[cite]Posted By: Goonerhater[/cite]lets get this straight.
God exists because i believe he does.
I dont have to prove it to anyone.
I dont give a flying rats pair of testicles if someone has the "proof" he dosnt exist.
He does because i know he does
its called faith.
Gooner, I think you're getting the meanings of some of those words confused there.
God exists [to you, in your life] because you believe he does.
You don't have to prove that to anyone because it's just a belief.
"He does because I know he does - it's called faith"
Faith doesn't mean you know something. It simply means you believe in something without needing it to be proven to you. Which I find strange and alarming by its very definition. (Maybe this is why you don't believe all the hype about climate change - because you have 'faith' in unproven conspiracy theories?). By it's very nature, faith is the complete opposite of fact.
Faith in god and the Bible is called 'faith' because neither has anything 'factual' attached to it at all.
Okay, here we go again. It might be helpful to point out a very basic and incorrect assumption that seems to have been made about me on here and here it is...........I didn't always have my doubts about climate change as an issue.
I know that may come as a shock to many of you because it suits your point of view to portray me and others who also take a more sceptical view of the issue as some sort of mix between a half wit and 4x4 driving mill owner.
I was as pee’d off with the Americans as the most green of you when they refused to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol. They were, and still are, after all responsible for a disproportionately large amount of emissions. I stayed that way for a number of years and of course we should be encouraging them to reduce this.
But I started to have concerns about the way the issue was being presented in the media and the behavior of the IPCC. Lets not forget that if there is no human element to climate change (and I’m not and never had said that to be the case) then the IPCC ceases to exist. The IPCC is supposed be policy neutral, even though it’s published aims are such that it's clearly biased towards supporting the concept of human induced climate change.
I don’t want to go into details as this is getting too long already but rightly or wrongly I don’t like it when powerful organisations like this refuse to amend reports when asked to do so by the contributing authors for example, or whose contributors fail to make their evidence available for review without a Freedom of Info request or the Royal Society getting involved (as in the UEA case but there are many others) or who refuse to remove the names of contributors to it’s own reports when requested to do so because they are unhappy at the way their work has been presented. There are many more examples of their unprofessionalism and bias but these will do and in turn will no doubt be attacked for being the thoughts of an extremist right winger being drip fed the spin of the petrochemical industry. This seem to be the default position for supporters of man made climate change which is very unhelpful to a healthy discussion of the issue.
Regardless, this, combined with a media that turns any press releases it’s fed into a global disaster movie, plus vote/Oscar chasing politicians wanting to be the one that saves humanity, plus many, many self interest groups – from Greenpeace to 3rd World Govt’s – each chipping in with their own agenda, leave me wary of accepting unquestionably everything I’m told and wanting to put the brakes on until we can unravel the true situation, without all the spin and propaganda from both sides, and what we can do about it before we invest unimaginable sums of money into it for the next 40 years.
Now if that makes me a thick, narrow minded, effing wally or an imbecilic creationist or any of the over things I’ve been so charmingly called on here recently, so be it.
Whilst we find new and interesting ways to f##k up the planet every day I can’t help feeling that might live to regret our obsession with CO2 when we could be using those funds for so many other things where we might actually be able to achieve something.
[cite]Posted By: Goonerhater[/cite]know--believe same gravy. I feel sorry for you non believers-- all you have is a text book
sad.
ralph knows the truth.
[cite]Posted By: Goonerhater[/cite]know--believe same gravy. I feel sorry for you non believers-- all you have is a text book
sad.
ralph knows the truth.
Knowledge is not the same as belief/faith. They are as fundamentally apart as you can get.
Knowledge is empiraclly backed up and can be proven - hence we know the world is spherical etc because there is sufficient evidence to support it. Merely saying that something must exist because you believe it to be true, despite having no rational support for that isn't good enough.
[quote][cite]Posted By: BlackForestReds[/cite][quote][cite]Posted By: Goonerhater[/cite]know--believe same gravy. I feel sorry for you non believers-- all you have is a text book ----------------------------sad.
ralph knows the truth.[/quote]
[quote][cite]Posted By: Goonerhater[/cite]know--believe same gravy. I feel sorry for you non believers-- all you have is a text book ----------------------------sad.
ralph knows the truth.[/quote]
Knowledge is not the same as belief/faith. They are as fundamentally apart as you can get.
Knowledge is empiraclly backed up and can be proven - hence we know the world is spherical etc because there is sufficient evidence to support it. Merely saying that something must exist because you believe it to be true, despite having no rational support for that isn't good enough.[/quote]
But I started to have concerns about the way the issue was being presented in the media and the behavior of the IPCC.
..........
Ok they are two separate issues, the media by and large is a competitive thing and they try and put a lot of stories not just AGW in stark sensationalist terms, but that doesn't reduce the case for AGW.
The IPCC does not carry out its own original research, nor does it do the work of monitoring climate or related phenomena itself. The main activity of the IPCC is publishing special reports on topics relevant to the implementation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). So your second charge doesn't stick either - what you are engaging in is shooting the meesenger for bringing you bad news. The IPCC bases its assessment on peer reviewed and published scientific literature and has published four reports since 1988, that is some body of work that encompasses hundreds of thousands of individual experiments and readings.
Over it's lifetime the reports have grown steadily more complex and at the same time there has been a systematic effort to discredit it with the motives, research and methodology being questioned usually on the basis that if you chuck enough mud some will stick. For the last report - in 2007 the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) a pro-right-wing pressure-group masquerading as an independent organisation offered grants of $10,000 to any scientist who published something critical of the IPCC. I'm sure again it was pure coincidence that Mobil and Exxon are big funders of the AEI. So again you call into question the motives of the IPCC and scientists seemingly making the claim that they are working on a pecuniary motive, but give the otherside a straight, no questions asked pass.
