Quote:
Originally Posted by echinosum
Unfortunately the environmental campaigners do overstate the case quite shockingly in some cases. But they have been doing that all the time, so no surprise there. But the current anti-AGW PR is strongly funded by the oil and heavy industrial lobby, and no surprise what they are up to. They are using the same pseudoscientific tactics as they used when they tried to discredit scientists telling us "tobacco is bad for you", "lead is bad for you" and "asbestos is bad for you". Of course the scientists were right. Why would the oil industry not campaign against a movement trying to restrain their output. Of course they will do that. So don't be fooled by them either.
But if we are neutral about it, and look to what scientists are telling us, then the scientific evidence for AGW is pretty incontrovertible. CO2 is a significant atmospheric insulator, demonstrable by experiments going back 150 years. How can a substantial increase in it not warm us up? Here's a bibliography unaffected by dodgy hacked email science and shrill greenpeace campaigners which will take you through it.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/What...l-warming.html
CO2 is a plant fertiliser. So are nitrates. What happens when you put too much nitrate on your fields? Yes it washes into the rivers and sea and creates toxic algal blooms and anoxic dead zones, and kills lots of fish. And we have to process it out of our water supply. The plant fertilisation effect won't take out all the CO2 of an instant. All the CO2 we put in the atmosphere will get washed out in the end. In fact only 40% of what we put out in a single year ends up in the atmosphere at the end of that year. Unfortunately it will take several hundred years to wash it all out, and in the mean time we are at risk of having cooked the place. Too much CO2 will change our climate, and that will be very inconvenient for people who will get flooded out or find they are now living in a desert. They will want to come and move to where you can live, which will be all very costly and frightening to the people who are already there. Think of CO2 reduction as insurance against this happening. CO2 will warm us up, it must do, though precisely how much is not quite clear, because the climate and biological systems are very complex. If it is worth buying flood insurance for your house, it seems to be worth buying climate change insurance for the planet.
Sorry you have been misled by the industrial lobby. |
Oh dear, the standard greens reply to a non believer.
Does it not occur to you that you might be being misled by business interests? for example:
As reported by Reuters: The head of the Asian Development Bank (ADP), Haruhiko Kuroda, warned governments that a failure to reach a climate deal in Copenhagen could lead to a collapse of the carbon market, which would hit efforts to deal with climate change make carbon traders very rich.
It helps of course to know that Mr Kuroda is best known in greenie circles for setting up the ADB Advisory Group on Climate Change – chaired by millionaire businessman Rajendra K. Pachauri, part-time chairman of the IPCC.
An interesting member of that Group is Dr Klaus Toepfer, Founding Director, Institute for Advanced Studies Climate, Earth System and Sustainability Sciences and former executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). And it was UNEP, of course, which set up the IPCC – which now has as its part-time chairman millionaire businessman Rajendra K. Pachauri.
One other member is professor Hironori Hamanaka, Chair, Board of Directors, Institute of Global Environmental Strategies (IGES). The IGES claims to be “a research institute that conducts pragmatic and innovative strategic policy research to support sustainable development in the Asia-Pacific region.” It will come as no surprise, therefore, to learn that the organisation works very closely with TERI, whose Director-General is millionaire businessman Rajendra K. Pachauri.
Yet another is Ms Huguette Labelle, also a Board Member of the UN Global Compact organisation, the very same UN to which millionaire businessman Rajendra K. Pachauri belongs. Hilariously, Ms Labelle is Chair of Transparency International, the global civil society organisation “leading the fight against corruption.” TI’s mission “is to create change towards a world free of corruption.”
The Board also includes professor Jeffrey D. Sachs, Director, The Earth Institute at Columbia University. This is the same Earth Institute which set up the Climate-Risk Center, inviting millionaire businessman Rajendra K. Pachauri to become its first Board Chairman.
One other interesting character is Dr. Emil Salim, an adviser to Indonesia’s President on environment and sustainable development issues. But he is also a member of APFED – the Asia-Pacific Forum for Environment and Development. One of its major activities is sponsoring the “Partnership Initiatives for Knowledge Network and Capacity Building” – in conjunction with TERI as a major partner, the Director General of which is millionaire businessman Rajendra K. Pachauri.
And last but not least is Professor Dadi Zhou, Director General (Emeritus) of the Energy Research Institute, which of course is otherwise known as TERI, the Director General of which is millionaire businessman Rajendra K. Pachauri.
No longer, it seems, does Rome hold a pre-eminent position. In this brave new world of climate change and sustainable development, all roads lead to Rajendra K. Pachauri.
Particularly interesting is Dr Pachauri’s connection with the “not-for-profit organisation” TERI. As we learn from its website, this used to stand for Tata Energy Research Institute, but was renamed in The Energy And Resources Institute in 2003. Nothing sinister, I’m sure, in its decision to play down the Tata connection; nor in the fact that Dr Pachauri makes no mention of the fact that he is funded by Tata on his website. And obviously, it is quite normal that TERI makes no disclosure on its website – or in its downloadable annual report (all you get is a pie chart with no figures on it) – about its financial arrangements: the pay scales of its 800 staff members and its esteemed director general are quite rightly hidden from the world’s prying eyes.[/quote]
Or
Last year Mr Gore's venture capital firm loaned a small California firm $75m to develop energy-saving technology.
The company, Silver Spring Networks, produces hardware and software to make the electricity grid more efficient.
The deal appeared to pay off in a big way last week, when the Energy Department announced $3.4 billion in smart grid grants, the New York Times reports. Of the total, more than $560 million went to utilities with which Silver Spring has contracts.
The move means that venture capital company Kleiner Perkins and its partners, including Mr Gore, could recoup their investment many times over in coming years.
Few people have been as vocal about the urgency of global warming and the need to reinvent the way the world produces and consumes energy as Mr Gore. And few have put as much money behind their advocacy and are as well positioned to profit from this green transformation, if and when it comes.
Critics, mostly on the political right and among global warming sceptics, say Mr. Gore is poised to become the world's first "carbon billionaire," profiteering from government policies he supports that would direct billions of dollars to the business ventures he has invested in.
To say nothing of his company GIM which was specifically established to take financial advantage of new technologies and solutions related to combating Global Warming. The Global Warming crowd has told us that just recently new science emerged confirming the alleged fact that Global Warming is man made. So, ask yourself, why is it that Gore set up his Green money machine three years ago back in 2004? Is it possible Gore knew what the science would say before it was out? And even if not, can an individual who stands to make millions from Global Warming really be trusted as an honest broker on that topic?