Analysis: Time to get serious about a green economy
March 8, 2010 by Guest Writer · 39 Comments
By John Knox
We prefer to talk about the weather rather than the climate. And now that spring is here, it’s a cheerful enough subject. The sun shines again, the birds are singing, the crocuses are out and soon the daffodils will be stretching in never ending line along the margin of the bay.
The coldest winter for nearly 50 years is over, the snaw has blown off the dykes and temperatures of -23C have passed into folk history. It looked as if the gods were angry with us. But it wasn’t clear why. Was it because we tried, at Copenhagen, to put the climate right? Or was it because we failed?
The scientists tell us that the severe winter wasn’t a matter of “climate” at all but simply “weather”. It was a short-term aberration, not a long term trend. High pressure over the North Pole drove the cold weather further south than usual, where it met warmer air and the result was piles of snow and arctic winds and arctic temperatures. Things got a little chaotic. There was more snow in Glencoe than at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. It was warmer on the coast of Alaska than it was in Florida.
But the long term trend continues. Shimla in the Himalayas had its warmest winter for five years. Melbourne had its hottest night since 1902. An iceberg as large as Luxembourg was dislodged from the edge of the Antarctic and began melting into the southern sea. We are still on our way to a rise in global temperatures of 4 degrees by the end of the century, and the flooding and droughts that will come with it.
If the winter has taught us anything, it is that nature is a very big bear indeed. It can bring civilisation to a frightening halt so easily and so quickly. If the weather doesn’t get us, the earthquakes will. We are on this planet by a lucky chance and the forces of nature could crush us to fine dust at any moment.
It’s tempting to say we should just eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. But that’s not the way of humans … or of any living thing. We have always struggled on, digging our way out of the snow, rebuilding houses so that they can withstand earthquakes, tackling climate change.
Wait a minute, “Tackling climate change,” is putting it a big strongly. We have only just begun to realise it’s a threat. A recent BBC poll found that only 26 per cent of us believe climate change is happening and that it’s largely man-made. And this is after 20 years of public campaigns, warnings, commissions and summits. We are like chickens in a barn, determined to be unaware there’s a fox about. The rooster politicians have crowed a lot about climate change but they’ve failed to waken us and have just given up.
Put up your hand if you think we will reach the government’s target of cutting CO2 emissions by 42 per cent by 2020? That would need a reduction of 3 per cent a year, starting last year. In hard practice, we are achieving less than a 1 per cent reduction each year, despite all the public transport investment, the home insulation schemes, the closure of steel mills and coal fired power stations.
If we are serious about trying to keep global temperatures below the critical 2 degree rise, then I think the time has come to be serious about turning the economy green. The EU system of carbon trading is only a beginning. Large CO2 polluters are getting their carbon credits for nothing, they need to be charged. The UK government seems to have given up on the idea of a carbon card for every citizen, rather like a ration card which would be “spent” as we buy cars, home boilers, air-miles etc. And it has set its face against a carbon tax which would tax all CO2-producing fuel, used in cars or homes or in factories, shops and offices.
To be fair there is a 54 per cent petrol duty but we do not pay the pollution costs of the gas we consume heating our homes or offices. Nor do we pay anything on the fuel used in aircraft. The Irish and the French are following much the same policy and calling it a “carbon tax”. The EU also has plans for a basic 10 euros per tonne minimum petrol tax.
But, as usual, the Scandinavians have led the way, with a proper carbon tax, introduced in the early 1990s, levied on fuel both for transport and for heating. The best example is Sweden which saw a 20 per cent reduction in emissions between 1991 and 2000 as people used their cars less and switched to bio-fuel or district heating to warm their homes. In other countries like Norway and the Netherlands, there was no fall in emissions but that was because their economies were growing rapidly. So a carbon tax did not damage business, as is sometimes argued.
In fact, the carbon tax can be seen as an opportunity to expand the economy in a better direction, towards renewable energy, recycling, properly insulating homes, redesigning the transport system, encouraging home produced food.
The idea of a carbon tax goes back to the Cambridge economist and mountaineer Arthur Pigou in the early 1900s. He was the first to pioneer the concept of “welfare economics” ie that there are benefits we share in common and that there is a cost to consuming the earth’s resources or polluting the planet. It’s still rather a novel idea among economists and has not caught on at all among most businessmen and consumers.
