It has always widely known that if you apply for funding on a research project you will stand a much bigger success if you include the worlds "global warming" in the proposal. Its almost as bad as the the MPs expenses scandal.

Basically, if you don't support the global warming theory then you don't get paid. End of story.

To bias funding towards one theory is wholely unscientific and is obviously going to affect the results. The only way to change would be to apply the funding impartially, regardless of which camp the research falls.

"The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance."
—Albert Einstein


Global Warming Theory in a Nutshell

Every scientific theory involves assumptions. Global warming theory starts with the assumption that the Earth naturally maintains a constant average temperature, which is the result of a balance between (1) the amount of sunlight the Earth absorbs, and (2) the amount of emitted infrared (”IR”) radiation that the Earth continuously emits to outer space. In other words, energy in equals energy out. Averaged over the whole planet for 1 year, those energy flows in and out of the climate system are estimated to be around 235 or 240 watts per square meter.

Greenhouse components in the atmosphere (mostly water vapor, clouds, carbon dioxide, and methane) exert strong controls over how fast the Earth loses IR energy to outer space. Mankind’s burning of fossil fuels creates more atmospheric carbon dioxide. As we add more CO2, more infrared energy is trapped, strengthing the Earth’s greenhouse effect. This causes a warming tendency in the lower atmosphere and at the surface. As of 2008, it is believed that we have enhanced the Earth’s natural greenhouse effect by about 1%.

Global warming theory says that the lower atmosphere must then respond to this energy imbalance (less IR radiation being lost than solar energy being absorbed) by causing an increase in temperature (which causes an increase in the IR escaping to space) until the emitted IR radiation once again equals the amount of absorbed sunlight. That is, the Earth must increase its temperature until global energy balance is once again restored. This is the basic explanation of global warming theory. (The same energy balance concept applies to a pot of water on a stove set on “low”. The water warms until the rate of energy loss through evaporation, convective air currents, and infrared radiation equals the rate of energy gain from the stove, at which point the water remains at a constant temperature. If you turn the heat up a tiny bit more, the temperature of the water will rise again until the extra amount of energy lost by the pot once again equals the energy gained from the stove, at which point a new, warmer equilibrium temperature is reached.)

Now, you might be surprised to learn that the amount of warming directly caused by the extra CO2 is, by itself, relatively weak. It has been calculated theoretically that, if there are no other changes in the climate system, a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration would cause less than 1 deg C of surface warming (about 1 deg. F). This is NOT a controversial statement…it is well understood by climate scientists. (As of 2008, we were about 40% to 45% of the way toward a doubling of atmospheric CO2.)


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"The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance."
—Albert Einstein
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BUT…everything this else in the climate system probably WON’T stay the same! For instance, clouds, water vapor, and precipition systems can all be expected to respond to the warming tendency in some way, which could either amplify or reduce the manmade warming. These other changes are called “feedbacks,” and the sum of all the feedbacks in the climate system determines what is called ‘climate sensitivity’. Negative feedbacks (low climate sensitivity) would mean that manmade global warming might not even be measurable, lost in the noise of natural climate variability. But if feedbacks are sufficiently positive (high climate sensitivity), then manmade global warming could be catastrophic.

Obviously, knowing the strength of feedbacks in the climate system is critical; this is the subject of most of my research in which I show that feedbacks previously estimated from satellite observations of natural climate variability have potentially large errors. A confusion between forcing and feedback (loosely speaking, cause and effect) when observing cloud behavior has led to the illusion of a sensitive climate system, when in fact our best satellite observations (when carefully and properly interpreted) suggest an IN-sensitive climate system.

Finally, if the climate system is insensitive, this means that the extra carbon dioxide we pump into the atmosphere is not enough to cause the observed warming over the last 100 years — some natural mechanism must be involved. Here you can read about my favorite candidate: the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.

 http://www.drroyspencer.com/research-articles/global-warming-as-a-natural-response/


Reproduced with permission

Were the moon landings a hoax?

Was 9/11 a controlled demolition?

Is the US government making secret deals with little grey aliens?

 http://www.grumpyoldsod.com/global%20warming%204.asp

> Were the moon landings a hoax?
> Was 9/11 a controlled demolition?
> Is the US government making secret deals with little grey aliens?

strawman arguments. Once again, deflect from facts and reasoning with hysteria and emotion.

So what? you've seen that "documentary" on youtube and you think you have it all figured out?
Even if it is true, and global warming is not caused by human events, there is little question that our natural environment is suffering greatly because of our consumption habits. I'm talking about deforestation, coal mining, mass production, pollution (not just of the air, but of water and foods as well). If you take global warming as the single argument for why we should stop our dirty habits you'd might have a leg to stand on, if you consider all of the other implications and still come and say that, well then your leg needs to be chopped off!

