We’ve discussed the issue of climate change on many occasions on WHYS and as each month goes by more experts, more reports come out saying that we are approaching a “tipping point” beyond which we will struggle to reverse the effects on the planet. That’s exactly the message coming from scientists at a climate congress in Copenhagen this week.
Yet as the evidence continues to mount – why as individuals and countries are we failing to take significant action?
We’re not just talking about full blown deniers that climate change is happening. But there are many people, some indeed in our office, who admit they do a bit of recycling and think that’s enough. Yet still drive gas guzzling cars, over taking public transport and jet off on holidays.
And of course there are others who believe it is someone else’s problem and someone else’s responsibility. Or even with a desire to change their lives the struggle of day to day life means tackling climate change is at the back of their minds. Just putting food on the table or trying to find a job has to take priority.
Recent facts that have come out:
* Sea levels are rising twice as fast as we thought
* Over the next 100 years the world can expect to see a 4 or 5 degrees C rise in temperature, turning most of southern Europe to desert
* 85 per cent of the Amazon rainforest at risk of destruction due to estimated increase in temperatures
* The world’s best efforts at combating climate change are likely to offer no more than a 50-50 chance of keeping temperature rises below the threshold of disaster, according to research from the UK Met Office.
* Opinion polls show that about 58% of Americans believe human activity is causing climate change. However, many do not see a need for urgent action. A poll by the Pew Research Centre this year showed that climate change ranked last among topics of public concern to Americans.
Perhaps most disturbing of all, 60% of people believe that “many scientific experts still question if humans are contributing to climate change”. Thirty per cent of people believe climate change is “largely down to natural causes”, while 7% refuse to accept the climate is changing at all.
How is it possible that so many people are still unpersuaded by 40 years of research and the consensus of every major scientific institution in the world? Surely we are now long past the point at which the evidence became overwhelming?
This message from this week’s climate congress in Copenhagen is pretty grim.
George Monbiot, an environmental commentator in the UK thinks that we need to use stronger language like “climate breakdown”:
Using “climate change” to describe events like this, with their devastating implications for global food security, water supplies and human settlements, is like describing a foreign invasion as an unexpected visit, or bombs as unwanted deliveries. It’s a ridiculously neutral term for the biggest potential catastrophe humankind has ever encountered.I think we should call it “climate breakdown”. Does anyone out there have a better idea?
This Australian news article thinks climate change denial is a psychological disorder – so does that mean the largest-ever meeting of climate change deniers in New York this week were all ill?
We’ll be speaking to, amongst others, George Marshall the founder of the Climate Outreach Information Network
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BBC World Have Your Say 
The manipulation of language is always a sign that argument has ended and propaganda has begun. Monbiot doesn’t want to convince. He objects to neutral – i.e. factual descriptions – of alleged climate change. He wants language that takes his position for granted, rather than proving it, and that’s sufficiently hysterical to frighten people into following his policy prescriptions.
The BBC, likewise, might want to re-consider its language. ‘Climate change denial’ and ‘climate change deniers’ is clearly analogous to Holocaust denial/deniers. It’s Monbiot-speak, full of implied moral condemnations, suggestions of extremism, etc. ‘Climate sceptic’ would be a much better term. What good reason can there be for not using it?
Wouldn’t it be more honest to simply let Monbiot, or a Monbiot clone, debate with an intelligent and well-informed ‘climate sceptic’, instead of accepting and spreading propaganda to the effect that no alternative view is permissible on this subject, and those entertaining such views are simply mad and deserve pity rather than refutation?
Climate change today is the “flat Earth” of the Europeans ins the 1300’s. Believing it “doesn’t exist and that humans are not causing it” is naive at best. The only difference is that asserting the world being flat was not a threat to the rest of the living species. Climate change is.
I was drilling my buddy fresh back from Antarctica about convincing people that it exist and the impact. He said, “There are only a handful of people that run the show, those are the only ones I have to convince.”
I certainly hope I won’t have to retire at 50, considering I’ll be graduating from university at 40! My current career is being replaced by technology, my retirement savings has plummeted by half, and I will have barely paid off my student loans by the time I turn 50. I’m hoping for at least 20 years in my new career, so let’s allow people to work as long as they are mentally and physically able. My mom came out of retirement because she was bored and started working in a new job helping others as well, and she turns 70 this year.
People shouldnt be forced to retire at any age if they can carry out their assignment as expected.
It’s unfair for persons to lose their jobs just because some people (who would still be compensated with retirement bonuses) mismanaged the financial sector.
Those that deny the existance of “global warming” or “climate breakdown” are, in the States at least, those that couldn’t be bothered with making any changes to their lifestyle while other countries with burgeoning industrilaization (China, SE Asia) are not. Admittedly there are more than one issue here, but we need to address one at a time.
Or do we?
Bruce, Ohio, United States
I think it’s foolish to say that humans are causing global warming, and it’s foolish to say that humans are not contributing to it. The earth naturally goes in and out of ice ages. We are currently coming out of an ice age. But humans are speeding up the process. But earth will cool down on its own once day, and it will heat up on its own again one day. If you have any questions about this, I invite you to visit either NY State or the Great lakes. In NY, they have the finger lakes that were created by retreating glaciers, same with the Great Lakes. The earth heated up all on its own way before humans ever existed, and the glaciers carved the land up, which is now full of water. Anyone who has ever taken a geology course knows that the earth has been much colder, and much hotter in the past, way before humans ever existed, so to say that humans cause global warming is foolish, however I do think we are speeding up the process.
When people are faced with something that threatens their way of life, when they are facing forced changes to their lifestyle, they would rather clutch irrationally to those destructive or irrational ways despite all the rational argument you might present them.
Some people would just rather stay in their house while it burns down around them, rather than risk the blizzard outside to seek safety.
People should be free to discuss contradictory evidence, otherwise this isn’t true to the scientific spirit. However, given that the evidence in favour of climate change is so overwhelming it is ridiculous to present the opposing view as though there is a real debate. This can mislead the public and dissuade them from action.
I’m confused as to what “credibility” is being granted. Already grouped among “deniers” are those that believe that climate does change, that mankind can and likely does have an effect on such, but do doubt the most ridiculous of apocolyptic models. What “credibility” is being afforded to such a skeptic, when called a “denier,” flat-earther,” and of non-conformists that curiously do fill the world? The last credibility seems to be that, begrudgingly, “deniers” might still be considered human.
Admitting that there is a climate change isn’t enough as long as there aren’t firm economic and political actions to redress it.
The biggest pollutant countries like the USA and China are unlikely to risk their economic agenda for the sake of cutting carbon emissions that are considered as the main source of global warming.
The world is full of climate change deniers because there are economic priorities that ignore the climatic impacts. Tackling global warming, for instance, means reducing economic activities and lifestyles that depend on current energy consumption. As such, the world climate will be ignored by economists and politicians, as what matters to them is economic and political stability. No politician, especially in the developed world, will dare to deprive people of their current lifestyle through intransigent environment laws, without risking their political future.
The hope is that scientists can make considerable progress for renewable and green energy that will make dependence on fuel energy a matter of the past.
VictorK,
Should we elevate serious debate with these “well informed ’round earth’ critics” about the shape of the world?
http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/
They have great theories that sound interesting. Do they follow “common sense”? Yes. Do they follow laws of physics? No. But they are critics of the “round world theory.”
well considering that the planet mars is also experiencing climate change due to solar activity, it is ignorant for people on earth to deny climate change. now, what rational people here on earth deny is that climate change is caused by human activity. it is caused by the sun, we have nothing to do with it. oh, unless the ecohysterics claim the martian climate change is caused by little green men!
I think it’s because there are so many pointing out that there is not a real connection between human activity and change. I mean, all through history it has gone from extremely hot, to extremely cold, ice ages coming and going. And guess what…back then there were NO humans with their machines and technology. (Unless the dinosaurs we riding around in V-8 hummers)
That along with the theories that allows America and some western countries to take down China and keep some third world countries down.
-Anthony, LA, CA
P.S. I can say that the number of pop stars are rising and the temp is rising, therefore that MUST be the cause.
I have always believed that it is much more complex than JUST “climate change”. Humans certainly don’t help in the matter by throwing pollution into the air, that’s true. But our planet is evolving every day. That doesn’t help our situation much either. If 1 viewed earth millions of years ago, all of the land masses were together, the moon was closer to us, etc. Does 1 think they are not moving any MORE? Or that the moon isn’t leaving us? (which it is, about 1/8th of an inch a year). Climate resolutions will help greatly, but let’s face facts: Nature will take its own course as well. We can’t stop Mother Nature.
Change of language is not the solution toward lack of people understanding of the climate change crisis. As more information are coming up, many people will be able to comprehend how serious is the problem.
Melting of Mount Kilimanjaro snow has been one of the evidence of climate change effect. At the begnning even to me was not a well understood by the extent of the problem. But since I have witnesed seeing the melting of Mount Kilimanjaro snow, I now know this is serious problem.
Ironically Africa and other developing countries appear to suffer the most, while main causers are the developing countries. Our capacity to adopt alternative is also limited and limited intiatives are undertaken.
This is serious problem which need serious people to act on time!!
Human-caused climate change is a myth perpetuated by the left as a weapon in it’s arsenal in the battle of class warfare.
Look, no one argues that the climate isn’t changing–it always has and it always will. It’s even changing on Mars for crying out loud. But to blame climate change on humans is ridiculous. My neighborhood is strewn with house-sized boulders left by the glaciers that melted and retreated 30,000 years ago. Is that our fault, or Bush’s fault, or big business’ fault?
I’m not against taking action to reduce pollution and find alternative energy sources, but the climate is going to change anyway, and there is NOTHING we can do to stop it. It’s inevitable.
Our resources would be better spent on finding ways to adapt. Otherwise we might as well spend our time and money trying to stop evolution, or getting the continents to stop drifting.
whatever be the term climate deniers or climate breakdownlets remember one thing that we are all part of a piece and piece of a whole .so everyone pull up their socks forthe sake offuture ..
kannur
kerala
@Dwight: the issue, as several people have pointed out, is the extent to which human activity is responsible for climate change. That’s a perfectly legitimate area of debate. The way (human-induced) climate change sceptics are answered, not with argument, but with abuse and attempts to marginalise and silence them suggests that there’s something more than an environmental agenda here. People like Melanie Phillips are not fools. Their arguments deserve to be heard and contested, not dismissed out of hand.
Decades ago we had the same sort of people as George Monbiot making equally hysterical declarations about world population. they predicted catastrophic scenarios by 1990 or 2000, with hundreds of millions dying of starvation and entire societies falling apart because of over-population. Guess what…
We’ve just had the most severe winter here in Britain. Yet we’ve been told for years that climate change would lead to the very opposite. But it’s the sceptics who are denounced for irrationality when they point to such plain evidence that the orthodox claims of the climate change establishment are not what they seem!
See here:
Part of the problem is that many still view climate change as a political device.
“Human-caused climate change is a myth perpetuated by the left as a weapon in it’s arsenal in the battle of class warfare.” as Boston Steve just said.
