Thank you for this, and Sunny for posting. This issue brought me close to despair at the forces propelling us towards ruining our environment. It’s welcome to have something with which to start fighting back.

So the religion of global warming wants to cause a financial crisis by switching the energy needs of the entire economy to a technology that does not exist, they also want to invest every ones pension funds into the search for and total faluire of bringing such technology to life..

Sounds good…sounds left…

‘And at the moment, most of them are heavily invested in fossil fuels. This not only puts our environment at risk but our savings too’

Oops the cat is out of the bag. It will only put our environment at risk if the limits are ignored which you clearly think is a possiblity. I think with fracking and tar sands this is a certainty.

2. pack1

Why is it a religion?

@4

I think pack1 is judging entirely by the standards of the denialist camp. Like the claim “it’s a scam” or “it’s a conspiracy” etc. Ironic really, when you look at the actual behaviour of denialists worldwide. As for the claim that alternative technology doesn’t exist to wean us off fossil fuels, what a load of bollocks. Just like everything the fossil fuel industry claims through their patsies like a certain mediocre weatherman!

Dissident@5

Have you ever bothered to read any of the detailed sceptical arguments and why do you imagine scepticism is driven by the fossil fuel industry ? You’ve no evidence for that because there isn’t any, it’s just another of the tired mantras that catastrophists repeat in the absence of a rational response. The fossil fuel industry is perfectly happy with the renewables scam as they can make money from it and carry on with their core business which is in absolutely no danger of being replaced in anything like the near future.

@OP, Emily Kenway:

What do you plan to do when the sea water rises, when people lose their land? The Dutch were rich enough to build dams and dykes to moderate nature. They have a lot of tech and historical knowledge on their side.

In Bangladesh? In wacky islands so far from us that we cannot imagine?

What are you going to do when the real life view is so different from the window?

@6 Thornavis

*face palm* It took me 2 seconds to find this…
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_denial
Exxon is featured prominently, and has funded many AstroTurf campaigns to misinform people, to the tune of millions of dollars.

I blame Thatcher. She’s the one that started all this global warming crap, so she could close down the coal mines.

Why is it a religion?:

Because just like a religion you are called a denialist if you do not agree with the theory, any following that attacks those who do not agree as “denialists” instead of countering their position with cold hard facts is cult/religion like.

“As for the claim that alternative technology doesn’t exist to wean us off fossil fuels, what a load of bollocks”

Plus its average proponent is so uninformed its laughable yet they preach with such certainty and authority.

Pack1

What you say is precisely what happens over on WUWT! It’s very entertaining, unfortunately the true believers over there don their tinfoil hats as soon as something even remotely like genuine science gets within a hundred miles of them. Even when their own Charles Koch funded study of temperatures confirmed a warming trend.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Earth_Surface_Temperature

The science of prediction is notoriously imprecise. Who are ‘carbon tracker’ and how often are they make the correct call.

I have no statistical doubt that we are in a warming phase. However there is doubt as to relative causations. As to pension fund exposure to alleged overvaluation to fossil fuel companies, well who is to know.

@8

You’re quoting wiki at me as evidence ? I may stop laughing later on this week. As for misinformation, no one can hold a candle to the Green lobby when it comes to that, the lies that are told about fracking being just one example. That link is a classic example, complete with obligatory reference to the tobacco lobby, you’ll be quoting Lewandowsky next.

“You’re quoting wiki at me as evidence ? ”

Its to be expected…

Haha, your tinfoil hat is well made isn’t it? It’s so good I can see the heartland institute logo. You want another source?

http://www.livescience.com/26618-climate-change-denial-koch-donors-trust.html

Of course it goes without saying that you won’t bother reading it, it will require you throwing that hat in the recycle bin.

Or how about this? Dare you remove your hat?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=climate-skeptics-leading-scientist-2010-02

Or tinfoil hate crap..keyboard warriors with google looking for a real sense of achivement to fill the void, the majority of the sense in the world has woken up to it hence we see the actions we see.

“You’re quoting wiki at me as evidence ? ”

Its to be expected…

It’s to be expected…

Yes pack1 we see the evidence that your billionaire bribe masters are destroying our future – the ultimate pharaoh complex, be the ultimate for all time, prevent any future for anyone who is not a baby boomer

@thornavis & pack1:

Why would the fossil-fuel industry not throw cash at the denialist camp; they have trillions of dollars riding on it. If we are to keep global temperatures within 2C of today’s values (the nominal objective of the various efforts to restrain AGW), 60+% of currently declared reserves will have to be left in the ground. Taking the value of 60% of their current reserves (and discounting to zero any potential future discoveries) off their balance-sheets will destroy them, despite their tinpot alternative energy investments.

