Because it's laughable to think that man can change the environment. Just ask the herds of buffalo on the Great Plains, the Dodo birds and the passenger pigeons.

And what effect exactly did the extinction of a couple species of birds have on the worlds climate?

Oh and I had extinct buffalo steaks this weekend. hmmm hmmm good!

Late congratulations from me too Skybird :woot:

Typichal Skybird reply: Don't use sheer force little grashopper, use his force against him and let his attack bleed his force, then strike back :haha:

For shame! Were they any good?? :D

What part of
didn't you understand?:o
;)

My brother in law is eating buffalo burgers now. He said the meat is fantastic. Not sure if I can try it myself. :hmmm:

IMO most of the anti global warming articles/posts/research/etc, is all politicaly inspired BS from industrial special interest groups who have a vested interest in keeping things status quo. Going green cuts into the profit margins and CEO's golden parachutes. Not to mention peoples natural resistance to change. There's alot that is so much engrained in our society we can't imagine the world differently.

The green movment, IMO was inspired by a bunch of tree hugging hippes. That said, i think they have something resembeling a point, or at the least, cleaning our act up couldn't hurt. As much as i hate the California smog gestapo, i remember how the LA basin looked before they really cracked down and got rid of leaded gasoline. (kinda looked like pictures of Bejing smog back then)

In any event, who's right or wrong doesn't matter to any of us personally and won't effect our lives, because none of us will be around to suffer the consequences if they are indeed real and valid. Your decendants might, but you won't, if thats any comfort.

I had completely missed this thread till now!!:yep:
A bit late but I hope you had a happy birthday Skybird, Cheers!:yeah:

Hmmm hmmm hmmm. :O:

Edit. This thread is totally derailed. :D

I had. Thanks to both of you! :salute:


:salute:

Hardly.

There has been a discrediting of climate science in the past weeks, no denial. the email "scandal" however, claimed to have been the first step in this, still lacks the substance for quaolifying that - no matter how often you repeat to refer to it.

However, the reputation of the IPCC has been damaged in later reveleation following the - pretty much fabricated - email row. But one has to look closer here. The material in chapter 1 of the IPCC reports is the volume which is the important part that is used for political decisions. the basic statements in it are not opposed until today. there is global warming taking place, that is beyond doubt, and it also is pretty much beyond doubt that the major cause of it is man-made.

However, it seems there has been done a lot of dramatisation of effects in order to increase chances for wanted political agendas for greener policies being accepted - by spreading fear. This seems to have been possible by science heavily being corruoted by politxal lobbyists or scientists who at the same time served in a politcal and/or private-economy-related function, which is a sin for any science that tries to avoid getting corrupted. the most obvious signal for this is the controversy about the head of the IPCC board himself. But many scientists point out that this problem, that corrupts science by accepting to let science be influenced by classic interest conflicts of several of it'S influential actors, is not just about this single man. There is a self-made crisis of trustqworthiness of sciences, therefore, and that is where sceptics get their current fuel from. However, as much as the green propagandists pull the manipulative rope at their end of the spectrum, sceptics pull at their own end of the same rope. Many claims beihng raised by them, still lack ground and informational basis, or are in ignoration of data that until today is beyond doubt. the current winter this year, is shorttermed weather only. the January still has been the warmest January sinc eth ebeginning of satellite weather obsrvation, and the past ten years still have been the warmest decade since the beginning of weatehr recoridngs. A current discussion about american ground temperature measurements eventually delivering misleading data, means nothing here. Their is pretty much a cionsensus, that temperature measurements of satellites are far more reliable anyway.

As already said, the problem in trustworthiness of climate sciences is home-modade, but the scale of the substantial fraud that took place in several aspects, by far gets blown up in importance by sceptics, who see the chance to change the course of public discussion even if many of their own claims still are not suppported. It is a propaganda war going on, with massive financial interests at stake. And the green lobby allowed to get caught in this without need. Seen that way, they deserve the crisis they are in. but that does not really matter. Becasue the climate still is getting warmer, and this inevitably will have consequences. Maybe not that drastic consequences the fearmongers predict, nevertheless the changes will be massive, and global, and they will reach us - sooner or later.

And only acceopting that this developement in principle still is true can be seen as a reasonable basis for action and decision on our side. the rest is fruitless, self-destryojng conflict of ours,f ought on behalf of the ideoliogiuc or short-termed material profit of some lobby groups. We must not be so stupid to let them have their way - both the green fearmongers, and the sceptics.

