The weather

[Mungo]

I’m always intrigued by the idea that human induced climate change is a giant scam to generate money.

I really don’t follow the logic: all the industrial, economic and behavioural restrictions demanded in response to climate change are expensive, to everyone involved. There is considerably more money to be made by NOT reacting to climate change.

The more specific idea that it’s a scam perpetrated by the renewables sector is also an interesting one. Assume climate change IS a hoax. What’s the worst outcome? We invest in developing new technology, and a decade or two down the line, we’re no longer reliant on depleting fossil fuels heavily sourced from regimes that pose strategic problems, while living in much better insulated houses? I struggle to see how that’s a bad outcome.

 

[Taff]

15000 years ago the North American and European ice shelf melted, no v8 or industry, just a natural occurance. As to rising temperatures , we now carry out more temperature reading than ever , in more places than ever, and more accurately, it has risen 0.18 C every decade, since 1980,

 

[TringSaint]

I‘m not denying climate change and I believe that we should have as little impact as possible on the planet while were here, what I don’t believe is that a series of knee jerk reactions to be implemented on a piecemeal basis by a minority of the population of the planet will have any effect except to make that section of the population poorer.
We can’t change the weather back to what it was, because we haven’t defined what we want and neither the weather or the climate is stable.
Even if we do initiate a downward temperature trend, we have no way of regulating it and holding the temperature at the desired level.
The climate has always see sawed from hot to cold and it most likely always will.

Ok, I can understand your point there, but let me give you a scenario to consider.

Let’s say you live on a street and there are 100 houses. 70 of them are well kept with nice front and rear gardens, no rubbish - you know, a typical house (yours is one of these)
The remaining 30 (including the two biggest houses on the street) are scruffy. Rubbish in the gardens, grass waist high, feral dogs/ kids, cars in bricks, etc.

So what do you do. Do you keep your house in the way you like it and try to convince those with the scruffy houses to tidy up a bit, or do you throw your arms up in the air and let your garden go to ruin?

You can’t make everyone follow your example, but if you don’t set an example in the first place then there is nothing to follow!

 

[Dunwaters]

Ok, I can understand your point there, but let me give you a scenario to consider.

Let’s say you live on a street and there are 100 houses. 70 of them are well kept with nice front and rear gardens, no rubbish - you know, a typical house (yours is one of these)
The remaining 30 (including the two biggest houses on the street) are scruffy. Rubbish in the gardens, grass waist high, feral dogs/ kids, cars in bricks, etc.

So what do you do. Do you keep your house in the way you like it and try to convince those with the scruffy houses to tidy up a bit, or do you throw your arms up in the air and let your garden go to ruin?

You can’t make everyone follow your example, but if you don’t set an example in the first place then there is nothing to follow!

Neither, I sell up and move.
“ he who washes an asses head loses both his time and his soap”.
The one size fits all climate strategy is simply not going to work and I strongly object to having it forced down my throat as Holy writ when it is seriously scientifically flawed.

 

[TringSaint]

Neither, I sell up and move.
“ he who washes an asses head loses both his time and his soap”.
The one size fits all climate strategy is simply not going to work and I strongly object to having it forced down my throat as Holy writ when it is seriously scientifically flawed.

But if you apply that to countries, where do you move to? The moon or mars?

And there isn’t a one size fits all approach - everyone is playing guess the future and that means trying different things to see what has the best affect, because they all know one thing and that is we can’t keep doing what we are at the moment.

Not being a climate change cheerleader doesn’t mean you just stick two fingers up to something that you might not fully understand or agree with. We don’t have to be converts or total dicks - somewhere in between us probably a good place right now.

 

[Dunwaters]

But if you apply that to countries, where do you move to? The moon or mars?

And there isn’t a one size fits all approach - everyone is playing guess the future and that means trying different things to see what has the best affect, because they all know one thing and that is we can’t keep doing what we are at the moment.

Not being a climate change cheerleader doesn’t mean you just stick two fingers up to something that you might not fully understand or agree with. We don’t have to be converts or total dicks - somewhere in between us probably a good place right now.

Neither is practical, one has no climate at all because it has no atmosphere ( I’ve been in several hotel bars just like this ) and the other has both very extreme climate and weather.
I‘ll stay where I am thanks, I know when I’m well off.
By the way “ everyone” isn’t playing the game, no one outside the developed Western world is and I don’t equate healthy scepticism with being either a convert or a dick, I identify as being an old fashioned liberal with the lower case “l” .
I reserve the right to question everything and I reserve the right to change my mind if my original position should prove to be based on shaky foundations. I will not be dictated to, I will make up my own mind thanks.
Show me the evidence for your argument, show me the contrary argument and evidence and I‘ll make up my own mind, but I won’t be Shanghaied into blindly following a path dictated by an ideology cratered with scientific uncertainty and unproven and unprovable hypotheses.
Thats not science, that’s religion.

 

[Heym SR20]

I’m always intrigued by the idea that human induced climate change is a giant scam to generate money.

