientific journals, and if it were published in such a journal the odds are that few, if any, newspapers would be likely to print it. Monckton is obviously concerned that the public is not being given the full story, so is presenting a rebuttal that the public can read (and dismiss, or refute, or not read at all, as is their choice).

Once again, though, the origins of the article are irrelevant if there is substance to the claims. Once again, he has a long list of sources and references in his notes that the reader can follow up if they feel the need. Certainly there is still debate about the role of CO2 in global warming (as I have been discussing in the Global Warming thread), but the public are presented "facts" as though it is an open and shut case.

I think you are putting too much emphasis on the source of the article and not enough on the substance!

:blink:

C-Bob

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Posted
  • Location: Coalpit Heath, South Gloucestershire
  • Location: Coalpit Heath, South Gloucestershire
What clearly needs to be done, besides any kind of greenhouse gas reduction, is to plan on national and international scales for barriers to rising sea levels that will preserve as much of low-lying heavily populated and industrialized areas as possible. There should also be some thought given to creating some kind of reservoir for additional ocean water, created through blasting away some large land mass and replacing it with a large basin that could store the excess water. Possibly through desalinization and other major engineering, this and other ocean water could be converted to fresh water and used to irrigate large tracts of arid land; north Africa seems the most logical place to attempt this solution.

It would take massive spending and perhaps some technological advances, but over the next century, I believe this is what we should be planning to do, then if it just naturally turns colder and there is no rise in sea level, at least we have the desalinization projects and some of the irrigation and sea-level defences to show for our troubles, and who knows, it might then warm up again later, when everyone in China and India have SUVs and who knows what else.

I like those ideas very much. If it's going to happen, then let's use it to our advantage rather than having this "we're all doomed" attitude that is all too prevalent in the media.

As the old sayings go:

1) every cloud has a silver lining

2) it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good

(Strange how many weather-related saws there are!)

Yep, a whole new POSITIVE approach is what is required.

Edited by noggin
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Posted
  • Location: South Woodham Ferrers, height 15 metres
  • Location: South Woodham Ferrers, height 15 metres
:cold:

I know quite a few Conservative supporters who utterly oppose the war. The rationale for this lies I think in the Pragmatist vs NeoCon agenda in foreign policy. In the good old days we pretty much knew that you do not go around traipsing through other countries without an absolutely rock solid reason and with huge international backing. Even then it's fraught. So the Pragmatic approach meant you sometimes did business with people with whom you didn't necessarily see eye to eye. You did a little under-hand trading, turned a blind eye here and there, and had brilliant espionage in place. The NeoCon agenda by contrast was characterised (gosh it's good to use the past tense!) by a fanatic zeal that our way is right. It was inspired by the evangelical right in the US, and Bush and Blair swallowed it hook line and sink. It meant imposing our own ("Christian") ways on others, including through the use of force. As a well-known commentator suggested, it was really liberal imperialism in new guise. The fact that our own moral vaccuum was lost on Bush and Blair is part of the supreme irony, and folly, of the enterprise.

Cameron, I'm delighted to say, is anti-NeoCon. And it was NeoCon's who got a thrashing in last week's mid-term elections. Pragmatism will be the new watchword, and I reckon Bob Gates is a very good thing (he always opposed the war, and yet is right of centre!).

I'm not so sure this is as off topic as you might suggest, in that we're talking about the role of the newspapers in this. The D Tel published the Monckton piece and it's useful to try to work out their stance, and who owns them. Their agenda has been to support this war, and I see the anti-AGW piece as in-keeping with a number or positions they have taken up. However, let's drag this back to the climate change article itself!!!

You will find my reply on the "Serious discussion" board here.

Edited by AtlanticFlamethrower
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Posted
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey

Oh - also, WIB, if you read through the notes of Monckton's article you might find a likely reason for this approach to presenting his findings. With a dubious peer review system in place (see his section on the infamous "Hockey Stick" graph), and the general reluctance of science journals to print legitimate scientific papers that go against the tide of the consensus opinion (also referenced in the Hockey Stick debate with regards the original rebuttal of the graph), it seems unlikely that his piece would be published.

And since the piece isn't a "scientific paper" as such, but rather a summary of perceived faults in the GW theory, I would argue that the article as it stands is perfectly placed in a newspaper. His notes would be more apt for a scientific journal.

Finally, if you're going to talk about "misrepresenting facts" then perhaps you should check the background of all scientific articles, since Monckton gives good evidence that climatologists have been doing the same for years. I would also refer you to Michael Crichton's official website (link below) to read some of his speeches. He has given a variety of speeches to scientists and politicians about a variety of subjects - two particularly relevant speeches are "Aliens Cause Global Warming", and "Testimony of Michael Crichton before the United States Senate". (These are not Anti-GW speeches, despite the deceptive title of the first, but rather speeches about observing the correct scientific method. And, no, he's not trying to claim that Aliens actually are causing Global Warming!)

:)

C-Bob

http://www.michaelcrichton.net/speeches/index.html

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  • Location: Rochester, Kent
  • Location: Rochester, Kent
That’s a thought that, if you don’t mind me saying so, would only occur to an academic.
I do not agree. I do not think it takes even a modicom of thought to presume that any writing contains bias that panders to it's expected audience. Tha tabloids, even by those who read them, are still generally conceived to be of the same quality as a comic. You do a great injustice by suggesting that an intellectual precursor is necessary for a gift of discernment. Edited by Wilson
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