World 'needs Plan B' on climate - UN

[Still Waters]

The world needs a Plan B on climate change because politicians are failing to reduce carbon emissions, according to a UN report.

It warns governments if they overshoot their short-term carbon targets they will have to cut CO2 even faster in the second half of the century to keep climate change manageable.

If they fail again, they will have to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere.

http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-26922661

[Bavarian Raven]

*yawn* since when have politicians cared what scientists say?

[Mikko-kun]

I think they have their plan B well underway, and they're just hoping Putin doesn't make it a stalemate but triggers it.

[Monkfish]

I remain a skeptic with regards to this important issue. The planet has undergone huge climate change since it's creation. There is evidence that some time ago it was possible to walk from Scotland to the Netherlands for example. I don't doubt that we can possibly slow things down a bit and maybe give ourselves another trouble free billion years by making changes now. But the idea that we can have any significant or long term influence with the changes the planet is making do nothing more than emphasize just how arrogant we are as a species. With the population constantly growing it doesn't take an astrophysicist to work out where savings can be made. Nature has rewarded us with war, famine, and plague to show us how to keep the numbers down but still we don't learn. This current obsession for people to take anything going to help them live forever only means that if we last a few more millennia our offsprings we will be standing, sleeping, and eating by rotation.

Thankfully I'm sitting closer to the exit than the entrance.

[Stonecoldvampzy]

I remain a skeptic with regards to this important issue. The planet has undergone huge climate change since it's creation. There is evidence that some time ago it was possible to walk from Scotland to the Netherlands for example. I don't doubt that we can possibly slow things down a bit and maybe give ourselves another trouble free billion years by making changes now. But the idea that we can have any significant or long term influence with the changes the planet is making do nothing more than emphasize just how arrogant we are as a species. With the population constantly growing it doesn't take an astrophysicist to work out where savings can be made. Nature has rewarded us with war, famine, and plague to show us how to keep the numbers down but still we don't learn. This current obsession for people to take anything going to help them live forever only means that if we last a few more millennia our offsprings we will be standing, sleeping, and eating by rotation.

Thankfully I'm sitting closer to the exit than the entrance.

I completly agree. Climate change has been an aspect of earthly life for thousands, if not millions of years. It is absolutly human arrogance to beleive we cause, affect and are able to vanquish or control effects found in nature. It will come around to bites us in the ass, possibly sooner then later.

[Guest]

Every change in climate in the past had a definite cause. It is the purpose of paleo-climatology to determine what those causes were. It does a damn fine job of accounting for all historic episodes of climate change.

The only cause which explains the current change is man and his terraforming efforts. To try to attribute climate change to nature without identifying the underlying cause is called magical, or wishful, thinking.

Br Cornelius

[Phaeton80]

I remain a skeptic with regards to this important issue. The planet has undergone huge climate change since it's creation. There is evidence that some time ago it was possible to walk from Scotland to the Netherlands for example. I don't doubt that we can possibly slow things down a bit and maybe give ourselves another trouble free billion years by making changes now. But the idea that we can have any significant or long term influence with the changes the planet is making do nothing more than emphasize just how arrogant we are as a species. With the population constantly growing it doesn't take an astrophysicist to work out where savings can be made. Nature has rewarded us with war, famine, and plague to show us how to keep the numbers down but still we don't learn. This current obsession for people to take anything going to help them live forever only means that if we last a few more millennia our offsprings we will be standing, sleeping, and eating by rotation.

Thankfully I'm sitting closer to the exit than the entrance.

Hear hear.

I would add to this, and ofcourse this is my opinion only, that it by this time seems evident (to me) there is a concerted effort to exaggerate the impact of human influence on the climate.

In other words, conscious misrepresentation of the facts.

[Dark_Grey]

A saw a news photo yesterday from a city in China so polluted there are literal "bags of fresh air" that civilians line up to breath from because the air is so damn polluted.

Regardless of whether or not we are responsible for climate change, part of climate change or none at all, when people on this planet are wearing because the air is so toxic, there is a problem that should involve everyone who can't get off this blue marble.