I can see that with Skybird on the scene (happy belated birthday, btw) I really don't need to add much if anything, but ...
The whole "follow the money" argument is, to me, laughable at best. Follow the money indeed!! And where will you end up? Staring dead-eyed at the polluting industries that ultimately got us where we are in the first place. They stand to lose HUGE swaths of money, and will do anything (not 'just about' anything, but ANYTHING period) to discredit climate change so their pockets stay packed.
All I really need is my own senses to see and feel that climate change IS happening, right now. Winter in Wisconsin is NOT what it used to be, even 15 years ago. It used to be late October thru early March, now it's become December to mid-February ... I can already smell spring in the air ...
I like to say that it's not worth risking our planet for a few bucks, even if there's only a small chance climate change is real .... and IMO there's no denying, realistically, that is IS INDEED real ...

You should. The brand we use, Great Range, tastes better than top grade hamburger and only has 2 grams of saturated fat per 1/4lb.

Well eventually the carbon fuel supplies will run out and the world will breath a sigh of relief!!:yep: Now, how to fix the ozone layer so I can get a good sun tan and not sun burnt!!!!:cool::hmmm:

I agree, but even I have to admit that climate science did not do itself a good service to allow getting political itself. That is something quite some scientists complain about the IPCC report, even those forming the huge majority thinking GW is real and man-made - they point out that the IPCC not only presented scientific data and conclusions, but tried to push it's own agenda of what it thinks politically should be done. But this is not a scientist's job. Doing so is a basic sin for every science, damaging objectivity, precision, and trustworthiness. It massively increases the probability for interest conflicts in science.

Like you, I think the current winter means not much, and I compare the seasons 30 years ago during my schooldays with the present, as well as comparing on ancient photos the conditions of given landscapes and glaciers 60, 80, 100 years ago, with images from the present, and then I do not need any scientific debate wether or not a massive warming has taken place or not - it is as clear and undeniable as the sky is blue and the sun is bright. also undeiable is that chnage in plant'S yearly growth cycles (their "spirng clock ticks around 2 weeks earlier now), or the spreading patterns of given species species, especially insects, as well as infectous pathogenes. If a given life form depends on a certain minimum temperature to surive, and after 40 years if being found 1000 miles north of the area where it was located before becasue more north to it it could not survive back then, tahn that area north obviously has chnaged and has become warmer.

But the need to examine observations scientifically and produce data in order to give politicians a basis on which to form educated decisions, remains. And this effort has been damaged in a very stupid and unneeded way. In a project of the size of the IPCC reports you cannot expect to totally wipe out human error that may find manifestation in simple typos aor exchanging two numbers behind the decimal. The scandal lies in the obvious attempts to manipulate and dramatise (like the Himalaya glacier "thesis"), or the very sloppy work being done when just copying from a student'S years old diploma thesis, or copying over an article from an advertisement booklet of the WWF without checking the claims in it scientifically by themselves. This is not human error, but in case of the first: intention, in case of the latter: sloppy work that easily could have been avoided. And unfortunately, there have more such problems become known in the past weeks. these things do not reverse the tone of the scientific debate nor do they completely nullify the consent in arguments, but they do an irrationally big damage to repuation and credibility, increasing it beyond the matter-of-fact damage the events itself really mean. Currently, all this together means a feast for sceptics. Not becasue they suddenly have better arguments (they have not), but because the crowd in the streets is not ticking rationally and thus can be influenced by the kind of propaganda sceptics have been spread since years, with hundreds of millions being spend into it every year by organised lobbies whose only inention is not to find scientific truth, but to discredit the GW science and it'S current conclusions, no matter how.

It is highly questionable to me, if scientific projects of the size of the IPCC board make any sense at all., and can ever fulfill the expectations that are put into them.

Global Warming?
Bring it on, baby!

http://www.jeffcraven.com/images/BirthdayCat.jpg

Skybird, happy b-day! :woot:

What's with the cigarettes? Are they a gift? That's not right, especially for a b-day present.

In other news, there were five less traffic accidents this month than last month. This means that in a year, there will be no traffic accidents whatsoever.

http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r...er39378854.jpg

( :nope: )

Oh, and DRM!

Yes that is a HOT topic, but I'm not going there or I will burn up!!:nope: The debate on global warming is heated enough!!:yep:

A good take on the Daily Mail article. Not exactly a shining example of journalistic integrity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PWDFzWt-Ag