Electric cars, Emperor's new clothes???

Ardachaidh said:
[...]
There are 2 types of errors we can make when considering hypotheses: False positives and false negatives. ie there is anthropogenic global warming when there isn't or there is none when there is. If it's the first and we take the precautionary approach the worst that can happen is that we spend a lot of money and get a clean environment. If it's the second and we do nothing then we probably will become extinct. I favour the precautionary approach which will give us a better world in which to live. But I think politicians will do nothing, egged on by those who don't care, because they are too comfortable.

Happy Christmas (from a sunny Spain).
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If only it were that simple. In a nutshell, all this climate alarmism is a de-facto attack on Western industry. Pretty much all industry generates carbon dioxide or some description. If not from power then from the production of materials (e.g. coke to reduce iron ore to produce steel). Not only that, carbon dioxide is literally the gas of life; without it all life on this planet save extremophiles could not exist. To improve food production, growers currently flood greenhouses with additional CO2.

Make no mistake, climate change is real -- it's been an ongoing process for millions (if not billions) of years. However, anthropogenic climate change from carbon dioxide is a dangerous myth. If we take your precautionary approach, we hamstring industry, potentially don't discover the tech that could really save the world, and significant reduction in carbon dioxide could well result in mass starvation from reduced crop yields. Hopefully, politicians will see through the eco-mentalists and won't fall for their scare tactics.

That said, eco-mentalism has gone truly mad is some parts of the World. For example, in Spain the government subsidy for solar power was so high that it was worthwhile for some to run diesel generators at night to power lights to generate 'solar' power during the night!

Happy Christmas from (not so sunny) Cornwall.
 
GeoffL said:
If only it were that simple. In a nutshell, all this climate alarmism is a de-facto attack on Western industry. Pretty much all industry generates carbon dioxide or some description. If not from power then from the production of materials (e.g. coke to reduce iron ore to produce steel). Not only that, carbon dioxide is literally the gas of life; without it all life on this planet save extremophiles could not exist. To improve food production, growers currently flood greenhouses with additional CO2.

Make no mistake, climate change is real -- it's been an ongoing process for millions (if not billions) of years. However, anthropogenic climate change from carbon dioxide is a dangerous myth. If we take your precautionary approach, we hamstring industry, potentially don't discover the tech that could really save the world, and significant reduction in carbon dioxide could well result in mass starvation from reduced crop yields. Hopefully, politicians will see through the eco-mentalists and won't fall for their scare tactics.

That said, eco-mentalism has gone truly mad is some parts of the World. For example, in Spain the government subsidy for solar power was so high that it was worthwhile for some to run diesel generators at night to power lights to generate 'solar' power during the night!

Happy Christmas from (not so sunny) Cornwall.
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That's simply utterly wrong. I wish it was true. But it isn't.
 
Tidewatcher said:
Bear in mind the theory of "The Half Life of Facts" based on the same theory as the half life of nuclear isotopes. Every fact can have an estimated half life. The longest half life can be found in mathematics. The half life of medical fact is looked at as around ten to twenty years which means that around thirty percent of fact stated today will be disproved within ten to twenty years. The trick is knowing which thirty. Applying this to vehicles it looks as though ten years is around the mark as stated previously with the fact that diesels would save the planet ten years ago but will now destroy mankind. So how many of the "facts" concerning electric vehicles will be disproved in ten years or so? Bear in mind this is a fatuous theory in itself which has yet to stand the true test of time!
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And dont forget that 76.4% of facts are made up on the spot

K 🤥
 
GeoffL said:
Spoken like a true believer of the "Emperor's new clothes"; an ideology content to dash human progress on the altar of this new religion!
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Written (not spoken) by someone who understands the science and the statistical analyses.
As opposed to someone who rejects facts that don't match their preconceived set of ideas. Someone who has been fooled into believing utter rubbish.
Yes, CO2 levels have been far higher in the past. But only at a time when the planet wasn't suitable for humans to live on it.
Yes, CO2 levels go up and down due to natural causes, but the rise in the last 150 years has been vastly more than any natural variation.
You can believe the earth is flat if you like. You can believe it was made in seven days if you like. Most people will just quietly snigger and ignore it.
For goodness sake don't let your ridiculous delusions promote actions that will destroy the human race, though.
The planet will be fine: it's only the humans (and other lifeforms) on it that are at risk.
 
