> > I'm just using common sense. Knee jerk labels like "denialist" and > "neocon" mean as little as "veggie stoner", and cheapen the debate. Sorry Nigel. if my little name calling upset you, must have misjudged the level of debate on the list. I didn't realise this was a serious one, but of you insist [Hitches trousers up, puts spliff out, strokes chin and puts on serious face]
> The planet may be warming, but there is no way on earth we can > conclusively prove it's us. OK, so you do agree that Global Warming is occurring, your original mail seemed to imply otherwise? But assuming you do..... > When someone, anyone, can > consistently predict the weather for even the next day, then perhaps > I'll start to take the computer models seriously. Try looking at www.bbc.co.uk/weather, I'd predict for my postcode, given an average and taking into account local variance for elevation proximity to open water, it will be very good for next 4 hours, pretty good for next 12 after that, Weekend will be pretty close, although the timings of the temperature and actual rainfall may not be spot on, humidity and pollen count very good. So Not perfect, but better than 10 years ago and probably be better 10 years time. Not 100% exactly right everywhere, but correctly forecast the bad weather over the last month as far as I can see. Mush of our modern farming, entertainment and telecoms industries depend on reasonably correct forecasts > But > noone can, and noone ever will, so I won't. OK, that's your opinion, predictions are really tricky aren't they, but glad to see there is at least one you are 100% convinced of. Climate Scientists aren't quite so sure about Human induced Climate Change...... > We can't even > model the chaotic fluid flow in a cup of tea Well I'm guessing if we put enough time, effort and money we'd get pretty close. But why bother, the effects of our industrialisation are much more important. In the last 100 years we've been reactive dealing with the problems after they have caused serious problems, London Smogs, Ozone Hole etc. > never mind the > entire atmosphere. Climate science - in its early stages - attempts to predict the future so we can prepare for it. The vast majority of people in the field have come to believe that the evidence shows that the climate would not change so quickly if we reduced the output of greenhouse gases from our activities. I don't understand the science, but I do have a faith that the general view of the relevant scientific community is worth betting on. > What's more, there has been plenty of recorded climate changes that > predate the industrial revolution. All have a reason behind, solar activity, volcanic eruptions etc, possible that this time the co2 in the atmosphere accounts for a large part. There are vast amounts of money on offer to scientists who can produce alternative models showing that the rises are not caused by human activity but to some other process. if they get through the process of peer review and reproducibility they will have to be taken seriously, > Indeed, it > would be far more surprising if temperatures remained stable. > Nature is in constant flux. Trouble is we need to plan for the warming regardless of how it is caused. The effect will be felt worse and soonest by the poor nations and I'm all for sharing our wealth around instead on guns and nasty bombs. Lets try and stop thinking that burring carbon fuels is cheap. It makes perfect sense to me to move to a more secure method of power generation than importing oil and gas from unstable unfriendly states, when we have abundant resources of our own. I doubt anyone thinks we would be involved in 2 wars if we didn't desperately need oil. In 10 years time President Putin (that's my prediction) could be in a much stronger position in Europe than Comrade Stalin or Comrade Brshnev ever were. Modern Nuclear power is a possibility and Fusion is very attractive but could take ages to come on stream. Coal is fairly abundant, but is dangerous to produce and has pollution issues other than CO2 production. Wave Wind, Geothermal and Sun are all available now and given the advances in any technology once it is really backed can offer us a realistic alternative to our current stupid dependency on oil. > For me, the belief in climate change is symptom of urban dislocation. > We've become so disconnected from nature, so full of our own material > arrogance, that we now genuinely believe we can change the weather. err, we can, cloud seeding for instance is used all round the world. Cities are normally a couple of degrees heavier than the surrounding areas, causing slightly different weather conditions locally than if the city wasn't there. felling or planting trees or intensive land use can affect transpiration, evaporation or infiltration and therefore affect of cloud formation, and there are numerous other examples. > We've all become King Kanute. Or just ostriches burying our heads in the sand, ignoring the scary evidence cos the alternative is too difficult. You seem to have a bit of a bee in your bonnet (don't get me started on bees!) about "connecting to nature" as you've banged on about it a lot this evening, surely part of that is reducing our impact on nature, not using up everything with no thought to the consequences or is it just the running round in the nuddy that you are really interested in? _______________________________________________ the Leeds List is an unmoderated mailing list and the list administrators accept no liability for the personal views and opinions of contributors. Leedslist mailing list [email protected] http://list.zetnet.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/leedslist www.leedslist.net
