Climate Change Denial and Brexit

[Potemkin Villager]

Here's something for a wet Sunday afternoon to come upon the fascinating DESMOGUK web site whilst rationalising my unwieldy collection of bookmarks.

https://www.desmog.co.uk/

According to this website there are very strong connections between climate change deniers and Brexit lobbyists.

https://www.desmog.co.uk/2018/07/03/how ... government

e.g.

Also I hadn't previously realised is that Jezza Corbyn has an almost equally famous older brother Piers. https://www.desmog.co.uk/piers-corbyn

According to wikipedia:-

"Corbyn (Piers) has stated his belief that the anthropogenic contribution to global warming is minimal with any increase in temperature due to increased solar activity. In 2008 Corbyn went even further than being sceptical, and took an absolutist, certain position by stating, "CO2 has never driven, does not drive and never will drive weather or climate. Global warming is over and it never was anything to do with CO2. CO2 is still rising but the world is now cooling and will continue to do so. In 2009 he attended the International Conference on Climate Change organised by the Heartland Institute."

[Potemkin Villager]

Here's something for a wet Sunday afternoon to come upon the fascinating DESMOGUK web site whilst rationalising my unwieldy collection of bookmarks.

https://www.desmog.co.uk/

According to this website there are very strong connections between climate change deniers and Brexit lobbyists.

https://www.desmog.co.uk/2018/07/03/how ... government

e.g.

Also I hadn't previously realised is that Jezza Corbyn has an almost equally famous older brother Piers. https://www.desmog.co.uk/piers-corbyn

According to wikipedia:-

"Corbyn (Piers) has stated his belief that the anthropogenic contribution to global warming is minimal with any increase in temperature due to increased solar activity. In 2008 Corbyn went even further than being sceptical, and took an absolutist, certain position by stating, "CO2 has never driven, does not drive and never will drive weather or climate. Global warming is over and it never was anything to do with CO2. CO2 is still rising but the world is now cooling and will continue to do so. In 2009 he attended the International Conference on Climate Change organised by the Heartland Institute."

I really am getting a thing against incredibly self confident folk with strongly held opionions.

[emordnilap]

Ah. The Heartland Institute. Say no more.

[kenneal - lagger]

Piers also probably believes that black is white and white is black as it's only a matter of how we perceive things.

[woodburner]

Is that supposed to be a scientific argument? Ridiculing people who hold views which might be different from yours? That is not science. Science is debating the case argument, not ridiculing those you don’t agree with.

Given the huge proportional increase in CO2 since the first records, why has the global temperature risen by an amount that is of a size that allows very different views as to whether it has risen “signifigantly�? Is CO2 the cause anyway?

[kenneal - lagger]

No! It's not supposed to be scientific argument it is supposed to be a joke just as Piers and your arguments about global warming are a joke.

If you want to know what my arguments are against your climate change scepticism go to https://skepticalscience.com/ where all your arguments are countered but here is the first paragraph of the site for your information:-

Scientific skepticism is healthy. Scientists should always challenge themselves to improve their understanding. Yet this isn't what happens with climate change denial. Skeptics vigorously criticise any evidence that supports man-made global warming and yet embrace any argument, op-ed, blog or study that purports to refute global warming. This website gets skeptical about global warming skepticism. Do their arguments have any scientific basis? What does the peer reviewed scientific literature say?

Go away for a few days Woodburner and read the arguments then come back fully informed by the scientists in the know not by a few fossil fuel financed commentators and "experts" in other fields who you lay so much store in.

[kenneal - lagger]

....
Given the huge proportional increase in CO2 since the first records, why has the global temperature risen by an amount that is of a size that allows very different views as to whether it has risen “signifigantly�?

See https://skepticalscience.com/Earth-expe ... arming.htm

Is CO2 the cause anyway?

You can take your pick from at least half a dozen references for this question from https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php?f=taxonomy

[woodburner]

No! It's not supposed to be scientific argument it is supposed to be a joke just as Piers and your arguments about global warming are a joke.

Tut tut, your position repeatedly decends into ridiculing people who do not hold your views, though you do not know my views, you just make assumptions. That Is not a scientific approach.

Looking at skeptical(something that is supposed to be science, but that is debatable) there is the case of Al Gore’s film and whether it should be shown in schools. Well, is it fact? If it is then there is no reason it should not be shown in schools, but if it is not fact it is misleading and a false statement. We have all been taught falsehoods in school, some recognise this, some, and it appears to be the majority still believe everything they were taught.