This has got way beyond parody - knowledge now = belief and the tinfoil hats are out in force!
Great link btw, Sussex. I will enjoy reading that and playing denialist bingo later...and I am heeding one of their very sensible bits of advice. It's all just too exasperating.
[cite]Posted By: Goonerhater[/cite]know--believe same gravy. I feel sorry for you non believers-- all you have is a text book
sad.
ralph knows the truth.
Wow. All we have is a text book. All you have is the bible. One is written with statements of fact intended to further our understanding of things, the other is written by people that you don't even know, about stories they believed happened decades before, which have been so heavily edited in the centuries since that less than a quarter of the original text remains.
Believe me GH, whatever you might believe in 'god'-wise - a superior being, or whatever - you can't knock those who follow 'text books' or science when the book you follow is so flawed and historically inaccurate.
What I think is sad is that people feel the need to believe in a myth in order to make their lives feel complete. I'm much happier now than in any of my years as a 'believer'.
And that Bible says that the world was created in a week around 6,000 years ago, there is more than enough geological evidence to dispute that, albeit the creationists countered that by morphing their arguments into the ill-named "intelligent design" theory.
Gooner, I think you're getting the meanings of some of those words confused there.
God exists [to you, in your life] because you believe he does.
You don't have to prove that to anyone because it's just a belief.
"He does because I know he does - it's called faith"
Faith doesn't mean you know something. It simply means you believe in something without needing it to be proven to you. Which I find strange and alarming by its very definition. (Maybe this is why you don't believe all the hype about climate change - because you have 'faith' in unproven conspiracy theories?). By it's very nature, faith is the complete opposite of fact.
Faith in god and the Bible is called 'faith' because neither has anything 'factual' attached to it at all.
I personally have no problem with religion. I was raised Catholic and - whilst I've moved it away from it now - I have respect for the values and discipline of it, and respect for the many relations and friends of mine who are religious.
What I am against however, is the intertwining of religion with policy. People are entitled to whatever religion they want but it can't be used as a 'catch all' explanation to use for matters that affect millions of people. When George Bush says he's going to war because 'God told me too', I say that's not good enough. Religion can't be a replacement for facts in policy matters.
What really annoys me is when people start calling Global Warming 'the new religion' as if it's equally based on some mystical faith that you have a right not to 'believe' in. This subjectivises it in a way that conveniently ignores the vast swathes of empirical study and evidence for it.
I personally have no problem with religion. I was raised Catholic and - whilst I've moved it away from it now - I have respect for the values and discipline of it, and respect for the many relations and friends of mine who are religious.
What I am against however, is the intertwining of religion with policy. People are entitled to whatever religion they want but it can't be used as a 'catch all' explanation to use for matters that affect millions of people. When George Bush says he's going to war because 'God told me too', I say that's not good enough. Religion can't be a replacement for facts in policy matters.
This is exactly my position. Unfortunately, religion is still way too intertwined with policy. There should be NO occasion where religion has any bearing at all on any secular decision. As you allude to, Blair and Bush have both spoken about the importance that religion has played in their lives and thus their decision making. This is completely abhorrent and unacceptable to me.
Obviously religion is much more directly prevalent in more minor, less important policy too. That there are still vicars etc in the House of Lords at all makes no sense to me. Religion is also too intertwined with the lives of people who have not made it their choice to believe in the first place, i.e. children.
But yes, each to their own. I have no prejudice or problem with people who follow their religion. But I do, a little bit, with those that spout 'holier than thou' rubbish about non-believers being 'sad', or requiring some sort of sympathy - when it is they who are the misguided ones. It's like someone feeling sorry for you because you don't believe in Father Christmas anymore.
[cite]Posted By: Bournemouth Addick[/cite]Okay, here we go again. It might be helpful to point out a very basic and incorrect assumption that seems to have been made about me on here and here it is...........I didn't always have my doubts about climate change as an issue.
I know that may come as a shock to many of you because it suits your point of view to portray me and others who also take a more sceptical view of the issue as some sort of mix between a half wit and 4x4 driving mill owner.
I was as pee’d off with the Americans as the most green of you when they refused to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol. They were, and still are, after all responsible for a disproportionately large amount of emissions. I stayed that way for a number of years and of course we should be encouraging them to reduce this.
But I started to have concerns about the way the issue was being presented in the media and the behavior of the IPCC. Lets not forget that if there is no human element to climate change (and I’m not and never had said that to be the case) then the IPCC ceases to exist. The IPCC issupposedbe policy neutral, even though it’s published aims are such that it's clearly biased towards supporting the concept of human induced climate change.
I don’t want to go into details as this is getting too long already but rightly or wrongly I don’t like it when powerful organisations like this refuse to amend reports when asked to do so by the contributing authors for example, or whose contributors fail to make their evidence available for review without a Freedom of Info request or the Royal Society getting involved (as in the UEA case but there are many others) or who refuse to remove the names of contributors to it’s own reports when requested to do so because they are unhappy at the way their work has been presented. There are many more examples of their unprofessionalism and bias but these will do and in turn will no doubt be attacked for being the thoughts of an extremist right winger being drip fed the spin of the petrochemical industry. This seem to be the default position for supporters of man made climate change which is very unhelpful to a healthy discussion of the issue.