If you'd look at the massive environmental destruction that was caused in the passed few centuries, and it's acceleration, you cannot separate global warming out and say, oh that's a different issue. road building, airport expansion, fishing, farming, production and so forth are the reasons why our children will not have clean water and air. to hell with you "sceptics". first you bring conspiracy theories, then you regurgitate the same rubbish you've read in the papers or saw in the exxon propaganda movie on google video. come back when you can start thinking for yourself, and when you can view these things in context, and not as a single issue. yes it's an ideological view. the view that claims we need nature to survive, and owe our existence to the natural systems

Morons, go and pollute some over forums with your stupidity!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The following letter was sent to Ban Ki-moon,
Secretary-General of the United Nations on the UN Climate conference in Bali:

Dec. 13, 2007

Dear Mr. Secretary-General,

Re: UN climate conference taking the World in entirely the wrong direction

It is not possible to stop climate change, a natural phenomenon that has affected humanity through the ages. Geological, archaeological, oral and written histories all attest to the dramatic challenges posed to past societies from unanticipated changes in temperature, precipitation, winds and other climatic variables. We therefore need to equip nations to become resilient to the full range of these natural phenomena by promoting economic growth and wealth generation.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued increasingly alarming conclusions about the climatic influences of human-produced carbon dioxide (CO2), a non-polluting gas that is essential to plant photosynthesis. While we understand the evidence that has led them to view CO2 emissions as harmful, the IPCC's conclusions are quite inadequate as justification for implementing policies that will markedly diminish future prosperity. In particular, it is not established that it is possible to significantly alter global climate through cuts in human greenhouse gas emissions. On top of which, because attempts to cut emissions will slow development, the current UN approach of CO2 reduction is likely to increase human suffering from future climate change rather than to decrease it.

The IPCC Summaries for Policy Makers are the most widely read IPCC reports amongst politicians and non-scientists and are the basis for most climate change policy formulation. Yet these Summaries are prepared by a relatively small core writing team with the final drafts approved line-by-line by government ­representatives. The great majority of IPCC contributors and reviewers, and the tens of thousands of other scientists who are qualified to comment on these matters, are not involved in the preparation of these documents. The summaries therefore cannot properly be represented as a consensus view among experts.

Contrary to the impression left by the IPCC Summary reports:

Recent observations of phenomena such as glacial retreats, sea-level rise and the migration of temperature-sensitive species are not evidence for abnormal climate change, for none of these changes has been shown to lie outside the bounds of known natural variability.

The average rate of warming of 0.1 to 0. 2 degrees Celsius per decade recorded by satellites during the late 20th century falls within known natural rates of warming and cooling over the last 10,000 years.

Leading scientists, including some senior IPCC representatives, acknowledge that today's computer models cannot predict climate. Consistent with this, and despite computer projections of temperature rises, there has been no net global warming since 1998. That the current temperature plateau follows a late 20th-century period of warming is consistent with the continuation today of natural multi-decadal or millennial climate cycling.

In stark contrast to the often repeated assertion that the science of climate change is "settled," significant new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming. But because IPCC working groups were generally instructed (see IPCC Working Group Schedule) to consider work published only through May, 2005, these important findings are not included in their reports; i.e., the IPCC assessment reports are already materially outdated.

The UN climate conference in Bali has been planned to take the world along a path of severe CO2 restrictions, ignoring the lessons apparent from the failure of the Kyoto Protocol, the chaotic nature of the European CO2 trading market, and the ineffectiveness of other costly initiatives to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Balanced cost/benefit analyses provide no support for the introduction of global measures to cap and reduce energy consumption for the purpose of restricting CO2 emissions. Furthermore, it is irrational to apply the "precautionary principle" because many scientists recognize that both climatic coolings and warmings are realistic possibilities over the medium-term future.

The current UN focus on "fighting climate change," as illustrated in the Nov. 27 UN Development Programme's Human Development Report, is distracting governments from adapting to the threat of inevitable natural climate changes, whatever forms they may take. National and international planning for such changes is needed, with a focus on helping our most vulnerable citizens adapt to conditions that lie ahead. Attempts to prevent global climate change from occurring are ultimately futile, and constitute a tragic misallocation of resources that would be better spent on humanity's real and pressing problems.

Yours faithfully,

Don Aitkin, PhD, Professor, social scientist, retired vice-chancellor and president, University of Canberra, Australia

William J.R. Alexander, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Civil and Biosystems Engineering, University of Pretoria, South Africa; Member, UN Scientific and Technical Committee on Natural Disasters, 1994-2000

Bjarne Andresen, PhD, physicist, Professor, The Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Geoff L. Austin, PhD, FNZIP, FRSNZ, Professor, Dept. of Physics, University of Auckland, New Zealand

Timothy F. Ball, PhD, environmental consultant, former climatology professor, University of Winnipeg

Ernst-Georg Beck, Dipl. Biol., Biologist, Merian-Schule Freiburg, Germany

Sonja A. Boehmer-Christiansen, PhD, Reader, Dept. of Geography, Hull University, U.K.; Editor, Energy & Environment journal

Chris C. Borel, PhD, remote sensing scientist, U.S.

Reid A. Bryson, PhD, DSc, DEngr, UNE P. Global 500 Laureate; Senior Scientist, Center for Climatic Research; Emeritus Professor of Meteorology, of Geography, and of Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin

Dan Carruthers, M.Sc., wildlife biology consultant specializing in animal ecology in Arctic and Subarctic regions, Alberta

R.M. Carter, PhD, Professor, Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia

Ian D. Clark, PhD, Professor, isotope hydrogeology and paleoclimatology, Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa

Richard S. Courtney, PhD, climate and atmospheric science consultant, IPCC expert reviewer, U.K.

Willem de Lange, PhD, Dept. of Earth and Ocean Sciences, School of Science and Engineering, Waikato University, New Zealand

David Deming, PhD (Geophysics), Associate Professor, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Oklahoma

Freeman J. Dyson, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton, N.J.