As an example look at the history of smallpox and vaccines. Jenner was a fraud and the vaccine was the primecause of transmitting smallpox. As we now now the way to reduce smallpox was better nutrition and better sanitation, but the teaching was it was vaccine wot dun it.

[BritDownUnder]

To me there are at least three things that affect global average temperatures. CO2 concentration, the Milankovich cycle and solar activity.

To me any it seems that currently CO2 concentration is going up rapidly - I think most people agree. The earth is supposedly going into a cooling stage of the Milankovich cycle and has been for about 2000 years and will continue for tens of thousands in the future. Solar activity is variable over the 11 year sunspot cycle and seems to be the cause of the little ice age and maunder minimum, i.e. cooling but I have not seen evidence that sun activity leads to much heating. Maybe the sun is mostly active but has occasional quiet periods.

At the moment CO2 concentrations are trumping the other two and the earth is heating.

Note: The Milankovich cycle is three - I think - minuscule changes in the Earth's orbit and tilt (and maybe something else) that change the amount of average solar radiation the Earth receives, when in the Northern Hemisphere year it is received and it causes a further effect on the Earth's snow cover and reflectivity (albedo).

[woodburner]

Is it CO2? What about other more potent substances? Solar panel cleaning chemicals? Vapour trails from aircraft? Methane? Plastics degrading? In greenhouses CO2 is often at 12% as a plant nutrient. It should make plants grow outside too. The earth’s temp rise is supposedly around 0.8ºC. Really? How can this be determined from measuring temperatures? Ever tried getting accurate temperature measurements?

[BritDownUnder]

Is it CO2? What about other more potent substances? Solar panel cleaning chemicals? Vapour trails from aircraft? Methane? Plastics degrading? In greenhouses CO2 is often at 12% as a plant nutrient. It should make plants grow outside too. The earth’s temp rise is supposedly around 0.8ºC. Really? How can this be determined from measuring temperatures? Ever tried getting accurate temperature measurements?

From memory CO2 is 40% of warming potential and water vapour is about 30% of warming potential of atmospheric components. The other 30% must be other triatomic or greater molecules in the atmosphere. Diatomic molecules such as oxygen and nitrogen don't absorb Infra red radiation so don't contribute to trapping radiation directly. I think ozone may be one of them. Then we get to all the others of which methane is probably the greatest. Your solar panel cleaning chemicals are probably on the list somewhere. Personally I use that commonly available (even in Australia) chemical called rain to clean mine so water vapour is on the list.

I would have thought that global temperature trends are based on the averages of meteorological station readings over the past century.

As for accuracy there are special mercury thermometers that are accurate to 0.1ºC in a temperature range -30 to +50.

[woodburner]

Unfortunately the temperatures were first measured at sites which in some cases later had significant amounts of buildings constructed around them. Other sites were moved. As if this were not enough, the present quoted rise of 0.8ºC is taken from readings where the range of temperatures are huge by comparison. The uk has a range of at least -17 to +35. Siberia has a range of -40 to +40 using conservative figures. How is it possible to say the rise is 0.8ºC since not only the range, but the duration for any particular temperature in the range must be taken?
The problem is the subject is not permitted to be discussed. On the one hand there are the climate change supporters, on the other are the climate change deniers, both of whom treat their position as unviolable. The climate is changing, it always has done, but as for what causes it, and what rate any one parameter is changing is near impossible to determine.
It is mostly used as a political tool nowadays in order to raise taxes, since the older tax generators don’t produce so much as they used to.
While we are discussing the causes of the claimed warming of the atmosphere, and in another topic the fires moving north because of the warming, the US (and other countries) are supposedly engaged in geo-engineering climate control by spraying aerosols from aircraft, the question is, wh does it appear to be a monumental failure given the climatic disasters frequently reported.

[kenneal - lagger]

Here's the first of three posts explaining adjustments to various temperature records.

Can you give us a reference for large scale aerosol spraying, please? I've not seen anything about that for years.

[woodburner]

From your skeptikalscience link

there is really no such thing as a pure and unadulterated temperature record.

Says it all really.

Just yet another inconvenient truth.

[kenneal - lagger]

The above is about all I would expect from a denier troll. Take one sentence out of its context from an article of several thousands words and make a case from it. Woodburner, you have just gone even further down in my estimation.

If you had read the whole article you would have seen that adjustments are made for among other things, the increased temperatures caused by increasing urban heat islands that you have used elsewhere on this forum to denigrate the temperature records. On the one hand you tell us that the temperature records are biased by urban heat islands and when you are told that account is taken of this you again complain.

You are no more than a troll, Woodburner.