The global warming debate

What are your opinions on this subject ?

Personally I think it's been hyped up, there are signs it's linked to the suns activity, it seems the planets climate goes in cycles and we're in a warm cycle for the next few years.

According to some experts man is not the sole contributor to climate change, one professor said there was a warm period 1,000 years ago in the middle ages that lasted 100 years, they can tell this by reading the growth rings on trees.

Me, . . well all I can say is as I get nearer to the day I'll shuffle off this mortal coil I won't be too worried, I must say the weather we've had this year points to global freezing.

Re: The global warming debate

Poppycock!! That's my opinion. Yes probably there is some damage as a result of polution but it's grossly overstated and nowhere near as catastrophic as is being made out. I do think however that it's important to take care of the planet and sensible initiatives like recycling etc are good practice and should be adopted and encouraged.

What infuriates me is when govts jump on you with this, that and the other kind of tax using green alarmisms to fleece us even further. Phasing out 100W light bulbs . . . don't get me started!!!!

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I do agree Yola, we should take care of our environment and recycle etc.

I also agree that some of the other things that we are forced to live with is just a total nonsence. (yes, light bulbs argh)

This then makes it easier for us to dismiss messages about the plight of the planet which may or may not be true/exagerated etc. I think we are fed so much rubbish that it becomes hard to believe anything.

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Got to agree with you Yola and Calismum-I recycle etc. but can't understand how they can tell us how hot or cold its going to be in a 100 years when they can't even get the weather right now........remember we were going to have a 'Barbeque Summer' - wrong......

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That is so true - maybe we should remind them of that

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You've made a good point there Merz .....

Re: The global warming debate

This is a fascinating topic isn't it, and I'm nor suprised to see so much scepticism about 'global warming' - I think, if people stop and think, the majority don't really believe that all or the majority is due to human actions.
Climates have changed hugely over the (very short) history of the hiuman race, and throughout time before that. Britain has had almost total glaciation, with ice sheets miles thick, interspersed with warmer interludes. There were periods when exotic flora and fauna, like hippos and giraffes, were commonplace here In more recent recorded history there have been relative extremes of temperature. Here's an account of the Thames freezing over and the Frost Fairs of the 1700s

Waffle waffle - it's a topic I find interesting! Sorry

Things I think 'they' should do, instead of concentrating so much on fiddling with light bulbs (yes a grrr from me too) is use the science to green over the desserts (not all of them), to get good water to people who don't have it and to encourage a reduction in the human population. If people can live healthy lives and be relatively confident that they won't havea miserable old age, they won't feel compelled to have so many children. Also, we should produce less waste, rather than less carbon dioxide etc.

Such a huge subject - I'm sure there are fora just on climate.

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Great post DM, as you say it's an interesting topic, I think that mans contribution to the warming theory doesn't add up either.

However, the decision many years ago to bring in the clean air act was a good one, I remember the smog days in London, all due to coal fires in peoples homes.

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I sometimes get a 'light science' book to read on holiday, as an antidote to 'holiday reads' and biography. I am so pleased that I bought Homo Britannicus by Chris Stringer (eminent paleontologist at the Natural History Museum) which examines the origin of human life in Britain. He goes into quite a lot of detail about climatic conditions as man struggled to establish and sets out the various Ice Ages and Interglacials.

I'll copy out a bit of the book which floored me as I read it (and reread it over and over, to ensure I hadn't misread)
" ...With the arrival of the Late Glacial Interstadial, it looked as if the Earth was at last emerging from the chill of the Last Glacial Maximum into an interglacial, but the drop in temperature that the last of the Cresswellians began to suffer was to get worse. Soon after 13,000 years ago, the Earth plunged into a final and severe cold snap known as the Younger Dryas stadial .... To judge from annual layers in the Greenland ice cap, the mean annual temperature dropped by about 15C in both Greenland and Britain in some ten years and this big chill was to last over a thousand years.

My bold but .
If there can be a 15C change in 10 years, then fiddling with light bulbs and plastic bags is just p***ing in the wind, isn't it?

I would also like to put some at the fact that this was only 13,000 years ago - the blink of an eye, really - not way back in the midsts of pre-history.

I can't recommend the book highly enough. It's very readable and helps us remember what a piffling, insignificant species we are. The earth was here long before homo sapiens and will still be here long after we've managed to obliterate ourselves, one way or another.

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That sounds like an interesting book DM. I don't believe global warming is all down to mankind, these things seem to go in cycles. Also doesn't the sun flares (or whatever they are called) have something to do with earths climate.