Don J. Easterbrook, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Geology, Western Washington University

Lance Endersbee, Emeritus Professor, former dean of Engineering and Pro-Vice Chancellor of Monasy University, Australia

Hans Erren, Doctorandus, geophysicist and climate specialist, Sittard, The Netherlands

Robert H. Essenhigh, PhD, E.G. Bailey Professor of Energy Conversion, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, The Ohio State University

Christopher Essex, PhD, Professor of Applied Mathematics and Associate Director of the Program in Theoretical Physics, University of Western Ontario

David Evans, PhD, mathematician, carbon accountant, computer and electrical engineer and head of ‘Science Speak,' Australia

William Evans, PhD, editor, American Midland Naturalist; Dept. of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame

Stewart Franks, PhD, Professor, Hydroclimatologist, University of Newcastle, Australia

R. W. Gauldie, PhD, Research Professor, Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, School of Ocean Earth Sciences and Technology, University of Hawai'i at Manoa

Lee C. Gerhard, PhD, Senior Scientist Emeritus, University of Kansas; former director and state geologist, Kansas Geological Survey

Gerhard Gerlich, Professor for Mathematical and Theoretical Physics, Institut für Mathematische Physik der TU Braunschweig, Germany

Albrecht Glatzle, PhD, sc.agr., Agro-Biologist and Gerente ejecutivo, INTTAS, Paraguay

Fred Goldberg, PhD, Adjunct Professor, Royal Institute of Technology, Mechanical Engineering, Stockholm, Sweden

Vincent Gray, PhD, expert reviewer for the IPCC and author of The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of ‘Climate Change 2001, Wellington, New Zealand

William M. Gray, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University and Head of the Tropical Meteorology Project

Howard Hayden, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of Connecticut

Louis Hissink MSc, M.A.I.G., editor, AIG News, and consulting geologist, Perth, Western Australia

Craig D. Idso, PhD, Chairman, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Arizona

Sherwood B. Idso, PhD, President, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, AZ, USA

Andrei Illarionov, PhD, Senior Fellow, Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity; founder and director of the Institute of Economic Analysis

Zbigniew Jaworowski, PhD, physicist, Chairman - Scientific Council of Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection, Warsaw, Poland

Jon Jenkins, PhD, MD, computer modelling - virology, NSW, Australia

Wibjorn Karlen, PhD, Emeritus Professor, Dept. of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, Sweden

Olavi Kärner, Ph.D., Research Associate, Dept. of Atmospheric Physics, Institute of Astrophysics and Atmospheric Physics, Toravere, Estonia

Joel M. Kauffman, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, University of the Sciences in Philadelphia

David Kear, PhD, FRSNZ, CMG, geologist, former Director-General of NZ Dept. of Scientific & Industrial Research, New Zealand

Madhav Khandekar, PhD, former research scientist, Environment Canada; editor, Climate Research (2003-05); editorial board member, Natural Hazards; IPCC expert reviewer 2007

William Kininmonth M.Sc., M.Admin., former head of Australia's National Climate Centre and a consultant to the World Meteorological organization's Commission for Climatology Jan J.H. Kop, MSc Ceng FICE (Civil Engineer Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers), Emeritus Prof. of Public Health Engineering, Technical University Delft, The Netherlands

Prof. R.W.J. Kouffeld, Emeritus Professor, Energy Conversion, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

Salomon Kroonenberg, PhD, Professor, Dept. of Geotechnology, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

Hans H.J. Labohm, PhD, economist, former advisor to the executive board, Clingendael Institute (The Netherlands Institute of International Relations), The Netherlands

The Rt. Hon. Lord Lawson of Blaby, economist; Chairman of the Central Europe Trust; former Chancellor of the Exchequer, U.K.

Douglas Leahey, PhD, meteorologist and air-quality consultant, Calgary

David R. Legates, PhD, Director, Center for Climatic Research, University of Delaware

Marcel Leroux, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Climatology, University of Lyon, France; former director of Laboratory of Climatology, Risks and Environment, CNRS

Bryan Leyland, International Climate Science Coalition, consultant and power engineer, Auckland, New Zealand

William Lindqvist, PhD, independent consulting geologist, Calif.

Richard S. Lindzen, PhD, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

A.J. Tom van Loon, PhD, Professor of Geology (Quaternary Geology), Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland; former President of the European Association of Science Editors

Anthony R. Lupo, PhD, Associate Professor of Atmospheric Science, Dept. of Soil, Environmental, and Atmospheric Science, University of Missouri-Columbia

Richard Mackey, PhD, Statistician, Australia

Horst Malberg, PhD, Professor for Meteorology and Climatology, Institut für Meteorologie, Berlin, Germany

John Maunder, PhD, Climatologist, former President of the Commission for Climatology of the World Meteorological Organization (89-97), New Zealand

Alister McFarquhar, PhD, international economy, Downing College, Cambridge, U.K.