In all honesty BA, you do a disservice to your argument constantly referencing what you assume people think of you. Since your confrontation with my inflammatory self :-), I would say the discussion has been largely sensible and even if you feel it hasn't, then rise above it. If you felt the post was getting too long then get rid of the likes of 'an extremist right winger being drip fed the spin of the petrochemical industry' and fill in the details that you want to put in. I'm interested in your arguments about their refusing to amend reports and removing the names of contributors, and how widespread this is, so I think that needs to be evidenced and expanded upon.
Regardless, this, combined with a media that turns any press releases it’s fed into a global disaster movie,
Just as they explode the slightest uncertainty about global warming, in fact probably more so as it's controversial and it sells papers. The media is the media, and their often idiotic representations of things does not mean you can then treat what they are representing in the same light. Bypass the media and look at the scientists reports; you can ignore media representations entirely if you wish.
plus vote/Oscar chasing politicians wanting to be the one that saves humanity, plus many, many self interest groups – from Greenpeace to 3rd World Govt’s – each chipping in with their own agenda
'vote/ Oscar chasing politicians' is nice rhetoric, but I believe trying to explain that the government wants global warming with any practicality will always come up short. Do you know what all elections are won on? "It's the economy, stupid" as goes the famous Bill Clinton saying. Cutting consumerism is hugely politically unpopular, politicians would love to just be able to indulge in exponential growth as it means a happier populace and much more tax. In fact, one of the reasons we've been so slow in addressing climate change is probably because it's so difficult to sell politically, and no one wants to be the first to tell people that we can't keep living the way we have been. George Bush just ignored it for 8 years because it's a lot easier that way, not because he's bravely resisting the elite conspiracy.
leave me wary of accepting unquestionably everything I’m told and wanting to put the brakes on until we can unravel the true situation, without all the spin and propaganda from both sides, and what we can do about it before we invest unimaginable sums of money into it for the next 40 years.
Here's the problem: when do you define this to be? When will the world ever be totally free of any spin or propaganda? The best you can do is sidestep the media, sidestep the politicians and look at what almost all the scientists are saying. Uncertainty can always be generated as nothing is infallible and every crevice can and will be exploited by those who want to see global warming done away with. It's very easy to throw up uncertainty when they're supposedly merely 'opening debate' and out of the glare of the scientific spotlight. Astro-turfing, petitions etc. have been explicitly linked back to special interests, and they don't need hard evidence in their claims, just enough supposed seeds of doubt in the minds of the public to declare 'well, the debate isn't closed' and repeatedly delay any changes. I've read that the amount of scientific uncertainty about Global warming is proportionate to the amount there always is for sound theories, it's just that it's been amplified beyond reason because it's in certain groups' interest to do so.
Well done BA, puts my feelings into words far more succinctly than I could manage. I feel there is more to come from the UEA data fiddling. I don't think prof Jones would have stepped aside so quickly if there was nothing in his emails and the meaning of them has been deliberately misinterpreted as some on here claim. We will see.
ha haha so lets see billions of people believe there is a god ----------------------they are all wrong. a few boffins believe that life is going to end because of climate change--- they are right.
strange how people on here can take the piss because i believe in God , but of course would scream "NAZI" at the top of their voices if someone dared to challange Islam or Judism ?????????????????? no politics there then.
Toaster ? surely you dont have one of those do you ??? i mean they use electricity an stuff to make em --- i mean surely u cant eat bread with all that carbon wastage that goes into making it ?????? or maybe the bread is organic grown by the climate pixies and toasted on a twig in your garden under the sun ?
No-one is 'taking the piss' because you believe in God. I have read - and re-read - this entire thread from the point where it was hijacked into a debate about religion - there isn't a single thing that could even remotely be classed as a 'piss-take'. For the record, my stance on religion is that everyone is entitled to believe exactly what they want to believe. I think you'll find most other people feel exactly the same way. Stop trying to invent persecution where there isn't any.
As it happens, I feel there are plenty of things that science can't explain - chief amongst them is the state of human consciousness. I follow no particular religious doctrine, but do believe that there is 'something else' ('God', a universal force, little green men etc.) that exists which gives us our feelings/emotions/soul.
Your second point is absolutely laughable. ALL religion - whether you like it or not - is IDENTICAL. it ALL involves telling people what to do, how to live their lives and how to interact with those of a different faith. Nobody in their right mind (granted, there are plenty of people around who AREN'T in their right mind) would make the ridiculous divisions between religions that you are asserting. I couldn't give a monkeys what God you worship. Nor could anyone else who isn't religious!
Your final point is just as ludicrous - and completely incoherent
It would appear that not that many scientists have in fact shaped the policy despite the apparent consensus referred to by others higher up this thread
the work of "denialist scientists'" is often dismissed by warmists as they are alleged to be financed by the oil lobby. Well it would seem from this that Al Gore and others have a substantial vested interest in the alternative energy markets.
Whether one is a "warmist" or a "denialist" "Climategate" is or should be of concern to democrats particularly as the Copenhagen delegates are seeking to bypass Congress for instance as mentioned in one of the links above.
so who of any ofthe posters in this thread has actually studded anything to do with the environment ? not just read it in the Guardian whilst eating a tofu burger ? well sory to say peeps that i might ( that does say might) actully be the only one ---------------------------- i have a diploma from the Open Univercity after studying Third World Developement and Environment. These two courses included summer schools at the Uni of East Anglia. I did well on both the course work and the tests because i knew what they WANTED me to say/write. Politics of the left run right through em both.