And why would one not call someone who denies well-established, basic, physics, with no alternative explanation of current observations, a denialist? What else do you call such a person?

“Yes pack1 we see the evidence that your billionaire bribe masters are destroying our future”

And the solution? Stamp your feet and moan like a protestor, reduce carbon in the UK by a mighty 80% and build wind mills,all the while showing zero appreciation for where we as humans are and the lives our technology has granted us, because we”re rich middle class, we get to do this..init.

Oh and all the while,in destroying the economy and way of like making ZERO difference on a global scale…nice..

And why would one not call someone who denies well-established, basic, physics”

If thats what you want to call it..the rest of us call it an unproven hypothesis, the rest of us arent overly emotional either…could be a connection there..

@pack1 #21:

<blockquote.If thats what you want to call it..the rest of us call it an unproven hypothesis

The idea that CO2 absorbs IR at the wavelengths emitted by the earth’s surface and re-radiates it in all directions is an unproven hypothesis – despite if being a cantury and a half old?

Or maybe you mean that the idea that the CO2 content of the atmosphere is now 100+ppb higher than in pre-industrial times?

Or is it the isotopic analyses (backed up by analysis of production and consumption figures) that show that human emissions of CO2 by extraction and combustion of fossil carbon easily account for that increase in CO2 in the atmosphere?

Tell me; which of these is an unproven hypothesis?

Why dont you just keep cherry picking and playing politics and let the adults who actualy bring energy to our societys ignore you as they are and do their jobs.

Cheers of the new derivatives to!

@pack1 #23:

Sorry; I didn’t quite hear that – which was the “unproven hypothesis” you claimed at #21?

If you were on the ear out for a voice its all worse than I thought haha…CO2 is a lagging indicator, there has been no statisticaly significant global warming for over 16 years there and there isent a single independent scientific institution that doesent acknowledge that fact.

We need to evolve past the use of oil and coal however, its a slow drawn out process on the back of progress, it took us thousands of years to get to this stage and society will keep evolving well beyond the stage of clean energy, you can not force this to happen by stamping your feet and cutting resources off however. I am very much for the enviroment and one of the only reason the global warming hysteria annoys me is because its political, and its cutting off resources from progress and other areas of enviromental damage that matter..peace.

Peer-Reviewed Survey Finds Majority Of Scientists Skeptical Of Global Warming Crisis

Don’t look now, but maybe a scientific consensus exists concerning global warming after all. Only 36 percent of geoscientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a global warming crisis, according to a survey reported in the peer-reviewed Organization Studies.

People who look behind the self-serving statements by global warming alarmists about an alleged “consensus” have always known that no such alarmist consensus exists among scientists. Now that we have access to hard surveys of scientists themselves, it is becoming clear that not only do many scientists dispute the asserted global warming crisis, but these skeptical scientists may indeed form a scientific consensus.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/02/13/peer-reviewed-survey-finds-majority-of-scientists-skeptical-of-global-warming-crisis/

@pack1 #25:

CO2 is a lagging indicator

So you believe that CO2 does not absorb outgoing IR and re-radiate it in all directions? How, then, do you explain the laboratory experiments that show to the contrary?

(If you’re referring to emergence from Ice Ages, you need education on rather more than gas physics – starting with astronomy).

there has been no statisticaly significant global warming for over 16 years there and there isent a single independent scientific institution that doesent acknowledge that fact.

Some cites for acknowledgments of that “fact” would be useful; because my understanding is that every maajor scientific institution with a qualified opinion agrees that the last decade has been the warmest on record bar none.

You may mean that there has been no statistically significant increase in global temperatures over the last 16 years – but you’d be wrong even in that (much weaker) claim; the Daily Mail story to that effect last october (for example) relied upon something that the Met Office not only hadn’t said but also contradicted when the Mail story was put to them.

@pack1 #26:

You might want to (i) read the paper, and (ii) read the comments to the Forbes piece; the authors of the paper show up and point out that Taylor has just got it wrong.

Does anyone really doubt that a self-selected sample from a population largely consisting of engineers emplyed within the Alberta petroleum industry (Lefsrud and Meyer’s sample) would be anything other than sceptical about anthropogenic global warming – and wholly unrepresentative of relevantly expert scientific opinion? You could also read a piece on Climate Sanity:

http://climatesanity.wordpress.com/2013/02/17/science-or-science-fiction-professionals-discursive-construction-of-climate-change/

In any event scientific consensus isn’t about head-counting, as denialists alwys remind us when a survey shows support (consistency being the hobgoblin of small minds). It’s about consensus of evidence, and that – we haz it, and it isn’t looking good for denialists.