Ross McKitrick, PhD, Associate Professor, Dept. of Economics, University of Guelph

John McLean, PhD, climate data analyst, computer scientist, Australia

Owen McShane, PhD, economist, head of the International Climate Science Coalition; Director, Centre for Resource Management Studies, New Zealand

Fred Michel, PhD, Director, Institute of Environmental Sciences and Associate Professor of Earth Sciences, Carleton University

Frank Milne, PhD, Professor, Dept. of Economics, Queen's University

Asmunn Moene, PhD, former head of the Forecasting Centre, Meteorological Institute, Norway

Alan Moran, PhD, Energy Economist, Director of the IPA's Deregulation Unit, Australia

Nils-Axel Morner, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Paleogeophysics & Geodynamics, Stockholm University, Sweden

Lubos Motl, PhD, Physicist, former Harvard string theorist, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

John Nicol, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Physics, James Cook University, Australia

David Nowell, M.Sc., Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, former chairman of the NATO Meteorological Group, Ottawa

James J. O'Brien, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Meteorology and Oceanography, Florida State University

Cliff Ollier, PhD, Professor Emeritus (Geology), Research Fellow, University of Western Australia

Garth W. Paltridge, PhD, atmospheric physicist, Emeritus Professor and former Director of the Institute of Antarctic and Southern Ocean Studies, University of Tasmania, Australia

R. Timothy Patterson, PhD, Professor, Dept. of Earth Sciences (paleoclimatology), Carleton University

Al Pekarek, PhD, Associate Professor of Geology, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Dept., St. Cloud State University, Minnesota

Ian Plimer, PhD, Professor of Geology, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Adelaide and Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Australia

Brian Pratt, PhD, Professor of Geology, Sedimentology, University of Saskatchewan

Harry N.A. Priem, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Planetary Geology and Isotope Geophysics, Utrecht University; former director of the Netherlands Institute for Isotope Geosciences

Alex Robson, PhD, Economics, Australian National University Colonel F.P.M. Rombouts, Branch Chief - Safety, Quality and Environment, Royal Netherland Air Force

R.G. Roper, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Sciences, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology

Arthur Rorsch, PhD, Emeritus Professor, Molecular Genetics, Leiden University, The Netherlands

Rob Scagel, M.Sc., forest microclimate specialist, principal consultant, Pacific Phytometric Consultants, B.C.

Tom V. Segalstad, PhD, (Geology/Geochemistry), Head of the Geological Museum and Associate Professor of Resource and Environmental Geology, University of Oslo, Norway

Gary D. Sharp, PhD, Center for Climate/Ocean Resources Study, Salinas, CA

S. Fred Singer, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia and former director Weather Satellite Service

L. Graham Smith, PhD, Associate Professor, Dept. of Geography, University of Western Ontario

Roy W. Spencer, PhD, climatologist, Principal Research Scientist, Earth System Science Center, The University of Alabama, Huntsville

Peter Stilbs, TeknD, Professor of Physical Chemistry, Research Leader, School of Chemical Science and Engineering, KTH (Royal Institute of Technology), Stockholm, Sweden

Hendrik Tennekes, PhD, former director of research, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute

Dick Thoenes, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Chemical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands

Brian G Valentine, PhD, PE (Chem.), Technology Manager - Industrial Energy Efficiency, Adjunct Associate Professor of Engineering Science, University of Maryland at College Park; Dept of Energy, Washington, DC

Gerrit J. van der Lingen, PhD, geologist and paleoclimatologist, climate change consultant, Geoscience Research and Investigations, New Zealand

Len Walker, PhD, Power Engineering, Australia

Edward J. Wegman, PhD, Department of Computational and Data Sciences, George Mason University, Virginia

Stephan Wilksch, PhD, Professor for Innovation and Technology Management, Production Management and Logistics, University of Technolgy and Economics Berlin, Germany

Boris Winterhalter, PhD, senior marine researcher (retired), Geological Survey of Finland, former professor in marine geology, University of Helsinki, Finland

David E. Wojick, PhD, P.Eng., energy consultant, Virginia

Raphael Wust, PhD, Lecturer, Marine Geology/Sedimentology, James Cook University, Australia

A. Zichichi, PhD, President of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva, Switzerland; Emeritus Professor of Advanced Physics, University of Bologna, Italy

So all these well qualified scientists that are experts in the field they are all morons are they ?

Please do tell us your extensive academic qualifications that mean we should listen to you and not them. Please inform us all of the long term peer reviewed research you have undertaken on the subject, the papers you have published in recognised scientific journals, the copius field notes you have taken to establish the data behind your ideas and your current position within the scientific community.

Thanks - looking forward to your response.

 http://ultimateglobalwarmingchallenge.com/

The Junk Science site has had a challenge running on its site for some years now


"Here's the opportunity for global warming alarmists to flaunt all the conclusive evidence that they say exists," said Steve Milloy, founder and publisher of JunkScience.com, the sponsor of the Ultimate Global Warming Challenge.

"Al Gore says the debate on global warming is 'over' and the UN global warming panel places at 90 percent the probability that humans are causing harmful climate change through greenhouse gas emissions," said Milloy.

"If such claims are true and it's such a no-brainer that manmade carbon dioxide emissions are wreaking havoc on the climate," Milloy observed, "Then here's a chance for any scientist in the alleged "consensus" on climate change to pick up an easy $100,000."

"There's no excuse for not entering," Milloy offered, "since the winner, if any, could always donate the prize money to his favorite charity."

Contestants will also get a free DemandDebate.com T-shirt that says, "I'm more worried about the intellectual climate."