Climate change o yes lets turn the UK back to the stoneage whilst saying naff all about the populations of China and india and of course whilst this Labour Government says its fine for the UK population to EXPLODE --- really ? do tell why thats ok then ? Ever herd of a thing called DEMOGRAPHIC PROJECTION ? its a science of population growth and actually says in developed countries populations fall--- yes thats FALL -- its to do with better education-- job opertunities for women amongest others. Yet here we are a supposed developed country and our population has exploded ( cant be anything to be with Blairs social/multicultural experiments ?)-- how the hell can we in the UK say anything about population pressure of other countries on the environemnt when its exploded here ?
lets shut all our power staions down and live off grass while Poland`s energy is 95% from coal. Lets not say anything about rice production (at all) and the CO2 it emits. Wind power--- total and utter KAK , the most uneconomical power generation of all.
Climate change has been hijacked by many other agendas.
o and Leroy im not religous i just believe God exists.
[cite]Posted By: LenGlover[/cite]It would appear that not that many scientists have in fact shaped the policy despite the apparent consensus referred to by others higher up this thread
the work of "denialist scientists'" is often dismissed by warmists as they are alleged to be financed by the oil lobby. Well it would seem from this that Al Gore and others have a substantial vested interest in the alternative energy markets.
Whether one is a "warmist" or a "denialist" "Climategate" is or should be of concern to democrats particularly as the Copenhagen delegates are seeking to bypass Congress for instance as mentioned in one of the links above.
Without wanting to be too crictical the first is a blog on the website for a conservative/neo-conservative newspaper, by a well known denialist trying to sell his denialist book.
The second is another op-ed piece, i.e. not news, but just the opinions of one particular journalist, a journalist so convinced that they are correct they don't even put their name to the story. And once again a conservative paper prints it.
The last is the weakest of all. Nothing more than another me-too blog reiterating an opinion piece in the telegraph (another conservative paper, such a coincidence) based on quotes from a scientist discredited by the institute he was formally head of and with an obvious bone to grind with the warmists (as well as a book to sell).
If this debate is to have any merit then both sides need to produce facts, or at least well researched theories, rather than opinion gleaned from a collection of politically and financially motivated editorial pieces and blogs.
[cite]Posted By: LenGlover[/cite]It would appear that not that many scientists have in fact shaped the policy despite the apparent consensus referred to by others higher up this thread
the work of "denialist scientists'" is often dismissed by warmists as they are alleged to be financed by the oil lobby. Well it would seem from this that Al Gore and others have a substantial vested interest in the alternative energy markets.
Whether one is a "warmist" or a "denialist" "Climategate" is or should be of concern to democrats particularly as the Copenhagen delegates are seeking to bypass Congress for instance as mentioned in one of the links above.
Without wanting to be too crictical the first is a blog on the website for a conservative/neo-conservative newspaper, by a well known denialist trying to sell his denialist book.
The second is another op-ed piece, i.e. not news, but just the opinions of one particular journalist, a journalist so convinced that they are correct they don't even put their name to the story. And once again a conservative paper prints it.
The last is the weakest of all. Nothing more than another me-too blog reiterating an opinion piece in the telegraph (another conservative paper, such a coincidence) based on quotes from a scientist discredited by the institute he was formally head of and with an obvious bone to grind with the warmists (as well as a book to sell).
If this debate is to have any merit then both sides need to produce facts, or at least well researched theories, rather than opinion gleaned from a collection of politically and financially motivated editorial pieces and blogs.
Not intended as a dig at you Randy Andy I post this here purely because yours is the most recent example.
However on this forum sometimes you simply cannot win. If you assert an opinion you are asked to supply links and evidence which in principle is fair enough.
When you do that and opponents don't like the content they denigrate the source.
Well this is a question rather than a fact but why are sources such as The Guardian anymore reliable than mine?
[cite]Posted By: Goonerhater[/cite]so who of any ofthe posters in this thread has actually studded anything to do with the environment ? not just read it in the Guardian whilst eating a tofu burger ? well sory to say peeps that i might ( that does say might) actully be the only one
i have a diploma from the Open Univercity after studying Third World Developement and Environment. These two courses included summer schools at the Uni of East Anglia. I did well on both the course work and the tests because i knew what they WANTED me to say/write. Politics of the left run right through em both.
Maybe, just maybe, that's because the politics of the left is right about this? Anyway, sorry to say GH, but i think you're correct in your use of 'might', because I have a feeling there are several with relevant degrees and even higher degrees commenting on this thread. I believe one might even be a scientist by profession. I'm not one of these, hence have not contributed. I bow to others' greater knowledge. Including yours to some extent - I'll be looking up the rice thing as it sounds interesting.
[cite]Posted By: Goonerhater[/cite]ha haha so lets see billions of people believe there is a god
they are all wrong. a few boffins believe that life is going to end because of climate change--- they are right.
strange how people on here can take the piss because i believe in God , but of course would scream "NAZI" at the top of their voices if someone dared to challange Islam or Judism ?????????????????? no politics there then.
Leroy has dealt with how ridiculous these points are already, but just a couple of things:
It's been proven that it's an innate part of human nature to search for (and long for) a higher, superior being. Hence people are easily persuaded by the thought/argument that there is one. Hence most people tend to believe today. In fact, if you get into deep conversation with most believers about the nature of their beliefs, they will admit it's because they LIKE to think their is a God, as opposed to really knowing that there is. A much higher percentage of the Greek world believed in their vast array of hundreds of gods than the current world believes in their god, but that doesn't mean that they were all right. In fact I'm pretty sure you'll agree that they were all wrong. Trust me, in 5,000 years people will be studying this crazy christian god we used to believe in, and will be shaking their heads in sympathy and amusement at what we used to believe. Similar to what we think about the pagan and greek gods now.
