The Great Global Warming Swindle

[Setras]

I started a petition as some of you may remember to ask the prime minister to explain why there was warming on about 39 other bodies in the solar system. the fact that we are closer to the sun than 20 yrs ago dosn't count for toffee............

[islandbloke]

Global warming, peak oil, international terrorism...they're all just government ruses to keep us scared and vote them back in when they say they have a 'solution'. Noam Chomsky said that's how governments work, and I believe him.

I'm turning into a tinfoil wearing conspiracy theorist as I get older. So 9/11 was Bush and his cronies, JFK was Johnson and his cronies, global warming is bugger all to do with man-made pollution, the lunar landing was faked, peak oil is a myth to drive prices up etc.

And now you've got me started (I wish you wouldn't) WTF is up with the price of oil. Is it REALLY costing so much more to get out of the ground and refine than it did 5/10/50 years ago? Or are the 'market forces' actually just a bunch of jokers in matching ties and braces in the City/Wall Street who are playing with OPM to make killings for themselves and their billionaire clients? Do these brokers/traders actually generate ANYTHING of value, or are they simply a mechanism to do a reverse Robin Hood? Futures trading, arbitrage and hedging are just new terms for gambling - trouble is, it's working Joes like us who are the constant loser.

In next week's show - how to skin a lawyer to get that pound of flesh back. And how to kick an estate agent in the balls by talking up the recession.

[yeller77]

It does however seem probable that if we continue with our current consumer driven life styles we will run out of resources, ultimatley including food, so we can continue to p!!@ into the wind or become a more contentious society, just on the off chance we might leave a better legacy for our children.

Roger

Not to mention that if the Chinese and Indians would quit having babies we might have a chance, now being about 3b more people in the world than 40 or 50 years ago...

I guess the "zero population growth" idea of the 70's didn't take

too

[Kimbers]

My whole point of the post....thanks James for merging it and making it look totally out of context........is that the makers of the program were taken to court by a Govt Agency just for telling us another option! They have destroyed the professionals lives who were on it by making them un-pc to employ and generally hushed it up that the program was officially right on virtually everything it said! The BBC news only stated that the program makers had been successfully taken to court and were wrong.

This is, for me, the worst kind of censorship. It's lying, decietfull and totally against the publics interest. Merely to keep a few hundred Lobbying lesbians in spliffs and the govt in the black on taxes. After the programme why didn't anyone sue the govt for being one sided and lying?

It infuriates me.

I don't disagree with Recycling and natural resources Roger. But they are a totally different thing to Global warming. I think, for economic reasons if nothing else, we should recycle and use less resources. BUT I know for a fact that we have 5 times the amount of oil reserves that anyone tells us. It keeps prices high and lets Govts tax the hell out of everyone!

[Sparky]

I think the tide is finally turning (excuse the pun) - more and more people are starting to question the climate change frenzy.

In fact, it's argued that global warming would render Northern Europe much colder due to increased iceberg calving and disruption of the currents that are responsible for keeping us considerably warmer than equivalent latitudes in Canada. So when the environmental evangelists start harping on about hot and wet stuff over here, I laugh like a drain.

Unfortunately the fat cats are on to a bit of a winner, now we're into the early 21st century. "Give us lots of money, or by the end of the century you'll all be dead". By which time they've all died rich and powerful and don't care that they've been proved wrong. It's always 20, 50 or 100 years, and the shortest of those is probably past the end of any current government minister's career.

So far, I've lived through Ozone Depletion, Impending Nuclear Winter and Looming Ice Age. Keep the minions scared, and they'll keep you in power.

I occasionally get 'global warming' grief for driving my Esprit. I tell them I'll stop driving it when all politicians chop in their gas-guzzlers for Smart Cars, then ask them what the carbon offset break-even is on their new people carriers.

BTW, my company has a new department responsible for reduction of our carbon footprint, cos we're taking it ever so seriously. The manager drives a Jag XK8.

[Kimbers]

LOL!!! Thats a point whatever happened to us all dieing of radiation due to the hole in the Ozone layer???? Hmmm don't tell me it was part of a cycle or fixed itself?

[Sparky]

Ah - two schools of thought on that, Tony. Some offer scientific proof that it was never a problem at all, whilst others say "thank goodness we acted in time!" - hmmmm, guess we'll never know...