"So even if contestants can't prove that humans are causing global warming, their $15 will not have been for nothing. They'll get a great looking T-shirt warning of the real climate threat," added Milloy. (Southwest Nebraska News)

"So all these well qualified scientists that are experts in the field they are all morons are they ? "

No, they just know which side their bread is buttered on.

Earth Day, celebrated in the US on April 22, is a day designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's environment. It was founded in 1970 by US Senator Gaylord Nelson and is celebrated in many countries every year.

Here are some of the serious predictions made by scientists at the time of the first Earth Day in 1970. I'll repeat that: this is what scientists predicted in 1970 ...



• “We have about five more years at the outside to do something” - Kenneth Watt, ecologist

• “Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind” - George Wald, Harvard biologist

• “We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation” - Barry Commoner, Washington University biologist

• “Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction” - New York Times editorial

• “Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years” - Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

• “By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s” - Paul Ehrlich

• “It is already too late to avoid mass starvation” - Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day

• “Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions ... by the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine” - Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University

• “Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support the following predictions: in a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution … by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half ...” - Life Magazine

• “At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable” - Kenneth Watt, ecologist

• “Air pollution ... is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone” - Paul Ehrlich

• “We are prospecting for the very last of our resources and using up the non-renewable things many times faster than we are finding new ones” - Martin Litton, Sierra Club director

• “By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate ... that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’” - Kenneth Watt

• “Dr.S.Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct” - Senator Gaylord Nelson

• “The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age” - Kenneth Watt

• "In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish" - Paul Ehrlich



... and they didn't stop in 1970. Finding that newspapers were suddenly taking notice and their own kudos was increasing, scientists carried on making this rubbish up, and various sensationalist journalists and authors got in on the act ...



• in 1971: "The continued rapid cooling of the earth since WW2 is in accord with the increase in global air pollution associated with industrialisation, mechanisation, urbanisation and exploding population" - Reid Bryson

• in 1975: "There are ominous signs that the Earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production - with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food production could begin quite soon. The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard pressed to keep up with it" - Newsweek

• in 1976: "This (cooling) trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century" - Peter Gwynne

• also in 1976: "This cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people. If it continues and no strong action is taken, it will cause world famine, world chaos and world war, and this could all come about before the year 2000" - Lowell Ponte



Will we never learn? Why the hell, nearly forty years later, are we still listening to any scientists? Look, pretty lady, if you really want to know the future, cross my palm with silver and I'll fire up the old crystal ball ...

Notice how one Paul Ehrlich keeps cropping up? We Googled him, and found that he was already doing his best to spread environmental hysteria well before good ol' Gaylord invented Earth Day. In 1968 he published "The Population Bomb" which contained this little gem: "The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s, hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programmes embarked upon now. At this late date, nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate."

Damn. I must have missed that.

Oddly enough, Ehrlich seems to be still alive (not starved to death, then?) and still spouting the same old rubbish. Being proved monumentally wrong hasn't changed his opinions one tiny bit.

Hey, i reccommend everyone interested in the scientific debate surrounding climate change watches this;

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52KLGqDSAjo&feature=PlayList&p=A4F0994AFB057BB8&index=0&playnext=1

Yes your quite right that what we are being told is biased. It always will be., well done
But yet I see no facts countering the common conception that the world's climate is changing. As some-one pointed out the planets climate is not static, hence ice ages. Just a quick look at the timings of these extreme climates shows that we are due another one. What human activity has to do with that is anyone's guess. My belief is that we don't do much to either help or hinder. What is certain beyond any reasonable doubt is that 'unclean' energy (say coal) is bad for OUR environment. I haven't heard any of the pseudo scientist deniers claim that a smog covered city is a good thing, or that running out of coal or oil causing states to fight over the scraps is a good thing.

Anyway what do you gain by denying the climate is changing? Whats the downside of pursuing clean energy sources or improving flood defence etc etc?

The following quote has always struck me as significant because of the person who made it and what happened to him afterwards. The quote is from Professor Tad Murty, who is Adjunt Professor at the University of Ottawa within the Department of Earth Sciences, he is also a respected oceanographer

"It (climate change) is the biggest scientific hoax being perpetrated on humanity. There is no global warming due to human anthropogenic activities. The atmosphere hasn’t changed much in 280 million years, and there have always been cycles of warming and cooling. The Cretaceous period was the warmest on earth. You could have grown tomatoes at the North Pole"

For making this quote Prof Murty was told he could expect to see funding for his research cut next year, The Dean of Ottawa University told him that statements like that could have a very serious effect on funding for the entire university and he would be in breach of his contract if he repeated it or made statements of the same type. Prof Murty is made of sturner stuff and has repeated the quote and made others like it, sure enough his department saw a 30% cut in funding the following year. There are strong vested interests in ensuring the myth of anthropogenic climate change, from government and from industry.

Gerrit Zalm the former Dutch Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister said in a speech to other government ministers in December 2006,

"Climate change taxation legislation offers not just The Netherlands but all industrialised societys a unique opportunity to tax their populations while making them feel it is worthwhile and at a level that nobody can dispute, after all who really knows the cost of CO2"

its pretty obvious that real science has been replaced by junk science to:

1. Sell more books and videos on climate change believing / denying
2. Offer 'green' products that are attractive to a certain sector of consumers who like to feel good about themselves for doing the right thing.
3. Push through new forms of taxation (car tax bands, fuel tax, conjestion tax, carbon trading etc)
4. Offering a gravy train for grants in science and arts.