And as Leroy said, all religions and gods are the same in principle, and are treated and viewed the same by me.
[cite]Posted By: randy andy[/cite]
If this debate is to have any merit then both sides need to produce facts, or at least well researched theories, rather than opinion gleaned from a collection of politically and financially motivated editorial pieces and blogs.
It's a good job this debate isn't about God then, or it would be over pretty quickly! Anyway, sorry for the part that I've played in hijacking this thread - I didn't bring it up mind. But, as you were everyone
I haven't really stated my opinion, so I'm not attacking these sources for their viewpoint.
What I'm saying is finding links to other pure opinion pieces that happen to match your opinion isn't evidence. Imagine the situation in a court of law, a policeman says he believes the suspect is guilty and when asked for evidence merely finds another policeman who shares the same opinion, that's not evidence is it?
I'm happy to be swayed by evidence from either side, but so far this thread is mostly rhetoric and opinion with very little to back it up. Both sides of this debate are guilty of spouting off opinions and hearsay as fact, so in essence I'm attacking both. When somebody says there is overwhelming consensus, a link proving it (not a link showing somebody else thinks something similar) would be nice.
I have a feeling the "warmists" will have much more luck finding hard facts to back them up, but both groups should be arguing the facts, not personal or politcal opinion (and how religious opinion got dragged into I'll never know).
Scientists aren't always correct, but our whole modern civilisation is built upon scientific discovery, so to discard the scientific process because the results might not be desirable now seems disingenuous at best.
[cite]Posted By: BlackForestReds[/cite]But I started to have concerns about the way the issue was being presented in the media and the behavior of the IPCC.
..........
Ok they are two separate issues, the media by and large is a competitive thing and they try and put a lot of stories not just AGW in stark sensationalist terms, but that doesn't reduce the case for AGW.
The IPCC does not carry out its own original research, nor does it do the work of monitoring climate or related phenomena itself. The main activity of the IPCC is publishing special reports on topics relevant to the implementation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). So your second charge doesn't stick either - what you are engaging in is shooting the meesenger for bringing you bad news. The IPCC bases its assessment on peer reviewed and published scientific literature and has published four reports since 1988, that is some body of work that encompasses hundreds of thousands of individual experiments and readings.
Over it's lifetime the reports have grown steadily more complex and at the same time there has been a systematic effort to discredit it with the motives, research and methodology being questioned usually on the basis that if you chuck enough mud some will stick. For the last report - in 2007 the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) a pro-right-wing pressure-group masquerading as an independent organisation offered grants of $10,000 to any scientist who published something critical of the IPCC. I'm sure again it was pure coincidence that Mobil and Exxon are big funders of the AEI. So again you call into question the motives of the IPCC and scientists seemingly making the claim that they are working on a pecuniary motive, but give the otherside a straight, no questions asked pass.
I haven't got the link to hand but will look it up later but some research has been done and published that look at the number, frequency and orginators of amendments to the IPCC reports. You'd be surprised how few people involved could be bothered to respond to the drafts and how many of those requests were turned down by the IPCC.
At risk of labouring the point my problem is that I think we are not getting the whole picture. Take for instance the link to the open letter I put up recently. The Maldives are not sinking
You said that you'd never seen any research to this effect yet here is a bloke, probably at the top of his field and certainly well qualified enough to both be a reviewer for the IPCC and for the Maldives govt to invite to carry out the study for them being deliberately overlooked. Don't you think it's important that his research is made available to us more widely, let alone the population of the Maldives who live in a state of fear and uncertainty, whilst their government chose to ignore the mans findings because it wasn't what they expected to get?
I don't think you'll find this research in any IPCC report and the response of some on here seems microcosm of what happens when something unpalatable is presented to them: It's ignored, ridiculed, dismissed as the ranting of a crackpot or someone in the pay of big business and the person abused.
I'm not saying that he's not in the pay of the oil companies, who knows, but clearly at some stage someone at the IPCC and Maldives government thought enough of the bloke to get him involved, until he came up with some results that didn't fit their agenda.
Sorry to hark on about him, but he seems to sum up my fears on the issue nicely.
For me this debate is too often led by extremities when a simple bit of house keeping is needed.
If I was locked in a room with a fire burning, a cow burping, I chopped down the house plants one by one and I didn't look after my water supply properly then I don't think it would do me much good. I might well survive but I wouldn't feel too good.
Perhaps we could look at ways to reduce our demands/meet our demands for power and implement them to improve/look after the health of our planet in the same way that to look after out own health a lot of us realise that going out on the lash every night/smoking/taking drugs/eating poorly/etc isn't going to make us a particularly healthy person in the long run.
In other words I'd like if we stopped having such a massive row about this and actually did some stuff that would help ensure a long term future for life on the planet. It'll be here after we've gone but it might be quite nice if we get to enjoy it a bit longer and in a good way. We're pretty lucky to have what we've got so why not look after it?
Comments
Gooner, I think you're getting the meanings of some of those words confused there.
God exists [to you, in your life] because you believe he does.
You don't have to prove that to anyone because it's just a belief.
"He does because I know he does - it's called faith"
Faith doesn't mean you know something. It simply means you believe in something without needing it to be proven to you. Which I find strange and alarming by its very definition. (Maybe this is why you don't believe all the hype about climate change - because you have 'faith' in unproven conspiracy theories?). By it's very nature, faith is the complete opposite of fact.
Faith in god and the Bible is called 'faith' because neither has anything 'factual' attached to it at all.
Burning pixies gives out cooling gas so burn a pixie save the world.
ralph knows the truth.