The problem is that the disadvantages of climate change are difficult to measure and are long term. The Stern Report had a go at measuring the effects and concluded that world GDP would drop by 20 per cent a year, if we did not spent 1 -2 per cent of GDP (£20b) on measures to cut carbon emissions. Generally we don’t put much of a price on carbon emissions … or on any waste, come to think of it.
Which means, generally, that we are heading for disaster, led by our tax-avoiding politicians. And I guess the earth’s natural forces will need to get much angrier with us if we are to change our ways. It’s a pity, because such conflict could be avoided. Then spring would be a season to be happy about, not one to wary of, wondering what “weather” it has in store for us.
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Its unreadable as its not fitting the page properly and can I add the “Back to Top” link doesn’t work for me. Thanks
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Marvelous example of propaganda by the increasingly discredited Anthropological Global Warming movement. Hardly a balanced article, even by old media standards.
Indeed, as a regular reader of Cal Merc, wishing you all the very best for the future, I’m disappointed that you boast a digital platform yet do not give your readers the benefit of the technology.
Why not put hyperlinks into the text – especially where potentially contentious assertions are being made – so that those of us sufficiently interested can research for ourselves and double-check against other reports? (And help keep your organ alive and thriving by posting comments!)
Come on Cal Merc! No room for recycling the propaganda of others. Absolutely no excuse for denying readers the ease of use and other advantages that you yourselves enjoy when putting together your “news” site.
Television turned out to be more than “radio with pictures”. Digital news, similarly, is NOT about creating an electronic representation of a piece of paper.
Please don’t be one of the media dinosaurs shaking their fists at the approaching meteor! You know in your heart that you will become obsolete and forgotten (save for being an early, classic, salutory lesson).
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I’m not sure what you are complaining about here Russell. You cite the “increasingly discredited Anthropological Global Warming movement.” Are you referring to the overwhelming majority view of scientists that global warming is happening and is the result of human activity. This is supported by reams of evidence and has for years now been the subject of global effort coordinated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change.
I am a very experienced academic researcher in mathematics and computer science with a strong background in physics and a working knowledge of biology. Though not research active in the area of climate science, I have the technical background to understand the strengths and limitatons of the approaches used and have read a lot of the more accessible output. I am deeply convinced by the range, quality and consistency of the evidence that global warming is a reality and that human activity is the major cause. I am also aware of the devastating consequences that it is already having in some parts of the world and of potential catastrophe to come if we do not, as the article proposes, get serious about a green economy.
I suggest you apply to yourself the standards by which you would judge this article. As far as I can tell you advance no evidenced, weighted argument, merely indulging yourself in negative invective. Who’s the fist-shaking dinosaur now?
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G P Walrus, You say “I am deeply convinced — that human activity is the major cause.” That is quite a claim. On what evidence do you state that?
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The claim is not mine, it is well-established scientific consensus accepted by the vast majority of the scientific community. I am “deeply convinced” because I have read several books and articles explaining the scientific approach to defining, measuring and explaining the causes of global warming. The whole story, predictions of computer models, ice core evidence, changes in sea level and acidity, tree ring studies, mud cores, glacier retreat, ocean currents, etc, etc, hangs together in an astoundingly consistent way. The phenomenon is real, the cause is known and the necessary corrective action is well understood.
The problem is one of trust, which goes to the heart of your question Wee Willie Bee. Can we trust what scientists say on this issue? A central issue of many discussions in CalMerc is media bias and the undoubted fact that many politicians and commentators are not to be trusted. On an issue like climate change, which demands social change on a large scale, scepticism is seductive, and distrust of politicians is so easily turned to distrust of statements by the scientific community. The fact that the issues are quite technical and that science is not normally well reported add considerably to the difficulties.
I certainly don’t expect you to take the word of someone calling himself G. P. Walrus on trust! A good place to start is the IPCC website. This gives an immediate impression of the scale and seriousness of scientific effort involved and contains many carefully worded and thoroughly researched analyses of the problem. This is real science, not armchair theorising.
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Thank you Mr Walrus for your constructive and helpful reply. It has influenced my thoughts on the subject in your direction.