Eg. The Arts Council sent Jarvis Cocker, a ceramicist and some writers and other artists on a boat for a jolly to greenland so they could look at some melting glaciers. Basically, if its got climate change in the title, you stand a good chance of getting the money.
 http://www.capefarewell.com/diskobay/

I think 3 is the biggest worry. It is blatantly clear that environmental worries and climate change are being used as methods for increasing taxes. This is what is pissing people off making them instant climate skeptics (its just a way of taxing us)

Regarding the real science..... they is no "conclusive" answer. But, of course, they doesn't seem important nowadays when there is so much tax opportunities at stake.

Another poster above wrote,

"What is certain beyond any reasonable doubt is that 'unclean' energy (say coal) is bad for OUR environment"

Well no that's your belief probably because you see clouds of smoke and assume that to be bad or because other people told you it was bad. In fact you don't really know.

Well scroogler it may well be from a climate deniel site but it's also written by a respected PHD with knowledge of the subject but then you didn't attempt to cover that did you ? I was once 100% convinced of the subject as well but a little reading soon changed my mind. Have you considered the views of these scientists ?

Timothy F. Ball, former Professor of Geography, University of Winnipeg: "[The world's climate] warmed from 1680 up to 1940, but since 1940 it's been cooling down. The evidence for warming is because of distorted records. The satellite data, for example, shows cooling." (November 2004)[5] "There's been warming, no question. I've never debated that; never disputed that. The dispute is, what is the cause. And of course the argument that human CO2 being added to the atmosphere is the cause just simply doesn't hold up..." (May 18, 2006; at 15:30 into recording of interview)[6] "The temperature hasn't gone up. ... But the mood of the world has changed: It has heated up to this belief in global warming." (August 2006)[7] "Temperatures declined from 1940 to 1980 and in the early 1970's global cooling became the consensus. ... By the 1990's temperatures appeared to have reversed and Global Warming became the consensus. It appears I'll witness another cycle before retiring, as the major mechanisms and the global temperature trends now indicate a cooling." (Feb. 5, 2007)

Robert M. Carter, geologist, researcher at the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University in Australia: "the accepted global average temperature statistics used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show that no ground-based warming has occurred since 1998 ... there is every doubt whether any global warming at all is occurring at the moment, let alone human-caused warming."[9]

Vincent R. Gray, coal chemist, founder of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition: "The two main 'scientific' claims of the IPCC are the claim that 'the globe is warming' and 'Increases in carbon dioxide emissions are responsible'. Evidence for both of these claims is fatally flawed."[10]


Khabibullo Abdusamatov, mathematician and astronomer at Pulkovskaya Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences: "Global warming results not from the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, but from an unusually high level of solar radiation and a lengthy - almost throughout the last century - growth in its intensity...Ascribing 'greenhouse' effect properties to the Earth's atmosphere is not scientifically substantiated...Heated greenhouse gases, which become lighter as a result of expansion, ascend to the atmosphere only to give the absorbed heat away.

Sallie Baliunas, astronomer, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics: "[T]he recent warming trend in the surface temperature record cannot be caused by the increase of human-made greenhouse gases in the air."

George V. Chilingar, Professor of Civil and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Southern California: "The authors identify and describe the following global forces of nature driving the Earth’s climate: (1) solar radiation ..., (2) outgassing as a major supplier of gases to the World Ocean and the atmosphere, and, possibly, (3) microbial activities ... . The writers provide quantitative estimates of the scope and extent of their corresponding effects on the Earth’s climate [and] show that the human-induced climatic changes are negligible."[17]

Ian Clark, hydrogeologist, professor, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa: "That portion of the scientific community that attributes climate warming to CO2 relies on the hypothesis that increasing CO2, which is in fact a minor greenhouse gas, triggers a much larger water vapour response to warm the atmosphere. This mechanism has never been tested scientifically beyond the mathematical models that predict extensive warming, and are confounded by the complexity of cloud formation - which has a cooling effect. ... We know that [the sun] was responsible for climate change in the past, and so is clearly going to play the lead role in present and future climate change. And interestingly... solar activity has recently begun a downward cycle."[18]

David Douglass, solid-state physicist, professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester: "The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends, does not show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming. The inescapable conclusion is that the human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming."[19]

Don Easterbrook, emeritus professor of geology, Western Washington University: "global warming since 1900 could well have happened without any effect of CO2. If the cycles continue as in the past, the current warm cycle should end soon and global temperatures should cool slightly until about 2035"[20]

William M. Gray, Professor Emeritus and head of The Tropical Meteorology Project, Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University: "This small warming is likely a result of the natural alterations in global ocean currents which are driven by ocean salinity variations. Ocean circulation variations are as yet little understood. Human kind has little or nothing to do with the recent temperature changes. We are not that influential."[21] "I am of the opinion that [global warming] is one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American people."[22] "So many people have a vested interest in this global-warming thing—all these big labs and research and stuff. The idea is to frighten the public, to get money to study it more."[23]

William Kininmonth, meteorologist, former Australian delegate to World Meteorological Organization Commission for Climatology: "There has been a real climate change over the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries that can be attributed to natural phenomena. Natural variability of the climate system has been underestimated by IPCC and has, to now, dominated human influences."[24]