GeoffL said:
... and who believes that an effect can produce its own cause!
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So you can discern my belief in some ludicrous postulation you ascribe to me, as well as having a better scientific understanding than the climate scientists all across the world. You really are far too grand for this forum.
You'd be far better going to advise Donald Trump on science policy. He might not be sniggering at you. After all, you are an expert.
 
Children behave! You really need to kiss and make up. It is really hard to get unbiased data, and I'm sure in all camps there is a large amount of B.S.
For sure we have too many people. We are excellent at making products with very short life expectancy. People change products for no other reason than fashion. We all buy and do things that contribute to this problem. Some of the cure will result in mass unemployment. Many people take money for job that shouldn't exist. As long as corporations run this world we will be bullied into buying tat and technology will be withheld. BTW CO2 is heavier than air! ;)
 
in h said:
So you can discern my belief in some ludicrous postulation you ascribe to me, [...]
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Atmospheric CO2 concentration lags temperature variation. Even alarmist 'climate scientists' admit this (usually followed by some crass statement such as, "but that doesn't mean manmade CO2 doesn't contribute to the greenhouse effect"!). You say that manmade CO2 is the main cause of global warming. However, CO2 lags temperature, which means that CO2 is the dependent, not the determinant. We have a verified hypothesis for this: that solubility of CO2 reduces with temperature. Since CO2 is the dependent (i.e. the effect) and global temperature is the determinant (i.e. the cause of the changing CO2 levels), by believing that rising CO2 levels are responsible for global warming, you must indeed believe that an effect can somehow produce its own cause.

Now let's also look at your earlier claim that, "the rise [in CO2 level] in the last 150 years has been vastly more than any natural variation.":
Only 3% of CO2 in the atmosphere can be in any way attributed to anthropogenic causes, so that massive rise over the last 150 must be at least 97% natural. The current CO2 level is relatively low in archeological terms. So the rise is not "vastly more" and it's at least 97% natural. Ergo the claimed, "vastly more than any natural variation" is at best an exaggeration.
 
Sorry, but your statements don't bear scrutiny. You are deluding yourself. You can't add untrue clauses into a statement, then rebut the statement on the basis of the bits you added.
 
However, CO2 lags temperature, which means that CO2 is the dependent, not the determinant.
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CO2 has lagged temperature in past ice ages when the increase in temperature was due to other causes. That doesn't mean that an artificial increase in CO2 can't also cause a rise in temperature. It's just a situation that hasn't occurred in pre-human times.

See this article in New Scientist, for example. And it was debunking this story 12 years ago. The world has moved on since then and the evidence has only become ever more convincing.

But I am intrigued at another level, because conspiracy theories fascinate me...

For you to believe that climate change is a hoax, even now, presumably means you think that the hoax is orchestrated in some way, such that a majority of scientists have an incentive to believe this rather inconvenient theory. Let's face it, we'd all like it to be a myth! Whom do you think is behind this global conspiracy, and what do they have to gain from it? And how have they arranged this massive deception of experts around the world?

Sorry, everyone - I'd much rather talk about electric cars :)
 
2cv said:
Maybe it isn’t a conspiracy, merely scientists agreeing on something which turns out to be wrong and in doing so causing untold damage to world economies. There are lots of examples of accepted science later proved to be wrong.
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Yes, but in those cases, better evidence came along to replace or extend the existing theories. The earlier ideas were prevalent because they were the best or only explanation available at the time.

