Re: No need to panic ?
 

You are confusing marketing and science

Planting a tree when flying is a marketing scheme. Aimed at getting you to buy the flight by playing on your conscience, pun intented ;)

It won't help the environment one bit because you'll find that the company actually hasnt planted an extra tree in the world anyway. They normally just sponsor tree planting schemes that would have taken place anyway.

Yes I always question the status quo. I have questioned and concluded that global warming/climate change is happening

However, I do not agree with the many of the measures governments and business promote, most of them are smokescreens and will make zero difference. Carbon offsetting and carbon taxes being a case in point

Btw, there is a gripe of mine that people rely on the media to tell them what to think. The media especially in the UK is terrible. It is sensationalist and deliberately misleading. If you want to really know what is going on then you need to go to more reliable sources, journals, global conferences, people and institutions that you know of as "credible"

Don't delegate your decision making to the media! If you really want to know about something then the info is out there. My professor at uni said to me that the key to being a great scientist isnt remembering lots of stuff, but knowing where to find the key information. The internet doesnt help in this respect because most info on the interent is misleading and out of context.

Re: No need to panic ?
 

Carbon Tax should be paid as is without any allowances other than normal tax allowances.
Carbon Tax Credits should not be discounted and sold on the open market.

Companies have turnovers of £/$/€ billions but pay less tax than the office cleaner.
This should be stopped and then see how countries suddenly find that their income takes a ride on the sky rocket.

imho

Re: No need to panic ?
 

There are 2 questions:

1. Is climate change due to warming caused by human activities happening?

2. If yes, what should be done about it?

The first one is not a matter of opinion or belief - it is either happening or it isn't and no amount of belief will change the fact. We are not entirely sure of the answer to this question although the majority of scientists are agreed that it is happening. It's actually not a terribly important question anyway because the same actions have to be taken whatever the answer.

The second question therefore is independent from the first. If the answer to the first is yes, then the only thing that can be done about it is to burn less fossil fuel as it is this activity which is causing the problem. But we have to do this anyway as it is obvious that at some point it is going to be exhausted and we are going to have to find alternatives. We might as well start now then which would have the added advantage of sorting out question 1 should the answer to it be yes.

Re: No need to panic ?
 

Actually you made a statement. You said, and I quote... "The whole terrestrial pollution debate needs a thread of its own, it has nothing to do with climate change."

The part of your statement that said "... it has nothing to do with climate change" led me to make my post, you can sort of see why I did... No?

Re: No need to panic ?
 

:rofl: Yes you have a point there.

Re: No need to panic ?
 

I will not answer the last section.

Re: No need to panic ?
 

Yes I can see why you jumped, thank you.

If you read stuff and don't ask questions especially as most of us are not experts you end up blindly believing one thing or another.

My position with climate change and whether it is man made or not is that co2 and methane are cited as the bad guys because over the last century or so man has been emitting them at a pace.

It has not been proven to me by anything that I have read or seen that there is a direct correlation between the increase in mean temperatures and the increase in co2/methane emissions. Just because they have both increased does not mean one caused the other. In fact there is some evidence that historically points to the increase in co2 levels follows a similar increase in global temperature and not the other way round.

Even with the increased levels of these two gases do they not still only represent a tiny proportion of the earth's atmosphere?

I am not unwilling to accept the common belief that this current episode of climate change is man made but I have not been convinced by the evidence I have seen so far.

Even if it is man made and down to emissions and we stop those emissions tomorrow would it not take decades for the earth to recover.

Surely the best plan would be produce electricity by cleaner methods whether it be hydro, wind, solar, wave or even, in the shorter term by increased nuclear generation. Electricity is needed by everyone from the poorest countries in the world to the richest, and is likely to continue that way for the foreseeable future.

We need to make alternate sources of electricity more reliable and more affordable or they will never be taken up in sufficient numbers to make a difference.

Re: No need to panic ?
 

Scientifically speaking, you are still pre-Aristotle :D

Although I do admire your commitment to understanding the issue

If I gave you a teaspoon of arsenic, you would die, even though the arsenic would only represent a tiny proportion of the molecules in your body

Ok bit of a inelequant example, but your logic isnt based on understanding

The key concept for climate change is the concept of equlibrium. Our whole environment is an equilibrium of various elements; liquids, gases and solids, all of which have different properties

Water, CO2 and methane has always been in the atmosphere where they act (not out of design, but "accidently" if you like) as reflectors of heat (radiation) to keep the earth warm. Without them earth would be too cold to support life

The amount of water, CO2 and methane in the atmosphere is now at record levels (as we know them), especially the latter two. So more heat is/will be being reflected back to earth

Now, remember that we are in equilibrium, everything effects everything else, although not immediately. Systems change and react to all kinds of things. However, increasing the amount of these molecules (all else being equal) will eventually warm the planet. This is scientific fact

It is also scientific fact that the extra CO2 and methane in the atmosphere is due to human activity

What is up for discussion, is exactly when the equilibrium will shift and cause significant global warming (or climate change, as we are in equilibrium the effects may not warm to begin with, depending on the composition of other elements in the atmosphere e.g. imigine if there were lots of SO2 in the atmosphere from volcanic eruptions, it is difficult to model how this would counterbalance (or not) the additional CO2 and methane)

The scientists who chalenge climate change, dont even speak about proportions of these molecules. Very crudely they look at historic data and say "in my opinion the earth is not warming" or "the climate change is just following historic climate cycles". In some respect, they are correct, but they are ignoring the elephant in the room i.e. the changing proportion of CO2 and methane in the atmosphere

We KNOW this will cause trouble we are just not sure exactly when and by how much. Many reliable scientists have plenty of evidence showing that we are already feeling the effects. The danger is that once the equilibrium shifts to the "warming" effects, we will see brusk warming that will change life as we know it within a very short space of time (perhaps 50-100 years). Once we get to this phase, it will almost be too late to do anything about it, as we will be fighting against the equilibirum. Any actions we take then may take 100-200 years to be felt

Does this make it clearer for anyone?

Re: No need to panic ?
 

My thoughts as well & here is an interesting snippet.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/334/6060/1261

Re: No need to panic ?
 

Yes thank you. Apart from what you have written in your last post I have seen some stuff today about other co2 emitters, plants and animals being neutral as the planet absorbs their emitted co2 more or less as it has done for thousands of years. Whereas the man made stuff is just one way traffic.

I am still not wholly convinced but this is the first time I have been confronted with the equilibrium concept.

One thing is still a bit puzzling though is why mean temperatures decreased during the four decades post ww2 when presumably man made co2 emissions will have increased significantly.

Re: No need to panic ?
 

You might want to read the whole article.