George Kukla, retired Professor of Climatology at Columbia University and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said in an interview: "What I think is this: Man is responsible for a PART of global warming. MOST of it is still natural."[25]

David Legates, associate professor of geography and director of the Center for Climatic Research, University of Delaware: "About half of the warming during the 20th century occurred prior to the 1940s, and natural variability accounts for all or nearly all of the warming."[26]
Tad Murty, oceanographer; adjunct professor, Departments of Civil Engineering and Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa: global warming "is the biggest scientific hoax being perpetrated on humanity. There is no global warming due to human anthropogenic activities. The atmosphere hasn’t changed much in 280 million years, and there have always been cycles of warming and cooling. The Cretaceous period was the warmest on earth. You could have grown tomatoes at the North Pole"[27]

Tim Patterson[28], paleoclimatologist and Professor of Geology at Carleton University in Canada: "There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth's temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years. On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century's modest warming?"[29][30]

Ian Plimer, Professor emeritus of Mining Geology, The University of Adelaide: "We only have to have one volcano burping and we have changed the whole planetary climate... It looks as if carbon dioxide actually follows climate change rather than drives it".[31]
Harrison Schmitt, former Astronaut, chair of the NASA Advisory Council, Adjunct Professor of engineering physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison:"I don't think the human effect is significant compared to the natural effect".[32]

Tom Segalstad, head of the Geology Museum at the University of Oslo: "The IPCC's temperature curve (the so-called 'hockey stick' curve) must be in error...human influence on the 'Greenhouse Effect' is minimal (maximum 4%). Anthropogenic CO2 amounts to 4% of the ~2% of the "Greenhouse Effect", hence an influence of less than 1 permil of the Earth's total natural 'Greenhouse Effect' (some 0.03°C of the total ~33°C)."[33]

Nir Shaviv, astrophysicist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem: "[T]he truth is probably somewhere in between [the common view and that of skeptics], with natural causes probably being more important over the past century, whereas anthropogenic causes will probably be more dominant over the next century. ... [A]bout 2/3's (give or take a third or so) of the warming [over the past century] should be attributed to increased solar activity and the remaining to anthropogenic causes." His opinion is based on some proxies of solar activity over the past few centuries.[34]

Fred Singer, Professor emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia: "The greenhouse effect is real. However, the effect is minute, insignificant, and very difficult to detect."[35][36] “It’s not automatically true that warming is bad, I happen to believe that warming is good, and so do many economists.”[37]

Willie Soon, astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics: "[T]here's increasingly strong evidence that previous research conclusions, including those of the United Nations and the United States government concerning 20th century warming, may have been biased by underestimation of natural climate variations. The bottom line is that if these variations are indeed proven true, then, yes, natural climate fluctuations could be a dominant factor in the recent warming. In other words, natural factors could be more important than previously assumed."[38]

Roy Spencer, principal research scientist, University of Alabama in Huntsville: "I predict that in the coming years, there will be a growing realization among the global warming research community that most of the climate change we have observed is natural, and that mankind’s role is relatively minor"[39]

Philip Stott, professor emeritus of biogeography at the University of London: "...the myth is starting to implode. ... Serious new research at The Max Planck Society has indicated that the sun is a far more significant factor..."[40]

Henrik Svensmark, Danish National Space Center: "Our team ... has discovered that the relatively few cosmic rays that reach sea-level play a big part in the everyday weather. They help to make low-level clouds, which largely regulate the Earth’s surface temperature. During the 20th Century the influx of cosmic rays decreased and the resulting reduction of cloudiness allowed the world to warm up. ... most of the warming during the 20th Century can be explained by a reduction in low cloud cover."[41]

Jan Veizer, environmental geochemist, Professor Emeritus from University of Ottawa: "At this stage, two scenarios of potential human impact on climate appear feasible: (1) the standard IPCC model ..., and (2) the alternative model that argues for celestial phenomena as the principal climate driver. ... Models and empirical observations are both indispensable tools of science, yet when discrepancies arise, observations should carry greater weight than theory. If so, the multitude of empirical observations favours celestial phenomena as the most important driver of terrestrial climate on most time scales, but time will be the final judge."[42]

A lot of peole have worked really really hard on the camp for climate action and this could really undermine the climate change idea and that's really like unfair. Please don't do this anymore we have made so many really great arrangements and if people don't come it will all be wasted.

We can predict with confidence a group who will be there, the same smug, liberal, middle class post hippies who have taken it upon themselves to tell the world how we should behave, where and how we should take our holidays, what form of transport we should use and what food we should eat.

I made the mistake of attending Climate Camp last year and in two words, 'never again'. From the public school style dining arrangements, "come along now, there are others waiting" to the holier than thou instructions to turn down music of an evening "this is a family event you know" we had the full measure of those who think their opinion and only theirs is the one to be obeyed.

