Peak Oil - Doom and gloom for Ireland

Remix said:
This is a good point but the interesting thing is that much of the preaching on global warming is coming from the scientific community.
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Yeah but according to someone else the world will cool in an ice age despite anything we do and in that case the carbon in our atmosphere will come in useful so why bother to change anything ? It's a waste of time.
 

Seeing as we're tossing science into the drain, why not just assume it's leprechauns causing the global warming? At least we might get a pot o' gold and some lucky charms out of it.

I'm not suggesting that what they say is wrong (I don't know) but I often feel that when scientists speculate on difficult problems- be it global warming or other areas - we should remind ourselves that their opinions do not represent proof.
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When your baby gets sick, are you so skeptical of the powers of medical science? After all, it's only scientific opinions that say that penicillin is superior to prayer.

If the hospital tells you that, due to cutbacks, they'll be using prayer and crystals rather than scientific medicine to heal your relative, do you cheerfully accept that?
 

Scientific proof supports the argument for penicillin. Not scientific opinion. How many scientists/doctors do you know who dont believe in the usefulness of antibiotics ?

As for the hospitals indulging in chanting and prayers I read a story a few years ago about someone in hospital being blessed with holy water and it killed them due to bacteria in the water coupled with a weakened immune system


rock3r said:
Seeing as we're tossing science into the drain, why not just assume it's leprechauns causing the global warming? At least we might get a pot o' gold and some lucky charms out of it.
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How is science being tossed into the drain ? If the earth is going to cool anyway then why invest so much resources into halting global warming ? e.g. a BBC documentary I saw recently where scientists were proposing all sorts of expensive actions such as seeding the oceans with Iron to feed plankton which take up carbon, etc, seeding the skies with sulphur, building thousands of rockets and ships etc. Such expensive actions would take significant percentages off world economic growth and could well turn out to be follies. In fact I feel kind of conned that during this TV programme there was no mention of global cooling or an ice age and instead it concentrated on scaring us into the notion that we would all burn up.

As fossil fuels run out in the next 50 years wont Global warming due to these be less of a problem in any case ?
 
sign said:
Yeah but according to someone else the world will cool in an ice age despite anything we do and in that case the carbon in our atmosphere will come in useful so why bother to change anything ? It's a waste of time.
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Because global warming could affect our lives, not 1000 years in the future when we're all gone
 
shanegl said:
Because global warming could affect our lives, not 1000 years in the future when we're all gone
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Of course global warming "could affect our lives". On the other hand global cooling "could affect our lives". However that doesn't mean that we should waste money or limit human enterprise in futile attempts to combat either "problem". I would be of the opinion that a global economic downturn triggered by an over-zealous reaction to a climate change scare would affect our lives much more certainly, immediately and sharply than any potential weather patterns in the next 100-1000 years that in all probability are outside the scope of human control.
 
shanegl said:
I disagree. Being out of work is not as bad as being under a few feet of water.
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But coastal erosion has always been with us for thousands of years. It would be cheaper to improve coastal defences than to implement many of the ideas I've seen.
 
Have a look at this TED talk:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/62

It's a talk by Bjorn Lomborg about prioritising global issues. The press and politicians are as usual being carried away by a 'loss-leader' with Global Warming. For the sake of our planet and our economic well being we need to prioritise where we invest our money and our scientific energies in order to best serve the human race. Sound-bytes and hysteria should not take precedence.
 
sign said:
Scientific proof supports the argument for penicillin. Not scientific opinion. How many scientists/doctors do you know who dont believe in the usefulness of antibiotics ?
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There is no such entity as scientific proof as distinct from opinion. All science is subject to review on the basis of evidence.

The evidence-based scientific opinion, which is every bit as valid as the medical science you depend upon and trust is that there will be no global cooling in the next few centuries, but that global warming will continue to happen to a heavy degree over thew next century.

If you're not going to accept that that's the case, you're really in the realm of pookas and witches. It's science or magic and there's no mix 'n' match.
 
Consider this (notorious) admission from Steven Schneider of Stanford, a leading proponent of the global warming theory.

He admitted:


What's he's essentially saying is that there are circumstances where scientists may put "the cause" above the truth.
 
rock3r said:
There is no such entity as scientific proof as distinct from opinion.
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That reads like you re saying 'There is no such entity as scientific proof'

There is a huge difference between opinion and fact. A scientific opinion is a guess . A guess can be either right or wrong no matter how many facts are quoted.
One example of a guess is : theres a 70% chance you wont develop a hereditary disease or theres a 70% chance the operation is successful but its still speculation as to which bracket of the 30% or 70% group you fall into.

This is what you do with facts , you draw conclusions from them.
 

Unlike the principles of medical science, there is no unanimity on the certainty or otherwise of global warming, and certainly none whatsoever on the question of how mankind's actions can prevent it.
 
ubiquitous said:
Unlike the principles of medical science, there is no unanimity on the certainty or otherwise of global warming, and certainly none whatsoever on the question of how mankind's actions can prevent it.
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Thats complete nonsense. There is consensus in the scientific community on the fact that the world is warming due to human causes and what needs to be done to address it. If you don't agree with this please see the latest reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). How much more consensus do you need!
 
Its only half nonsense if you read it pedantically. People seem to agree the earth is warming but they also agree the earth has gone through warm and cold periods before in its history so this is nothing new unless you start to wonder how mans growth over the planet has affected things. How I feel conned is about why none of those documentaries or reports have mentioned the effects of Global cooling and the advantages a warmer planet will have when fighting a freeze which leads me to wonder are they scaremongering? Maybe Global warming is a good defense against the inevitable freeze which will occur.

And nobody can tell me , wasnt the tsunami in asia caused by a under sea earthquake and not by global warming ?
 

That's not exactly the case. There has been plenty of dissent among scientists towards the IPCC report, including allegations by many members of the panel that the reservations and doubts of many of its members were airbrushed out of the final report in order to enable it to make its dramatic conclusions. Its interesting that these allegations tally with Steven Schneider's admission as quoted above.

Since the publication of the IPCC report, its supporters have used it as a means to avoid debate on the subject. Al Gore appeared in front of a US Congress hearing this March to tell us (to some scepticism) that the time for debate on global warming was over. In fact he said the exact same thing in 1992. The following item from the Canadian National Post is very interesting:

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=c47c1209-233b-412c-b6d1-5c755457a8af
 
Here's a useful guide to throw some light on the climate change issue based on evidence rather than speculation.

[broken link removed]
 
Eeyore said:
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11462-climate-change-a-guide-for-the-perplexed.html
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Its interesting that you quote a feature the New Scientist magazine in support of your allegation that there is no scientific scepticism regarding climate change. The following article, by a former editor of the New Scientist, indicates the opposite.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1363818.ece
 

Whenever governments the world over agree on something I immediately become suspicious. From what I can see, governments and bureaucrats are cynically exploiting *green* initiatives as a means to raise more taxes, pander to well established lobby groups, restrict free-trade and encourage anti-competitive tariffs. The US government support of bio-ethanol manufacture from corn is a prime example of this nonsense.

However, that said I do think this is a man-made problem. I just have grave doubts that Al Gore peddling the modern form of indulgences is the solution.
 
sign said:
And nobody can tell me , wasnt the tsunami in asia caused by a under sea earthquake and not by global warming ?
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Yes, the Asian tsunami was caused by an earthquake and had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with global warming.
 
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