On the topic of climate change...

[Vod]

The only question that needs to be asked is why is it now referred to as "climate change" instead of "global warming"?

Not too confident that the globe is warming? Have to hedge your bets in case of global cooling?

People overall are stupid.  They thought "Global Warming" meant temperatures were going to increase over the entire planet.  The term was changed to "Climate Change" to make it easier for people to understand that it is an overall trend, and not something that happens everyday.

[Carlton Banks]

I'll say it more simply in this thread.

"Green" technology has economic and environmental benefits other than those that support the global warming theory. Why not just adopt it anyway?

• Cheaper energy prices (fossil fuels are finite and running low)
• Greater potential for local and/or individualised energy independence
• Less/zero non-controversial atmospheric pollutants
• More efficient altogether (less waste in acquisition, in processing, in transporting the resources, in using them... etc)
• Further research into alternative energy will have spin-offs, i.e. not only vehicle fuels and electricity production will benefit

So supporters of the global warming theory can mitigate ecological disaster, and carbon tax skeptics can avoid paying a charge related to science they don't recognise. Everyone's a winner when you look at it that way. Stop crying everybody!

[player01]

The CO2 levels in the atmosphere has increased by around 30% during the last 150 years or so. And the lion's share of that increase occurred within the last 50 years. Scientific study has proven that the burning of fossil fuels, both by thermal power plants and by automobiles has caused much of that increase.

The only options to save our planet are:

1. Replace thermal energy with nuclear energy

2. Replace gasoline / diesel oil with bio-fuels

3. Prevent the loss of forest, especially in the Amazon Basin, Indonesia and Central Africa

Nuclear energy is great, why else do you think the us govt won't issue new permits for reactors (they only issue permits to add reactors to plants already in existance.

Diesel has it's own problems, even though it is favoured in the UK, biofuel generally uses oil that is not in ready supply for mainstream.

Prevent the loss of forest. OK, look what the US and Canada has done and model that. there is now more forest in N America than ever before (depending on what stats you use)

I still have yet to understand why people are so up in arms about co2 levels... the increase of greenhouse gasses as they are called have a very beneficial use and it is much easier to adapt to it than to resort to giving up all of our freedoms for big government in the hope that getting the environment sorted out doesn't lead to utter catastrophe, which I think is vastly more likely.
Also, the herds of cattle worldwide are probably as much to blame if not more than industry, I certainly don't want to give up having meat in order to hopefully knock down co2 levels a few notches.   

[Elwar]

I'll say it more simply in this thread.

"Green" technology has economic and environmental benefits other than those that support the global warming theory. Why not just adopt it anyway?

• Cheaper energy prices (fossil fuels are finite and running low)
• Greater potential for local and/or individualised energy independence
• Less/zero non-controversial atmospheric pollutants
• More efficient altogether (less waste in acquisition, in processing, in transporting the resources, in using them... etc)
• Further research into alternative energy will have spin-offs, i.e. not only vehicle fuels and electricity production will benefit

So supporters of the global warming theory can mitigate ecological disaster, and carbon tax skeptics can avoid paying a charge related to science they don't recognise. Everyone's a winner when you look at it that way. Stop crying everybody!

I agree, if all of these global warming nuts focused on making green products better and more cost effective than regular products their self interests may just get accomplished.

Instead they tend to push the government to just stand in the way of progress in the most inefficient way possible against their own interests.

[mjsocool]

The only question that needs to be asked is why is it now referred to as "climate change" instead of "global warming"?

Because global warming is not the only side-effect of the rising Carbon di Oxide levels that we face. The ongoing droughts in many parts of the world, for example is another aftermath of rising CO2 levels. So climate change is the ideal terminology.

Exactly. Don't forget about the increasing ocean acidification which has profound effects on marine life, the accelerate migrations of plant life in various microclimates, and potentially even impacts on the frequency of severe weather events (e.g. hurricanes), all due at least in part anthropogenic CO2.

Hence we refer to it as climate change, because far more than the average surface temperature is changing.

[bryant.coleman]

Nuclear energy is great, why else do you think the us govt won't issue new permits for reactors (they only issue permits to add reactors to plants already in existance.

The Coal lobby is too strong in the US and many other developed nations. Increased production of nuclear power can mean massive losses to the coal industry.

Prevent the loss of forest. OK, look what the US and Canada has done and model that. there is now more forest in N America than ever before (depending on what stats you use)

No. I don't want timber plantations to be classified as forest. The amount of bio-diversity which we have in the primary forest is tens of times of that present in the plantations.

And Canada is still cutting down a lot of primary forest, especially in British Colombia.

I still have yet to understand why people are so up in arms about co2 levels... the increase of greenhouse gasses as they are called have a very beneficial use and it is much easier to adapt to it

I don't see any benefits from rising temperature.

[Spendulus]

I'll say it more simply in this thread.

"Green" technology has economic and environmental benefits other than those that support the global warming theory. Why not just adopt it anyway?

• Cheaper energy prices (fossil fuels are finite and running low)
• Greater potential for local and/or individualised energy independence
• Less/zero non-controversial atmospheric pollutants
• More efficient altogether (less waste in acquisition, in processing, in transporting the resources, in using them... etc)
• Further research into alternative energy will have spin-offs, i.e. not only vehicle fuels and electricity production will benefit

So supporters of the global warming theory can mitigate ecological disaster, and carbon tax skeptics can avoid paying a charge related to science they don't recognise. Everyone's a winner when you look at it that way. Stop crying everybody!