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I think Mr Walrus said this where you say “—”
“by the range, quality and consistency of the evidence”
It is up to you to research the evidence. It is dangerous to accept everything one reads in funded bites.
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I posted a reply to G.P. Walrus with links to James Delingpole (Daily Telegraph columnist), Daily Express, Mail-Online and other sources … But is hasn’t appeared. Maybe too many links in it (lol).
Readers might want to start reading different views and find out how utterly discredited the IPCC has become by starting with a search-engine search for James Delingpole then follow the thick trail of breadcrumbs that show AGW is bunkum – and indeed, just a device towards global taxes that will line the pockets of companies owned by Al Gore and some senior IPCC officials.
BTW – also goole for the 32,000 US scientists who recently signed a petition stating their belief that AGW is a hoax.
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I posted a reply to Wee Willie Bee that hasn’t made it through moderation yet. In it I provide a link to the IPCC website, which is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
As I said in the previous post, this is a trust issue. Russell suggests we should listen to journalists on this issue. I suggest we should listen to a very large global collaboration of scientists. I give my reasons for believing the scientists in my yet-to-emerge post.
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Well, you could start by listening to the 32,000 US scientists who signed a public petition stating that they believe man-made “global warming” (or “climate change” as it is known these days … !).
The only reason I suggested a journalist – James Delingpole – is because he links to lots of actual scientific evidence and scientists (one’s who, unlike Walrus, actually research and practice in the subject area). His site provides a good area for CalMerc readers to start researching issues that climate “scientists” don’t like to talk about.
Indeed, academics parroting the lies of others do no one any favours, certainly not scientific debate. (”The time for debate is over” is the mantra of the Church of Climatology – oh really? Doesn’t science evolve through continuing debate and research?????).
And, unfortunately, online newspapers that do not allow comments containing lionks merely prop up the culture of restricted information flow – and resulting ignorance – that entirely suits the Climatology priests.
I am not shaking my fist at any meteor. I am merely a tiny part of that meteor. (lol)
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… the 32,000 US scientists who signed a petition saying they believe AGW is a hoax …
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Hi Russell,
I followed your advice and googled the website where the 32,000 US scientists have set up their global warming petition. The site contains ONE 12-page “review” of climate change literature which concludes that (I paraphrase), rather than having any effect on global warming, increased CO2 instead is having a hugely beneficial effect in increasing plant growth and that we should burn more hydrocarbons rather than less. As a trained mathematician, I can see many deep flaws in the statistical methods employed in this paper, even though I am not involved in climate science. However, the untrained reader cannot distinguish between a carefully researched, scientifically sound journal article and a pile of garbage written to look like same.
Again I return to my main point. This is a matter of judgement of who to trust.
I note that this review appeared in that noted climate science publication the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. I had not realised until now that, in the US, spin doctoring was a branch of medicine! As to the 32,000 US scientists, this is a website consisting of a list of names sorted by state or alphabetically. There is no evidence that these are 32,000 scientists, let alone climate scientists. I particularly liked the strap line on the website “31,468 American scientists have signed this petition, including 9,029 with PhD’s” (emphasis mine).
If you mosey over to the IPCC website, you will find the detailed work of hundreds of real climate scientists, all of whom have PhDs and many of whom are eminent world class leaders in their fields.
I find it difficult to understand how you can prefer a cobbled-together 12-page review in an out-of-discipline national journal (and a BIG web page full of unsubstantiated names) to the massive global effort of hundreds of leading minds that the IPCC represents.
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Walrus, I play in a brass band with a “trained mathematician” and he can barely tie his shoelaces or count sixteen 4/4 bars rest. You’re obsession with quantity over quality (”hundreds of …”, etc) suggests arithmetic is perhaps your natural forte.
Given you’re “not involved in climate science” (your admission) and cannot conceive of a world of truth beyond that promoted by the IPCC, I appreciate that you “find it difficult to understand”.
Keep believing, until someone tells you otherwise
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… or even “your obsession” … (lol)
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Oh, and of the 2,500 “experts” involved with the IPCC, very few are actual scientists and indeed the vast majority are “consultants” …
So I’ll stick with the 32,000 (9.029 with PhDs). BTW, did you see the news today that the majority of the US population believe that humankind is not responsible for “global warming” (perhaps because the Earth has been cooling since 1998 in this latest cycle)?