“We need to evolve past the use of oil and coal however, its a slow drawn out process on the back of progress, it took us thousands of years to get to this stage and society will keep evolving well beyond the stage of clean energy, you can not force this to happen by stamping your feet and cutting resources off however. I am very much for the enviroment and one of the only reason the global warming hysteria annoys me is because its political, and its cutting off resources from progress and other areas of enviromental damage that matter..peace.”

Are you aware that it is the ultra conservative billionaire owners of big oil, coal & gas that are actively engaged in trying to prevent us shifting away from dependency on fossil fuels?

http://m.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/feb/15/media-campaign-windfarms-conservatives

With their tame politicians perpetuating the criminal raping of both the Earth and our civilisation.

http://www.republicreport.org/2013/dirty-energy-lobbyist-trent-lott/

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00005582&cycle=2012

Btw, scientific & technological advancement is ever so slightly faster than you think! Breakthroughs & development are coming in thick & fast now, especially in the renewables sector. With everything from superconducting cables used in wind farm turbines (potentially making a 3MW turbine as much as 10MW, if it actually works) to super efficient flow batteries to store surplus energy from windy days to use on still days etc…

http://www.sciencedaily.com/news/earth_climate/renewable_energy/

“So you believe that CO2 does not absorb outgoing IR and re-radiate it in all directions? How, then, do you explain the laboratory experiments that show to the contrary?”

Like many things that work in the confined enviroment of a laboratory the results are different in the body, or an insanely complex eco system that cant be replicated in a lab,if you honestly believe in the doomsday scenarios that would be quite some stress…

“Are you aware that it is the ultra conservative billionaire owners of big oil, coal & gas that are actively engaged in trying to prevent us shifting away from dependency on fossil fuels?”

The same actions that come about when any business model is placed under threat, im also aware of who sees the carbon market as a delightful source of income and how goverments view this issue as one of control.

“Btw, scientific & technological advancement is ever so slightly faster than you think! Breakthroughs & development are coming in thick & fast now, especially in the renewables sector.”

Which is a wonderful thing, could we agree that at this stage and for the forseeable future the technology to replace every fuel engine on the roads and co2 producing means of power production is out of our reach? Most global warming activists remind me of rich kids who have never had to have a job in their lives and attend protests against the rich, stamping their feet in outrage at the wealth, all whislt being sustained by such wealth, of which they have not worked for and do not acknowledge never mind apprechiate. I take that perception back about you two,yet I am in disagrement, in the coming years man made global warming will be a forggoton theory.

@pack1 #30:

“So you believe that CO2 does not absorb outgoing IR and re-radiate it in all directions? How, then, do you explain the laboratory experiments that show to the contrary?”

Like many things that work in the confined enviroment of a laboratory the results are different in the body, or an insanely complex eco system that cant be replicated in a lab,if you honestly believe in the doomsday scenarios that would be quite some stress…

The process takes place at a molecular level; are you really claiming that a molceule knows when it’s outside in the atmosphere as opposed to in a lab and adjusts its behaviour accordingly? How many more pillars of modern physics are you willing to dismantle in pursuit of your denialist obsession?

Two quick questions:

1 How do you think astronomers know the composition of the Sun and other astronomical bodies that we haven’t yet sampled?

2 Why is the global average temperature not below freezing, if Arrhenius was wrong?

“The process takes place at a molecular level; are you really claiming that a molceule knows when it’s outside in the atmosphere as opposed to in a lab and adjusts its behaviour accordingly?”

I am not claiming that, I am stating the complex enviroment out side of the lab can Never be replicated in the lab, its the same with the body, its not that a molceule knows where it is, its that the molceule is interacting in an enviroment thats Extremely complex in comparison.

http://principia-scientific.org/supportnews/latest-news/163-new-discovery-nasa-study-proves-carbon-dioxide-cools-atmosphere.html

One can find what ever they need to back their case if they look hard enough.

“And Vladimir Kotlyakov, from the Russian Academy of Sciences, said: ‘There are no grounds to claim that global warming will continue till the end of this century.”

Because from their studies we are about to enter a 250 year cooling period..science is an ongoing development and it will develope for ever, its no where near settled.

@pack1 #32:

“The process takes place at a molecular level; are you really claiming that a molceule knows when it’s outside in the atmosphere as opposed to in a lab and adjusts its behaviour accordingly?”

I am not claiming that, I am stating the complex enviroment out side of the lab can Never be replicated in the lab, its the same with the body, its not that a molceule knows where it is, its that the molceule is interacting in an enviroment thats Extremely complex in comparison.