[Tentenths]

thanks James for merging it and making it look totally out of context

Please, I'm touched, but there's really no need to thank me!

Not sure I agree with the totally out of context comment though. The titles of both thread were identical - I checked - and the court case story surely follows on from the discussion about the original programme? Non?

[Kimbers]

Just came across these great quotes from one of our best and most truthful Statesmen, Winston Churchill. I think all are extremely apt when talking about the climate and those involved with "Saving it"....

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.

When talking about the Government "We occasionally stumble over the truth but most of us pick ourselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."

Please, I'm touched, but there's really no need to thank me!

Not sure I agree with the totally out of context comment though. The titles of both thread were identical - I checked - and the court case story surely follows on from the discussion about the original programme? Non?

Non. Cause I go over it all again and my point wasn't about the programme it was about the court case and the Govt trying to hush it all up.....(sigh) never work with animals or children........

[Tentenths]

And the court case was about...

Ding ding - mod wars round 2!

[rogerch]

Just came across these great quotes from one of our best and most truthful Statesmen, Winston Churchill. I think all are extremely apt when talking about the climate and those involved with "Saving it"....

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.

When talking about the Government "We occasionally stumble over the truth but most of us pick ourselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."

You missed one, "The Americans can always be relied on to do the right thing, after all other avenues have been exhausted."

[Iconic Ride]

Ouch!

Personally I think we're doomed, we would need such consensus world wide that it will never be achieved, the human race will be consigned to history just like the dinosaurs.

Roger

On that you can be certain, Roger. It is the fate of ALL species to go extinct, at least those governed by mutation, adaptation, and natural selection pressures from a variable environment. The only real question is how long any given species takes to do so.

However, a couple of caveats come to mind. "Extinction" has more than one definition. A species can truly go extinct, as in "no kidding end of the road" extinct, or it can evolve into a new species. In essence that's how every living being today got here in the first place. Break the chain of continuity at any point, and, voila, true extinction. And, in fact, most "branches of the tree of life" end up in the ether, not to be seen again (exception: the phenomena of "convergence", whereby independent in time and space evolution can, and does, produce nearly identical solutions to a common evolutionary advantage--the "eye" has evolved independently at least 40 times). Some of those branches, thank goodness, manage to continuously snake upwards into the future, and here we are. For a definitive description of this, albeit done "in reverse", please see "The Ancestor's Tale", written by none other than my U.K. hero, Richard Dawkins (a "controversial" figure if ever there were one, but brilliant nontheless).

The advances of human biological, medical, and technological (including robotical) fields have now, for the first time in history, put mankind in a position to have a substantial impact on "where we want to go", i.e.. "directed evolution". The moral conundrums are enormous, of course, but the cat's out of the bag, like it or not. For a fascinating exposition on this subject, please see "The Singularity is Near", by Ray Kurzweil.

All of this depends, needless to say, on whether we nuke ourselves into oblivion or not. THAT toothpaste can never be put back into the tube, and there are enough "crazies" out there (both individual, and nations themselves) that the "smart money" wagers could go either way. If you ever really wanted to know the precise details of how to build a nuclear device, simply visit the Los Alamos history musem in New Mexico, open to all. The only real difficulty is acquiring the requisite materials, and that is only slowing things down, not stopping, the efforts of many.

[soapbox mode off]

Enjoy the rest of your day ,

John

[Kimbers]

And also, lets not forget that, in terms of extinction, we have been here for only a few thousands of years in our evolved state. Dinosaurs were here for millions of years (though they never evolved...unless you include birds...sort of a reverse evolvement) before they were extinctified (new made up word). And then it took a bloody great asteroid to finish them off.

It could even be said that they raped the planet like we do, only we do it for resources, they did it for food. It takes alot of vegitation to keep a Brontosaurus happy!

Lets get this straight again. I do think we need to be careful with stripping our planet of natural resources. But the whole Global warming myth thingy just doesn't add up. Too many people combine the 2 and they are totally seperate issues. Did you know theres an experiment in the UK to see how much methane cows produce and to find ways to reduce it to save the planet? How much methane did Vegitarian Dinosaurs produce for gods sake?