I know that may come as a shock to many of you because it suits your point of view to portray me and others who also take a more sceptical view of the issue as some sort of mix between a half wit and 4x4 driving mill owner.
I was as pee’d off with the Americans as the most green of you when they refused to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol. They were, and still are, after all responsible for a disproportionately large amount of emissions. I stayed that way for a number of years and of course we should be encouraging them to reduce this.
But I started to have concerns about the way the issue was being presented in the media and the behavior of the IPCC. Lets not forget that if there is no human element to climate change (and I’m not and never had said that to be the case) then the IPCC ceases to exist. The IPCC is supposed be policy neutral, even though it’s published aims are such that it's clearly biased towards supporting the concept of human induced climate change.
I don’t want to go into details as this is getting too long already but rightly or wrongly I don’t like it when powerful organisations like this refuse to amend reports when asked to do so by the contributing authors for example, or whose contributors fail to make their evidence available for review without a Freedom of Info request or the Royal Society getting involved (as in the UEA case but there are many others) or who refuse to remove the names of contributors to it’s own reports when requested to do so because they are unhappy at the way their work has been presented. There are many more examples of their unprofessionalism and bias but these will do and in turn will no doubt be attacked for being the thoughts of an extremist right winger being drip fed the spin of the petrochemical industry. This seem to be the default position for supporters of man made climate change which is very unhelpful to a healthy discussion of the issue.
Regardless, this, combined with a media that turns any press releases it’s fed into a global disaster movie, plus vote/Oscar chasing politicians wanting to be the one that saves humanity, plus many, many self interest groups – from Greenpeace to 3rd World Govt’s – each chipping in with their own agenda, leave me wary of accepting unquestionably everything I’m told and wanting to put the brakes on until we can unravel the true situation, without all the spin and propaganda from both sides, and what we can do about it before we invest unimaginable sums of money into it for the next 40 years.
Now if that makes me a thick, narrow minded, effing wally or an imbecilic creationist or any of the over things I’ve been so charmingly called on here recently, so be it.
Whilst we find new and interesting ways to f##k up the planet every day I can’t help feeling that might live to regret our obsession with CO2 when we could be using those funds for so many other things where we might actually be able to achieve something.
Knowledge is not the same as belief/faith. They are as fundamentally apart as you can get.
Knowledge is empiraclly backed up and can be proven - hence we know the world is spherical etc because there is sufficient evidence to support it. Merely saying that something must exist because you believe it to be true, despite having no rational support for that isn't good enough.
ralph knows the truth.[/quote]
[quote][cite]Posted By: Goonerhater[/cite]know--believe same gravy. I feel sorry for you non believers-- all you have is a text book ----------------------------sad.
ralph knows the truth.[/quote]
Knowledge is not the same as belief/faith. They are as fundamentally apart as you can get.
Knowledge is empiraclly backed up and can be proven - hence we know the world is spherical etc because there is sufficient evidence to support it. Merely saying that something must exist because you believe it to be true, despite having no rational support for that isn't good enough.[/quote]
You may as well go and talk to your toaster.
..........
Ok they are two separate issues, the media by and large is a competitive thing and they try and put a lot of stories not just AGW in stark sensationalist terms, but that doesn't reduce the case for AGW.
The IPCC does not carry out its own original research, nor does it do the work of monitoring climate or related phenomena itself. The main activity of the IPCC is publishing special reports on topics relevant to the implementation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). So your second charge doesn't stick either - what you are engaging in is shooting the meesenger for bringing you bad news. The IPCC bases its assessment on peer reviewed and published scientific literature and has published four reports since 1988, that is some body of work that encompasses hundreds of thousands of individual experiments and readings.
Over it's lifetime the reports have grown steadily more complex and at the same time there has been a systematic effort to discredit it with the motives, research and methodology being questioned usually on the basis that if you chuck enough mud some will stick. For the last report - in 2007 the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) a pro-right-wing pressure-group masquerading as an independent organisation offered grants of $10,000 to any scientist who published something critical of the IPCC. I'm sure again it was pure coincidence that Mobil and Exxon are big funders of the AEI. So again you call into question the motives of the IPCC and scientists seemingly making the claim that they are working on a pecuniary motive, but give the otherside a straight, no questions asked pass.
Great link btw, Sussex. I will enjoy reading that and playing denialist bingo later...and I am heeding one of their very sensible bits of advice. It's all just too exasperating.
Wow. All we have is a text book. All you have is the bible. One is written with statements of fact intended to further our understanding of things, the other is written by people that you don't even know, about stories they believed happened decades before, which have been so heavily edited in the centuries since that less than a quarter of the original text remains.
Believe me GH, whatever you might believe in 'god'-wise - a superior being, or whatever - you can't knock those who follow 'text books' or science when the book you follow is so flawed and historically inaccurate.
What I think is sad is that people feel the need to believe in a myth in order to make their lives feel complete. I'm much happier now than in any of my years as a 'believer'.
I personally have no problem with religion. I was raised Catholic and - whilst I've moved it away from it now - I have respect for the values and discipline of it, and respect for the many relations and friends of mine who are religious.
What I am against however, is the intertwining of religion with policy. People are entitled to whatever religion they want but it can't be used as a 'catch all' explanation to use for matters that affect millions of people. When George Bush says he's going to war because 'God told me too', I say that's not good enough. Religion can't be a replacement for facts in policy matters.
What really annoys me is when people start calling Global Warming 'the new religion' as if it's equally based on some mystical faith that you have a right not to 'believe' in. This subjectivises it in a way that conveniently ignores the vast swathes of empirical study and evidence for it.