[Mikko-kun]

Here's some nice holiday trip destinations.

I prefer volcanoes and icebergs though, less people.

Oh, I wonder what's the real beef US has with Iran...

Edited April 9, 2014 by Mikko-kun

[Phaeton80]

A saw a news photo yesterday from a city in China so polluted there are literal "bags of fresh air" that civilians line up to breath from because the air is so damn polluted.

Regardless of whether or not we are responsible for climate change, part of climate change or none at all, when people on this planet are wearing because the air is so toxic, there is a problem that should involve everyone who can't get off this blue marble.

I agree completely, taking care of your environment is essential for self preservation. That doesnt stop at limiting your toxic emissions though, they are cutting the worlds lungs (rainforests) away with break neck speed. Dont hear any real laments on that at any comparable level.

What I dont agree with is being lied to (by 'well respected scientists'), being asked to see/label CO2 as a harmful element and pay another tax for its emission. CO2 is to plants what O2 is to us. I think its ridiculous.

Edited April 9, 2014 by Phaeton80

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

Plan B is similar to Plan A (which is "do nothing") but adds "do nothing and blame the unions".

[+and-then]

I agree completely, taking care of your environment is essential for self preservation. That doesnt stop at limiting your toxic emissions though, they are cutting the worlds lungs (rainforests) away with break neck speed. Dont hear any real laments on that at any comparable level.

What I dont agree with is being lied to (by 'well respected scientists'), being asked to see/label CO2 as a harmful element and pay another tax for its emission. CO2 is to plants what O2 is to us. I think its ridiculous.

The study of climate change I have no problem with. The conclusions I cannot speak to so I won't give an opinion on their accuracy but anytime government gets involved and responds with more taxes it's BOUND to create hostility and a pushback. If things are as dire as we are being told then within 50 years the proof will be inescapable and we will finally get serious about change.

[Guest]

The study of climate change I have no problem with. The conclusions I cannot speak to so I won't give an opinion on their accuracy but anytime government gets involved and responds with more taxes it's BOUND to create hostility and a pushback. If things are as dire as we are being told then within 50 years the proof will be inescapable and we will finally get serious about change.

Many of us will be destitute or dead at that point. A rather high price to pay to prove a point.

Br Cornelius

[Dark_Grey]

I agree completely, taking care of your environment is essential for self preservation. That doesnt stop at limiting your toxic emissions though, they are cutting the worlds lungs (rainforests) away with break neck speed. Dont hear any real laments on that at any comparable level.

What I dont agree with is being lied to (by 'well respected scientists'), being asked to see/label CO2 as a harmful element and pay another tax for its emission. CO2 is to plants what O2 is to us. I think its ridiculous.

IMHO...

...the majority of the environmental problems we face today stem from a serious disconnect between people in developing/developed countries and the Earth. Not to sound all "granola muncher", but most people don't realize how much damage corporations are willing to do to supply them with cheap goods. Overfishing, fracking, clear cutting the "lungs of the Earth" (rainforest,) etc.

it's all so the wheels of our material lives can keep spinning. All that information is freely available but as long as goods and services remain cheap, no one in the first world seems to give a hoot what happens behind the curtain, or what the cost of cheap goods truly is.

As for carbon taxes, capitalists gonna capitalize bro lol

Edited April 10, 2014 by Dark_Grey

[Doug1029]

I remain a skeptic with regards to this important issue. The planet has undergone huge climate change since it's creation. There is evidence that some time ago it was possible to walk from Scotland to the Netherlands for example. I don't doubt that we can possibly slow things down a bit and maybe give ourselves another trouble free billion years by making changes now. But the idea that we can have any significant or long term influence with the changes the planet is making do nothing more than emphasize just how arrogant we are as a species. With the population constantly growing it doesn't take an astrophysicist to work out where savings can be made. Nature has rewarded us with war, famine, and plague to show us how to keep the numbers down but still we don't learn. This current obsession for people to take anything going to help them live forever only means that if we last a few more millennia our offsprings we will be standing, sleeping, and eating by rotation.

Thankfully I'm sitting closer to the exit than the entrance.