The fact is that human beings ARE accelerating changes in the climate, regardless of its inevitability. If in using the term myth you wish to elevate climate change to the supernatural story of how the planet violently changed, killing millions, with lots of help from humans and their industries, then all the power to ya, maybe people will listen around a squalid campfire in the middle of some, once thriving, city street.
This is about our collective planet, on which we all must live and adapt. However, this adaptation must be a preemptive one and not reactionary, soon, it will be too late and many more will die for no reason, other than the fact that we were too busy blaming the left or the right.
The reason why no changes are made that would have a positive impact on our climate is that no politician dares to seriously propose or install these changes, because they take time and cost a lot of money, and some jobs may be lost in the short run, while the positive effects would take at least decades to show any impact. It’s much easier to set up another committee and come up with another declaration, that everybody signs and nobody follows.
Hello again
I thought I’d written something about this but I can’t find it anywhere so I’ll write it again.
As far as I know planet earth has been subject to many climate changes, ice ages and heat ages have succeeded each other. I don’t know who was responsible for the others but it seems that humans are fairely and squarely responsible for this one.
I watched a debate on BBC World where the subject was climate change. One speaker said that changes have always happened and they always will and species adapt and survive or don’t adapt and don’t survive. I’ve got a feeling that that is the bottom line.
Anyway I shall continue to put the glass in the glass container, the plastic in the plastic container etc. By the same token I have a statue of the virgin Mary in a niche in the barn – just in case.
Jim
Morocco suffered from severe drought for more than ten years. This year has been exceptionally rainy to the point that dams have exceeded their capacity. Its water resources has sensibly increased. This means some countries can benefit from climate change as the rotation of rain can positively change.
However, climate change can change the world map as many lands and islands will become under water due to the rise in sea level following the melting ice in the Antarctica. Coastal cities are likely to suffer most. This is enough to take action on all levels from the simple citizens who should be aware of their impact on the environment to governments and corporations which need just the will to take the bull by the horns before it’s too late.
People don’t need to be cynical especially if disastrous climate change isn’t likely to happen in their lifetime and so they allow themselves to ignore the threat. It’s enough to think of the world we should leave to the future generations to have determination to do something.
Climate change, also known as Global Warming is a bunch of bollocks.
The Earth has been here (where ever here is) for many years, and has been able to take care of itself.
I don’t think Earth will die because of careless humans.
It’ll just say “Right, you lot, You’re annoying me, you’re out” and rub humans out when needed.
There is too much money spent on global warming, when the humans demand for economy Which is man made is out of porportion.
Looks like the Earth has ahd it figured out for a long time.
Humans are just trying to up the ego.
Earth doesn’t really care who has all the money, it will dump us all when it’s ready, no matter how bad the economy is.
Earth is in charge, Earth has it’s cycles it goes through, We can’t expect Money is going to solve the problems, since our home, (Earth) doesn’t use a monetary system.
@ Abdelilah Boukili in Morocco: A very good analysis.
When I first moved to the States in 2005 I felt like the only lay person in America who was concerned about global warming (now more correctly described as ‘climate change’). I had been worried about it since the early nineties when New Scientist Magazine was debating the subject. When I raised it in conversation here the response was often baffled silence, or complacency on the lines of ‘God will not let that happen.’ America’s lack of acknowledgement was alarming, especially considering its huge contribution to the problem. Failing to sign the Kyoto treaty was arguably George Bush’s biggest blunder. I can only say I am relieved that it has at last become a hot topic of discussion.
My biggest nightmare is that the world will become uninhabitable for my great grandchildren. This is a source of deep sadness. The only way I can cope without panicking, is to push it to the back of my mind. I feel helpless personally to affect the outcome and suspect my experience is shared by the multitude. It is no exaggeration to describe this as a psychological problem.
Political will to take evasive action is the key. The smoker will stop when he sees his cancerous lungs on Xray, when it is too late. Some countries will decide sooner than others that it’s their responsibilty to act, but by then it could be too late for the world. Of course man is contributing to the problem – arguing about how much will contribute nothing to a solution. The only way to avoid disaster is to change behaviour and that must be led by legislation. Politicians don’t like making unpopular decisions. All those who are not willing to collaborate should put their heads in the sand and leave them there.
America is eating the planet and loves guns. These two wont change no matter how many more they populate and even if they need 30% of the planets oil to run their hummers and monster trucks which are selling well right now with BIG BIG discounts. Once they are all sold and GM retools to a more economic vehicle and the gas goes back up to $4 or $5 they will wonder what hit them. They also will not change their minds about guns if there were a Virginia Tech incident evey six months. For one nation, helped by world poverty, to be so greedy and unwilling to conserve is the biggest issue. But then you could ask them 20 questions about issues beginning with their support of Bush and I could safely deduce all 20 replies. Go Figure?
LET MY PEOPLE GO. GO.
People often deny or don’t worry about climate change (obviously) because of religion. An alleged higher power will save the planet should anything untoward happen, or will at least save the believers.
Climate change is also a grand (seemingly abstract) idea beyond the scope of most peoples thought. Most of us can’t even control our eating in excess even though we know it will make us fat, so imagine focusing on something so down the road like climate change. Procrastination!
I’m green, recycle, wind power, high MPG vehicle (when I have to drive). But why do I do it? The problem even for people unburdened by the above, you can accept that climate change is happening and caused by man, but why stop it? Isn’t it just the natural course of things? Why should the world go on forever? Maybe, the best thing is to call it quits!
One of the foremost climate change deniers is the editorial board of the esteemed (well at least in some circles) Wall Street Journal. Why? $$$$$$$$$$$.
I suppose there would be a minor third reason, and it would be a genuine ignorance of math and science. This is a minor problem.
Honestly, I think there is no hope for us being humanity, because we are too slow to turn out knowledge into wisdom, but I do have faith in life in general. There have been many extinction events throughout Earth’s history, this will just be another one. But, life will fill in the gaps and another species will flourish at some point.
I would like to point out that after this ridiculously cold winter with an unusual amount of snow in places like London and even more than usual here in New England, the term “global warming” had been conveniently brushed aside for the more all-encompassing “climate change.” So much for all that hard scientific evidence about global warming.
In the seventies we were all worried about entering a new mini ice age. I’ll take global warming any day. Shorter winters, earlier springs, lower heating bills and less back-breaking shoveling all sound great to me.
Were it only true.
Climate Change is real, but why is counting carbon the only focus of environmentalists these days? If the earth slowly warms up, it’s not like anything drastic will change. I’m more concerned with dumping poison everywhere.
Why are people so resistant to the future effects of humanity’s current activities? The late American composer and musician Frank Zappa explained it nearly 40 years ago, using only four words: “It can’t happen here.”
I think that, by now, any one who doesn’t have a vested interest in the status quo of earth exploitation and noxious emissions understands that climate change is a reality; they just don’t think it will have any major detrimental effect on THEM.
I have heard that the people of the Netherlands are taking it all very seriously indeed, and are already taking steps to protect their country from rising sea levels.
Don’t pay attention to the propagandists and the nay-sayers. Keep an eye on the Dutch.
You say that the program is not about whether or not climate change is actually happening, but the topic itself is obviously jaded and shows that the BBC, and World Have Your Say, believe that it is and that those who ignore reports are idiots.
There is scientific proof that the global temperature has actually been going down over the past 12 years and will continue to drop over the next several decades. People such as Al Gore have an agenda, which is the promotion and funding of carbon exchanges.
It’s up to the manufacturers to create products that are environmentally friendly. People can only buy what is made available to them.
How many people who are dying of emphesima still smoke? We are addicted to oil, and to our fancy “lifestyles” in the west. We have to deal with our addiction to consuming beyond the planets capacity. I beleive we can do this if we look forward to replacing consumption of goods with an emphasis on valuing our interrelationship with each other and nature.
There are VERY FEW scientists who deny climate change. This is not a debate for them. People want to tune out the facts? Then we will suffer. Imagine yourself in a like of refugies looking for food and water. You are not immune.
How did global warming occur in the days before humans existed? Much of the northern hemisphere was covered in glaciers way before humans existed, yet it got warmer and the glaciers retreated.
People want to believe that human activity is not responsible for climate change because people hate to accept responsibility for their own actions.
People will shirk responsibility whenever possible. Climate change deniers are active responsibility shirkers. If people were to accept the scientifically proven facts that climate change is real and that humans are largely responsible for its accelerated rate, then they would have to accept that they have a responsibility to change their behavior; and of course people don’t want to change their behavior because they are lazy, greedy, and cheap.
Climate change is a hoax made by fake science and fake scientists. If there is any climate change, it is no caused by humans, people cannot affect the climate and they cannot do anything about it. Anything happens on our planet earh is just a natural cycle caused by natural things like the sun. There will be cycles of cold weather and of hot weather. These radical environmentalists are behind this hoax where they are trying to control our lives with their lies. It is not their business what we drive, what we eat, or if we recycle or not. They are behind all this economy’s problems with their radical ideas.
Its no coincidence that the rich and powerful are the most effective lobbyists! This denial will continue to happen until the powerful incumbents (eg. take any major oil producer) go through changes in their business models that will eventually make this ‘green’ transition profitable and hence economically sustainable.
The most important issue, which you have not addressed, is: Even if global warming is happening, why should we try to save planet Earth or human life? What philosophical reason is there for doing so? Why should human life continue? We don’t know how it started or why, so why should we try to stop or slow it’s demise? Why should we continue? What is so special about us that we need to go on? These are the most basic questions which we haven’t collectively discussed, so how can we get anywhere? We haven’t even thought about the fundamentals.
Why does everyone look to science to determine whether or not the atmosphere is being “changed” by human activity? All one needs to do is visit the nearest coal burning power plant or paper mill, or watch some of the older trucks driving down the highway to see very clearly that human activity is DIRECTLY impacting our atmosphere. Next time you’re in doubt about our activity changing the atmosphere try riding your bike down the street behind a school bus.
As for what we’re doing about it… well, I fear that there is very little we can do to motivate the populace at large before they are directly impacted by the consequences. So perhaps the question should be less directed at the so far ephemeral consequences of warming and more about the directly quaffable consequences of spewing toxic chemicals into the air at a dizzying and agonizingly increasing rate.
It is difficult to change our lifestyle when the culture is one of “energy consumption and waste”. I have solar panels on my house, I have bought a hybrid car, I recycle, I try to buy products that are environmentally friendly and use less packaging, etc. but just based on the fact that I live in the 21st century in a developed country, my ability to change and have an impact is limited. I suppose I could go live in a cage and become a hunter-gatherer, but this is not practical!
For years now the government has fed us endless scare stories to stop us smoking, eating the wrong foods, driving too fast, drinking too much. The media has relished these stories and reported them with something approaching hysteria. Is it any wonder so many of us don’t believe what we read any more? I am sorry to say that in my opinion the BBC has been one of the worst offenders. It is rather like the story of the boy who cried wolf – but on a global catacysmic scale (assuming of course that things are as bad as predicted).
Why are their climate change deniers?
Well, if you want to know why the climate is changing ask a Climate Scientist.
If you want to know why people behave in one maner or another, ask an Anthropologist or Sociologist. As an Antrhopologist the study of humans, their behavious, cultures, and artifacts are more my expertese than a Geologist or Glaciolgist or Oceanographer.
So, I put forward my opinon of why people deny or argue climate change. I think there are several factors.