This is exactly my position. Unfortunately, religion is still way too intertwined with policy. There should be NO occasion where religion has any bearing at all on any secular decision. As you allude to, Blair and Bush have both spoken about the importance that religion has played in their lives and thus their decision making. This is completely abhorrent and unacceptable to me.
Obviously religion is much more directly prevalent in more minor, less important policy too. That there are still vicars etc in the House of Lords at all makes no sense to me. Religion is also too intertwined with the lives of people who have not made it their choice to believe in the first place, i.e. children.
But yes, each to their own. I have no prejudice or problem with people who follow their religion. But I do, a little bit, with those that spout 'holier than thou' rubbish about non-believers being 'sad', or requiring some sort of sympathy - when it is they who are the misguided ones. It's like someone feeling sorry for you because you don't believe in Father Christmas anymore.
In all honesty BA, you do a disservice to your argument constantly referencing what you assume people think of you. Since your confrontation with my inflammatory self :-), I would say the discussion has been largely sensible and even if you feel it hasn't, then rise above it. If you felt the post was getting too long then get rid of the likes of 'an extremist right winger being drip fed the spin of the petrochemical industry' and fill in the details that you want to put in. I'm interested in your arguments about their refusing to amend reports and removing the names of contributors, and how widespread this is, so I think that needs to be evidenced and expanded upon.
Just as they explode the slightest uncertainty about global warming, in fact probably more so as it's controversial and it sells papers. The media is the media, and their often idiotic representations of things does not mean you can then treat what they are representing in the same light. Bypass the media and look at the scientists reports; you can ignore media representations entirely if you wish.
'vote/ Oscar chasing politicians' is nice rhetoric, but I believe trying to explain that the government wants global warming with any practicality will always come up short. Do you know what all elections are won on? "It's the economy, stupid" as goes the famous Bill Clinton saying. Cutting consumerism is hugely politically unpopular, politicians would love to just be able to indulge in exponential growth as it means a happier populace and much more tax. In fact, one of the reasons we've been so slow in addressing climate change is probably because it's so difficult to sell politically, and no one wants to be the first to tell people that we can't keep living the way we have been. George Bush just ignored it for 8 years because it's a lot easier that way, not because he's bravely resisting the elite conspiracy.
Here's the problem: when do you define this to be? When will the world ever be totally free of any spin or propaganda? The best you can do is sidestep the media, sidestep the politicians and look at what almost all the scientists are saying. Uncertainty can always be generated as nothing is infallible and every crevice can and will be exploited by those who want to see global warming done away with. It's very easy to throw up uncertainty when they're supposedly merely 'opening debate' and out of the glare of the scientific spotlight. Astro-turfing, petitions etc. have been explicitly linked back to special interests, and they don't need hard evidence in their claims, just enough supposed seeds of doubt in the minds of the public to declare 'well, the debate isn't closed' and repeatedly delay any changes. I've read that the amount of scientific uncertainty about Global warming is proportionate to the amount there always is for sound theories, it's just that it's been amplified beyond reason because it's in certain groups' interest to do so.
FLAT EARTH SOCIETY
strange how people on here can take the piss because i believe in God , but of course would scream "NAZI" at the top of their voices if someone dared to challange Islam or Judism ?????????????????? no politics there then.
Toaster ? surely you dont have one of those do you ??? i mean they use electricity an stuff to make em --- i mean surely u cant eat bread with all that carbon wastage that goes into making it ?????? or maybe the bread is organic grown by the climate pixies and toasted on a twig in your garden under the sun ?
As it happens, I feel there are plenty of things that science can't explain - chief amongst them is the state of human consciousness. I follow no particular religious doctrine, but do believe that there is 'something else' ('God', a universal force, little green men etc.) that exists which gives us our feelings/emotions/soul.
Your second point is absolutely laughable. ALL religion - whether you like it or not - is IDENTICAL. it ALL involves telling people what to do, how to live their lives and how to interact with those of a different faith. Nobody in their right mind (granted, there are plenty of people around who AREN'T in their right mind) would make the ridiculous divisions between religions that you are asserting. I couldn't give a monkeys what God you worship. Nor could anyone else who isn't religious!
Your final point is just as ludicrous - and completely incoherent
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/12/05/dirty-climate-data.aspx
the work of "denialist scientists'" is often dismissed by warmists as they are alleged to be financed by the oil lobby. Well it would seem from this that Al Gore and others have a substantial vested interest in the alternative energy markets.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704007804574574053846536712.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
And finally some of the 130 countries referred to above as being in agreement would appear to have been bribed.
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2009/03/greatest-lie-ever-told.html
Whether one is a "warmist" or a "denialist" "Climategate" is or should be of concern to democrats particularly as the Copenhagen delegates are seeking to bypass Congress for instance as mentioned in one of the links above.
Climate change o yes lets turn the UK back to the stoneage whilst saying naff all about the populations of China and india and of course whilst this Labour Government says its fine for the UK population to EXPLODE --- really ? do tell why thats ok then ? Ever herd of a thing called DEMOGRAPHIC PROJECTION ? its a science of population growth and actually says in developed countries populations fall--- yes thats FALL -- its to do with better education-- job opertunities for women amongest others. Yet here we are a supposed developed country and our population has exploded ( cant be anything to be with Blairs social/multicultural experiments ?)-- how the hell can we in the UK say anything about population pressure of other countries on the environemnt when its exploded here ?
lets shut all our power staions down and live off grass while Poland`s energy is 95% from coal.
Lets not say anything about rice production (at all) and the CO2 it emits.
Wind power--- total and utter KAK , the most uneconomical power generation of all.