At least in theory, we could trigger runaway warming. Increases in ocean temps melt methane deposits in the ocean deeps. The resulting methane bubbles to the surface, mixes with the air and accelerates the warming, which further warms the oceans and melts more methane. Where would this stop? Pretty close to the boiling point. A few years ago we got a good scare when massive methane releases were discovered in the Arctic Ocean. Most scientists have decided this was just normal releases and has probably been going on since the ice age.

But maybe there is a Plan B: ecosystem collapse. If warming is slow enough that we don't get a massive methane release, then maybe we can kill off just part of the ecosystem. Eventually, that part will include a large number of us, reducing our population below the point where it can support fossil-fuel economies. CO2 production very gradually returns to normal and the greenhouse effect declines. The survivors will be back to horse-drawn agriculture and we can forget about ever going to the stars, but we will survive - if the collapse is slow enough.

Expect all this to take 200 to 500 years.

How fast can climate change? At the end of the Younger Dryas Cold Period it went from ice age conditions to modern in four years. Were you alive in 1975/1976? That's when a new evaporation basin opened in the Drake Passage, shifting global currents. It took 22 years for the climate to reach a new stable temperature regime (sort of). But temps are still climbing slowly and it is just a question of time before a new basin opens or an old one closes and shifts the climate again. Warmer water from the North Atlantic is already bleeding into the Arctic Ocean which will be substantially ice free by 2040. Sometime in the next 25 years we'll get to see what global warming really is.

Doug

[Phaeton80]

IMHO...

...the majority of the environmental problems we face today stem from a serious disconnect between people in developing/developed countries and the Earth. Not to sound all "granola muncher", but most people don't realize how much damage corporations are willing to do to supply them with cheap goods. Overfishing, fracking, clear cutting the "lungs of the Earth" (rainforest,) etc.

it's all so the wheels of our material lives can keep spinning. All that information is freely available but as long as goods and services remain cheap, no one in the first world seems to give a hoot what happens behind the curtain, or what the cost of cheap goods truly is.

As for carbon taxes, capitalists gonna capitalize bro lol

What about planned obsolescence.. Rabid deregulation.. 'the free market..' (everything with a connotation of 'freedom' is good right? Wrong) At the end of the day, its about int. (crony) capitalism (or corporatism rather) - the thought that everything needs to take a back seat to 'The Mighty Dollar', is the culprit. We are dictated, ruled by the economy.. It doesnt serve us, we serve it... Personafied by the multinationals, for all intents and purposes, controlling our governers. These people are not there for the good of the public, they are there to foment / sell the needs of the corporate entitiy. Theonly way to divert from where we are heading, destroying our environment, is to divert from that primitive mindset.

Trouble is, people need to 'see' it to be able to act accordingly. Im afraid that isnt going to happen any time soon. Conditioning is, quite literally, at an all time high (imo). I think we, the Western population, must be the most conditioned individuals ever to exist.

[spud the mackem]

We cannot control climate change buy we can try and slow it down. The problem is that ALL countries need to co-operate,and that most definitely is not happening so we shall merrily go on until the atmosphere becomes unbreathable the seas become barren of life because of toxication,and the survivors IF there is any will probably say, I wish our ancestors had acted to stop this devastation.

Edited April 10, 2014 by spud the mackem

[Phaeton80]

The study of climate change I have no problem with. The conclusions I cannot speak to so I won't give an opinion on their accuracy but anytime government gets involved and responds with more taxes it's BOUND to create hostility and a pushback. If things are as dire as we are being told then within 50 years the proof will be inescapable and we will finally get serious about change.

What sort of change would constitute 'proof' though? 'Change' is a rather broad category. Remember it all started with the ozonelayer.. aerosols were public enemy nr one. Then it changed to 'Global Warming' ('member mr. Gore?), with CO2 being targetted. Now its 'Climate Change'.. Remarkable evolution, isnt it.

Climate change is here, it has always been here.. and if anything, well be introduced to another (relatively small) ice-age. It is to be expected given certain cycles, some say.

