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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted -  15/12/2007  :  07:03
I thought it might be a good thing to have a topic devoted to this important subject.


Stanley Challenger Graham




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stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk
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Tizer
VIP Member


5150 Posts
Posted - 02/12/2010 : 11:15
The term `global warming' seems to have appeared first in the 1970s and it was used simply to describe the observed rising temperature of the Earth's surface. No implications, no panic, no arguments, just a fact. Scientists believe in global warming like an economist believes in inflation. Inflation goes up and down, global surface tempoerture goes up and down. When it's going up you report it as global warming as an economist reports a rise in inflation. The news media make their own interpretations of each and add their own bias.

As with a rise in inflation, if it continues you come to a point were you have to consider if it is dangerous in any way. Studies to determine this for global warming showed that climate change would result, the important question is how big a change? When you decide that the change might be big enough to be dangerous then you ask what do we do about it? That's where it got tricky because the finger was being pointed at us, not the Sun or the Earth or aliens, and we were being asked to change our comfortable way of life.

So global warming is, in Macmillan's words, "Events, dear boy, events" and climate change is the result.


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frankwilk
Senior Member


3975 Posts
Posted - 02/12/2010 : 19:22
I agree Peter, sometimes I wonder why we are not building big resovoirs and why we didn't go along the Severn Barrage route. I wonder if World Leaders believe we can manage the change !!!
Mind you I think  the World will have starved to death by the time the Temperature does rise to Dangerous levels.
GM crops is another thing that will be needed before the Temperatures rises to much to grow food.



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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 03/12/2010 : 06:51
You're right Frank and the same things occupy my mind. This is why I believe that certain essential matters should be divorced from politics and put in the hands of competent people who can take a long view. God knows how that could be made to work but the present short-term thinking and reliance on the 'market' isn't going to cut it.


Stanley Challenger Graham




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HerbSG
Senior Member


1185 Posts
Posted - 03/12/2010 : 14:53
How much of climate change is due to the movement of the poles (north pole has moved up tp 700km)?  Over the years the polarity has been reversed (last time 340,000 years ago) it is going to happen again and will have a major effect on climatic conditions.  There are 2 scemtists, 1 Frenchman and 1 Canadian who have worked steadily for 18 years monitoring and updating the position of the north pole.


HERB


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Tizer
VIP Member


5150 Posts
Posted - 03/12/2010 : 15:42
The GM food problem might be solved for us whether Europeans like it or not. GM food crops are already well established (15 years) in most parts of the world other than Europe with no evidence of any serious problems. They represent the bulk of the crops grown in many of those countries. Europeans don't seem to realise they are the odd ones out. Now, new types of crops plants and new uses of GM are being introduced in those countries and we are falling even further behind. So it won't be the developing world that starves in the future, it will be Europe - but by then I suspect we might have given in and accepted the crops.

Herb, Wandering of the poles is due to changes in the tilt of the Earth on its axis and this inluences the amount of ice at the poles, which in turn affects sea level and temperature. However, all known effects on climate - including polar wandering, changes in the angle of the axis, solar flux etc - are factored into the computerised climate models. What comes out is after all those natural effects have been eliminated from the equations and this remaining excess of increased temperature can only be explained by man's input of carbon dioxide (or of course something totally unkown to any of us). But don't let me (or anyone else) stop you from suggesting other causes, it's all grist to the mill, the more discussion the better. I'm not an expert and just happen to be trained as a scientist and have a leisure interest in `Earth sciences' - it fascinates me and the scientific training helps me understand it. But then many of the earlier Earth scientists (gelogists, paleontologists, oceanographers etc) did not start out as scientists but as farmers, engineers and the like.

Edited by - Tizer on 03/12/2010 15:52:11


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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 04/12/2010 : 06:19
Jenny Uglow's book, 'The Lunar Men' is a fascinating walk through the evolution of scientific thought in the 18th century. Very readable. Tiz is quite right, the 'gifted amateurs' started many important trails of discovery simply because they were interested in 'natural philosophy' and strange penenomena.