I really don’t follow the logic: all the industrial, economic and behavioural restrictions demanded in response to climate change are expensive, to everyone involved. There is considerably more money to be made by NOT reacting to climate change.

The more specific idea that it’s a scam perpetrated by the renewables sector is also an interesting one. Assume climate change IS a hoax. What’s the worst outcome? We invest in developing new technology, and a decade or two down the line, we’re no longer reliant on depleting fossil fuels heavily sourced from regimes that pose strategic problems, while living in much better insulated houses? I struggle to see how that’s a bad outcome.

But you are forgetting that many now believe in the gospel according to St Trump, St Boris and that science is next best thing to witch craft.

The fact that we are regularly seeing high 20s in Scotland and haven’t had a proper winter for ages and that our cities our heavily polluted with exhaust fumes etc is all just nonsense as far they are concerned.

Fortunately enough are thinking rationally and working on solutions to remove our reliance upon fossil fuels. We could do a lot better but baby steps are better than none.

 

[basil]

Unfortunately there is so much money to be made in cutting down tree's, no money to be made in saving the planet - what a great species we've become.

I sincerely hope our Oak trees don't go down with some disease as the Elm, Larch and Ash did/are.
To lose somewhere like the Forest of Dean would be devastating.

 

[basil]

So how long do we wait? 100 years? 500? 1000? At what point will the evidence be sufficiently valid to enable you to get off the fence?

Moreover, what will be left of our planet by that point?

I'll happily wait 1000 years as I'm not going anywhere!

 

[Franchi Matt]

I sincerely hope our Oak trees don't go down with some disease as the Elm, Larch and Ash did/are.
To lose somewhere like the Forest of Dean would be devastating.

Well oaks seem strong this year, maybe a super fruit year?

 

[Dunwaters]

I sincerely hope our Oak trees don't go down with some disease as the Elm, Larch and Ash did/are.
To lose somewhere like the Forest of Dean would be devastating.

No one is in favour of losing anything that they’re used to, but evolution is a response to changing conditions.
Lose the Oaks and something else will take their place, there are no empty ecological niches.

 

[basil]

No one is in favour of losing anything that they’re used to, but evolution is a response to changing conditions.
Lose the Oaks and something else will take their place, there are no empty ecological niches.

Like they do in Scotland?
Cut down whatever tree was there and replace it with a worthless, useless conifer?

 

[basil]

Well oaks seem strong this year, maybe a super fruit year?

I hope so.

 

[Sealgair nam fiadh]

Like they do in Scotland?
Cut down whatever tree was there and replace it with a worthless, useless conifer?

What ?

 

[zambezi]

The whole concept of "saving the planet" is actually a simple money making scam

To promote that from nickle-and-dime money to serious income, you need marketing. And political buy-in.

Anyone for some extra "NetZero" ?

 

[Mungo]

there are no empty ecological niches.

Are you sure about that?

 

[Dunwaters]

Like they do in Scotland?
Cut down whatever tree was there and replace it with a worthless, useless conifer?

If the conifer was worthless, ie didn’t produce an income or grant for the landowner it wouldn’t have been planted.
By the way, there were damn few trees in Scotland by the end of the 19th century.
Thats according to Samuel Johnson and Pepys.
You have a lot more forest now.

 

[Dunwaters]

Are you sure about that?

Pretty sure.
If its empty then by definition its not an ecological niche.
If life was possible it would be there.

 

[TringSaint]

Neither is practical, one has no climate at all because it has no atmosphere ( I’ve been in several hotel bars just like this ) and the other has both very extreme climate and weather.
I‘ll stay where I am thanks, I know when I’m well off.
By the way “ everyone” isn’t playing the game, no one outside the developed Western world is and I don’t equate healthy scepticism with being either a convert or a dick, I identify as being an old fashioned liberal with the lower case “l” .
I reserve the right to question everything and I reserve the right to change my mind if my original position should prove to be based on shaky foundations. I will not be dictated to, I will make up my own mind thanks.
Show me the evidence for your argument, show me the contrary argument and evidence and I‘ll make up my own mind, but I won’t be Shanghaied into blindly following a path dictated by an ideology cratered with scientific uncertainty and unproven and unprovable hypotheses.
Thats not science, that’s religion.

There is a lot of science about this if you want to find it. But then again if you choose not to go looking for it then you won’t find anything that contradicts with your point of view.

I don’t see climate science as a religion, just common sense as you can’t do something without it having an effect - that’s just basic physics!

Fortunately there are enough of us who do give a toss and who will push for change because we believe that all we hold precious could be destroyed by our actions.

 

[caorach]

I don’t see climate science as a religion, just common sense as you can’t do something without it having an effect - that’s just basic physics!

Actually that is the very opposite of basic physics. Systems tend to try and return to the state from which they started out. The truth is that if you do something physics tends to act to cancel it out, generally speaking all feedbacks are negative and systems with multiple degrees of freedom don't have "tipping points" where they pass a certain point and don't return whence they came.

Physics says that the universe will fight almost everything you try to do as best it can and, on the grand scale of things, you'll have no effect at all.