[Guest]

The Ozone hole was a seperate and destinct problem which through international cooperation has largely been solved. Man, through treaties enacted by the UN solved the Ozone hole. It can be done.

Global warming is the cause of climate change. They describe different but related things and the two terms were been used in the scientific literature for about 30years at this point. Global warming describes the average mean rise in surface temperature for the whole planet. Climate change is the consequence of Global Warming and represents the lumpy distribution of global warming across the planet. Only the gross media (the idiot pleasing media) ever shifted from using Global Warming to Climate Change - but it is a good thing they did because global warming conveys a false mental image which conveys almost none of the consequences on a local level where the changes can be extreme and highly chaotic.

The next ice age is dictated by the Milankovich cycles (orbital cycles) and was due in about 20k years. The strength of the Milankovich cycles are not strong enough to counter the effects of anthropogenic global warming and so the next ice age has been permanently postponed. All this is known because climate scientists understand what drives global climate systems - unlike most of the people reading these boards.

Br Cornelius

Edited April 11, 2014 by Guest

[Frank Merton]

The economic consequences of doing what "needs" to be done to stop global warming are such that it won't happen until there is disaster. We can hope that mankind will be lucky and technology will come along changing the economics, and there seems to be maybe a 20 - 50 percent chance of that. There is also a smaller chance that the consequences will not be disastrous. Otherwise there will be disaster and global warming will stop because of far fewer people around.

Most of us will by then be dead anyway.

[Doug1029]

What sort of change would constitute 'proof' though? 'Change' is a rather broad category. Remember it all started with the ozonelayer.. aerosols were public enemy nr one. Then it changed to 'Global Warming' ('member mr. Gore?), with CO2 being targetted. Now its 'Climate Change'.. Remarkable evolution, isnt it.

Climate change is here, it has always been here.. and if anything, well be introduced to another (relatively small) ice-age. It is to be expected given certain cycles, some say.

1. CFCs (chlorofluorohydrocarbons, the gases that created the ozone hole) are also greenhouse gasses. They contribute to warming; though, because we use fewer of them, they do not have as great an effect. While CFCs have been outlawed, other related gasses have not been and are delaying the closure of the hole. In the mid-1980s, I had the dubious distinction of having used the last case of CFC-propelled marking paint used in forestry applications in southwest Colorado. I wondered if I should, but once you get the stuff into a can it is going to get into the air eventually - so I used it.

2. A new evaporation basin opened in the Drake Passage in 1976/1977. It took into the 1980s for people to realize that this wasn't just normal random variation. It also took 22 years for the new climate regime to settle in. The 1998 El Nino seems to have had something to do with shutting down the rapid rise in global temps, but we're still trying to figure out exactly what happened.

3. In the past, increases in global temps have ALWAYS been relatively rapid and followed by a long, slow decline in temps. The rise was faster than usual this time, but instead of declining, temps are continuing to rise. The mechanisms that normally cause the decline in temps are not strong enough to overcome warming, so temperatures continue to rise slowly.

4. There's an old saying in natural science research that we just spent 50 years learning what we should have been measuring. It takes awhile to figure out what measurements are needed, get a monitoring system into place and collect, analyze and publish the research - twenty years is not uncommon. Ex.: I am in the last stages (I hope) of a project using tree cores collected in 2007. The first data in this project was collected in 1987. The project was first proposed in 1983. That's 31 years from proposal to a published result. I am the third or fourth person working on this. Climate research is about monitoring what is going on. We don't usually get a chance to conduct an actual controlled experiment. You are describing a progression in terminology that is not paralleled in research practice.

5. I am about to start a project to determine flood and drought history of the Lower Deep Fork of the Canadian River using tree ring data. Changes in the frequency and maybe intensity of floods and droughts are an effect of global warming, but it doesn't make much sense to refer to flooding as "warming," hence, the change in terminology. We still use "global warming" as a generic term for all temperature-related changes in climate, even though it is not completely accurate to do so. I think you are seeing some sort of conspiracy where there isn't any.

6. Climate change is here and has always been, as you say. But the new element is a 40% increase in atmospheric CO2 levels over the last 55 years. It would be very surprising if there wasn't an effect on climate.