1. No one person wants to be held accountable.
2. Most people don’t have a sufficient background in science to interpet the data.
3. The problem is so large and complex that it is very hard to collalate the causes and effects of driving a hummer or recycling every last gram.
Every start is always small, so is humans when they started existing. The world sort of maintain her size right from Genesis chaper one, but her inhabitants keep increasing daily, why think we can turn around the so called ‘climate change’when it’s just the response of the earth to her active contents?
The very wealthy people who own and operate the fossil fuel industries have a huge investment in keeping people ignorant of what ill affects their fossil fuels have on our climate and they, being very wealthy, are very clever at buying and using media and political parties to promote their Dis-Information Propaganda.
But they are going to have to revise their ROI, Return On Investment, horizons to a much longer term because we need to sharply curtail the burning of fossil fuels.
Another factor is the American Conservative Republican Christian political base which believes in what they call “The Rapture”, in which they are taken up to “Heaven” and the rest of the people in the world are destroyed. They have no investment in either preserving or saving our planets climate because they believe they won’t be around and so need not care about it.
A lot of the concern about global warming comes from “global climate models” which are large computer programs. As a computer scientist, I’m well-aware of how easy it is for subtle bugs in programs like this to cause erroneous results. It was therefore distressing to me when I discovered that the last time one of these GCMs was subject to an independent review was 40 years ago!
How confident can we be in the reliability of these models?
Climate change is ok. It is the earth regenerating our over used coasts and releasing much needed fresh water into our over saturated (with particulate) water table. The earth will prevail over all. The question is will we be able or willing to adapt
An insurance argument that we should switch from fossil fuels since we only have one planet might clear up the discourse.
Alternately, people could take a course in thermodynamics and see CO2 as a product of fossil fuel combustion.
Unfortunately, price signals need a huge carbon tax to encourage “rational economic” behavior. For example, my electric bill needs to increase 5 times to “economically justify” solar panels. Ouch.
We don’t believe in climate change because we’re still in shock about running out of natural gas in the 1990s and running out of gas in 2000 as we were told in the 1970s.
We’re tired of hearing that the sky is falling.
Another factor is that American Conservative Republicans are Anti-Science, they believe that their Buy-Bull (Bible) is truth handed down by their “God” and Science is just some kind of hocus pocus flimflammery.
In a word, Junk Science: so much “science” paid for by interests with the ability to do so, everyone from the tobacco interests to those interested in “intelligent design”, has meant that people simply don’t know what to belive anymore. When those with “credentials” bicker amoung themselves, how is the layman supposed to make up his mind? You can’t ask people to separate out the scientific question over climate change when science has been abused in this fashion.
Anyone who wants some idea of why the interpretations of people like Avery are flawed and misleading can do a web search for “realclimate dennis avery” and “scienceblogs dennis avery”. Including the “warming stopped in 1998” and ocean cooling nonsense. The real concern today is the risk of accelerated global change impacting holocene ecology and billions of people. The problem is, people are misled by things like the delay of thermal inertia and the oceanic modulation of atmospheric warming.
Deniers either cannot wrap their minds around the fact that the biosphere of this planet is comparable to the skin on an apple or they”re convinced it’s all some kind of leftist plot.
My boss falls into the latter category and I’ve put this question to him – suppose your doctor tells you that you have cancer. If you go get a hundred more opinions and ONE of those opinions says no, would you say the jury is still out and not get treatment?
But it doesn’t accomplish anything to argue – climate change is a done deal and it’s already too late. By the end of this century a third of the planet will be close to uninhabitable, and the really bad news is that it’s where we grow almost all our food.
Future historians, assuming there are any, will probably refer to this time as the Age of Insanity.
The most important issue, which you have not addressed, is: Even if global warming is happening, why should we try to save planet Earth or human life? What philosophical reason is there for doing so? Why should human life continue? We don’t know how it started or why, so why should we try to stop or slow it’s demise? Why should we continue? What is so special about us that we need to go on? These are the most basic questions which we haven’t collectively discussed, so how can we get anywhere? We haven’t even thought about the fundamentals.
People can intrepret science. They consider Solar power the predominant force by orders of magnitude over marginal increases in CO2, a plant food.
Sorry I missed this program.
Yes. I always marvelat the power of human inertia. I have many otherwise intelligent friends who completely dismiss the obvious (and not so obvious) climate changes right in front of all of us. Does it take a major famine/sea level rise/drought or anything else to get some people to wake up?
If it does, then what?
To put it mildly, Homo Sapiens are not so Sapient after all….Sigh…..
I wish your program were talking more about actual changes in lifestyles being encouraged by governments and people, options that increase our quality of life as well as reducing our resource use.
Climate change is not the only reason for humans to start rethinking the way we live. People also deny the negative effect of processed foods on individuals (obesity, diabetes.) And the same types of people interested in local, healthy food tend to be the ones also concerned about carbon emissions.
Governments can play a huge role in encouraging people to eat more healthily and also decrease carbon use by eating locally. For example, allowing people on food stamps to use their credits at farmer’s markets. The issues are huge, integrated and require education and information to individuals about how changing our lifestyles can make our quality of life BETTER, not just focusing on how inconvenient it would be to drive less.
Let’s just hope that we all come to some kind of consensus that, yes, humans ARE having a huge effect on the planet. People can deny it becuse they don’t SEE it. If they could see the accelerated melting of the arctic ice or see the smog over L.A. or Phoenix on a calm day they might begin to accept that humans DO affect the health of the planet. Just like the human body that can, to an extent, repair itself, the Earth does the same. However, if the body becomes cancerous there is only so much that can be done. The body will slowly just lose the battle.The same goes for our planet. The planet can only filter-out the pollution to a point. Once the Earth has suffered the cancer of out of control air and ground pollution the Earth can no longer repair itself. We are destroying the planet. No question. Now, it’s just a matter of how long until it dies.
Solar Cycles drive climate. That is what’s being denied. We eat CO2 and sunlight.
To the person who says “climate change is natural” then so is human extinction. Lots of creatures have reigned over this planet previous to humanity, then were killed off by natural catastrophes. So you’re essentially saying bring it on, right?
The focus of your topic is too broad. Are we debating whether global warming exists? Why people deny it? Or, why people don’t act accepting the reality of global warming. Part of the reason people are still uncertain is because of programs like yours. If almost all scientists are in agreement, why are you still having people from the agriculture industry on your show denying it? We can only get to the point where people aren’t doubting it if programs like yours start covering it as a legitimate topic, and not let the moneyed interest on the show to deny it.
Also, we all need to work. We need to be able to get to work. The government has to supply incentives for businesses and individuals to move in that direction. They corporations that stand to lose money need to be taken out of the debate over its existence and forced to be a part of the solution.
I will regard this as only a typical sales tactic.
At the end of a sales pitch, a sales person will often ask “and how would you like to pay for this”. They don’t ask if you actually want the product. They try to manipulate the customer into trying to decide how to pay for it instead of thinking if they really want it or not.
The title of this program should be “How to manipulate people into believing in climate change, weather it is true or not”. You are not asking us to make an informed decision. News articles should be neutral and inform the public so they may make informed decisions. They should not be sales pitches in order to advance ones agenda. This show has just lost a bit of creditability because of this.
However, that being said, I would love to hear a debate from scientists on both sides so I could make an informed decision.
Today’s program on climate change is very disappointing. The climate scientists are not talking to or with the “denier”. Was any advance investigation done to determine whether your guests would talk to each other?
I disagree with the entire premise of this show insofar as air time for “deniers” only serves to legitimize their arguments.
Your denier guest, Dennis, presents his views as scientific. If so, why does the entire climate scientist community disagree with him? Surely, your advance research for this program must have revealed his argument. It is a shame it wasn’t going to be refuted on your program.
Clearly Dennis doesn’t think he’s denying anything. He thinks he has science on his side. Let’s address that subject! Your guests did address the temperature measurement issue — but they did not address the argument that solar activity is causing this.
Your program makes me think that we can never address this issue successfully because the wheels of nature are slow, complex and difficult to turn. By the time we “know for sure” it will be too late. Already the C02 that’s in the atmosphere will be there for 1,000 years.
@ Morf
“Does it take a major famine/sea level rise/drought or anything else to get some people to wake up?
If it does, then what?”
I seem to keep seeing and hearing this, not only here, but from people just around my town, and friends/family. Ummmm, last time I checked, looking at many stories from the past, a lot of this stuff happened all through out history, from what is happening now, to 2000 years ago, to what scientists are saying happened millions of years ago.
To me, from the facts that have been presented to me, this is just another (and as bad as any other) Conspiracy Theory.
-Anthony, LA, CA
I think because of suicidal nature, some people will never believe in something untill they see it by their own eyes and then they die! Those who deny climate changing, will not waite fong longtime!
The problem is that most people cannot handle reality.
It is simple. We all are highly addicted to our easy, convenient lifestyles and it is one thing to raise your fist in the air and shout hurrah or save the environment but it is another thing to actually have to do something more than pay lip service to it or change a light globe and recycle a few sheets of paper. The crunch will come, it is inevitable and when it does people will rue the day they let it get out of hand and only when it is too late will they realise their part in the calamity and try to put things right, if at all. Of course by then it will be too late and we will suffer the consequences. It is one thing to say to implement strict environmental will hurt the economy, but when our lands are laid waste and we have no economies to speak of what good will those words have been. To make the changes needed will require immense sacrifice that no one is willing to undergo, no one wants to lose the quality of life they have for the sake of the wider world and all those living beings within it. We delight in our consumerism and convenience and turn a blind eye to the destruction we cause to attain that standard of comfort, the pollution we spread, the environments we pillage and poison or the waste we create. better to blame someone else or a nameless corporation that ultimately serves our desires. In the end who we can feel justified in saying we told you so, but what comfort will that be?
Climate change needs to be accepted by the big players, ie. the USA and China, the biggest polluters in the world. That doesn’t mean we should stop helping our end, personal responsibility is half the battle.
We have spent the last 100 years in the steam and smoke the great industrial revolution. The people who really care are only now coming of age to want to do anything about it.
No one thinks that they themselves can affect it. Until something truly catastrophic happens to us personally, we don’t feel the true danger of the situation. As a 40 year old, I know there is a problem, but don’t believe there is anything directly I can do to affect it. 20 somethings are the ones who will do something, because the danger and urgency is being push by younger people.
Keep in mind, those of us 40 and older are part of the ‘sheep’ that our governments have been leading all our lives.
Dear World have your say,
Because of the economic downturn the upside is ordinary people are helping things regarding climate change by not going on long journeys or generally looking after the environment ect. This is good and people need to live their lives like this forever.
The down side is I think that more people around the world will die because they will not be able to sell their goods and loose their businesses and fall into dire poverty. The law of nature I think now is the survival of the middle classes they who know how to scrimp and save.
Linda France
It strikes me that the government could easily kill three birds with one stimulus. We see the tax breaks for people buying homes, but not cars. Instead of subsidizing car manufacturers, applying that money to consumers, offering a rebate toward those who buy green, Eco friendly cars, encourages people to change out their old gas guzzlers for new more climate condusive cars, while also stimulating the economy.