Solyndra.

[Spendulus]

.....
I don't see any benefits from rising temperature.

Seems like the average number of growing days for crops would increase.

But don't they say we are now on year seventeen of no increase in temperature?  That's contrary to all the predictions, right?

[Spendulus]

The only question that needs to be asked is why is it now referred to as "climate change" instead of "global warming"?

Not too confident that the globe is warming? Have to hedge your bets in case of global cooling?

People overall are stupid.  They thought "Global Warming" meant temperatures were going to increase over the entire planet.  The term was changed to "Climate Change" to make it easier for people to understand that it is an overall trend, and not something that happens everyday.

I thought they probably changed it to stop getting laughed at, like when Gore went to give a talk in the midst of the worst snowstorm in a town's history....on "global warming".....

Basically they want to be able to blame anything weather they can call 'extreme' on man's activities.

This is actually really, really dumb.  Dumber than the dumb that people are assumed to be.

[bryant.coleman]

But don't they say we are now on year seventeen of no increase in temperature?  That's contrary to all the predictions, right?

From where did you get the idea of 17 years of static temperature?

[Vod]

This is a cool interactive tool that shows how hot it will get in your lifetime. 

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/interactive/2013/sep/27/climate-change-how-hot-lifetime-interactive

[Schleicher]

From where did you get the idea of 17 years of static temperature?

He probably means something like this:

But that's only 12 years.

[Spendulus]

But don't they say we are now on year seventeen of no increase in temperature?  That's contrary to all the predictions, right?

From where did you get the idea of 17 years of static temperature?

I thought it was well known?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2217286/Global-warming-stopped-16-years-ago-reveals-Met-Office-report-quietly-released--chart-prove-it.html

The important thing here is not that there were 17 years of no warming, but that it illustrates obvious and glaring errors in the premises and constants used in computer modeling.  Which means, don't believe their computer models.

[e521]

This is a very interesting article from november
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/20/90-companies-man-made-global-warming-emissions-climate-change

[Spendulus]

This is a very interesting article from november
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/20/90-companies-man-made-global-warming-emissions-climate-change

I won't call for hanging him from the nearest tree.  But could we just all agree to jail Al Gore for life?

[Carlton Banks]

I'll say it more simply in this thread.

"Green" technology has economic and environmental benefits other than those that support the global warming theory. Why not just adopt it anyway?

• Cheaper energy prices (fossil fuels are finite and running low)
• Greater potential for local and/or individualised energy independence
• Less/zero non-controversial atmospheric pollutants
• More efficient altogether (less waste in acquisition, in processing, in transporting the resources, in using them... etc)
• Further research into alternative energy will have spin-offs, i.e. not only vehicle fuels and electricity production will benefit

So supporters of the global warming theory can mitigate ecological disaster, and carbon tax skeptics can avoid paying a charge related to science they don't recognise. Everyone's a winner when you look at it that way. Stop crying everybody!

Solyndra.

Wow. It seems like the global warming debate really is defined by extremists. If somebody isn't screeching inflammatory retorts or whipping out provocative one-liners, then they won't be respected. If somebody tries to take any non-polarised position, those from either side can attack you, saying "you're just one of them".

Think I'm going to sit this "debate" out permanently, it seems like fighting is all that most people are interested in. Presumably all the shriekers also have a strong ethical position against aggressive and intolerant behaviour too

[Schleicher]

The important thing here is not that there were 17 years of no warming, but that it illustrates obvious and glaring errors in the premises and constants used in computer modeling.  Which means, don't believe their computer models.

There's a problem with the existing temperature data:
We have barely any data from the artic / antarctic region and parts of central africa.
And there's a problem with some computer models:
They didn't predict the extreme solar minimum.

[exchanger]

too late to stop it

[u9y42]

too late to stop it

Did you mean to say: humans have had a significant impact in changing the climate, but are now powerless to stop it? If so, that's kind of a defeatist attitude, considering it is acknowledging that humans at least helped create the problem in the first place... but it's also a valid point of view, and if some of the people that hold this view are voting in the "climate change is real, but humans have no impact", I should probably add this option to the poll, I guess... though it's kind of conflating two different things. 

[u9y42]

I think this poll is irrelevant, because belief doesn't enter into it. That's the beauty of scientific facts - they're going to stay the same, no matter what you think about them. The world is going to stay round even if you really believe it's flat.

As for the policy enacted in regard to these scientific facts, that's something we should all debate. We're all entitled to our political opinion, and we should certainly have our say when it comes to responding to climate change. Hence, a better poll might ask whether or not we believe in carbon regulation and taxation, cap and trade schemes, alternative energy subsidies, and other such environmental policy. But whether or not we believe in the existence of anthropogenic climate change is entirely irrelevant.

True, it doesn't matter if we believe in gravity; we'll still fall to the floor (unless you miss the ground apparently). But when you have representatives in power (US at least) which claim that climate change can't be a problem because god told Noa that the flood wouldn't happen again (or some such nonsense), then we've got a more fundamental problem to deal with first.

EDIT: and I note that while the numbers involved are obviously too low to take any broader conclusions, out of 32 votes, 40.6% are from people that don't believe humans have had a substantial impact on climate, which is worrying. Furthermore, and considering the other thread about this, they are far more vocal.