So, yes, it is certainly possible that one day we will discover that the dramatic rise in temperature since the industrial revolution is not the result of human activity, but anyone postulating that has to come up with a better explanation for why it is happening. At the moment, the anthropogenic explanation is the one that's overwhelmingly prevalent, based on the evidence available.

If you believe, though, that there is more convincing evidence available now and scientists are choosing to ignore it, despite all the vested interests who would be delighted to fund such research, and all the people in the world who would be delighted with that outcome, then you need to have another explanation of why that would be so on such a large scale. Hence my assertion that Geoff's belief must also imply some kind of conspiracy that overrides these factors.
 
quentinsf said:
Yes, but in those cases, better evidence came along to replace or extend the existing theories. The earlier ideas were prevalent because they were the best or only explanation available at the time.

So, yes, it is certainly possible that one day we will discover that the dramatic rise in temperature since the industrial revolution is not the result of human activity, but anyone postulating that has to come up with a better explanation for why it is happening. At the moment, the anthropogenic explanation is the one that's overwhelmingly prevalent, based on the evidence available.

If you believe, though, that there is more convincing evidence available now and scientists are choosing to ignore it, despite all the vested interests who would be delighted to fund such research, and all the people in the world who would be delighted with that outcome, then you need to have another explanation of why that would be so on such a large scale. Hence my assertion that Geoff's belief must also imply some kind of conspiracy that overrides these factors.
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There is a better explanation for why it [global warming] is happening. The warming event we are currently in is the latest Bond event and it's following pretty much the same pattern as previous events, which were entirely pre-industrialisation.

Of course, one of the biggest myths about climate change is that there is a dramatic rise in temperature. Take a look at this YouTube article, in which this graph appears:
heidiCullen.jpg
The alarmist concerned chose a low point to claim a dramatic rise in temperature. More usual seems to be alarmists choosing 1992 as a starting point, which gives an even more dramatic apparent rise. However, widen the range a bit and it becomes apparent that temperatures are actually lower than they were in the mid-1930s and that we're actually in a stable period.

Now to how much of this 'dramatic temperature rise' is due to anthropogenic global warming (AGW): Last year, Finnish Scientists calculated the maximum temperature rise that could be attributed to AGW, and it's only 0.01°C. This is within the margin of measurement error -- i.e. it's insignificant. AFAICT, those scientists used the IPCC's own data in these calculations.

Currently, anyone who puts the lie to AGW gets cut off from the scientific community. Even national treasures, like David Bellamy (who considers his career was ended due to his stance on AGW), get this treatment. It's always been this way among the scientific community, even though they're supposed to be objective and impartial: Galileo was found guilty of heresy when he put forward his support for heliocentricity. Just like today's "climate change heretics", he didn't have the "correct opinion". When Newton published his paper on the nature of light, many scientists of the Royal Society launched attacks on Newton. Einstein also was met with derision when he predicted gravitational lensing until Sir Arthur Eddington observed this phenomenon during a solar eclipse. Any paper that goes against "currently perceived wisdom" won't get peer-reviewed and work towards such theories won't get funding.

In the meantime, just as those who supported geocentricity invented non-existent orbitals to explain a flaw (retrograde planetary motion) in their model, the IPCC have added evermore complexity to their climate modelling. Just as solar system dynamics got a lot simpler once heliocentricity was accepted, climate modelling gets much simpler once you accept that CO2 concentrations depend on, rather than cause, temperature changes.

So, who benefits from fake AGW? We can start with the thousands (millions?) whose jobs depend on AGW: the IPCC, all those whose work includes efforts to 'combat climate change'. Fossil fuels are a finite resource (some years ago, I saw a paper that claimed we couldn't raise global temperature by 2°C even if we burned every kilogram of fossil fuel on the planet). To make the most money from a dwindling resource, the price per unit must rise -- which is more acceptable if that resource is demonised. Governments are happy with this as they then have an excuse to increase taxes -- i.e. their own share of the pie. This also means that alternative "green" technologies get pushed. Scared by the alarmism, governments et al. make additional funding available for the "fight against climate change". Just follow the money! Of course, power and control is another driver. Note that all this doesn't take overt conspiracy; it just takes human nature.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings. I'll take this opportunity to wish all Motorhomers a Happy New Year.
 