Nobody is denying that solar flares drive climate. It is the people that like to point out solar activity trying to insinuate that it alone has an effect on the climate, and denying that human activity can cause any acceleration. Ask the ant under the magnifying glass what he thinks, if it’s the sun’s fault he is beginning to smoke, or the kid holding the magnifying glass.
There is natural radiation too … it’s part of the natural world … ask the people around Chernobyl what they think about radiation and how natural it is. It doesn’t matter anyway, I mean … we haven’t been able to stop killing each other out of ignorance for thousands of years, why should we stop killing the planet? Humanity is doomed not by any God or Devil, but by its own hand. I don’t think I will see the “end” so to speak, but I think I am seeing the beginning of it.
I’d like to apply the final point that Prof. Hume made to the media. We need politicians to be proactive, rather than reactive to the critical issues of our time, but we need the media to be proactive as well. The answer to the question posed on this blog is simple. There are so many climate change deniers because the media continues to present this issue as though there is an on-going debate within the scientific community. While scientists continue to investigate alternative theories, the scientific community, policymakers, citizens all must work with the best available information at any given point in time. The media should not aspire to reflect the opinions of the listeners – I’m referring to the host’s comment that Dr. Avery was put on the panel to represent the comments of some of the contributors. Why promote the views of an underinformed public? Rather the starting point of the discussion must be how we can adapt and mitigate climate change. Based on today’s broadcast, I have to conclude that the media remains a major part of the problem.
Climate change is occurring. It’s a part of history. The real question is this: What is the proof that people can do anything to alter that change? I have asked this of several eminent climatologists, and none have even attempted an answer.
It’s a prudent question to answer before we spend untold money and disrupt economies and people chasing an impossible dream
The guy is right, that kind of “the sky is falling” language is bogus. We saw that with John McCain, remember? The world was going to end if we didn’t give banks 700 billion by the end of the week. It’s nonsense. I have been using that can crushing analogy for 10 years and nothing has changed here. If I go outside I see a sea of oversized military based vehicles with one person behind the wheel and 2 bags of groceries in the back. That’s Long Island. If you go to Texas it’s a whole landscape of pick up trucks.
Americans will not give these things up. The worst part about it is that it extends into all aspects of life here. Too much of everything, it’s unsustainable. That’s not to say that we don’t have a problem. We obviously do. Excess always leads to crisis. Your quests can quibble about the time frame but just like the economy crashing it’s inevitable.
Cheers
GB/OB
I don’t believe there is way stop this climate change, because our society is based on fossil fuels for energy. When we use more natural resources that aren’t carbon based, we’ll have a dramatic change.
I agree with Suzanne. Although I didn’t hear the entire program, what I did hear was one of the most plodding, inarticulate discussions on climate change I could imagine. It’s no wonder the deniers and delayers are keeping the foothold they are. They get away with making false or misleading statements, and the public doesn’t get clear corrections or explanations. Although most people are probably not very interested in all the scientific minutia, they are interested in hearing a strong argument for why we need to change. If there’s a next time, WHYS should get people on the air who both know their stuff and aren’t afraid to debate. People like Joe Romm of climateprogress.org, Washington State climatologist Philip Mote or NASA’s Drew Shindell.
History tells us that humanity is always driven to self hratification and in the process environment and nature is totally ignored and our previous generations never thought about it and nature was not given attention but nature will make its importance felt and humanity will eventually pay for it
If we spent even a fraction of the money and human brainpower that we do on creating weaponry on behaving like ‘the human race’, then we can do what we need to do to avert disaster at our own hands. Mother nature may still of course kill us off at any time by a variety of chance means but do we want to surrender what is still a beautiful planet to destruction through willfull ignorance,when we have the skills and ability to correct our mistakes?
Hi,
What effect do all these wars on our small earth have on climate change. All these bombs and novel weapons don’t help.
Thanks
If, to mitigate global warming, giving up cars, motorized toys, electrically-powered appliances , personal gizmos, and the manufacture of useless things that provides employment, is required, we will refuse to do it. Those things define the good life, and, for many, a necessity for living (in the developed world). We would rather lose everything than give up our comforts, our possessions, and our entertainments. Besides, we’re hoping we will be dead before the true hardships hit us. Let future generations worry about it.
Steve in Oregon (OPB)
It might help to make things seem less abstract, if some explanation of how climate change is linked to increases in malaria. It is taken for a given, but has nowhere been proven.
The world is “in denial about climate change” because people have been fed misinformation! Humans are not causing climate change! We are in an interglacial period! It has been warming for 10-13000 years! This is a mass hysteria propped up by self interest groups. The real problem is OVERPOPULATION! When an organism is sick it gets a fever…maybe the earth is trying to kill the infection…
Dr. Catherine Glass
Portland, Oregon
Our current climate crisis is completely integrated with the political and social crises happening as I write and we can not be expected to solve just one of these – but must address all of these. The greed of our society has been recently exposed in the economic crash of the last 6 months. Greed makes someone believe they should have the biggest car, the most holidays, or whatever they desire because they can afford it. If we don’t stop the idea of consumption at all costs, we will have no planet left to sustain us.
Yet we are being encouraged to consume to keep the economy going…it is a difficult circle to break out of.
Eve MacDonald
Edinburgh
Hi,
Ever wondered why we have had so many cars on our roads in the past decade.
Easy money and banks printing money meant more people bought cars.
Wonder if the credit crunch will have any effect.
Probably not. As the governments are printing money now.
What is more important :
Save the Earth
or
Car Manufacturers
Thanks 🙂
Perhaps another reason that the world is full of climate change is that people don’t want to consider the horrible psychological reality that humanity is committing suicide. It’s obvious to anyone with an understanding of thermo-dynamics – that humanity’s relationship with the natural world is unsustainable. It’s a sickening thought that humanity is growing out of control. After all, we are spiritual beings. Why don’t we look out for each other? Why this incessant climbing of ladders? Why can’t we be content with less? Why the strong drive for materialism, and the quest for more, more, more?
The real reason that the world is full of climate change deniers is that people lack the essential creativity to see that there is another way. Another world is possible. A better world. A world where human needs are met by community – rather than commodity or consumerism.
It’s a very basic question to ask what kind of world we want to leave to future generations. Do we want to leave a world of depleted non-renewable resources? Do we want to leave a world that is polluted? Or do we want to leave a world that is healthy, intact, and in which they (the children of our children’s children) can live satisfying and prosperous lives? I say the latter.
Berd
Simple reason really; this world is full of hypocritical “Luddites”, who seem able to accept the fact of the internet yet seem unable to accept that 6 billion humans or so can have an effect on this world. Do none of them think the following: all “fossil fuels” are derived from drilling into the earth and removing essentially carbon, which has been sequestered for millennia! There are also countless people who still believe that the Earth is flat. That is why we have governments, so mob rule or thought does not prevail!
@ Dan in Salem
When we have gigantic scrubber technology, we might be able to do something. Honestly though, I think the most we can hope for is some sort of global event that would slow it down long enough for us to catch up with the scope of what we have done. I have hope that maybe eventually the earth would clean itself up if we are on it or not. At the same time I cannot get it out of my head that maybe, we could be accelerating what would naturally turn earth into something more like it’s neighbors … like Mars, who knows …
Whether one agrees that global warming is man-made or not, it’s George Marshall’s approach that turns most people off. First, creating a moral imperative of the issue, as Mr. Marshall has, or shutting off debate entirely, as Al Gore recently did when challenged to debate the science, alienates those who are skeptical of the origin, but may otherwise be open to creating a cleaner environment. Additionally, framing it as a looming catastrophe makes it sound too much like some kind of humanist Armageddon, which rational people are immediately skeptical of. Again, the most inclusive approach is to emphasize a cleaner environment and tone down the strident and alienating moral and catastrophic rhetoric.
Oh, I also want to add that I usually refer to the problem as climate disruption – because that is what it is. Not necessarily propaganda. Nor is propaganda necessarily bad. Governmental war propaganda, and oil industry propaganda – yes that is usually bad!
But the propagation of ideas about saving the world from human induced climate breakdown is not a problem – because it’s something that needs to be done, for the well-being of future generations.
I believe climate change is occurring. As a family we do what we can with regard to recyling, not using supermarket carrier bags, walking rather than driving short distances etc. My biggest bug bear is that whilst living under the flight path of a small local airport which serves small executive jets they are requesting a doubling of the amounts of flights allowed in and out. The UK government seems to have no policy in place to protect the environment. It has got to the point that I believe as an individual there is no point in me trying any harder as everything I have done/will do will be undone by more aircraft polluting. Why should wealthy people be allowed to fly where every they want, whenever they want and not have to pay the consequences. I believe these people should be made to travel on normal airlines. Living in Britain most countries in the world are easy to get to by using normal airlines and they should put up with the slight inconvenience of travelling this way.
Jackie Filshie
It is absolutely unreal to listen to people still not getting it that climate change is not happening and that humans have no affect on it. We do have a huge impact on the climate and on the environment period. The population of the word is so large that it is bound to have a considerable affect on our planet.
Four months ago I gave up my car (which wasn’t a gas guzzler) and moved out of my large house, which did consume a lot of energy. I moved to a small, energy-efficient apartment, and use public transportation (much of which is “clean” hydro-electric power generated in this resource-poor little country of mine.)
Switzerland is serious about recycling, provides bins for everything, and I use them all for paper, glass, metal, batteries, plastic.
The town I live at is 1000 meters high and I won’t drown when the sea-level changes. But I’ll choke along with everyone else when the air becomes unbreathable.
P.S. I’m the girl who last week posted to say that I’ve been prudent financially and you couldn’t blame the credit crunch on ME. Ecologically and financially prudent, I’ll still choke and go broke along with all those who never even tried to be prudent.
Hi,
People ignore climate change because business comes first than environment. The issue of environment is not evident to business oriented world and election oriented governments though thousands of scientific warnings are flowing in. It will get the attention it deserves when it happens like the current economic turmoil.
Meheretu Yonas
Ethiopian PhD student
in University of Antwerp
Belgium
Hello. My name is Erica. I`m from Argentina and English it’s not my mother language so I`m sorry if I make some mistake. I think that climbing change is a deep concern all over the worl but there might be politic and economic interests to not do anything about it. I really hope that people who can do something about it do it quickly. I really enjoy your program from Argentina. Erica
How can people be motivated to take action when governments plough on with projects like Kingsnorth new coal or runway expansions like Heathrow or false solutions like carbon trading? This undermines any action people take, meanwhile corporations are selling greenwash to keep up their profits without reducing our consumption levels – which is key to tackling the climate breakdown.
The global warming sound bite has become a political platform for bashing that which is percieved as evil (other sound bite: overconsuming westerners) and gives people an opportunity to express a favored form of human nature: “I am holier than you!” Which of course means that I am sooo fabulous and you are a shmuck because you do not eat raw oats, ride a bike to work and spout the cliche of the moment!! The MAJORITY of the ills of the world are a SYMTOM (not a cause) of overpopulation. Overpopulation is what is really going to bring about the collapse of humanity. Not climate warming. Our planet has been much warmer in the past and much colder. Us and the polar bears have survived NUMEROUS extreme fluctuations in temperature. Instead of showing pistures of the poor widdle bear clinging to an iceburg how about showing the 850 million starving people on earth! Overpopulation coupled with poverty are the the underlying significant problems we face as humans…We can’t mentally cope or handle this…much easier to focus on the poor wiidle helpless bear and spout meaning less soundbites…My carbon footprint is much smaller than yours! I think I will treat myself to a yummy latte!