Climate change progresses in "stair-steps." A steep increase followed by a leveling off, followed by another increase and so on. Each increase accompanies a shift in ocean circulation. You probably won't see much change until the next shift happens. We didn't figure out the Drake Passage shift until decades after it happened, but there is a change in oceanic circulation coming that anybody can see - the Arctic Ocean is losing its ice cover and as soon as enough is gone to allow cold surface water to sink, drawing warmer water into the Arctic Basin, we will learn what "global warming" actually means.

Doug

[Phaeton80]

As with Greenhouse Effect, the Ozone Hole scare has been a victim of political and corporate interests, media bias and pseudoscience. Again, the media has left many of us in the dark, recycling lies and half-truths while giving rise to unwarranted alarm.

No doubt, many readers will be familiar with the theory of CFCs obliterating the ozone layer. However, as we will see later, this theory rapidly crumbles when we separate science from political deception. The ozone depletion theory originated from Mario Molina in December 1973 despite that Molina knew nothing about the stratosphere or stratospheric chemistry; his expertise was in chemical lasers[1].

Molina came to Sherwood Rowland, another scientist with no expertise in stratospheric chemistry and they worked together producing what scientists commonly know as Rowland and Molina's Theory[2]. The theory assumed CFCs are so inert that there are no sinks[3]. They assumed ultraviolet radiation breaks up CFCs in the stratosphere whereby freeing a chlorine atom. The theory goes on to assume this chlorine reacts with ozone producing diatomic oxygen and a highly reactive compound, chlorine monoxide. Molina predicted the chlorine monoxide would break up, thus setting up a catalytic chain reaction destroying between 20 and 40 percent of the ozone layer[4].

Unfortunately, many environmentalists conveniently omit scientific evidence that does not fit their perceived vision of environmental cataclysm. Firstly, the chance of many CFCs finding their way up to the stratosphere is very remote considering CFCs, depending on which compound is being measured, are four to eight times heavier than air[5]. Secondly, it is only natural for ozone levels to oscillate in the stratosphere; they are simply a function of the solar sunspot cycle[6]. Another rarely publicised point is that global ozone data exists back as far as the 1930s[7]. However, the Ozone Trends Panel's starting date was chosen at 1969 when ozone levels were at a peak[8]. This deceptive graphical plot hides the fact that back in 1962 there was also an "ozone hole."[9] It is also a curiosity that the ozone hole forms over Antarctica, when in fact most CFCs are emitted from the Northern Hemisphere.

Norwegian scientists Søren Larsen and Thormod Henriksen have analysed the Arctic ozone layer back to the year 1935 and conclude:[10]

"The data from long-term ozone measurements reveal periods of several years with a negative trend [decrease] and other periods with a positive trend [increase]. The combined results up to 1989 give no evidence for a long-term negative trend of the Arctic ozone layer...."[11]

On 22nd October 1991, Robert Watson, cochairman of a panel of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), gave a press conference orchestrated by a paid media consultant. Watson issued dire warnings in relation to the thinning of the ozone layer, claiming the executive summary he presented were the findings contained in a 300-page report to be released by the UNEP. However, that report does not exist, according to UNEP spokesmen.[12]

As scientist Dr. Fred Singer aptly comments: "Environmental policy seems once again to be driven by press release rather than by proven scientific data."[13]

The irony of the alleged evils of CFCs is that natural sources of chlorine far outweigh industry's contribution. Remember, Rowland and Molina's Theory asserts that chlorine, not CFCs, destroy ozone. Evaporating oceans emit 600 million tons of chlorine into the atmosphere per year. Although precipitation washes out most chlorine, large amounts still reach the stratosphere.[14] Even high school science students would be aware that seawater salt is comprised of sodium chloride. Once the sodium chloride reaches high altitudes, it can ionise, freeing the chlorine atom from the sodium.[15]