Climate change has been hijacked by many other agendas.
o and Leroy im not religous i just believe God exists.
Without wanting to be too crictical the first is a blog on the website for a conservative/neo-conservative newspaper, by a well known denialist trying to sell his denialist book.
The second is another op-ed piece, i.e. not news, but just the opinions of one particular journalist, a journalist so convinced that they are correct they don't even put their name to the story. And once again a conservative paper prints it.
The last is the weakest of all. Nothing more than another me-too blog reiterating an opinion piece in the telegraph (another conservative paper, such a coincidence) based on quotes from a scientist discredited by the institute he was formally head of and with an obvious bone to grind with the warmists (as well as a book to sell).
If this debate is to have any merit then both sides need to produce facts, or at least well researched theories, rather than opinion gleaned from a collection of politically and financially motivated editorial pieces and blogs.
Not intended as a dig at you Randy Andy I post this here purely because yours is the most recent example.
However on this forum sometimes you simply cannot win. If you assert an opinion you are asked to supply links and evidence which in principle is fair enough.
When you do that and opponents don't like the content they denigrate the source.
Well this is a question rather than a fact but why are sources such as The Guardian anymore reliable than mine?
Could it be that they fit your opinion more?
Maybe, just maybe, that's because the politics of the left is right about this? Anyway, sorry to say GH, but i think you're correct in your use of 'might', because I have a feeling there are several with relevant degrees and even higher degrees commenting on this thread. I believe one might even be a scientist by profession. I'm not one of these, hence have not contributed. I bow to others' greater knowledge. Including yours to some extent - I'll be looking up the rice thing as it sounds interesting.
Leroy has dealt with how ridiculous these points are already, but just a couple of things:
It's been proven that it's an innate part of human nature to search for (and long for) a higher, superior being. Hence people are easily persuaded by the thought/argument that there is one. Hence most people tend to believe today. In fact, if you get into deep conversation with most believers about the nature of their beliefs, they will admit it's because they LIKE to think their is a God, as opposed to really knowing that there is. A much higher percentage of the Greek world believed in their vast array of hundreds of gods than the current world believes in their god, but that doesn't mean that they were all right. In fact I'm pretty sure you'll agree that they were all wrong. Trust me, in 5,000 years people will be studying this crazy christian god we used to believe in, and will be shaking their heads in sympathy and amusement at what we used to believe. Similar to what we think about the pagan and greek gods now.
And as Leroy said, all religions and gods are the same in principle, and are treated and viewed the same by me.
It's a good job this debate isn't about God then, or it would be over pretty quickly! Anyway, sorry for the part that I've played in hijacking this thread - I didn't bring it up mind. But, as you were everyone
What I'm saying is finding links to other pure opinion pieces that happen to match your opinion isn't evidence. Imagine the situation in a court of law, a policeman says he believes the suspect is guilty and when asked for evidence merely finds another policeman who shares the same opinion, that's not evidence is it?
I'm happy to be swayed by evidence from either side, but so far this thread is mostly rhetoric and opinion with very little to back it up. Both sides of this debate are guilty of spouting off opinions and hearsay as fact, so in essence I'm attacking both. When somebody says there is overwhelming consensus, a link proving it (not a link showing somebody else thinks something similar) would be nice.
I have a feeling the "warmists" will have much more luck finding hard facts to back them up, but both groups should be arguing the facts, not personal or politcal opinion (and how religious opinion got dragged into I'll never know).
Scientists aren't always correct, but our whole modern civilisation is built upon scientific discovery, so to discard the scientific process because the results might not be desirable now seems disingenuous at best.
they are in on the conspiricy mate!
I haven't got the link to hand but will look it up later but some research has been done and published that look at the number, frequency and orginators of amendments to the IPCC reports. You'd be surprised how few people involved could be bothered to respond to the drafts and how many of those requests were turned down by the IPCC.
At risk of labouring the point my problem is that I think we are not getting the whole picture. Take for instance the link to the open letter I put up recently. The Maldives are not sinking
You said that you'd never seen any research to this effect yet here is a bloke, probably at the top of his field and certainly well qualified enough to both be a reviewer for the IPCC and for the Maldives govt to invite to carry out the study for them being deliberately overlooked. Don't you think it's important that his research is made available to us more widely, let alone the population of the Maldives who live in a state of fear and uncertainty, whilst their government chose to ignore the mans findings because it wasn't what they expected to get?
I don't think you'll find this research in any IPCC report and the response of some on here seems microcosm of what happens when something unpalatable is presented to them: It's ignored, ridiculed, dismissed as the ranting of a crackpot or someone in the pay of big business and the person abused.
I'm not saying that he's not in the pay of the oil companies, who knows, but clearly at some stage someone at the IPCC and Maldives government thought enough of the bloke to get him involved, until he came up with some results that didn't fit their agenda.
Sorry to hark on about him, but he seems to sum up my fears on the issue nicely.
Thought as much :-)
If I was locked in a room with a fire burning, a cow burping, I chopped down the house plants one by one and I didn't look after my water supply properly then I don't think it would do me much good. I might well survive but I wouldn't feel too good.
Perhaps we could look at ways to reduce our demands/meet our demands for power and implement them to improve/look after the health of our planet in the same way that to look after out own health a lot of us realise that going out on the lash every night/smoking/taking drugs/eating poorly/etc isn't going to make us a particularly healthy person in the long run.
In other words I'd like if we stopped having such a massive row about this and actually did some stuff that would help ensure a long term future for life on the planet. It'll be here after we've gone but it might be quite nice if we get to enjoy it a bit longer and in a good way. We're pretty lucky to have what we've got so why not look after it?