One thing missing strikingly from your debate is the difference between obervations of current climate trends on the one hand; and on the other hand, whether the prediction models have any validity; and lastly if all of the proposed policy responses would have any impact or indeed even the desired impact.
A complex system does not respond predictably to flick of a switch.
One must recognise that there is a bandwagon of scientific funding that is very pro global warming – hence our research keeps reinforcing same points.
One key fact not often reported because of this is that the total ice mass on antartica is actually growing. References available – but that is an inconvenient point to the pro change scientific and media complex.
Note that with the change of moniker from Global Warming to Climate Change – the pro’s will say they are right even if we cool down drastically and unpredictably.
Phil in Bahrain
@Dwight: Please ask your buddy to get on with it and convince them!
“Completely agreed?” Then why is there debate? Did “qualified” skeptics suddenly disappear from the world? -that they did previously fill?-
I just returned this week from a trip to the Antarctica. On of the most poignant moments for me was when observing penguin chicks on an Antarctic Island. Several chicks were draped across rocks, panting and looking unwell. I asked the biologist why this was, and she indicated it was heat stress. As we tourists were enjoying the unusual warmth and dry landscape of this island, the chicks were experiencing heat stress as there should have been two feet of snow. Their coatings were so thick and full, it was overheating them, and they were too young to go into the waters yet.
Yes, climate change may perhaps be cyclical and normal, but similar to the polar bear situation, it is accelerating faster than the aninmals and other life forms can adapt.
Why behave like King Canute? Good to cut carbon, but climate change will not stop. Some things, such as increase in sea levels we can adapt to. Increase in temperature will make life difficult in some places, but others, such as Siberia will benefit. Let’s cut the gloom and doom and adapt.
Hello,
I am pretty sure that there is a climate change ongoing. However, why would that be a bad thing? In my daily work, I talk about change through project in organization where you explain the (business) environment is changing so you to adapt. So if we cannot adapt to a new world, yes we will die. Listening to some it seems that the shape of the world today is perfect. No. Evolution says that if you do not have what it takes, you are doom. Moral imperative is just a cultural point of view. How many people around the planet are living with less than a dollar/day? Maybe they will be the rich one of tomorrow!
Nice evening,
Eric
There are slot of scientists that are biased and misleading people about the real data.
I was in Alaska recently researching glaciers and they were all growing and moving and getting bigger. But people did knot want me to publish or document the growth all, there is a polar bear growth in numbers but the polar near is used and promoted to climate change.
From David and Eva in Amsterdam,
I thought that the subject of the conversation was not to debate the existence of climate change or not?
Because the governments of the world are refusing to take serious action, it is up to individuals to try to do something.
The fact is that everything we do, as individuals does matter. We have no car, we buy and eat local products, we are vegetarian, and we evangelise on the subject to everyone we speak with – yet we have a great quality of life. Every time someone buys a piece of fruit or a vegetable in their supermarket out of season, they contribute to the problem. Every one who drives a gas-guzzling car, contributes to the problem.
The damage these people do is not only direct, but they also send signals to global corporations that this is what people want, compounding the situation and presenting people with choices the really do not need.
This is not some kind of Calvinistic, wool-shirt self-flagellation, it is a must. Without a drastic restructuring of our lifestyles in the rich northern world, we are certain nobody on earth will survive this impending disaster.
David and Eva
Where’s the problem? I just live on like I always did. If the climate change deniers are right, there is no need to change. If they are wrong however, we just move on to the spare earth we have in storage for such an emergency.
From David and Eva in Amsterdam,
I thought that the subject of the conversation was not to debate the existence of climate change or not?
Because the governments of the world are refusing to take serious action, it is up to individuals to try to do something.
The fact is that everything we do, as individuals does matter. We have no car, we buy and eat local products, we are vegetarian, and we evangelise on the subject to everyone we speak with – yet we have a great quality of life. Every time someone buys a piece of fruit or a vegetable in their supermarket out of season, they contribute to the problem. Every one who drives a gas-guzzling car, contributes to the problem.
The damage these people do is not only direct, but they also send signals to global corporations that this is what people want, compounding the situation and presenting people with choices the really do not need.
This is not some kind of Calvinistic, wool-shirt self-flagellation, it is a must. Without a drastic restructuring of our lifestyles in the rich northern world, we are certain nobody on earth will survive this impending disaster.
David and Eva
Today a good opportunity to speak to sceptics was lost.
I was in he company of 17 people all listening to World Have Your Say.
10 of them are not yet convinced that global changes are contributable to human activity.
They were very interested in Dennis Avery’s scientific details (hope I got the last name correct) and waited for your other two guests to respond.
Unfortunately they did not.
Opportunity lost .
Thank you for discussing such an important topic. Yes, climate change has occured through Millenia; this can not be a justification for reckless brehavior and promoting climate chan ge through our action. Hundreds of thousands people used to die of pague, influenza and viral diseases. We acted against them. We elect leaders in various countries to provide leadership. Instead of taking decisive actions through stringent legislation, world leaders in both developed and developing world are hiding behind a few scioentist (a minority view) that globasl warmiung is untrue.
As one of the callers/guest said, world-wide grassroots movement is needed to dceal with potentially irreversible catastrophe.
Vijay Tripatrhi
Ph.D. Environmental Geochemistry (Stanford)
The “lack of scientific evidence” presented argument is not one that is terribly good. Not all of us are meteorologists, and we shouldn’t be taking sides on this without actually having a good idea what we are talking about.
The people who DO know what they are talking about, however, have reached a large consensus, so we will go with the scientific majority.
perhaps the issue is that we’ve been given so much conflicting information we don’t know which is correct and which is misinformation. remember a few years ago, the invironmentalists were telling us all to use cloth nappies as disposable nappies harm the invironment as well as the baby, yet now, cloth nappies are harming the invironment as much if not more than the disposable nappy. we need to consolidate the information and present the solid facts as they currently stand. not have every tom, dick and harry tell us their own idea of what’s happening and what will happen further on down the line.
I do believe climate change is happening and I’m doing the best I can within the limits of my personal budget. I can afford high effiency bulbs and I can switch off lights I don’t need, but I just cannot afford a better car. I’m sure there are milions of people in the same situation.
Global warming is a real problem for the future. What are we worried about? Ice melting, flooding, etc will be a problem in 20, 40, 60, 100 years causing many deaths. Well for the global south, many millions are now afflicted by foul water, starvation, and simple curable diseases. I live in the US but if I lived in a poor country I would say that we need to be more worried about more immediate matters.
35 years ago one of my college lecturers, who was a geologist, told us that they had found the polar ice cap was considerably thiner than they had expected and we discussed global warming way back then. We have had 35 years to do the research and still we don’t have sufficient evidence to sway everyone.
Even if the present warming is a purely natural phenomena the effects will be just as devasting. Perhaps we should be doing all we can ‘in case’ while more research is done to convince us either way – human made or not!
We live in an illusion that the future is going to look like similar to the past. The repeating patterns of life lead us to believe that things will remain the same. What the people who deny human cause, fail to factor in is the shear increase in the population of the planet. There are 4 billion more people more people on the planet than there were 2 generations ago?
What kind of self-interest do environmentalists have that can even compare to the money that stands to be lost by fossil fuel using business.
The logical burden of proof lies with the deniers.
BBC,
I heartily concur that climate change is a hoax. To date there exists no proof that the melting of ice at Northpole has anything whatsoever to do with what we do down here. Besides we here in Africa have much to think of than carbon emisions…
What else does one call someone who has rejected the evidence in spite of the fact that even long time opponents to the climate change argument have since gotten on board and agreed that it exists?
It’s a scientific fact that carbon dioxide has a warming effect. This can be tested easily at home. It’s an accepted reality that we’re pumping out huge quantities of carbon dioxide. So, being unable to deny either of these things, where do you think all of this carbon dioxide is going? At what point do they think the environment is incapable of absorbing all of that excess CO2 if any?
Well it is not as if the world is full of people who deny the very negative potential that our activites have on the climate but rhe real issue is that common people where I live in Ibadan Nigeria are so pre-occupied with issues concerning ordinary day survival that talk of climate change makes no meaning at all to them. High cost of cooking gas has driven people to fell trees to cook and the government here lacks the impetus as well as moral authority to stop them because they have failed to provide the necessities of life.
People in Europe and the americas can talk of climate change because they can afford some basic necessities, realities here say otherwise
@ Phil Millette
And the irony, the new satellite devoted to climate study launched a few weeks ago, it crashed back to earth almost as fast as it reached orbit, care to guess where it crashed? In the Antarctic, now if there were some sort of cosmic karma or sign … yeesh.
It is generally agreed that the amount of man made carbon dioxide is less that 0.5%; insignificant to the amount generated by nature.
As a result, I will continue to regard climate change a matter of unimportance when we have the more pressing issues of poverty and more recently the credit crunch to contend with.
Here in Jamaica, we are having wildfires that are larger and lasting much longer than they used to. Additionally, we are having longer period of no rain and shorter periods of much higher, more intense rainfall episodes.
I mean looking back to the 70’s hail was a common occurence in Jamaica, today the children have no idea what that is.
We are all in this together but fear of the outcome is pushing each individual (and collective) to look to issues that will soothe them rather than make the required change.
Brian
BTW: What could possibly be wrong with doing all one can to reduce their own energy consumption? Whether by couples showering together or people using their own bags at grocery stores, humanity possesses the answer. Perhaps simply slowing down the “throw-away” culture, that we in the West have become addicted to, will be a large part of the answer! There is also a personal economic benefit involved in such a change of attitude.
It is extraordordinary to me that people like Patrick continue to be in denial.
I live in victoria, where in early February temperatures of 46+ C (114.8 F) and hot winds killed over 200 people, destroyed 2000 homes and burnt out over 400,000 hectares – fires like this will only get worse, and I think people will only change, and have only ever changed when they are immediately affected.
@ Anush: Please don’t confuse peer-reviewed science with “junk” or pop science.
Science is not something to be “believed” in. It is something to be tested, retested, presented and debated in peer-reviewed journals, not on blogs or chat shows. And the science that survives that serious scrutiny must be taken seriously. True science is falsifiable, as new things are discovered all the time and might change what we think we know.
But the serious scientists are serious about the effects of humankind’s activities upon our ecosphere. The times they are a changing, and the climate with it. We ignore those changes at our peril.
There is the problem – the journalist who was at the conference says the evidence is not exciting enough and the fellow from London says the evidence isn’t scientific enough…hard to win on either side. Why can’t we as humans just accept it?
Climate change may be happening, but the theorem that humans are responsible is tenuous and not proven. The environmental zealots insistence that the western world is responsible for fixing the problem regardless of what the second and third worlds do is wrong. Particularly when the second and third world are aspiring to first world emission rates, and that they are striving to achieve them without regard to emissions.