Erupting volcanoes can emit hundreds of millions of tons of chlorine. These eruptions directly inject chlorine into the stratosphere[16]. Mt. Erebus in Antarctica began an active cycle of volcanic eruptions in 1972 that has been continuous to this day.[17] Mt. Erebus pumps 50 times more chlorine into the atmosphere annually than does an entire year's production of CFCs. [18] This is not to say that Mt. Erebus' emissions created the Antarctic ozone hole. Admittedly, the science is still uncertain as to all the factors influencing the fluctuating Antarctic ozone hole. However, concealed by the media, the so-called Antarctic ozone hole was not a new discovery. Its existence had been known for more than 30 years. Scientists had discovered the anomaly in the years 1956-57 when ozone spectrophotometers were placed in Antarctica for the first time.[19]

Incidentally, other natural sources of atmospheric chlorine originate from burning biomass, ocean biota, meteorite showers and cosmic dust burning up as they enter the atmosphere.[20] In fact, nature produces about 8,000 times more chlorine than man does with CFCs.[21] Of course, the large amounts of chlorine in the atmosphere should not be of a concern. The ozone layer has coexisted with this atmospheric chlorine long before industrial civilisations came into being and in fact; the sun's ultraviolet radiation is continually creating ozone. Ultraviolet radiation in the band of 190-230 nm creates single atoms of oxygen that form ozone molecules.[22]

Although CFCs are heavy molecules, a minuscule proportion does manage to be drawn up to the lower stratosphere. However, CFCs do not rise above 40 kilometres. This is a critical point, as the intensity of ultraviolet light in the lower stratosphere is not sufficient to break up CFCs. Moreover, despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent in research, no one has observed a single instance of ultraviolet radiation splitting CFCs in the stratosphere.[23]

Many people may be unaware of both Du Pont and ICI's vested financial interest in the banning of CFCs. These two corporations have worked together for decades, maintaining their dominance in the world chemical market.[31] The Du Pont Corporation's monopoly patent on CFCs was about to expire and become public domain. It was therefore in Du Pont's interest to sponsor the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit conference, and surprise, surprise; Du Pont secured the patent on the replacement HFC 134a gas.[32] The Montreal Protocol to limit CFCs was revised and on 11th February, 1992, President Bush announced a ban on CFCs by 1995.[33]

Under the ownership of the Bronfman family, Du Pont's earnings from CFC replacements have amounted to many billions of dollars. Edgar Bronfman personally may have made more than $10 billion during the early 1990s alone.[34] Interestingly, the Bronfmans have made considerable contributions to the environmental movement. In fact, Du Pont and ICI (along with many other multinational corporations) have a close working relationship with the green movement. One of the heirs of the ICI family fortune, Lord Peter Melchett, is the executive director of Greenpeace in Great Britain. Greenpeace, with an annual income of more than $100 million worldwide has been actively campaigning against the use of CFCs.[35]

The data available from public sources show that the total revenues of the environmental movement are more than 8.5 billion US dollars per year.[36] Foundation grants to environmental groups in the range of 20 to 50 million US dollars are no longer a novelty. In July 1990, the Rockefeller Foundation announced a 50 million-dollar global environmental program.[37] It may seem rather ironic to most of us that the world's first billionaire[38] and oil industrialist, namely John D. Rockefeller, endowed the Rockefeller Foundation.[39] The irony certainly does not stop here. Many multinational corporations donate huge sums of money to environmental groups. The Nature Conservancy's 1990 report reflects contributions of over $1,000,000 from Amoco, over $135,000 from Arco, over $100,000 from BP Exploration and BP Oil, more than $3,700,000 (in real estate) from Chevron, over $10,000 from Conoco and Phillips Petroleum and over $260,000 from Exxon.[40] IBM is contributing grant money for the introduction of school children on five continents to the "theory and practice of Gaia." [41]Gaia is the brainchild of Dr. James Lovelock, and known by many scientists as junk-science or pseudoscience.[42]

Lovelock proclaims:

"Gaia is Mother Earth. Gaia is immortal. She is the eternal source of life. She does not need to reproduce herself as she is immortal. She is certainly the mother of us all, including Jesus... Gaia is not a tolerant mother. She is rigid and inflexible, ruthless in the destruction of whoever transgresses. Her unconscious objective is that of maintaining a world adapted to life. If we men hinder this objective we will be eliminated without pity."[43]