Just put in "Experiment to see how much methane cows produce" and you find pages and pages of nut cases saying about reducing it. Then there's another group saying that Cow poo creates another gas and this has to be looked at....blah blah blah blah blah. I blame it on cats. I think they create huge amounts of gas but there so crafty about it they squeeze silent ones out whilst you're not looking!

Frankly it's all getting just a little bit over the top.

[Nifty]

Kimbers,

A couple of corrections/questions :

Firstly, it was an Ofcom investigation not a court case ... and Ofcom is supposedly independent of the government.

Secondly, are dinosaurs ruminants, did they produce large amounts of methane ?

Anyway, pedancy aside, I too am a sceptic

[Laura]

I don't believe dinosaurs were ruminants, in fact many gastroliths have been found inside dinosaur remains suggesting their digestive system was a bit pants, I don't know if this relates to how much, if any, methane gas they 'released' as a result though.

Ironically, there is a theory that methane gas contributed quite largely to wiping out the dinos; rotting vegetation that produced methane gas generated was trapped in sediments deep below sea level, the gas combines with water to a solid substance. The shock waves generated as the asteroid hit the ocean floor would have freed the trapped methane, lightning in the atmosphere would have then ignited the methane-rich air and the atmosphere itself would have been on fire... wiping out the dinos.

So, maybe corks up cow's bums isn't such a bad idea after all

[Kimbers]

I did state that it was a complaint by the government and several tree hugging bodies and individuals. I know that Ofcom are independant.

[Nifty]

I did state that it was a complaint by the government

Was it ?

First I know about that ???

Ironically, there is a theory that methane gas contributed quite largely to wiping out the dinos; rotting vegetation that produced methane gas generated was trapped in sediments deep below sea level, the gas combines with water to a solid substance. The shock waves generated as the asteroid hit the ocean floor would have freed the trapped methane, lightning in the atmosphere would have then ignited the methane-rich air and the atmosphere itself would have been on fire... wiping out the dinos.

I thought it was hydrogen sulphide that they thought did it .... and the theory is that the thawing of the Russian tundra lakes will cause it to happen again. Edited August 1, 2008 by Nifty

[Iconic Ride]

You boys at the LEF have been very, very busy. Once again, my people at the KGB headquarters are not amused. First it was Alex's (code name "GT-3") aerial surveillance discovery of our supersecret underground doomsday bunker beneath the Moscow roundabout, and now "Nifty" (what kind of code name is that anyway?) is on to our tundra lakes hydrogen sulfide gas master plan to eliminate the Capitalists once and for all---the nukes were all a ruse to distract you from the REAL doomsday weapon, you fools. Well, Nifty, since our agents are already in the area neutralizing Alex, I see a "two-fer" in the works.

To Karl Marx, Nostrovia!

Ivan

[DanR]

John I hear your KGB team are also angry at the kiwis for claiming they invented bungee jumping. Seems your people have been doing it for much longer only without the rubber bands.

Edited August 1, 2008 by DanR

[Iconic Ride]

Iss sumtymes problim in muthercuntrie whith ar trahnslaters. Innstrukshun buuk sayd "ruhbber chykinns", noht bandds.

[USAndretti42]

Here is a report on the lack of link between cosmic rays and the weather.

There seems to be two lines of thought on this forum, one that global warming is not happening and the other is that it is happening but man is not the cause. I lean towards the second line. Or, to more precise, that global warming is happening but the cause is not known. Now, do you say that it may be human activity to blame and so take measures to eliminate that as a cause? No. Not until you weigh up the benefits against the problems it will cause. This analysis does not seem to be part of the politicians' strategies. It's the normal case of adopt a position and stick with it whatever the evidence says.

[Sparky]

John, that should be "rubber chechens". Shoot your translators.

[Iconic Ride]

Gharyee, shuutinng trahsnlaters vaste uf guud buhllets. Morh bettarh usz fhor hidrohgen-sulhfphyde testtingh!

[SE Owner :-D]

in Roman times they grew good wines in the North of the country.

I have read this thread a few times and after seeing this post I wanted to say this 'Good wine up north - you are now having a laugh':

This thread is a load of boll&*$s from start to finish.

I thank you.

Rog

[Kimbers]

Merely opening the whole Govt censorship thing up for general discussion.

Of course, I do agree that good wines have prob never been made in Britain!