I have no problem with individual emissions being tied to the worlds ability to absorb them, but this means that population growth rates must be accounted for when allocating emission rights. Nations that make no effort to control their population growth rates should not be automatically granted increased emission quotas at the expense of nations that do control population growth.
Until population growth is addressed as part of the climate control debate, I steadfastly refuse to take action that will damage my nations economy, particularly because economic strength is directly related to the ability of a nation to compete on the world stage.
Continued world population growth will cause conflict regardless of what action is taken on climate change. Therefore I’d prefer to ignore climate change in favor of prevail the coming over population conflicts over resources!
I would also like to thank the scientist – like your guest – who tirelessly warn and patiently remind us of the dangers.
On another note – there is a great organisation called Friends Of The Earth Middle East – they are the only organisation in Tel Aviv that employes Jew, Palestininians, Egyptians etc. Their motto is Peace through Climate Change – that we should talk about what we all have in common – NOT what sets us apart. Imagine if we spent the money we spend on war on caring for our Earth. Imagine if we could evolve to truly understand this.
The topic of climate change is not very necessary in Africa and many third world countries. Our priority in Africa is first creating industrilized economies and attaining high employmenmt rates.
Nairobi
I hear over and over again from these deniers about this vast, left-wing conspiracy of scientists and politicians. But if they actually took a look at what the scientists are saying instead of just reading denier sources that filter what these scientists are actually saying, they’d see that everyone is hardly marching in lockstep. There’s a wide range of opinions in the scientific community among those who have accepted the existence of climate change over how bad it is, what the consequences will be, how fast is it accelerating, is it accelerating? Some are giving wildly pessimistic numbers obviously. Others aren’t. And on top of that, the scientists are from extremely wide ranging sciences from biology, to geology to physics. And each has worked on a small piece of a much larger picture.
Personally, I find conspiracy theories regardless of whether they be about UFOs, 9/11, JFK or anything else exhausting. You can’t convince conspiracy theorists because even when there’s a lack of evidence to support their beliefs, the lack of evidence warps in their minds to become confirmation of the conspiracy. Why don’t we have the proof? Because THEY are hiding it obviously!
To all the climate change deniers – try standing in your garage with your car’s engine running for ten minutes, and then come back, if you can still function, and tell us all again about how humans cannot affect the climate.
It is real and it is happening. Those in developing countries say “Rich man’s problem. Rich man’s solution.” I would have to agree from the standpoint that they have many millions who’s daily struggle is to get clean water, food, shelter, etc. If I were them I would not be worrying much about how global society will be affected in 50 , 75, or 100 years. I would be concerned about more immediate needs.
Why is the world full of climate change deniers? well, because they are almost threatened into denial, sticking their head into the sand like ostriches as it were, rather than told about it in real everyday terms. Instead we should be educating each other about the today results of our exploitation of our home, like the drought of Australia etc. & other areas which results culminative in the food crisis – the weather being too erratic to grow the crops needed to feed everyone, resulting in the rich complaing about bread tripling in price (due to the shortage, unexpected scarcity of stable grains that the climate can destroy the yield of) while the poor literally starve. this produced the strikes, troubles etc. last year as well as contributing to the economic downturn. much of the world will turn to desert as happened in Somalia and the confict with Darfor as the people had to relocate into another peoples’ home, unwelcomely thus the war.
WE MUST ACT, EVEN CREATING MANY JOBS IN THE PROCESS OF COMBATING CLIMATE CHANGE NOW, TOGETHER, SO THE REPERCUSSIONS CAN BE MINIMIZED. FOR OUR OWN FAMILIES, FOR Survival.
i think this is how the dinosaurs died – it all became desert gradually and the food ran out due to this. the climate has always decided the fate of lifeforms, including humans fate; it is the biggest factor for all in terms of survival!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Selina Kreiselmeier, UK
by the way
May Peace fill your Heart
Your Soul, and your Life..
Live simply, love generously,
Care deeply, speak kindly,
Leave the rest to God.
Enjoy a Christmas that Inspires and Heals your Soul.
Thank you for reading this.
Why is the world full of climate change deniers? well, because they are almost threatened into denial, sticking their head into the sand like ostriches as it were, rather than told about it in real everyday terms. Instead we should be educating each other about the today results of our exploitation of our home, like the drought of Australia etc. & other areas which results culminative in the food crisis – the weather being too erratic to grow the crops needed to feed everyone, resulting in the rich complaing about bread tripling in price (due to the shortage, unexpected scarcity of stable grains that the climate can destroy the yield of) while the poor literally starve. this produced the strikes, troubles etc. last year as well as contributing to the economic downturn. much of the world will turn to desert as happened in Somalia and the confict with Darfor as the people had to relocate into another peoples’ home, unwelcomely thus the war.
WE MUST ACT, EVEN CREATING MANY JOBS IN THE PROCESS OF COMBATING CLIMATE CHANGE NOW, TOGETHER, SO THE REPERCUSSIONS CAN BE MINIMIZED. FOR OUR OWN FAMILIES, FOR Survival.
i think this is how the dinosaurs died – it all became desert gradually and the food ran out due to this. the climate has always decided the fate of lifeforms, including humans fate; it is the biggest factor for all in terms of survival!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Selina Kreiselmeier, UK
by the way
May Peace fill your Heart
Your Soul, and your Life..
Live simply, love generously,
Care deeply, speak kindly,
Leave the rest to God.
Enjoy a weekend that Inspires and Heals your Soul.
Thank you for reading this.
Dear Sam Murphy –
Your point about human contribution to the carbon cycle seems like a breath of fresh air – until one realises you are in fact comparing the estimated addition of carbon versus the carbon cycle of all other inputs, which are a cycle that for the known history of the earth have been entirely under the chaotic influence of mother nature alone. We are disturbing what was a fairly tranquil period in the Earth’s climate course with our activities. Consider the carbon cycle as a large object moving in a certain direction – We are affecting that plot by a degree or more – that is what we need to understand. We are supposedly sentient beings, and thanks to our awesome capabilities, we have discovered the earth is not flat, limitless or so on, and is in fact a living mega-organism of which we are a part.
The Deadliest emergency that we are facing presently is The Global Shortage of Appropriate Analysis. The ‘Crude Oil Disaster’ is closing in on the Global Economy because of climate change and we are yet to commence a real Global response to Climate Change; and What it really means for Our Progress as Humanity. The very fact that we hav left the Analysis of Climate Change in the Hands of Scientists, is a clear indication that we have not realised that Our present Global Economic and Socio-Political turbulence is calling for a JetAGE RESPONSE to OUR JetAGE Emergencies..
The world is full of retrogressives (we call them conservatives) who are anti-abortion, anti-stem cell research, want to teach Creatrionism alongside natural selection in our schools, and prefer that the banks fail rather than being bailed out (they call it socialism). They deny global warming, see no ethical problem with turning our foodstuffs into biofuel, and respond to wind and solar advocacy by snearing “Yeah, and let a hundred flowers bloom.”
To them I ask: If you put an air-conditioner in a sealed room, and turn it on full cool, would the room get cooler, or hotter?
Your ball…
Louisville, Kentucky, KY.
First to all who say, “The earth has gone through these changes for thousands of years”. Do you honestly think that all of the researchers and scientist that work on these issues don’t consider that? Really? The Nobel Prize voting board just ignore hundreds of years of analysis and finding and came up with a conclusion that didn’t take that fact into account. It has gotten so bad that they didn’t even give the prize to a scientist but to a public figure who just brought their findings to market.
Yes the Earth goes through change do to the “wobble” on its axis. It is true enough that we should be in the infancy of the warming side of the wobble. However, important idea of note is that researchers can take an ice core that goes back a millions years. They have conducted tests and reproduce results in the lab to confirm the tests are accurate. They use that knowledge to read the ice cores as clearly as you read these blog posts. What they have found is that we have leaped 1000 years into our warming future in just 50 years and the rate is accelerating. Having somebody tell these researchers they are wrong would be like somebody telling you that this paragraph is a popular kid’s nursery rhyme. These core samples and what causes the fluctuations are not left to interpretation.
The world economy is in free fall. Very soon many people are going to be out of a job. The debate over climate ‘change’ will soon be forgotten as most people try to survive.
The downturn in manufacturing is already greater than any proposed CO2 reduction methods envisaged so the debate whether CO2 is the cause will be moot.
If the world continues to heat up or cool down after such a loss of economic activity then in about 25 years half of us will be justified in accusing the other half of being stupid.
let the music play on. I”m just being amused. the scientists and ‘scientific facts’ are now being disputed because it will affect some ‘powerful people’s’ purse. What double standards.
truth no. 1. Human activities is greatly responsible for the destruction of the ozone layer.
truth no. 2. we can stop its destruction by stopping the emission of green house gases.
truth no. 3. we must act now since time is against us and our children will not forgive us because even if we leave for them all the money in the world they cannot create the ozone and so will die because of our recklessness in the pursuit of wealth and fame now
Shall the BBC make any attempt to show the other side of the debate? Or shall the topic, ever remain, how to
overwhelm skeptics? If one should want another to take debate “seriously,” they may want to consider taking such debate seriously themselves. The alarmist, and pompass, guest did only harden my opposition to a movement, that I suspect may actually have some kernal of hard science behind their most ridiculous claims.
http://reason.tv/video/show/722.html
A similar question for future debate could be, ” Why do so many continue to deny the existence of Santa Claus.” Why? Because their is not enough information to confirm his existence, and there is ample discomfirming evidence that he doesn’t exist. Such is the case with climate change/global warming.
In the 1780s a leading French naturalists claimed that humidity found in the New World caused all animals found there to be smaller, less robust and more timid than Old World animals. He even said European dogs taken to America would loose their ability to bark. As Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, would learn thinking it so doesn’t make it so.
If a person will approach the subject of climate change with an open mind (like scientist ostensibly should!) it is relatively simple to discover that there still is a debate going on about what exactly is happening, and if it is occurring then how much. Is it a huge or incremental change over a century of more?
But just important is the question of anthropogenic causation. Clearly, there is NO SCIENTIFIC consensus about humankinds contribution. It is all conjecture.
Global warming adherents disabuse their cause by hurling epithets at any who disagree with their premises, and that is all they have are theories.
The facts are not incontrovertible for anthropogenic global warming, despite the loud cacophony of voices claiming such. There are actually more scientists who refute anthropogenic global warming than those who say it is fact.
Go ahead, call me a buffon, neanderthal, moron — how typical of global warming extremists. If you disagree with someone just call them names. Forget about looking at discomfirming evidence, that would require too much work.
There are always skeptics and deniers on every major human issue. Examples include the Luddites who opposed technological change on the grounds that it bound to destroy their standards of living to tobacco companies who insisted for decades that tobacco products did not cause cancer and were safe are all acting from at least one of a few motives. If challenged on the evidence, they used to pull out some old person who has smoked happily for 50 years with no side effects. However, there will be no pictures of the other 5 people who smoked for a serious amount of time who were then in the cancer wards or in their graves!
The deniers will happily persist in their views until well past the time that human society can do anything effective to stop its destruction of the global environment. The deniers would endorse (or at least tolerate), policies like the following:
1) Slash and burn in the Amazon; why not people have been doing that for years. 2) Use “dirty” coal power to get away from Middle East oil dependence.
