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Refuting Climate Sceptisism on Indymedia

Sam Nexter | 30.06.2007 15:58 | Climate Camp 2006 | Climate Chaos | World

Are there people out there fed up with Indymedia being used as a platform for ill-informed and dangerous climate change denial? Can we do anything about it?

Climate Sceptics are quite devious – they rarely lie, choosing instead to use true facts to “prove” their point, being always careful of course to mask the context of what they say sufficiently to make it seem that climate change is some kind of hoax.

One classic example recently posted was the true assertion that carbon dioxide makes up only about 0.05% of the Earth’s atmosphere. What followed however was the assertion that this fact made it impossible for increases in carbon dioxide to cause climate change. This is of course rubbish – as anyone who knows even the basics about the chemistry of gases could tell you.

The fact is that the three most common gases in the atmosphere; nitrogen, oxygen (in it’s O2 form) and argon, do not interact with infra-red radiation. The “green house effect” of almost 100% of the Earth’s atmosphere is just about zero!

The fourth most common gas in the atmosphere is carbon dioxide, and it is this gas that is responsible for the bulk of the “greenhouse effect” which keeps the Earth about 15 degrees centigrade warmer than it would otherwise be. As we increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the air (by taking carbon out of the ground and burning it so that it combines with oxygen to make CO2) we are making this effect greater - with disastrous consequences.

I think we need to have some kind of “rapid response unit” of people who think its important to tell the truth about climate change, and who keep an eye out for when climate change sceptics publish their dangerous nonsense. I have better things to do than refute their stuff all the time, but I can do the odd shift.

If anyone wants to be on this team, let me know and we’ll draw up a rota.

Thanx

Sam











Sam Nexter
- e-mail: gsvhive@fsmail.net
- Homepage: http://www.climatecamp.org.uk

Comments

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Dont forget...

30.06.2007 17:56

About that other gas in the atmosphere..... water vapour.....its effect is significant, its the biggest glabal warmer!

info here:  http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/mockler.html

Interestingly, clouds, condensing water vapour, will reflect back a lot of incoming radiation!

Bob


Good idea! Desperately needed!

30.06.2007 18:35

It's good to hear that someone sees the importance of it. May I ask if you watched the global warming hoax? The deniers can't seem to comprehend that the energy giants wouldn't have to pay a bunch of think tanks to come up with contrary dribble it they were right. Or it is them who are posting this confused crap.

To Bob - water vapor does play a part in the warming, but that doesn't mean that co2 does not. For
a quick explanation of the interplay of both see this:
 http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument/#more-455

don beck


Cheers Don..

30.06.2007 19:06

I was not implying that it was alone, I am simply trying to make sure all bases are covered!

From my point of view, its a multi-faceted argument that has its roots in many, many pies! Consumerism, war, bribery, corruption, ir miles, local produce, transport, the list goes on. I think that Climate change is the one area that can focus peoples attention on the wider issues and try to build some consensus.

cheers for link

Bob


CO2

01.07.2007 13:10

Clearly the oil industry is very much part on the international corporate,government, intellectual and scientific cartel that is very much in charge of pushing the CO2 theory of global warming.
Such a thesis doesn't harm or threaten profits at all, allowing them endless opportunities for raising prices, while allowing mendacious governments (ie the vast majority) the opportunity to raise revenue through carbon taxes.
The net intended result is the denying of freedom of travel to the less well-off whilst ensuring the continuance of lavish jetsetting lifestyles to the rich and super-rich
This as surely on the agendas of the oil giants and the Rockefellers as on the agenda of the establishment enviromental research units.
It is interesting that the same network is happy and content to repeatedly shoot millions of megawatts of electricity at the ionosphere via the HAARP network, allegedly to 'see what happens'
I've yet to see evidence that native Martians and Venusians are warming their planets via carbon emissions, or most of the other solar system planets that are also warming.
The vibration of the Earth has been increasing over the last 20 years as measured in the Schumann Cavity Vector,concommitant with the period of warming.
Environmentalists putting carbon emissions at the top of their agenda are simply tools of the ruling class, forwarding the latter's established agenda.

dh
mail e-mail: wy911@goowy.com


Kropotkin would be sceptical too...

01.07.2007 13:17

If one can't be sceptical about the effect of CO2 emmisions on Indymedia, then where? There are good reasons to be sceptical, not least that what you call 'the truth about climate change' is apparently what you've told by the corporate media; the same agencies who lie and mis-inform us about everything else, all the time.