GeoffL said:
There is a better explanation for why it [global warming] is happening. The warming event we are currently in is the latest Bond event and it's following pretty much the same pattern as previous events, which were entirely pre-industrialisation.

Of course, one of the biggest myths about climate change is that there is a dramatic rise in temperature. Take a look at this YouTube article, in which this graph appears:
View attachment 52294
The alarmist concerned chose a low point to claim a dramatic rise in temperature. More usual seems to be alarmists choosing 1992 as a starting point, which gives an even more dramatic apparent rise. However, widen the range a bit and it becomes apparent that temperatures are actually lower than they were in the mid-1930s and that we're actually in a stable period.

Now to how much of this 'dramatic temperature rise' is due to anthropogenic global warming (AGW): Last year, Finnish Scientists calculated the maximum temperature rise that could be attributed to AGW, and it's only 0.01°C. This is within the margin of measurement error -- i.e. it's insignificant. AFAICT, those scientists used the IPCC's own data in these calculations.

Currently, anyone who puts the lie to AGW gets cut off from the scientific community. Even national treasures, like David Bellamy (who considers his career was ended due to his stance on AGW), get this treatment. It's always been this way among the scientific community, even though they're supposed to be objective and impartial: Galileo was found guilty of heresy when he put forward his support for heliocentricity. Just like today's "climate change heretics", he didn't have the "correct opinion". When Newton published his paper on the nature of light, many scientists of the Royal Society launched attacks on Newton. Einstein also was met with derision when he predicted gravitational lensing until Sir Arthur Eddington observed this phenomenon during a solar eclipse. Any paper that goes against "currently perceived wisdom" won't get peer-reviewed and work towards such theories won't get funding.

In the meantime, just as those who supported geocentricity invented non-existent orbitals to explain a flaw (retrograde planetary motion) in their model, the IPCC have added evermore complexity to their climate modelling. Just as solar system dynamics got a lot simpler once heliocentricity was accepted, climate modelling gets much simpler once you accept that CO2 concentrations depend on, rather than cause, temperature changes.

So, who benefits from fake AGW? We can start with the thousands (millions?) whose jobs depend on AGW: the IPCC, all those whose work includes efforts to 'combat climate change'. Fossil fuels are a finite resource (some years ago, I saw a paper that claimed we couldn't raise global temperature by 2°C even if we burned every kilogram of fossil fuel on the planet). To make the most money from a dwindling resource, the price per unit must rise -- which is more acceptable if that resource is demonised. Governments are happy with this as they then have an excuse to increase taxes -- i.e. their own share of the pie. This also means that alternative "green" technologies get pushed. Scared by the alarmism, governments et al. make additional funding available for the "fight against climate change". Just follow the money! Of course, power and control is another driver. Note that all this doesn't take overt conspiracy; it just takes human nature.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings. I'll take this opportunity to wish all Motorhomers a Happy New Year.
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Piffle backed by meaningless graphs. That chart is of the maximum temperature in July and August in the US. Not a meaningful measure by any stretch of the imagination. There is every likelihood that climate change will reduce peak summer temperatures by increasingly unstable weather.
People who use such ludicrously selected data to support their case are demonstrating its weakness, not its strength.
I'm not a climate scientist. I have to defer to people who have real expertise in the field. I know enough to recognise false arguments, piled on misleadingly selected data to attempt to prove the untrue.
Yes, there are many many people making millions out of fossil fuels, and they are investing some of that into promoting the twaddle you are parroting.
That doesn't make it true.
 
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