3) Drive, drive, drive – I like my freedom – my little vehicle does not do any lasting harm.
4) Fly from the UK to Spain for a couple of pounds – why not, I need a rest?
Let us examine some of the motivations of the climate change deniers:
The first motive is the fear of the COST. Obviously major investments are going to be needed to significantly reduce the human “footprint” on our environment – especially in the areas of carbon and sulphur emissions. This costs real money to fight something that is totally natural so why do it? This is just a scheme by the government and their rich supporters to fleece more of my hard earned income for their crackpot projects.
The second motive is INERTIA. It is so much easier to leave things as they are until and unless we are sure that climate change is a certainty and it is primarily driven by human activities. That will take a little time to check – say 30 or 40 years at least!
The third motive is FREEDOM. This is all a UN/World government plot to take even more of my money and leave me even less free. Well, I’m not falling for that nonsense – there were coal fired plants in my granddaddy’s time, my daddy’s time and my time and, if I have my way my great-grandchildren will still be using this coal that God put under this country. After all, He would not have put the coal there if he did not want us to use it … anyway; those scientists that bray about climate change are all in the pay of the UN, the World Government or companies that will make even more billions while I get poorer.
Those are my explanations for the prevalence of climate deniers in the world today. Self interest, fear and a complete distrust for anything that they do not agree with will make it very difficult to muster entire nations into the fight against climate change.
Politic is often about polarities.
Polarities are often about adversarial debate. We do this so we don’t all jump off the same cliff.
Human proclivities to identify with one side or the other has at least 3 components.
1. Physical self-interest, i.e., how we see the cost benefit of one political coarse vs the other.
2. Social self-interest, i.e., how we view the status or intelligence of the people on one side of the debate vs the other – especially in our own social circle.
3. Psychological self-interest, i.e., how well one or the other narrative fits with our investment in how the ‘world’ works.
This probably in some combination explains most – but not all – of the people who actively have a decisive view one way or the other on the issue. Active Deniers are very much like active Believers in this regard. That why we say it is political.
The small minority who are not so much swayed by these human factors are the people who are, or would make, good scientists.
That a large majority of proclaimed scientists council extreme caution makes me inclined to want us to heed their counsel. But, since majorities can be wrong, it is still a mistake to try and silence dissenting scientist who have no obvious biases.
Recent history in geopolitics and economics is full of examples where we could have used a few credible dissenting voices.
Hello again
And hello DCG, Oregon. From the morass of flat earthers, creationists, ego trippers, whacky intelectuals and a miriad of half-baked ideas suddenly the voice of truth. Dr. Glass I take my hat off to you. Human overpopulation of the planet is at the root of ALL human problems. Human numbers have to be drastically reduced and the race for survival has already begun.
Jim
I think there are so many skeptics because the evidence, despite what the propaganda pushers are trying to say, is NOT clear. I for one believe that we MAY be adding a minor amount to climate change, but we are certainly not the catalyst nor are we the major contributor to it.
That being said, I am a big proponent of “green energy”. I believe that as we buy oil from the middle east, we are not only supporting terrorism but literally paying for it. I don’t know about Europe, but America’s power grid is constantly at it’s limit of capacity and the best way to fix both problems is to make each and every home much more energy efficient. However, because it has an up-front cost (solar panels, wind power, electric or hybrid cars, even solar water heating systems), it’s very hard to get people to pay for them up front, even though they will be saving much more money in the sometimes for but also sometimes very near future. I think it boils down to a matter of economics for the majority of people.
DonnaMarie,
The politics of climate change are the darndest thing. It turns out that you must either get everybody on board, or even the ones that believe you will say, “but if everybody else won’t do it, why would I adhere to policies that will economically disadvantage my constituents?” Imagine a few countries in the world refusing to participate in the Olympic “no doping” policy. After a few years of losses, what would the other countries do.
The same is true of environmental policies. Especially right now. Getting countries to spend extra billions on environmental controls is met with much resistance.
I’ve been an environmentalist for more than 40 years. I was a fundraiser for Greenpeace soon after it was founded.
I am all for fighting pollution. I live small, drive a bicycle, and pollute less than probably 90% of the population.
But CO2 is not a pollutant–it is a trace gas which plants need in order to thrive, and many scientists say that we need MORE CO2 in the atmosphere.
The primary greenhouse gas is water vapor, and the primary source of climate change is solar activity.
CO2 and climate change is being used as a way of making big bucks in carbon credits trading. Al Gore founded a carbon credits company in 2004. His film and lectures are infomercials for his business.
David Rockefeller ordered Exxon/Mobil to get on board the CO2 money train several years ago, which is why they suddenly changed course.
The other motivation, and reason CO2 was chosen, is because it is related to human activity, so provides the route for taxing all human activity, and taxing all humans in the world, taxes which will be paid to the world’s central banks.
It’s sad to see that so many people have been deluded and led astray by the “religion” of climate change, when the driving force of that movement is profit and control of human activity.
I think the majority of people feel the same way about climate change as they do about voting. Maybe they ought to vote and maybe they ought to be “green” but it’s hard to for them to really believe that each individual’s vote and each individual’s conservation efforts will make a difference. So, they don’t feel any real pressure to vote or get serious about conserving. It’s just way too easy to sink back into sloth and indifference once any one particular crisis passes.
The Polar ice melting, sea level rising, bees are dying, polar bears threatened, emergence of deadly bacteria in
strange habitats ……These are unusual observations and a few indications that somethings had gone wrong enough.
The imminent consequence is the destruction of earth life.
It would appear we have gone past scientific proofs and cannot now pretend that we don’t know the why of global warming. A global concern deserves a global solution.
My modest possible solutions are:
Step 1. Acknowledge the cause: Carbon Dioxide and related emmissions.
Step 2. Sensitize everyone on possible solution(s): Stopping carbon emmissions through legislations, develop/provide
alternative to energy sources, giving a time frame.
Step 3. Embark on a 2 tier solution:
a. Short Term: Intensify useage of solar and wind energy .[To power cars, industries…..] Both energy forms don’t produce carbon dioxide.
b. Long Term: Production of oxygen through aforestation to re-oxidize the ozone layer and tougher legislations against logging.
Step 4. Monitoring.
CAUTION: Nuclear energy will generate wastes that will not disintegrate quick enough and
error margins could lead to irreversible damages.It is not advisaeble
It’s not just a question of whether you believe or don’t believe in global warming. I find the anthropological perspective important to consider. The oldest cultuures in the world are superior to the modern, not the opposite. Hunters and gatherers were in balance with their environment. Their cultures were proven strategies for survial. From this perspective, the same cannot be said of Western industrial cultures. They are not in balance with their environment. They have not proven themseves as strategies of survial. For me that is the way forward. Every culture should try to put itself in balance with the environment. As Margaret Reed said, the cultures of the world are bueprints for how to survive. We are not superior with our technology. It is the opposite. But imagine a world where we are back in balance, a part of the ecoosytems again, not a threat to them.
why worry more about the climate when NIVEA will come up with a skin product that will adapt to the climate change.?
well.its true that in the last say 500 years,there has been a great change in our community due to mans invention of fuel driven machines,the problem is that man has not been disposing off his used fuel like GOD had stored it well inside the planet.and other more things too like plastic,nuclear waste etc.
i wouldnt expect learned Americans to bail out projects which are not environmental friendly,this would be a waste of their bailouts and also a sign that prophets are lacking in America.
TAMBUA,HAMISI,KENYA.
denying climate change is like denying you are growing older everyday. just like us how we take care of our bodies determines how well we will be when we grow old. its a fact that so far we have not taken care of our planet very well. if you dont take acre of yourself very well you cannot honestly expect to be health as you grow older.
ethan
zambia
hello whys,
the temperature is already at it boiling point and varies between 35 to 41 each day.so whoever denying that climate is not changing should come down here to khartoum to taste a bit of our heat then he/she will be convince without telling him/her of what is happening.
on the contrary man is the least problem to climate change because the world is under somebody control whom we do not actually know. i personally believed that man can neither protect nor destroy the earth but can seek for powers that are controlling it.no matter what we say or does,stiil the climatic havoc can deteriorate and it may even worsen more than we expect if it is intended to be that way.
Oil.
IGNORANCE
It is easy to deny the hand wringing variety of “viewgraph science” that is perpetrated on the public, passed off as the real thing. My question is, why are so many lay people so gullible? Why don’t they ask the obvious questions? Why the fervor to latch on to yet another religious formula?
People who now make a living of “climate change” spend an awful lot of time showing alarming statistics about temperatures and sea levels, an awful lot of time claiming that humans are to blame, but precious little time explaining why their supposed remedies are scientifically valid. I guess, cyncially, not a bad tactic. After all, contributions to their cause will mostly come from the gullible. Why bother with facts? Facts might confuse, reducing contributions.
Just look at this blog. People enjoy spouting their conspiracy theories, going on and on about the philosophy of denial, generally waxing poetic about any manner of tangential arguments, as long as they can avoid talking about the science. Almost like people have to “feel like they are doing something,” never mind whether they’re instead behaving like hamsters running in their wheel.
I’m not denying the climate is changing, as it always has. I am not saying that conservation is unnecessary, not in the least. In fact, wanton waste is appalling, and even more so when it is done by those who wring hands the most about climate change. But when I see the hand wringers claiming, for example, that solar activity has no effect on the climate, I smell profound ignorance. Or when I see all of the emphasis being placed on human-generated CO2 as the CAUSE of climate change, I smell disingenuity at its worst.
All of those who are so quick to latch onto this new religion should do some independent research. Not difficult. Just see if you can find out what fraction of CO2, in the daily CO2 exchange going on in the oceans and atmosphere, is attributable to human activity. And don’t be de-railed or confused by those who talk only about the increase in human-generated CO2 output. I’m saying, of the total CO2 exchanged in our ecosystem, what fraction is human-contributed?
Then ask yourselves, can this really be the CAUSE? Can the reduction of human-generated CO2 to zero have even a small effect? Could it be that all these hand wringers are barking up the wrong tree? Could it be that if humans are truly contributing in a big way to this phenomenon, we are conveniently ignoring the real cause?
The sun for sure has a huge impact on climate, and the sun will ultimately destroy this planet (as it turns into a red giant and burns earth into a crisp). To deny a solar contribution is silly beyond words. As to CO2, heavens, couldn’t they have picked a more likely candidate? Was this just the very first atmospheric gas that came to mind to those who are now defining their lives by this “cause”?
If people like to feel that they are doing “something,” my preference would be to concentrate on something meaningful. Something likely to make a difference.
George Monbiot bought himself a new CAR last year – he likes the convenience of just jumping in and driving to his destination.
Surprised nobody mentioned his motoring habits on the show.
This is Tosh! Absolute TOSH!
It has been proven that Global Warming is on the up and up – so what? All the planets in our solar system are warming up right now. After all, we live on a PLANET – who’s climate is ruled by the Sun and the stuff which is motion in the core of this planet and the global magnetic field.
This has nothing to do with Homo Sapiens activity. I have heard that human activity acounts for 3.1% of all co2 emmisions. The biggest contributor is the oceans, vegetation decomposition, solar activity, and the odd volcano.