Stanley Challenger Graham




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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 05/12/2010 : 05:52
Did anyone hear Marcus Brigstock doing a rant on the NOW Show on R4 yesterday? Brilliant, very funny and dead accurate as far as I could see. Well worth listening to on the Iplayer.


Stanley Challenger Graham




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Tizer
VIP Member


5150 Posts
Posted - 12/01/2011 : 10:52
While we are watching the terrible floods in Australia there has been bad flooding along the length of the river Rhine in Germany caused by melting of the extra large amounts of snow that fell recently on the Alps. For example in Koblenz the Rhine has reached about 7 metres depth compared with the normal 2.7 metres. There will be more flooding when the waters reach the Netherlands. These floods give a taste of what will happen as the climate warms and the glaciers in the Alps disappear. Instead of extra snow falling, the floods will then be due to ordinary snowfalls melting immediately instead of being compacted into glacial ice; also to some extent due to rain falling instead of snow. Without ice there will be no year-round supply of water from the Alps to keep the Rhine flowing. It will be floods in winter and drought in summer.

There is an excellent explanation of the reasons why the Rhine already floods more often on this web page:
http://geographyfieldwork.com/RhineCauses.htm

The factors contributing to the greater flooding are mostly relevant to any river and the web page can be read with the UK in mind or any other country. The problems caused by deforestisation, urbanisation, embanking, canalising etc were all well understood by ecologists and geographers in the 1960s and 70s but somehow we seem to have lost the this understanding. Or perhaps money the rush into development and `progress' has blocked out the common sense.

Edited by - Tizer on 12/01/2011 10:54:03


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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 13/01/2011 : 07:35
Makes you wonder why some people still deny that the climate is changing. Perhaps they have their collective heads in the sand.


Stanley Challenger Graham




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stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk Go to Top of Page
Tizer
VIP Member


5150 Posts
Posted - 06/03/2011 : 10:49
Here are some fun things to take part in connected with climate change and run online by the Natural History Museum...

"Climate survey. The OPAL climate survey is an exciting national experiment that everyone can take part in."

"Ask the climate experts. Submit your question using the form, and scientists at the Met Office will try to answer as many as possible."


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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 14/05/2011 : 07:03
Open this LINK to see news of the opening of the Morganza spillway on the Mississippi to protect towns lower down for the first time in almost 40 years. The people affected have been told to take all their possessions with them, it doesn't look as though they are ever going to be able to get back. No such thing as climate change?


Stanley Challenger Graham




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stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk Go to Top of Page
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 15/05/2011 : 04:30
They've started opening the Morganza spillway slowly to protect the sluicegate and give wild life time to get away. When fully open the flow will be 125,000 cubic feet a second backing up into the local watercourses. Some decision! They seem confident it will protect Baton Rouge and New Orleans against the worst effects. I hope they're right!


Stanley Challenger Graham




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stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk Go to Top of Page
Tizer
VIP Member


5150 Posts
Posted - 16/05/2011 : 10:51
The government is pretending that UK carbon emissions are down but the truth is that we've shifted manufacturing to China and India and it's ignoring the emissions created there in making the goods to export to the UK. Not only that, industry in India and China is `dirtier' and generates more carbon than it would here.


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Callunna
Revolving Grey Blob


3044 Posts
Posted - 16/05/2011 : 13:08
Interesting report in yesterday's Independent about "fragging" - the technique used to extract shale gas. Aparently it's worse for the environment than coal and can be extremely hazardous to those living in close proximity.

Worrying, as there is rather a large development going on in the Forest of Bowland.


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tripps
Senior Member


1404 Posts
Posted - 16/05/2011 : 13:47
I think the word is actually 'fracking'  short for horizontal fracturing.   Fragging was an American practice in Vietnam of murdering your officer by means of a fragmentation grenade, when it all got a bit too much for you.


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