Great Global Warming Myth

Curiosity

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The following is one of many articles and videos on the program The Great Global Warming Swindle ....being touted by celebrities...and others.... They are all featured on Google if you have time to look them up...


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=440049&in_page_id=1965

Daily Mail - UK
10 March 2007

Science & technology

Greenhouse effect is a myth, say scientists

By JULIE WHELDON - More by this author » Last updated at 00:22am on 5th March 2007 Comments (56)






Research said to prove that greenhouse gases cause climate change has been condemned as a sham by scientists.

A United Nations report earlier this year said humans are very likely to be to blame for global warming and there is "virtually no doubt" it is linked to man's use of fossil fuels.

But other climate experts say there is little scientific evidence to support the theory.

In fact global warming could be caused by increased solar activity such as a massive eruption.

Their argument will be outlined on Channel 4 this Thursday in a programme called The Great Global Warming Swindle raising major questions about some of the evidence used for global warming.

Ice core samples from Antarctica have been used as proof of how warming over the centuries has been accompanied by raised CO2 levels.

But Professor Ian Clark, an expert in palaeoclimatology from the University of Ottawa, claims that warmer periods of the Earth's history came around 800 years before rises in carbon dioxide levels.

The programme also highlights how, after the Second World War, there was a huge surge in carbon dioxide emissions, yet global temperatures fell for four decades after 1940.

The UN report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was published in February. At the time it was promoted as being backed by more than 2,000 of the world's leading scientists.

But Professor Paul Reiter, of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, said it was a "sham" given that this list included the names of scientists who disagreed with its findings.

Professor Reiter, an expert in malaria, said his name was removed from an assessment only when he threatened legal action against the panel.

"That is how they make it seem that all the top scientists are agreed," he said. "It's not true."

Gary Calder, a former editor of New Scientist, claims clouds and solar activity are the real reason behind climate change.
"The government's chief scientific adviser Sir David King is supposed to be the representative of all that is good in British science, so it is disturbing he and the government are ignoring a raft of evidence against the greenhouse effect being the main driver against climate change," he said.

Philip Stott, emeritus professor of biogeography at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, said climate change is too complicated to be caused by just one factor, whether CO2 or clouds.

He said: "The system is too complex to say exactly what the effect of cutting back on CO2 production would be or indeed of continuing to produce CO2.

"It is ridiculous to see politicians arguing over whether they will allow the global temperature to rise by 2c or 3c."

The documentary is likely to spark fierce criticism from the scientific establishment.

A spokesman for the Royal Society said yesterday: "We are not saying carbon dioxide emissions are the only factor in climate change and it is very important that debate keeps going.

"But, based on the situation at the moment, we have to do something about CO2 emissions."

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hermanntrude

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Jun 23, 2006
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it amuses me that so many articles begin with the words "such and such is true, scientists say" as if scientists were one huge reputable being, the words of whom are always true. I could find a group of scientists who said elvis was alive and that the world is square and humans are direct relatives of the dinosaurs, also that jesus was a robot and that the queen is made of jello.
 

tamarin

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Jun 12, 2006
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Curiosity, keep up the good fight! I'm not sure where I stand yet. Scientists are a dime a dozen and what they have to say should be taken with a large measure of salt. I shall keep on reading and at some point decide.
 

Curiosity

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Thanks Tamarin

I am the peanut butter in this sandwich..... apparently the documentary in the U.K. grabbed some headlines.... Google has quite a few citations on it....

Some of the commentaries are as confused as we are here... (or as divided I mean)
 

L Gilbert

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Good idea, Tamarin.

As for me, I have done a lot of reading. Mostly what I read are science journal articles (some can get pretty expensive, though) and articles from Scientific American, The New Scientist, Science magazine, etc. and just straight data I can get off the net. I avoid mainstream press releases and tv news broadcasts like the plague because they srew up info too often. Like this, "Greenhouse effect is a myth, say scientists" then the article goes on to show that scientists said no such thing. It's almost as if the press is out to deliberately confuse the general public.

1. The globe is warming.
2. We don't know enough about climate to be able to pinpoint causes.
 

Tonington

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Oct 27, 2006
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Theres a number of errors with the reporting of "facts" in that program.

The program claimed that CO2 concentrations don't match our 20th century temperature record. This of course is true, but completely irrelevant. The program spent a lot of time highlighting the 4 decades of cooling from the 40's to the 80's. This is explained in the IPCC report. The influence of sulphate aerosols has been correlated to the decrease in temperature, and is evident in the models used.

Throughout the program, the film-makers used the same old tired arguments, which have been squashed. Examples: volcanoes produce more CO2 than humans. If this were true, the records of carbon dioxide would show many spikes, indicative of eruptions. The fact is they do not, they show a gradual and smooth growth.

What the program leads up to is the question of, "If not CO2, what then?" The answer they give is solar. No one in the climate field would claim that solar influences have no part in the equation. To suggest that all of the data collected can be pointed out by solar activity is patently false. Heres the graph they use as proof of point:


Here is a explanation of the problems with using this graph as proof.
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/DamonLaut2004.pdf

here is a couple of graphs used by the IPCC to show how the models report the differences in forcings. For an explanation of the models and their relative statistics, look up page 11 on the IPCC summary for policy makers here.

What it boils down to is this, many skeptics continue to use cherry picked data, statistically irrelevant to the discussion. You can't pick out one example and use it to represent the whole, that is why the IPCC uses models with 90-95% confidence, like when you see a poll that says 19 times out of 20, rather than picking out the 1 out of 20 like many many skeptics do.
 

Tonington

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It was a television program that was aired on Thursday in Britain. I've been poking around sites the past two days looking at the claims and then checking those against published literature and reviews.

Edit: here is the link to the channel that aired this program
 

Curiosity

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Thanks for weighing in Tonington

I was hoping you find this topic - it's hanging around on a few other places today....I had never heard of the documentary before I found it on Google...

Be interested to read what else comes up.

My quirky mind says:
OK - so we get warmer but we'll all die off from lack of fresh water .. How is that for muddled thought?
 

L Gilbert

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Thanks for weighing in Tonington

I was hoping you find this topic - it's hanging around on a few other places today....I had never heard of the documentary before I found it on Google...

Be interested to read what else comes up.

My quirky mind says:
OK - so we get warmer but we'll all die off from lack of fresh water .. How is that for muddled thought?
The two topics are related but it's hardly likely we'll all die off. And we should be doing something about fresh water. It's not like there's an ocean full and it's all accessible.

http://www.worldwater.org/

http://freshwater.unep.net/
 

Tonington

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No prob Les and Curio.

Water conservation is an important step which needs to be taken. I don't have the foggiest how it will look in the coming years, except that the water is gonna move around. Droughts switching places, monsoons elsewhere. It should never be taken for granted.
 

Curiosity

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Tonington

They are doing some desalinization stuff where I live.... whether they will find success or not... ????

It is a big thing in the middle east - something they could work with us on ..... in peace!
(oh well).