Corporations are not required by law to report on grants to environmental groups. However, from the scant information publicly available, one can conservatively estimate that corporations contribute more than $200 million a year to the environmental movement.[44] This may appear as bizarre behaviour at first glance. However, big business has learnt that they are able to bankrupt competition from small and medium sized business through cumbersome environmental regulations.[45] The tragedy of this is Mum and Dad battlers and pensioners donate their scarce dollars to green groups believing they are saving the Earth from the "evils of industrialisation." Nothing could be further from the truth.

Sadly, although many of the hypothesised environmental disasters turn out to be fraudulent, multinational corporations continue to perpetrate environmental damage. Moreover, the media treats these multinational corporations with kid gloves when they do indeed commit environmental negligence. This should not really come as a surprise, as the same elite powers governing multinational corporations drive the media's political bias. The mainstream media simply avoids many critical issues, although they dish up a variety of articles and programs in the attempt to give the perception of endorsing free speech while providing fairness for all parties.

Unethical behaviour from scientists such as Stephen H. Schneider compounds the environmental bias that already exists within our media. In an interview in October 1989, Schneider came out with this alarming admission: "We need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. . . . Each of us has to decide what is the right balance between being effective and being honest."

In the early 1970s, Schneider was an adamant supporter of the theory of a coming Ice Age that would wipe mankind from the face of the Earth. Now articles regularly feature Schneider supporting impending doom due to global warming. In 1992, this admitted deceiver received the "Scientist of the Year Award."[46] Now, would this be a political appointment?

http://www.gwb.com.a...beck/230899.htm

Edited April 12, 2014 by Phaeton80

[Guest]

I stopped reading when I came across this bit;

Another rarely publicised point is that global ozone data exists back as far as the 1930s[7]

The reality is that comprehensive data was only collected from the 1970's and satellite data only became available from the 1980's

Ground based measurements of Ozone were first started in 1956, in at Halley Bay, Antarctica. Satellite measurements of ozone started in the early 70's, but the first comprehensive worldwide measurements started in 1978 with the Nimbus-7 satellite.

http://www.theozoneh...holehistory.htm

I suspect that the author is attempting to conflate limited local records of ground based Ozone (widely monitored in cities because of its sever health effects) with an actual systematic analysis of global stratospheric ozone levels. Unfortunately it is impossible to verify this because the source is a conspiracy book rather than a scientific reference.

Not very clever stuff really. Just more rehashed conspiracy theories.

Br Cornelius

Edited April 12, 2014 by Guest

[Phaeton80]

How to take a detail way out of proportion (the statement zoomed in on is factually sound [3.2.1]) and utterly ignore the lionpart o/t information and/or point o/t post.

Clever you say..

[Guest]

How to take a detail way out of proportion (the statement zoomed in on is factually sound [3.2.1]) and utterly ignore the lionpart o/t information and/or point o/t post.

Clever you say..

The devil is in the detail and if an argument uses one false statement it generally follows that there are many other false statements as well. Lets clarify that false premise - what and how was the statement about data going back to the 1930's derived ? Where can I examine it in its original form so that I can decide on the veracity of the claim ? Without the original data sources its hearsay and there is no way of knowing how true each and every part is.

The thrust of the original article is to emphasis the many known causes of stratospheric ozone variability (known , documented and acknowledged by the researches into CFC's effects) whilst completely ignoring the strong correlation between stratospheric chlorine and ozone levels.

Its a dry run for the same techniques used to discredit anthropogenic climate change a few decades later.

Edit:

Its interesting that you should use a study which implicitly acknowledges the ozone depleting effects of CFC's, and uses it in its modelling, to attempt to discredit the effects of CFC's on ozone depletion. The results clearly confirm the overall global decline of ozone in response to anthropogenic influences since the 1950's. Nice one.

As expected,

ozone shows a strong anti-correlation with effective stratospheric chlorine, over the whole Northern Hemisphere

Br Cornelius

Edited April 12, 2014 by Guest