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Thought provoking stuff indeed, but the real problem can be summed in one word – people. And the underlying cause is population growth. Every single day the population of our planet increases by a further one million souls, each one to be fed and watered and to live longer than ever before. Just think by the time we get to Friday there will be another Scotland on the planet, with no new resources.
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I too will believe that the Politicians are serious when the word Population enters their vocabulary. Why are we in this day and age paying people to breed?
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I don’t think that the population is growing quite as fast as 1m per day, the figures I saw make it more like 6m a month, but still the same resources.
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So who you guys going to start killing first?
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Ah, talk of population control eh?
What will that involve?
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Stop this allowing the rich take food/biofuel from the poor of the World to satisfy a greedy consumerist society.
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>>sticks his head round the door from Outdoors just along the corridor<<
“The coldest winter for nearly 50 years is over”
Didn’t feel like winter was over on Saturday in splendid snow-down-to-the-road conditions on An Caisteal, a Munro just west of Crianlarich.
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I often wonder whether the enormous emphasis on climate change as the result of human activity actually plays into the hands of the polluters. It reminds me of the way tobacco companies used to be about smoking and lung cancer. Proving a causal relationship was difficult and gave the companies wiggle room to keep making profits. As a smoker though, you always knew the habit made you smelly, short of breath and generally ill, even if you couldn’t be certain if it was going to kill you and when. In the same way we can see clearly the immediate effects of the activities which appear to cause climate change even if it’s hard for many people to grasp how exactly those processes might cause global warming.
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Most people tend to be consumed in their own personal world, their own personal Microclimate, their own personal economy. If the eye doesn’t see the heart doesn’t grieve and the need doesn’t present itself. Headlines stating January was the hottest in recorded history received derision even after closer inspection explaining it as world wide temperatures. What do you expect from people daydreaming through the winter months about the summer sun. Comparatively speaking up until now we’ve enjoyed over twenty years of mild winters and a platform from which global warming could be visualised. Reality however struck this winter when temperatures plummeted and the opposition to the idea of global warming crystallised along with the ice on our streets. People you see react to what their senses are telling them, regardless of what is just over the horizon or around the other side of the world. Ignorance as they say is bliss.
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Great article John, not necessarily one which targets proving the existence of global warming – as some of your detractors on here seem to believe it does – but rather deals with the culture of ignorance and spin about what exactly the concept involves.
I personally despair for our species that we are so set against the possibility that we could have the kind of impact on our environment that climatologists claim we are having. On average, one in every thousand human beings who has ever lived is alive today. Set that against one in every HUNDRED thousand for all the other species, from microbes to elephants, alive on the planet today, and you begin to see that the problem is that we are over-taxing our environment simply by increasing in population. We have become too successful, and it is beginning to destabilise the world which allowed it to happen.
The real shame is that we are the only species ever produced by this sumptuously fecund planet capable of recognising and tackling the problems our own poliferation causes, and yet there is no will or interest in doing exactly that.
We are dooming ourselves, and nearly every other species alive with us today as well.
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The population argument on this issue is a poor one. Consumerism is the problem, not how many people there are in the world.
For example, if everyone in the world had the living standards of the majority (large swathes of South East Asia, Africa and Latin America) then we would cope. If we all lived like us Brits, we would need 3 Earths to continue our lifestyles.
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I have heard every climate denialist imaginable argument including the bible based ones. The science based ones are here http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php the rest are here http://www.skepticalscience.com/resources.php Climate change is the boiling frog issue, all those climate Delingpoloes are slowly cooking the planet and celebrating its destruction. Scotland is a uniquely lucky country we need to make faster progress, no sign of it yet.
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Climate “denialist” … How can we argue against that, Mein Fuhrer???
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Russell is correct – AGW is nothing but junk science and green groupthink, which sadly far too many politicians and journalists have fallen for.
This short video which reviews Greenland and Antarctic ice core data puts all the nonsense about the ‘unprecedented’ and man-made global warming into perspective:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mxmo9DskYE
Enjoy what’s left of the Holocene while it lasts!
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OK Iapogus,
I followed your YouTube link and sat through all 2 minutes and 35 seconds of a rather tedious video on “hockey sticks” posted by “docattheautopsy”.