Try again. I repeat – the behaviour happens at a molceular level. What relevant differences are there between the laboratory and the open atmosphere that might affect the relevant behaviour (absorption and omnidirectional re-radiation)?

And the reason I asked the questions I did is because (i) astronomers use the behaviour to determine the atmospheric composition of celestial bodies (and if you think the Earth’s atmosphere is complex, wait until you see what the Sun or Jupiter are like); and (ii) it is the greenhouse effect – that behaviour – that makes life possible on the Earth. The black-body temperature of the Earth would be significantly below freezing.

This is the actual science pack1 in your last link.

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/22mar_saber/

Please note it is talking about the Thermosphere – another word to describe the lowest level of it is Ionosphere. The atmospheric pressure is so low there that the International Space Station is in a stable orbit. In other words it is what we consider to be hard vacuum! The occasional CO2 molecule you encounter would be decidedly on the rare side, and is overwhelmingly likely to be ionised by hard radiation (UV & X-rays) from the sun, and at a temperature of at least 2,400 degrees kelvin to boot. The properties of any molecule when ionised are ever so slightly different to when electrically neutral – plasma physics 101 for you!

How precisely is the behaviour of a few thousand CO2 molecules up where the ISS orbits supposed to negate the behaviour of a few quintillion CO2 molecules in the Troposphere and Stratosphere, where AGW has an effect?

@pack1 #32 (continuing):

I’ve had a look at the link to which you refer; more importantly, to the NASA news item referenced.

PSI, your link, said:

NASA’s Langley Research Center has collated data proving that “greenhouse gases” actually block up to 95 percent of harmful solar rays from reaching our planet, thus reducing the heating impact of the sun. The data was collected by Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry, (or SABER). SABER monitors infrared emissions from Earth’s upper atmosphere, in particular from carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitric oxide (NO), two substances thought to be playing a key role in the energy balance of air above our planet’s surface.

Whereas what NASA said was (my emphasis):

“Carbon dioxide and nitric oxide are natural thermostats,” explains James Russell of Hampton University, SABER’s principal investigator. “When the upper atmosphere (or ‘thermosphere’) heats up, these molecules try as hard as they can to shed that heat back into space.”

That’s what happened on March 8th when a coronal mass ejection (CME) propelled in our direction by an X5-class solar flare hit Earth’s magnetic field. (On the “Richter Scale of Solar Flares,” X-class flares are the most powerful kind.) Energetic particles rained down on the upper atmosphere, depositing their energy where they hit. The action produced spectacular auroras around the poles and significant1 upper atmospheric heating all around the globe.

“The thermosphere lit up like a Christmas tree,” says Russell. “It began to glow intensely at infrared wavelengths as the thermostat effect kicked in.”

For the three day period, March 8th through 10th, the thermosphere absorbed 26 billion kWh of energy. Infrared radiation from CO2 and NO, the two most efficient coolants in the thermosphere, re-radiated 95% of that total back into space.

Note that the question is what happens when the thermosphere “heats up” by absorption of incoming energetic particles. What happens is that NO and CO2 reradiate the incoming heat. Doing of course, precisely what CO2 does in the lower atmosphere; absorbing energy and reradiating it. The outermost group of molecules will re-radiate only 50% of incoming energy back to space (because the direction of reradiation is independent of the direction from which the particle arrived); but successive collisions of incoming particles and IR photons with CO2 and NO molecules going deeper into the thermosphere raise the net reradiation to 95%. You do realise that this proves my point on the behaviour of CO2 in the atmosphere, don’t you?

@ Robin

“Note that the question is what happens when the thermosphere “heats up” by absorption of incoming energetic particles. What happens is that NO and CO2 reradiate the incoming heat. Doing of course, precisely what CO2 does in the lower atmosphere; absorbing energy and reradiating it. The outermost group of molecules will re-radiate only 50% of incoming energy back to space (because the direction of reradiation is independent of the direction from which the particle arrived); but successive collisions of incoming particles and IR photons with CO2 and NO molecules going deeper into the thermosphere raise the net reradiation to 95%. You do realise that this proves my point on the behaviour of CO2 in the atmosphere, don’t you?”

Damn I didn’t see that! So it’s worse for pack1, it is additional proof of CO2′s behaviour. I wonder where the goalposts will next be shifted by denial’s acolytes? Or would conspiracist ideation become increasingly obvious, like it does at WUWT!

I have also discovered this. The fossil fuel industry is so inefficient it needs to be subsidised by the taxpayer. Where is the free market? Deniers claim switching would cost us all, yet here is the proof that NOT switching costs us all!

Or are you deniers going to claim that the IMF itself is some sort of commie heaven?

http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2013/pr1393.htm