TimB wrote:
On Mar 16, 8:52 am, Mike Hughes wrote:

Seems that many people pay lip service to the idea of being less
polluting just as long as it doesn't interfere with their lifestyle !

It's the same as congestion etc - everything would be ok if everyone
ELSE gave up driving. Like the school run - 'I have to take the kids
in an SUV because of all the dangerous cars on the road'.
People are addicted and in denial, that's all I can say.

I had just such a discussion with a woman in London on one occasion.

She agreed that the traffic was bad and that most probably everyone else
would agree. But when I said that if one was to suggest to those complaining
that they should give up using their cars she gave me a very strange look,
although I think the penny began to drop.

In article om,
Fod wrote:
On Mar 16, 12:35 pm, "Boltar" wrote:
On Mar 16, 10:01 am, wrote:

If global warming (whatever the cause) really kicks in there'll be a
lot more
important things to worry about than the above - like famine in europe
and
mass migration north from africa and the med region for example.

given the range of projections that might not happen; you might see
the warmer weather of 1-2 degrees increasing food yields.

We've already seen a rise of that order, and it's not even really got
going yet. And lest anyone is looking forwards to relaxing in their
back garden in balmy Mediterranean temperatures, even if we did stop
increasing CO2 right now we will have 200 to 500 years of extreme wind,
storms, heatwaves, big freezes, floods and drought to go through before
the climate stabilises :-(

You nay-sayers can argue all you like but the risks are incredibly high.
We dealt with acid rain when we discovered it was due to our own SOx and
NOx in the atmosphere - we are dealing the ozone layer breakdown since
we discovered we are causing that with our atmospheric CFCs - and those
are very small emissions compared to what we have been doing to CO2,
methane and other greenhouse gases. Why is there so much suspicion
about the latest measurements of the atmosphere ?

Nick
--
http://www.leverton.org/blosxom ... So express yourself

On Mar 16, 2:05 pm, "Boltar" wrote:
On Mar 16, 1:18 pm, "Fod" wrote:

On Mar 16, 12:35 pm, "Boltar" wrote:

On Mar 16, 10:01 am, wrote:

concerned about the state of the country's balance sheet, especially
pensions, education and healthcare.

If global warming (whatever the cause) really kicks in there'll be a
lot more
important things to worry about than the above - like famine in europe
and
mass migration north from africa and the med region for example.

given the range of projections that might not happen; you might see
the warmer weather of 1-2 degrees increasing food yields.

If that were the case then shouldn't the med and northern africa be
the bread basket of europe?

africa in a bit of a mess due to a variety of problems, all man made
but none GW related.

The med does produce a lot of food but as far as i'm aware GW hasn't
kicked in as yet...
At least not to the degrees you've been talking about.

GW could cause changes but given that the med is a tourist hot spot
why would it being a degree warmer on average cause mass migrations?
( assuming the low end of the predictions for the next 100 years).


Fod

On Mar 16, 2:08 pm, (Nick Leverton) wrote:
given the range of projections that might not happen; you might see
the warmer weather of 1-2 degrees increasing food yields.

We've already seen a rise of that order, and it's not even really got
going yet. And lest anyone is looking forwards to relaxing in their
back garden in balmy Mediterranean temperatures, even if we did stop
increasing CO2 right now we will have 200 to 500 years of extreme wind,
storms, heatwaves, big freezes, floods and drought to go through before
the climate stabilises :-(

climates are never stable, they are constantly changing...

You nay-sayers
anyone who wants to talk about GW seems to get branded a nay-sayer and
their views ignored. People who question things might not be against
GW but against misunderstanding of it.

can argue all you like but the risks are incredibly high.
yep, so having the most detailed information, scrutinized by people on
both sides of the debate is a good idea.

Why is there so much suspicion
about the latest measurements of the atmosphere ?

its not the latest ones i question, just the ones from a while back.
Given that we need them all to be accurate to predict trends they are
important and if not accurate they will muck up any computer
simulations. As the computer simulations are what we use to plan our
answer to GW i'd like them to be as accurate as possible.

Mans attempts to control or change nature in the past have been less
than successful so even if we combat GW at full speed we could yet
make things worse rather than better. Having accurate information to
base decisions on could possibly help avoid this though.

Fod

On Fri, 16 Mar 2007, Mike Hughes wrote:

I agree that we pollute the planet, that the planet is getting warmer,
but state that there is no absolute certainty that GW is man made and
that it *could* just be part of a natural process.

This is beside the point, but i think this is a somewhat mendacious thing
to say - we can never have *certainty* about anything important, and the
balance of evidence at the moment comes down very strongly on global
warming being manmade. In your case, the lack of certainty evidently
doesn't stop you doing the right thing in practical terms, but there are
plenty of people who use this kind of argument to justify not doing
anything, which is entirely unhelpful.

I was arguing with a chap on another newsrgup who didn't believe that HIV
is the cause of AIDS, so i may have my scientific hackles up a bit here!

Her reply? "I walk to the station when I go to work but I use the car
when I go to the gym"

*HEADROLL*

You could have blown me down with a feather! I asked why she couldn't walk
or cycle to the gym and her reply was "It's too dangerous to do that
around here" From the way she said that I inferred that she meant there
was a likelihood of being attached by muggers. This was possibly more
imaginary than real.

