Interesting Read iF You Belive in "Climate Change" and "Carbon Footprints"

[XTC]

I borrowed a friends Range Rover last weekend and I received (It may have been my imagination) a lot of aggressive looks from people, so I have decided to buy one.

I hate 4WDs , but that made me chuckle.

[DodgyAgent]

Melanie Phillips is (IMO) an annoying Daily Mail journalist, author of Londinistan, and I have no interest in anything she writes about climate change - others are welcome to read her.

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An interesting revelation. You have no interest in anyone who challenges the integrity of your own opinions. Because you do not have the capacity to challenge her through argument (a capacity that she certainly has) you think it best to ignore her for fear that she may prove you wrong. I trust your wife does not show the same rednecked bigotry when she is engaged in her scientific research.

[dang65]

I have a mate who's a City oil trader who told me that oil will never run out it will only get more expensive

Yes, this is the main drift of Peak Oil theory - that the entire world's oil sources have already passed their peak of production and that from now on that production will slow, even while demand is rising, and therefore become steadily more and more expensive. As the industrial world (which seems to be most of the world these days) relies entirely on oil - for transport, manufacturing, drugs, plastics, mining, agriculture etc etc - then this steep rise in price will affect all of us massively. Nothing will be cheap in instantly available any more.

Try going through a day and looking at everything you use, from getting up and putting on easily affordable clothes and shoes, to eating breakfast cereal with milk from a plastic bottle, to driving to work in a metal and plastic car powered by petrol or diesel, to nipping into the overflowing supermarket for exotic food from all over the world... etc etc. Imagine if the price of all those things was instantly doubled, trebled, quadrupled - or not available at all.

Just put your rates up to cover it? Got a feeling that IT will become a luxury most firms will dump first sign of trouble, shortly before they go under completely themselves because no one can afford to pay for their services
any more

[DodgyAgent]

We have different views of scientists, clearly. I know rather a lot of them, and they are not as you describe.

I know a lot of computer scientists and they are precisely how I describe them.

[The Lone Gunman]

Melanie Phillips is (IMO) an annoying Daily Mail journalist, author of Londinistan, and I have no interest in anything she writes about climate change - others are welcome to read her.

I don't have enough knowledge to say that scientists funded by Exxon are bent. I think it more likely that Exxon selectively funds scientists who are more likely to come up (because of the position they already take) with the results that Exxon is looking for. You can be pretty sure that Exxon targets its funding to protect its position.

If the same were true of government, then major governments (including the US) would be allocating funds to research funding bodies on the basis that they selectively allocate funding only to those scientists who will produce pro-climate change studies that will allow those governments to introduce new taxes. How this is supposed to work in the US, where the administration rejects these taxes, I can't see. The whole thing becomes a huge conspiracy - and you'd think that lots of people in lots of funding bodies might have blabbed by now.

Thanks, didnt know who she was, dont read the papers. Just because you dont like her doesnt make her wrong.

Exxon protects its position.
I propose that Govt does the same.

IPCC (or whatever the letters are): Were they not a group of scientists brought together by Government and asked to report on climate change?
Were they not given the remit to collate all reports into one?

Many of the reports they were given to read were by scientists with a green agenda prior to being collated and it suits them to be include.
Science sponsored by Greenpeace, friends of the earth and so on was included al lkinds of green organisations who are anti car and anti pollution to start with.

[DodgyAgent]

Just put your rates up to cover it? Got a feeling that IT will become a luxury most firms will dump first sign of trouble, shortly before they go under completely themselves because no one can afford to pay for their services
any more

What a fantastic grasp of economics you have dang.

[Old Greg]

An interesting revelation. You have no interest in anyone who challenges the integrity of your own opinions. Because you do not have the capacity to challenge her through argument (a capacity that she certainly has) you think it best to ignore her for fear that she may prove you wrong. I trust your wife does not show the same rednecked bigotry when she is engaged in her scientific research.

Calm down. I read lots of things I don't agree with, but I don't like Melanie Phillips so I won't read her and I certainly don't read the Daily Mail for science - I can choose myself what to read to ensure I am properly informed and I don't need you to tell me what I should or shouldn't read. If you think she might 'prove me wrong', you don't understand the nature of this kind of debate. Nobody can 'prove' anything. Evidence is presented on both sides and we come to a decision on wwhere we stand in light of the evidence.

[Old Greg]

Thanks, didnt know who she was, dont read the papers. Just because you dont like her doesnt make her wrong.

Exxon protects its position.
I propose that Govt does the same.

IPCC (or whatever the letters are): Were they not a group of scientists brought together by Government and asked to report on climate change?
Were they not given the remit to collate all reports into one?

Many of the reports they were given to read were by scientists with a green agenda prior to being collated and it suits them to be include.
Science sponsored by Greenpeace, friends of the earth and so on was included al lkinds of green organisations who are anti car and anti pollution to start with.

Phillips and the Daily Mail in general are not where I would go for science. Witness the MMR nonsense for one.

If the IPCC was in some way 'fixed' to come up with the 'right' result, that does not explain why the overwhelming (but not unanimous) balance of scientific opinion lies in favour of climate change, which is in opposition to the Bush admisinstration's position. Why didn't the US 'fix' it to go the other way. TLG, do you really think this is some sort of international conspiracy - even a 'weak' one where governments are funding 'the right people' to come up with 'the right results'?

[VectraMan]

The vast majority of scientists also rely entirely upon their governments for funding. Given that govts are always looking for new ways in which to raise tax and control the people who they are actually supposed to serve. It is logical to presume that scientists will be prone to support their governments agenda.

I think the reason is simpler than that. It takes courage to speak out against convention, and few scientists are prepared to be alienated by their community, so they don't. What we have now is much like Galileo being locked up for suggesting the conventional wisdom as spread by the church might not be entirely correct.

Few of us will ever directly examine the evidence, so it comes down to faith. You can say that petrolheads want to hear that it's all nonsense so will believe arguments like the one at the start of this thread, but you can equally say the ecomentalists want to hear that the car is to blame for everything. And of course politicians like to have a bandwagon to jump on, especially if they can justify tax increases as well. You can't trust the green movement to be objective anymore than you can trust Jeremy Clarkson. And you certainly can't trust the politicians.

[DodgyAgent]

Phillips and the Daily Mail in general are not where I would go for science. Witness the MMR nonsense for one.

If the IPCC was in some way 'fixed' to come up with the 'right' result, that does not explain why the overwhelming (but not unanimous) balance of scientific opinion lies in favour of climate change, which is in opposition to the Bush admisinstration's position. Why didn't the US 'fix' it to go the other way. TLG, do you really think this is some sort of international conspiracy - even a 'weak' one where governments are funding 'the right people' to come up with 'the right results'?

The climate is always changing. The debate is about whether human beings are contributing adversly to climate change. Going back to Melanie Phillips, she also writes in the broadsheets including the Guardian, as do many journalists, so give it a go and write some nice logical counter arguments to show that your views are worth taking seriously. They usually do not mind having their views challenged. Furthermore research does not need to be actually "fixed" for it to be inbalanced. there are many subtle subconscious even dynamics at play without something needing to be fixed.