are there still any climate sceptics out there??? It's only 5mins...

[EDOldie]

Sean you are still missing the point. This is more than about the environment.

[SeanMacGabhann]

so.. educate me

(but leave out the paranoia about "governments" and "the man" lying to us")

[EDOldie]

Third runway.

[SeanMacGabhann]

???

What - third runway = A Good Thing? A Bad Thing?

What?

The whole climate sceptic debate GLOBALLY comes down to something like the "third runway"??

What am I missing?

[EDOldie]

AhgggggggggHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What do you think? Or are you not allowed to anymore?

[SeanMacGabhann]

oh I have an opinion - but you are the one saying climate isn't the point

I'm asking you to elucidate a bit further

[EDOldie]

This is the whole point. If you dare to challenge the accepted wisdom then you risk being ridiculed and bullied. There seems no room for an questioning of the climate issue.

[SeanMacGabhann]

how is mentioning or not mention the third runway being bullied?? Where has bullying come into it?

[EDOldie]

Oh Sean, not by you. It just seems to me that the whole subject is so taboo that no one can put forward an alternative view that quetions the perceived view. Bullied by the state? but that sounds paranoid.

There is no question that the climate is changing but if you dare to say that it might not just be man that is changing it you are treated as a denier and we all know what the tone of that accusation is

[SeanMacGabhann]

I thought I had already said that the argument about whether it's man-made or not is largely...... moot

I mean, fair play if you want to take on the vast majority of scientists who say it is - I bow to your superiour intellect and library of knowledge

But my point is so what? What do we do now. And throwing out whole posts which consist of "third runway" and suggesting that you are being bullied (no matter by who) suggests you are more concerned with.... the third runway and being bullied than talking about the matter at hand

[EDOldie]

It's not a moot point. There is still a great deal of debate about the causes. Some of the scientists do have a vested interest for instance,

Do I have to spell out the third runway argument? We are talking of destroying a community http://www.notrag.org/ in the name of the climate. It is complete hypocricy. Hello?

[SeanMacGabhann]

I still don't get the third runway thing - how are environmentalists FOR the the third runway. Did I miss a memo?

To destroy that community you would have to build that runway - this appears to be something the government is FOR and envionmentalist are agin. This does not mean the government has some monopoly on environmental issues.

it DOES mean that ANY government finds it hard to tell people used to cheap flights it may not be eternally possible. For the record I am against the third runway but against flight taxes. I favour flight rationing

[EDOldie]

The point of the third runway as proposed by (the Y on my keyboard is not working properly so these posts are taking forever) govt is to centralise flights in order to avoid more airports and airport expansion in other areas to save the environment (yess, I know).

I just hate seeing people being taken advantage of by cynical politicians and their hidden agendas

[SeanMacGabhann]

so more airports around London, by that logic, would be a Good Thing? The 6 or so London has isn't enough? (you can leave out the Y's* to make replies easier)

* and the wherefores - bad doom tish

[EDOldie]

V amusing. No airports sre ver bad things. The ver seroius point I m making is that this is not about the environment at all it's about politics. The don't give a flying about us the will use anthing the can to control us. PS thanks about the y's made it much easier.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Governments are not a separate species!!!

Look no y s !!

[Huguenot]

The approach of climate change deniers is largely to try and make it a political issue - because this is what their opposition is based on. Climate change deniers are politically against the large scale social solutions that would have to be engaged to address the problem.

For deniers, this means 'big' government and taxation - and they have an aversion to such ideas.

The only way they can address the issue is to deny that climate change exists on political grounds.

Climate change is a science, and whether guys like EDOldie can be bothered to educate themselves about where the 65m figure comes from does not define whether it's true or not.

The fact that this figure is overwhelming also doesn't mean it's not true. For the record the figure comes from the amount of water coming into the ocean system that is currently stored as ice on land. It will not melt instantaneously, it is one possible outcome of runaway warming in an accelerated feedback cycle. The timescale and actual temperature rises are under debate, but what's not under debate is whether it will happen at all.

Glaciers and icecaps are melting right now. To deny it in the face of photographic evidence is puerile.

The fact that most climate change deniers are ageing men speaks reams about the selfish motivations that they have in denying it exists. They are prepared to destroy the world to support their own greed, and won't live to see the consequences.

[EDOldie]

Ok Ok I'll come quietly, it's a fair cop but society is to blame.

Tthis is the problem once you start to put forward another point of view you are denounced as a heretic. A denier. Someone whose greed is above their concern for their fellow human beings. In fact I think I?ll change my name from EDOldie to pariah.

You cannot have a sensible debate about this without being shouted down or ridiculed as a flat earther. I?ve just been looking at the website, it is fascinating (nurse, the screens)

What if the planet does change on its own, would this explain Medieval warming or the Victorian Ice Age? As I understand it accurate weather records only go back 170 years or so. Is this long enough to make decisions that will impact on our children and children?s children? This planet, unless you are a creationalist, is a lot lot older and has gone through a great many changes.

