Almost Canadian

There was a very large advertisement by Bill Bell in today's Calgary Herald. It is here: Global Warming Caused by Human-Made CO2?I appreciate that he may be a hired gun and. It is possible to obtain a copy of his article by emailing him at billbell at nucleus dot com. I have written his email like this to avoid spambots.

Some may recall that Novo and I had a minor debate about this via PM a short time ago.

I have no particular dog in this fight, but I would like to be able to reach an informed opinion on the matter. We all know that Mr. Gore's Inconvenient Truth contained too many lies for it to be credible and that all the scientists that state that man's actions do not really affect global warming are immediately labelled as loons. Where do you all stand on this? If you have a position one way or the other, I would be very interested in seeing the evidence upon which you have based your position.

I suspect that most will point to the reports of the IPCC.

Mr. Bell and others attack the IPCC's reports with vigour and it is not easy to summarize their objections here.

I have no idea if either party is correct but, if there are people on here that can point me in the correct direction, I would be very pleased to hear from them.

Tangram

How would we know you had a debate by "private" message ? The clue is in the name

Personally I'm undecided.

London Mike

Read Monbiot's 'Heat'. All of the credible data and persuasive arguments are nicely articulated in that book.

It's so last year to be a sceptic. Anybody with any brain cells at all knows that this is for real.

Almost Canadian

It started off on a thread and, IIRC, Novo indicated he had PM'd me. Iaink was a little upset, as he wanted to play

And that's my position as well. As I explained to Novo, without knowledge of whether the arguments are credible (requiring knowledge of things I know nothing about), it is more than a tad difficult to come to an informed position.

Almost Canadian

There are a lot of senior scientists around the world (not just from the US) that disagree with you. Do all of them have no brain cells.

What do you say about the fact that the IPCC's models have been proven to be inaccurate?

jimf

There does seem to be an industry with a vested interest advancing the climate change cause now so it's difficult to take statements from that special interest group at face value. The USA and China have 100s years worth of coal to use up so it doesn't really matter what anyone else does anyway.

Novocastrian

AC, bugger off you pathetic troll.

London Mike

If there are, they have vested interests too. There's an entire sceptic industry bankrolled by corporations and politicians.

Lord Vader

Well, regardless of whether or not human made c02 will cause a catastrophic unnatural change in climate for the worse, the lame crap going on with things like Kyoto and Copenhagen are going to do jack all about it.

The politicalness and the exchange of money and carbon tax credit BS and other schemes derived in Western Europe have taken over. It is not about saving the planet anymore. I read an article the other day that mentioned that Canada's c02 output has been declining over the last few years, yet c02 parts per million in the Earth's atmosphere has been increasing faster than ever. Don't know who could be responsible for that, but the nitwits banging on about Kyoto and Copenhagen don't seem to mind if some places do it more than others. I am sure the Earth doesn't mind either. The Earth is very sensitive about where the C02 is coming from more than if the sum total is increasing or not.

Almost Canadian

I see that once again you revert to tactics more suited to the playground.

Please avoid the name calling and, if you have nothing to add to the debate, please feel free to ignore it.

Almost Canadian

I accept that some have vested interests but I also accept that, as with any scientific debate, there are different opinions. I take it you do not?

Are you able to respond to the comment I made about the IPCC's modeling? Are you able to confirm that any of the assertions made in the article are incorrect? I am not on either extreme of this debate, I am merely trying to become better informed.

Novocastrian

^^ Here, you'll enjoy this.

http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/p67.htm

MikeUK

The so called senior scientists are often grant hunting, many could be called adequate in their field, for what its worth my title at work is senior scientist..
If I needed a grant today, I know big oil will cough up loads if I could even hint at an error in the IPCC data, and there’s so much data that finding some that’s incorrect would just take some time, the bad news and any scientist and most kids with an ‘A’ level would know the bulk of that data is solid.. doesn't stop you publishing though......

You do realize that a bit of press in the media is a real good way to help get your next grant….

And let’s assume that the moral distribution curve is about the same for scientists as it is for the rest of the population, does the number of dissenting voices seem about right???

Think about the number of doctors that still believe in homeopathy today, which was also proven to be a crock of excrement beyond doubt several years ago, every field has people that will attempt to make money off the naïve or support a vested interest

Almost Canadian

I don't dispute there are different views and, as I said in my opening post, I accept that some can have "hired gun" status on both sides of the dispute.

So I ask, once again, can you, with your senior scientist background, inform me, one of the non science member of the ignorant masses, provide me with appropriate arguments and evidence that what he is saying in the article is BS. Despite what you may think, I would like to become better informed and I would like to know whether what the sceptics are saying is hogwash or has some merit. Discovery ran a programme that was arguing the very same things recently. I accept that there is a mass of data out there. I simply do not know where to look for it.

To summarize we are told that, to give just a few examples:

The earth is warming and, soon, it will reach a point from which there is no return:
The polar ice caps are melting; and
Sea levels are rising.

This is all the result of man made CO2

The sceptics appear to be saying:

The earth has been cooling for some time;
The size of the polar ice sheets did reduce for some years, but are now increasing in size; and
Sea levels have not increased significantly and are now decreasing.

Man made CO2 is not responsible. Any increase is the result of natural cycles and how can we explain much higher levels of CO2 in times gone by when man did not put out any real CO2?

I appreciate that the above is simplistic and, as I have said, I have no real position as I haven't read widely enough.

MikeUK

The earth is warming and, soon, it will reach a point from which there is no return:
This one is the key element up for debate as its the point of “no return” its is based on several models and there is some real issues about where the point of no return is on the scale, but a runaway sytem is a real risk as C02 levels rise

The polar ice caps are melting; and this is happening, the northern passage across the top of Canada is expect to be properly open within a few years, polar bear are having problems

Sea levels are rising. yes they are its measurable

For the skeptics
The earth has been cooling for some time; well that true it’s been cooling ever since it was formed, but it also has regular but cyclic input from the sun that means the there is some natural variation, which some skeptic like to cling to, then again the solar cycles have been d for over 600yrs and it relatively well understood too

The size of the polar ice sheets did reduce for some years, but are now increasing in size; and as far I I’m aware the ice sheets are melting, shipping lane are being adjusted for the increase icebergs, I put this information down to BS an the poorly educated skeptics, not the scientists with differing view points

Sea levels have not increased significantly and are now decreasing. never heard this one, it also would tie into the above


Man made CO2 is not responsible. Any increase is the result of natural cycles and how can we explain much higher levels of CO2 in times gone by when man did not put out any real CO2? this one can be a fun area to play in because its not just CO2 that impacts global warming, so does methane and that’s all natural most of the time, the human industrialized farming though has increased the amount of this natural gas that is being put into the atmosphere, and any increase in temperature due to CO2 will help thaw out arctic tundra that will then increase the release of locked up methane speeding up the warming, and if we get warm enough we also have huge deposits of naturally formed methane locked up on the sea bed that could get relased further speeding up the warming ( all natural sourced)