This is a scam to get *US* to pay for it by blaming us for creating the problem and indirectly, after 17 years of trying, have finally figured out a way to tax air consumption.
I am getting tired of everyone jumping on the hysteria band wagon. Face it – it’s a *PLANET* and there is nothing we can do about it as it emerges out of the last ice age.
Steve
RE “” Just putting food on the table or trying to find a job has to take priority. “”
——————————————————————————————–
—————— Average person can’t be bothered with reducing their carbon footprint and what not when the greater world couldn’t care less about their well being.
Let’s not forget it is the big corporations, scientists, engineers, politicians and sheer mass of humanity that has given us the mechanisms coupled with the means of necessity to accelerate the natural warming cycle.
Sadly the poor folk with the smallest carbon footprint will be beaten down by this climate change. The history of the world is that the rich and powerful who have been the implementers of global warming will continue to hoard the best areas to live in relative luxury for as long as the global wars of rebellion are on hold so they can wage their wars of acquitions in relative security.
VictorK,
Humans are a giant cause of the speeding up of climate change. At this point arguing it is just like arguing with a “flat Earther”. We got to move on with the global policy changes yesterday.
As far as hunger goes, there are places in this world where million of people are destitute and living miraculous amounts of nourishment. Many others are dieing. They are not in the posh spotlight at the moment. 5 year from now people will look back and say, “oh why didn’t somebody help them back then.” There are incidental stories in the US of tent cities popping up in blue collar residential area. Our economic woes are a result of over population. Mass starvation as we can’t deliver aid is about to occur.
Saying that you haven’t personally experienced global warming is the same as standing on a country road, looking in both directions and say, “it looks flat to me. The Earth therefore must be flat.”
I think that we should not underestimate our ability to create changes in our climate and environment. However, even if we did nothing to have an impact changes would occur. I think your question is very “liberal” and when I first read it, it made me laugh.
In my opinion, we have far worse things to think about!
I believe all major problems on this planet are caused by overpopulation. My reason being that nobody has yet answered this question: “What aspect of human existence would not be improved by a reduction in population?” It was my intention to tabulate many things that would improve, but I will limit it to global warming.
We are told that industry is emitting too much carbon dioxide (CO²). Let us look at the facts. Currently, industrial output of CO² is eight billion tonnes annually. Output from humans breathing is approximately sixty billion tonnes. Due to population growth, this figure increases by one billion tonnes per year.
I find it difficult to believe that our “experts” do not know these facts. Do not trust them. They must have a hidden agenda. The women can save the world by only having a maximum of two children. There you have it.
I hope I am wrong. Please check the figures.
We humans have a tremendous capacity to fool ourselves. “Still a man he hears what he wants to hear, (for a variety of physical, social, and psychological reasons), and disregards the rest.” S&G
Objectivity and adequate perspective is so rare we tend to elevate Scientists and Scholars, (and other Experts). Unfortunately this does not guarantee sufficient objectivity or adequate perspective.
‘Group Think’, is a powerful force, even among our best and brightest. [Remember recent geopolitical and economic events.]
Rather than keeping score on; how many on one side or the other – even among the best and brightest – we need to see the fair minded, and EXPERT, scrutinizing of the arguments of the MOST CREDIBLE skeptics.
Climate change is really a serious issue. Every individual need to think about it and do their best to save the our live plant from turning dead. The big heads of the country have bigger roles in this.
Climate change is really one of the sensational issue that injures our finger. I can easily recognize people discussing about the impact of over population on climate change. But, we should keep in mind onething that, we cant reduce the population that had been already generated. Why cant we try out some good methods to convert the carbondioxide gas to reduce the atmospheric temperature. already the amount of consumption of Co2 by plants is highly increasing. Its time for us to awake. Its time for the science to glow. Its time for the biotechnologist to produce hybrid plants that convert carbondioxide. Its time for microbiologist to improve microbial characteristis to convert carbondioxide. its time for the physicist to utilize those co2 to run other process. LET SCIENCE ROCKS THE WORLD BEING AT ITS PEAK. Its time for the scientist to awake and work in the environmental issues instead of using the taxpayers money in various other projects.
Climate change is really one of the sensational issue that injures our finger. I can easily recognize people discussing about the impact of over population on climate change. But, we should keep in mind onething that, we cant reduce the population that had been already generated. Why cant we try out some good methods to convert the carbondioxide gas to reduce the atmospheric temperature. already the amount of consumption of Co2 by plants is highly increasing. Its time for us to awake. Its time for the science to glow. Its time for the biotechnologist to produce hybrid plants that convert carbondioxide. Its time for microbiologist to improve microbial characteristis to convert carbondioxide. its time for the physicist to utilize those co2 to run other process. LET SCIENCE ROCKS THE WORLD BEING AT ITS PEAK. Its time for the scientist to awake and work in the environmental issues instead of using the taxpayers money in various other projects.
Banks v Earth ?
Take the money spent on reviving greedy bankers and our World’s energy could have been secure with investment in sun/wind/geothermal energy.
When the bankers are dead our planet will be dying.
What do we want ? A thriving ecosystem or corrupt financiers?
I would pay for a healthy Earth!
much of the blame must go to the broadcasters and media corporations; for instance, the BBC did not exactly lead on reporting the Copenhagen conference, and often one is left with the impression that appeasing the establishment is more important to the BBC than anything else, really.
Climate change is gaining more importance in today’s world but few are of the opinion that there is no concept called climate change but it is a rumour created by environmentalists just to create panic. Scientists are working hard to restore the existing climate for the next generation. Future research may convey results regarding this issue.
Climate is one of the sensational issue that injures or finger. I can easily recognize people saying over population is the due cause of climate change.B ut, we should also remember that we cant do anything to the population that had been generated already and hence i feel that its the time for science to change the condition. already the consumption of co2 by plants were highly increasing and this leads to a great disaster. i think its the time biotechnologist to produce hybrid plants that can utilize co2 to a maximum extent. its time for microbiologist to produce a strain that can convert co2 to other useful gases. its time for scientist to focus on environmental issues rather than other issues. let science rocks the world n let the tax payers money get its worth.
yes i too accept
Climate change is one which will affect every living creatures in the world and human beings are not exception to it. It will affect every one, whether they contribute to it or not. Now, we have to be aware that if we are not taking anusteps, the sufferer will be we and our generation only. For those 7% of people who are refusing to believe the climate change I like to say one thing, if you are refusing it you should tell the reason for the change in the environment rather than opposing just like that. The issue is not whether the climate change is by natural process or man made, it is that there is a change and also there are evidence fot it. My view is, instead of researching who contributed more, its better to try to find a solution for it.
hllo evry boy is talkng about climate hange but nobody has found a solution for this.let us find a solution and get our mother free from this problems
The climate has always been changing naturally.
As yet, despite billons of $’s being wasted on taxpayer-funded (of course) “research”, an anthropogenic climate signal has not been detected.
Average global temperature has risen a mere 0.68ºC over the 150 years to the end of last century, and this appears to be a totally natural, and not unprecedented variation.
Now is that a reason for all the hysteria, lies and scaremongering currently going on?
I think not.
Oh by the way, I resent being called a “denier”.
I believe a “skeptic”, as all good scientists are, is the correct term.
To quote your article …
“Yet as the evidence continues to mount – why as individuals and countries are we failing to take significant action?”
Pray tell what evidence?
Why should we take any “action” when none is required?
I am not aware of any scientific evidence for a coming climate apocalypse aside from Hansen’s incorrect predictions.
The average global temperature has increased a mere 0.68ºC over 150 years, and the last ten years have been years of global cooling.
The evidence from solar cycles points to an imminent deep freeze and yet the disciples of this new-age religion scream “global warming”
It seems that the lunatics have taken over the asylum.
What this weary old world needs is to bring about a state of affairs wherein we can’t see the carbon for the trees.
I am not a scientist but it seems to me that there is really no proof at all that the climate is being effected by humans. Is there proof that if there were no humans the climate would not be doing the exact thing same thing right now as it is with us here?
Is there any reason to believe that if we spend trillions of dollars to drastically lower carbon release into the atmosphere that we still won’t have climate change? I am sure that there is evidence of warming and cooling of global temperatures throughout the earth’s geological history. How did these occur without us humans here to cause them?
Is it not possible that some natural event such as a volcano or even an asteroid or a comet could dump more carbon into the atmosphere in a few weeks than humankind has since we climbed out of the trees and started burning things?
It seems to me we would be better served spending our time and effort learning to live with and adapt to climate changes, that will occur no matter what we do, than to try and stop one potential cause for climate change. As a long term goal reducing our carbon output is surely a good idea, but doing it at the expense of everything else seems to me a waste of money and effort with dubious benefits.
One reason, Not all but many of the deniers work for large corporations. If they’re scientists the corporate bosses pay them lots of money to cover lab costs, research and more. Why wait for grants to come thru when you instantly get the money this way?
I actually saw a U.S. neocon pollster on a CBC-TV documentary doing what was essentially corporate propaganda to try and stop those who believe climate change is real. Then, at the end of it, he admits on camera that yes, I’m doing this only for the money.
Is there any chance the Stateside MSM would EVER show this? Not a chance in hell.
I believe all major problems on this planet are caused by overpopulation.
Brian W. Binderman, my hat is off for you .and people like you,who con be vocal even against the religious believes.This earth is not only ment for Homosapians but for all life form .The encrochment of others habitat is perhaps the greatest sin,and God will punish all those who will commit it.
It’s normal too think along in the side of watching at the importance of good air to breathe and a better environment for human beings but one thing is true developped countries will never agree to retire from the race to technology advancement, big industries and factories are still growing in developped countries and yet the global warming is not seemingly a solavable problem, the fate is even tragic in the coming decades as per the declarations of researchers, my point of view on this matter could be suggesting or sensatizing the countries to set up some policies with a view to compensate the disaster in planting trees, ’cause scientifically speaking countries will nerver cease polluting unless they convene to stop thinking about development.
We have seen the effects of catrina, the fires in the states, flooding elsewhere, ice receeding in the artic etc… what else the world wants to see? let europe and lushy parts of the USA turn into desert and more attention will be paid
There are still a few vocal scientists who voice skepticism, and the Fox News crowd legitimizes these people and makes it sound like they are more numerous than they are. George Bush didn’t help and Big Oil still has a lot of money riding on dirty energy. I think that the tide is turning, but I’m not sure the tipping point model fits here.
Andy Greene
Green Living Tips for Rednecks
It is no coincidence that as the globalization of industrialized developments gathers pace fuelled by unprecedented technological advances, global warming increases exponentially!
Practically every aspect of our lives involves using resource that pollute. We are addicted to pollutants, like the smoker who has been told to moderate or the habit will be terminal, we promise, then relapse through lack of willpower and clear understanding.
Alternative energy promotion; plus the introduction, of fuel efficient eco-friendly hybrid automobiles; only scan the surface of a deeper broader 150 year pollution trail, that Keelhauling our planets resource has left in it’s wake, like, rapid global development; global land usage change, exponential fossil fuel usage, and aggressive adverse C o2 emission levels.
This is a big ship for turning, It took 150 years of unbridled resource usage, to over-heat our planets Eco system; we cannot change direction with a quick tug on the wheel.