Peter Kropotkin wrote extensively about the melting of the icecaps and the drying up of lakes in Mutual Aid, pointing to evidence that what we now call 'global warming' trends have been established for centuries. I quote:

"Numberless traces of post-pliocene lakes, now disappeared, are
found over Central, West, and North Asia. Shells of the same
species as those now found in the Caspian Sea are scattered over
the surface of the soil as far East as half-way to Lake Aral, and
are found in recent deposits as far north as Kazan. Traces of
Caspian Gulfs, formerly taken for old beds of the Amu, intersect
the Turcoman territory. Deduction must surely be made for
temporary, periodical oscillations. But with all that,
desiccation is evident, and it progresses at a formerly
unexpected speed. Even in the relatively wet parts of South-West
Siberia, the succession of reliable surveys, recently published
by Yadrintseff, shows that villages have grown up on what was,
eighty years ago, the bottom of one of the lakes of the Tchany
group; while the other lakes of the same group, which covered
hundreds of square miles some fifty years ago, are now mere
ponds. In short, the desiccation of North-West Asia goes on at a
rate which must be measured by centuries, instead of by the
geological units of time of which we formerly used to speak."
(Note 1, Chapter 4, 'MUTUAL AID AMONG THE BARBARIANS')

I should remind you that this was published in 1902 (well before 4x4s and easyjet), and that as well as being one of the most eloquent promoters of Anarchism, Kropotkin was secretary to the geography section of the Russian Geographical Society for whom he conducted surveys of vast areas of the world.

My personal opinion is that blaming CO2 emmissions for climate change (and the huge amnount of media coverage for it) is a method of preparing us for the economic effects of peak oil while distracting us from the real issues at stake.

The full text of Mutual Aid is here:
 http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/mtlad10.txt

Get yer rapid response unit round that.

Ambrose Blimfield


Good point

01.07.2007 18:18

Reminds me that it's a helluva lot of years since I read Mutual Aid.
Thanks for the link and the quote, Ambrose.I'll use it well
Personally I think peak oil is a little bit of a myth, coming from the same direction as the carbon one

dh
mail e-mail: wy911@goowy.com
- Homepage: http://www.westyorkshiretruth.aceboard.com


That's right...you "think"

01.07.2007 20:59

But you don't "know"!

Pototkin may be saying something else today if he had the facts. The data doesn't lie, guys. The facts are facts and you may be weary of the motives, but your thinking is bass akwards. Why the hell would the energy giants fund 47 think tanks full of non-scientist "thinkers" to question the science? Tell me.......come on answer that one little question. And of course the energy giants have no motive to confuse the public, do they.

You people are really scratching around for some way around the facts. And done like a true neo-con.
ie. Everything that you are guilty of, accuse your opponent of that. HYPOCRISY

don beck


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Wow

02.07.2007 08:06

I see this rapid response crew have such eloquent arguments.

Andy


Yep, Kropotkin was a scientist

02.07.2007 12:28

Meaning he looks at the data available to him (over 100 years ago) and draws conclusions from that.

In 2007 we have the scientists in the IPCC looking at all the data available to them and drawing conclusions from that. The conclusion? That global warming is happening, is being caused by human activity, principally CO2 emissions.

Or we could take the following approach:
* I say "there is an international cartel of elite interests with a single agenda"
* I say "I know that agenda"
* I don't bother with sharing evidence
* I ignore the mass of data that contradicts me, because I Know
* I throw in some impressive-sounding phrase without bothering to explain it
* Everybody trusts me and respects my enlightened knowledge

Putting a personal favourite explanation before the known facts is a recipe for elitism, apathy and the reproduction of nonsense.

Challenge yourselves, folks. Read the science and see if your favourite theory fits the data better than that in the IPCC report.

CH


Using truth to mislead, says Sam, Don

03.07.2007 22:25

Sam and Don

I am one of those ‘climate sceptics’ whom you accuse of using the truth to deliberately mislead people.

I have asked two questions:
i. What proportion of atmospheric gas is made up of CO2?
ii. What proportion of atmospheric greenhouse gas must there be to trigger life-threatening global warming?

When I suggested that most people who believe in man-made global warming did not have an answer to either and that their scepticism about man-made warming would increase if they knew, I received abuse and was attacked as a dumb liar.

I have read attempts at an explanation of how 0.5% of CO2 cause life threatening warming on Indymedia. The explanations include ‘critical mass’ and include Polonium. I don’t understand a word of it. (I understand that Polonium is a poison but don’t understand what that has to do with CO2 and global warming.)

There is a simple way to deal with my scepticism.

Could you please provide a link to an explanation written for the general public by a climate scientist of how it is that 0.5% of gas in the atmosphere causes the dangerous, life threatening global warming we are experiencing now?

A link to a climate scientist’s explanation written for the general public to explain of why the impact of CO2 today is different compared to when it was 15 times higher during an ice age would also help.

If there are no links of explanations for the general public then a scientific paper will do.

insidejob


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