Anyway, I don?t entirely disbelieve that we are the cause and I do try to take some responsibility and practical steps so I hope I?m not quite the villian, but I don?t like being told what to do by any slimey politician.

This, and particularly the Drawing Room, is a forum for debate.

[mockney piers]

There's a pretty good theory recently published the the medieval cooling period was actually due to the black death killing half the population of the world and all the farmland left flow and rclaimed by woodland and forest locked up carbon previously produced by agriculture (a much less significant impact than industry but still significant) with ensuing global cooling.

Again yes the world does gomthrouhj fluctuations but nothin has been seen like this and though muh of the detail and the predicitions of degrees of change and effects and rates may differ, the vastly overwhelming body of scientific investigaion points to man as the cause.

Deniers always have political economic or just plain bog standard self interest as their primary motive.

But as Sean points out, EVEN if the science does

turn out to be wrong, only long term benefits can come from becoming more sensible about using up natural resources and switching to renewable energies.

The alternative of the science being right and out doing nothing will be a stain on our generation. Many others may have contributed to carbon production but we were te first to have the opportunity to do

something about it.

It was only a few years ago any sort of environmentalist was dismissed as a tree hugging hippy. Now that the comcensus is that things are changing for the worse and it's out fault those who

put their heads in the sand or those who don't care don't like it.

Thing is it's an understandable position. Noone would happily take holidays if he hotels

had killed the previous inhabitants to make way, I'm sure most would boycott a shampoo if the factory poisoned the water around them and killed people of willy-nilly, deniers aren't evil people they just don't want to make the connect between our activites and the suffering of people. Non deniers do make the connct but still mostly take too many holidays, upgrade their mobile phones every year and own 5 flat screen tvs to replace their perfectly good CRT ones. Most of us are just as bad but accept that we do need to change as long as I don't have to use those awful lightbulbs darling.

Like the flat earthers it's fine to have a differing pointof view, but I'm not going to be consulting them about getting a sattelite in orbit or getting my factories raw materials shipped in from the other side of the world am I.

Or like the daily mash said, if you're coughing up blood don't take some arnica, formgods sake get yourself to a decent oncologist.

[EDOldie]

Er, MP it was medieval warming, not cooling, and a Victorian mini ice age. These things are not easily explained but are often trotted out by the deniers as total proof that man made global warming is a myth. I don't agree with that either but I do think we should be grown up enough to debate these things.

[mockney piers]

Aah i see that what I was referring to is called the little ice age apparetly and does coincide with the black death in the 24th century apparently ending the warmer period that preceded it. That does seem to tie both in to anthropogenic influences though.

I also agree that there should be debate. Science is by definition so.

The whole point of open publishing and peer review is to help eliminate mans worse tendencies to suppress data or ignore

contradictions. Individuals may do this but science as a whole will progress openly.

All things like previous changes are investigated by scientists and continue to be debated.

Some sceptics fall into this category. The problem wih deniers is they don't really debate.

They are like conspiracy theorists. They use any level of uncertaintly is proof to support their own theory without backing up their own theories with anything concrete.

It's always about absence of proof rather than explantion of evidence with them. Instead of trying to work out why there was a mini ice age they'll say that a previous climate change is proof that it just happens and current changes are the same. Any level of scientific debate becomes just another theory or even worth another belief attempting to imply that theories based on no evidence or previous theories found to have been faulty have equal validity.

Have you tried arguing with anyone who uses the phrase false flag? It's a pretty pointless task.

If deniers (rather than rigorous sceptics) applied peer reviewed scientific rigour then people might be more willing to engage, but they don't and they use disingenuous tactics to supress debate, usually in the name of keeping it open.

[EDOldie]

mockney piers Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Aah i see that what I was referring to is called

> the little

> ice age apparetly and does

> coincide with the black death inthe 24th century

> apparently ending the warmer period that preceded

> it. That does seem to tie both in to anthropogenic

> influences though.

>

It's probably me but I don't quite understand what you mean. My understanding of Medieval warming is that the world unexpectedly heated up over a five hundred year period followed by an equally unexpected mini ice age. I know this is cynically manipulated by sceptics and deniers but it is an interesting subject and does suggest that there may be more to this than we currently understand. The estimated world population was rising through both periods so I'm not sure how relatively minor fluctuations due to disease could effect this.

[mockney piers]

1 in 3 people killed is hardly a relatively minor fluctuation now is it and the cooling period lasted from 1300s to the 1800s so quite an impact. It's a relatively young theory so plenty of testing to be done on it.

[EDOldie]

Well the figures I saw show the estimated population of the world increase between 800 and 1300 by 140 million not decreasing by 33%. Between 1300 and 1800 it increased by 512 million. Again this is an estimate but I would have thought the upward trend is logical.

MP do I have the wrong end of the stick?

[mockney piers]

Read the comments of this article for all the worst aspects of the debate about the debate.

Also a pretty good indication about how damaging politicians lies are regardig something that actually Does matter.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/sunspots-do-not-cause-climate-change-say-scientists-1839867.html