Bang on. It's also scarily widespread. On yet a third newsgroup, a woman
living in California was saying much the same to explain why she wanted to
buy a thousand-dollar exercise machine rather than a bicycle to keep fit.

Closer to home, when i and my flatmates were last house-hunting, we passed
over a large, gorgeous and affordable flat in Whitechapel (well, what Mr
Rowland would call Stepney!) in favour of a tiny hovel in Finsbury Park on
the basis that my female housemate had heard terrible stories about
Whitechapel. I showed her police statistics which put the street crime
rate in Finsbury Park at about twice what it is in Whitechapel, but she
wasn't moved .

Okay, so that's irrelevant here, but i'm still irked by it.

Perhaps the solution would be for her to take up Thai kickboxing as her
chosen form of exercise (all the rage now, apparently)? That way, an
encounter with some hoodlums on the way to the gym would just mean an
early start ...

For the record I'm quite happy to try to reduce my pollution by not
being an 'aggressive' driver, not accelerating too hard, and looking
ahead so that I don't have to brake too hard.

Also, you're more fuel-efficient just by virtue of being a taxi; you keep
moving all day, avoiding the energy-intensive engine starts that a fleet
of private cars would have to make.

I mean, you're still a carbon criminal compared to us cyclists, but it's a
start!

I wait for the usual rant from Duhg but There must be some of you who
can put forward intelligent opinions.

As a great sage once wrote, "Dude, read Aquinas if you want intelligent.
This is the internet."!

tom

--
you can't feel your stomack with glory -- Czako

On Mar 16, 3:01 pm, "Fod" wrote:
On Mar 16, 2:05 pm, "Boltar" wrote:



On Mar 16, 1:18 pm, "Fod" wrote:

On Mar 16, 12:35 pm, "Boltar" wrote:

On Mar 16, 10:01 am, wrote:

concerned about the state of the country's balance sheet, especially
pensions, education and healthcare.

If global warming (whatever the cause) really kicks in there'll be a
lot more
important things to worry about than the above - like famine in europe
and
mass migration north from africa and the med region for example.

given the range of projections that might not happen; you might see
the warmer weather of 1-2 degrees increasing food yields.

If that were the case then shouldn't the med and northern africa be
the bread basket of europe?

africa in a bit of a mess due to a variety of problems, all man made
but none GW related.

So you can prove 100% that all the recent droughts and heatwaves in
africa that have badly affected crop harvests have nothing to do with
GW and are merely a local blip?


The med does produce a lot of food but as far as i'm aware GW hasn't
kicked in as yet...
At least not to the degrees you've been talking about.

Well the last few years have been the hottest on record and the decade
as a whole has been the hottest since records began so whatever the
cause of the warming I think we can safely say its started. Where it
goes from here is anyones guess.

GW could cause changes but given that the med is a tourist hot spot
why would it being a degree warmer on average cause mass migrations?

A degree warmer on *average* can mean a shed load warmer at certain
times. It only takes a month or two of sustained high summer
temperatures to knacker certain types of agriculture. Wheat and barkey
for example don't grow well if at all above 30C.

B2003

Mike Hughes wrote:

On the way she goes on about how we are polluting the planet and must do
something to stop greenhouse gases as we (the human race) are
responsible for Global Warming. I agree that we pollute the planet, that
the planet is getting warmer, but state that there is no absolute
certainty that GW is man made and that it *could* just be part of a
natural process.At this she goes on about how it *is* caused by us and
that everyone *must* do something or we will all suffer due to GW.

Hypocritical? just a stupid bitch. People love to be prophets of doom, some
like the self flagellation but they all really the opportunity to flog
everyone else about it (in her case you for example). They do a bit of
vacuous gesturing like recycling newspapers or something really dumb like
sticking a windmill on their house and feel they have done their bit and
are fully entitled to flog everyone else.
--

"Boltar" wrote in message
oups.com...
On Mar 16, 3:01 pm, "Fod" wrote:

africa in a bit of a mess due to a variety of problems, all man made
but none GW related.

So you can prove 100% that all the recent droughts and heatwaves in
africa that have badly affected crop harvests have nothing to do with
GW and are merely a local blip?

What do you consider to be "recent" and how do you explain those which
occurred previously?

On Mar 16, 4:19 pm, "Brimstone" wrote:
"Boltar" wrote in message

oups.com...

On Mar 16, 3:01 pm, "Fod" wrote:
africa in a bit of a mess due to a variety of problems, all man made
but none GW related.

So you can prove 100% that all the recent droughts and heatwaves in
africa that have badly affected crop harvests have nothing to do with
GW and are merely a local blip?

What do you consider to be "recent" and how do you explain those which
occurred previously?

Well why wouldn't they occur previously? Droughts wil have always
occured , the difference is they seem to last for longer , be more
frequent and more severe now.

B2003

In message . com,
Boltar writes
Well why wouldn't they occur previously? Droughts wil have always
occured , the difference is they seem to last for longer , be more
frequent and more severe now.
Or 24 hour news coverage is getting better at pushing the agenda at us.
--
Clive.