Forgive me if I lend rather less credence to this oeuvre than to the detailed arguments set out in “Chapter 9: Understanding and Attributing Climate Change” of the report produced by Working Group I of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report 2007.
It might take a little longer than 2 minutes and 35 seconds to read but then rather more effort went into its production also.
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Walrus, It’s the motivation behind the IPCC “effort” that increasing amounts of people are questioning and doubting.
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People are correct to question and doubt both the motivations of climate change scientists and also the motivations of those who maintain that either there is no climate change or that it is not caused by human activity or that it is, on the whole beneficial.
I made this point in my response to your first post. In the final analysis, we have to evaluate the arguments put forward and the credentials of those making them as best we can and then decide who to trust.
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Walrus, the graphs are based on the data from the Greenland ice cores, years of research undertkaen by NOAA – US Governenet funded scientists who are unashamed proponents of AGW. The Antartic reserach was conducted by Russian scientists at their base at Vostok. All the refernces are shown at the end of the video, but if you want more details, see http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/12/historical-video-perspective-our-current-unprecedented-global-warming-in-the-context-of-scale/ The ice core data is a proxy but is corroborated by the following research on rasised beaches on northern Greenland, and drfitweood that could only have been washed up there when there was open seas – i.e. in periods that were warmer than today: http://www.ngu.no/en-gb/Aktuelt/2008/Less-ice-in-the-Arctic-Ocean-6000-7000-years-ago/
http://hol.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/14/4/607
see also:
http://www.apex.geo.su.se/images/stories/apex2009.pdf
The summary of the IPCC’s AR4 report was re-written by politicians to maximise climate fear. Do some research for yourself.
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Walrus – my last sentence is not strictly correct – instead of “re-written by politicians” I should have said by “politically motivated scientists and bureaucrats”. Not much differnce at the end of the day. Here’s a list (with links) to some 500 peer-reviewed papers which support scepticism of AGW for you to digest:
http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html
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I’m sorry Iapogus, but your two posts above indicate a misunderstanding of how science approaches climate change. What happens is that different scientists independently formulate and investigate questions relating to climate change. These are often very specific, looking at data relating to particular regions or time periods or whatever. As a result, the scientific literature on climate change is a vast jigsaw of thousands of pieces of partial evidence presented as peer-reviewed publications. The IPCC process sits on top of that and has a number of working groups piecing the jigsaw together and coming up with a whole set of balanced statements that these experts feel can be fairly made on the basis of considering all the evidence. They are even careful enough to attach levels of confidence to the statements they make.
There are many websites devoted to pulling out pieces of the jigsaw here and there and trumpeting them as “supporting scepticism of AGW” as you write above. But this is biased and highly-selective interpretation with a pre-judged conclusion. Climate change is a highly complex phenomenon and cannot be reasonably approached by dividing the scientific literature into for / against AGW. That just isn’t the way science is done!
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Two British journalists have revealed an extensive paper trail that suggests that Rajendra Pachauri, current head of the UN Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), may have extensive conflicts of interest and in fact stands to gain materially from the signing and enforcement of any greenhouse-gas (GHG) remediation treaty.
http://tinyurl.com/ybzq9nq
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The head of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri is an engineer who has a background in transport before he got himself into the UN gravy train. His own country, India has asked him to reisgn as he is bringing his country into disrepute through his corruption.
http://tinyurl.com/ydoqhvt
http://tinyurl.com/ycrjvg9
Ten facts about climate change
1. Climate has always changed, and it always will. The assumption that prior to the industrial revolution the Earth had a “stable” climate is simply wrong. The only sensible thing to do about climate change is to prepare for it.
2. Accurate temperature measurements made from weather balloons and satellites since the late 1950s show no atmospheric warming since 1958. In contrast, averaged ground-based thermometers record a warming of about 0.40 C over the same time period. Many scientists believe that the thermometer record is biased by the Urban Heat Island effect and other artefacts.
3. Despite the expenditure of more than US$50 billion dollars looking for it since 1990, no unambiguous anthropogenic (human) signal has been identified in the global temperature pattern.
4. Without the greenhouse effect, the average surface temperature on Earth would be -180 C rather than the equable +150 C that has nurtured the development of life.
Carbon dioxide is a minor greenhouse gas, responsible for ~26% (80 C) of the total greenhouse effect (330C), of which in turn at most 25% (~20C) can be attributed to carbon dioxide contributed by human activity. Water vapour, contributing at least 70% of the effect, is by far the most important atmospheric greenhouse gas.
5. On both annual (1 year) and geological (up to 100,000 year) time scales, changes in atmospheric temperature PRECEDE changes in CO2. Carbon dioxide therefore cannot be the primary forcing agent for temperature increase (though increasing CO2 does cause a diminishingly mild positive temperature feedback).
6. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has acted as the main scaremonger for the global warming lobby that led to the Kyoto Protocol. Fatally, the IPCC is a political, not scientific, body.
Hendrik Tennekes, a retired Director of Research at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, says that “the IPCC review process is fatally flawed” and that “the IPCC wilfully ignores the paradigm shift created by the foremost meteorologist of the twentieth century, Edward Lorenz”.
7. The Kyoto Protocol will cost many trillions of dollars and exercises a significant impost those countries that signed it, but will deliver no significant cooling (less than .020 C by 2050, assuming that all commitments are met).
The Russian Academy of Sciences says that Kyoto has no scientific basis; Andre Illarianov, senior advisor to Russian president Putin, calls Kyoto-ism “one of the most agressive, intrusive, destructive ideologies since the collapse of communism and fascism”. If Kyoto was a “first step” then it was in the same wrong direction as the later “Bali roadmap”.
8. Climate change is a non-linear (chaotic) process, some parts of which are only dimly or not at all understood. No deterministic computer model will ever be able to make an accurate prediction of climate 100 years into the future.
9. Not surprisingly, therefore, experts in computer modelling agree also that no current (or likely near-future) climate model is able to make accurate predictions of regional climate change.
10. The biggest untruth about human global warming is the assertion that nearly all scientists agree that it is occurring, and at a dangerous rate.
The reality is that almost every aspect of climate science is the subject of vigorous debate. Further, thousands of qualified scientists worldwide have signed declarations which (i) query the evidence for hypothetical human-caused warming and (ii) support a rational scientific (not emotional) approach to its study within the context of known natural climate change.
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16467
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Walrus, I haven’t misunderstood anything. Remember that that of the ‘2500′ IPCC sceintists, only 65 are actual climate scientists, the rest are ecologists, economists, political appointees and bureaucrats. Read some of the quotes below from 700 very enminient scientists whose data and views were sidelined and ignored by the IPCC: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=10FE77B0-802A-23AD-4DF1-FC38ED4F85E3
Maybe you have been too busy with your research, but I can assure you that the IPCC along with GISS, CRU/UEA, Mann, Jones, Trenberth et al have been totally discredited by the climategate emails, computer code ‘fudge factors’, and basic errors in the IPCC’s 2007 report. The corruption of both the peer-review process, and the global temperature data (by dubious weather station selection, homogenisation, and bald adjustments of the raw data) are plain for all to see if you care to look. It is just the media who haven’t realised the scale of the deception yet. You should know that good science is not based on consensus, but scepticism. And the opposite of scepticism is gullibility. Your continued faith in the politicised and discredited IPCC in spite of the overwhelming evidence is astonishing. But then AGW is a religion after all, so maybe not.
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Again the issues are of quality and credibility. I note that you are perfectly happy to disparage my critical faculties on the basis that I hold an opinion different from yours. It does not surprise me therefore that you prefer one-sided polemic to carefully balanced scientific analysis. It seems we must agree to disagree on this one.
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Walrus, please cite an example of poor ‘quality and credibility’ data/sources I have used in my posts. Have you read any of the statements on the US Senate Committee report (halfway down http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=10FE77B0-802A-23AD-4DF1-FC38ED4F85E3 )? Do you question the standing of the scientists quoted? The reason I am happy to disparage your critical faculties is not because you have a different opinion from me, but because your gullibility has meant you have fallen for the man-made global warming nonsense perpetuated by the IPCC/CRU/UEA/GISS/WWF/Greenpeace/BBC/Guardian/wikipedia. I still find it astonishing as a physicist that the significance of the incontrovertible Greenland and Vostok Ice core data has gone right over your head.
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