Reminding me more than a little of those who give up smoking and then spend their time coughing when within 100 yards of a ciggie we have the absolute conviction of converts, they have 'discovered' climate change, vegan food, social injustice and boy are they ready to ensure that everybody else thinks like them. Don't even think of drinking a pint of milk as my partner did, although being called a "cow rapist" was a charge she said she never expected to hear in her life and gave her the biggest laugh of the three dismal days we spent there and don't even think of questioning the accepted theories unless you like being shouted down and being accused of being an undercover journalist, when I tried to point out in a workshop that for example aviation is a very minimal contributor to CO2 and that we should consider more important factors you could have heard a pin drop, some poor guy from Plane Stupid nearly had a heart attack and one woman in the tent had to leave as she said she didn't want to sit with a "facsist". Again my girlfriend laughing at this probably didn't help but as a history teacher perhaps she has a greater understanding of Fascism.

I understand that the same commitees who organised the last camp have again organised the next one, I won't be there.

absolutely brilliant! that makes me so want to go now. cow rapist.... fantastic!

I can't imagine all the faux pas i'd do and how many people i'd upset just by doing everyday things.
I know the feeling about being acused of being a journalist.

I was once acused of being an undercover policeman at an protest. 3 guys were really having a go at me asking me who i was was with etc. Since i was on my own they just didn't believe i was there out of curiosity

Felicity said "A lot of peole have worked really really hard on the camp for climate action and this could really undermine the climate change idea and that's really like unfair. Please don't do this anymore we have made so many really great arrangements and if people don't come it will all be wasted."

I think this is where many people involved in the environmental movement are at the moment. They have put a lot of good-minded work into the campaign and they are damned if they are going to give up just because the science is all against them, and it turns out to be yet another globalist fraud. If you get on a train going in the wrong direction, do you get off and start again, or do you keep going further and further astray?

There are a million and one different ways you can help campaigns to protect the environment without furthering the nonsense that carbon dioxide causes global warming.

There was also a comment further up saying that the rebel scientists who were listed on the letter knew which side their bread was buttered. Well grant money is far greater for encorporating the climate change issue, so actually they are not doing this for the money.

I am an environmentalist and a vegan. The global warming fraud is done for globalist New World Order reasons and supporting it is going to help push us all into a one world government, and this will be absolutely disasterous for humanity and the world. There is something to lose by supporting this campaign!

So funny and so spot on !

I was there when the woman walked out ( i was sitting behind her) and yes she really did call you a facsist for pointing out the facts on aviation CO2, my friend was the one who cheered you !

The climate camp was crap exactly because of the idiots who organised it, as a product of a public boarding school I too recognised the symptoms. For me it was comments about out tent, we bought a laptop and a small solar power generator to power it and this invoked the self appointed 'leaders' to ask if we had sought permission to have it and that all IT rescources and power generation should be centralised. Afterwards I relaised they thought I was a journalist (this seem to be the obsession of some there). Some people just feel they are in charge regardless of a flat power structure. Like you I will not be bothering again, there are far better things to do in making the planet a better place.

If you ever meet a Plane Stupid activist there is always a great queastion to ask them,

"So I assume you have vowed to never fly again ?" they all avoid replying, it's quite funny.

It's interesting to see opposing ideas on the issue, but I'm not really convinced.

Seems like some global warming deniers have organised a clusterbomb attack on Indymedia! Or is it just one person making all the comments? The fake comment from "Felicity" is so obviously made up it's a massive giveaway. You can do better than that, surely.

The planet is already polluted as fuck, and as someone else pointed out, even if global warming or human-made global warming didn't exist, there are still many other good reasons to stop over-consumption, over-breeding, and pollution. And there are many rich and powerful individuals and corporations with a very strong vested interest in maintaining the current system.

Also, have people noticed that with these conspiracy theory stories and comments (and other subjects, too), the number of words is generally in inverse proportion to the sense they make.

If you haven't seen this abbreviation before, look it up!:

tl;dr

We don't need a fully referenced book-length essay here, just give us the summary and link to a more in-depth article.

"interesting theories, but I'm not convinced by global warming denial "

You're not convinced by scientific fact but you are happy to swallow what is quite clearly a load of old tosh put around by academics chasing the next grant and politicos looking for the next tax excuse ?

That's pretty scary

Good to see this in the open in advance of the climate camp, for too long I've seen activists following the co2 line having never taken the time to read the evidence. The liberalisters who run the climate camp have been way too fast to shut down any debate about this so Indy is the perfect place for it.

I used to be a firm supporter of the co2 argument until I did a little private research last summer, what an eye opener, the IPCC panel is nowhere close to representing the majority view among scientists who are specialists in this field. Can't say how pleased I am to know others will now realise how they have been scammed.

yes, it is good to see a healthy debate on something like this (even though there is a plonker who thinks its all one person!) But he/she does make a good point:

"The planet is already polluted as fuck, and as someone else pointed out, even if global warming or human-made global warming didn't exist, there are still many other good reasons to stop over-consumption, over-breeding, and pollution. And there are many rich and powerful individuals and corporations with a very strong vested interest in maintaining the current system."

There are major environmental issues but they seem to be overshadowed with the idea of global warming and reducing carbon footprints. Kind of a "Dumbed down" viewpoint thats easily marketable. The consequence is that:
- other environmental issues are sidelined
- vast resources are wasted on a theory and political 'solutions' to keep people happy

It also should be noted that there are many rich and powerful individuals and corporations with very strong vested interest in maintaining the current system of a fear of global warming. Especially politicians, since the easiest way to tax people is to play on people's fears.

Its the Kansas shuffle -> we look right they move left. And so many people are happy not to question it. As long as people can turn to 30 and feel good about themselves then thats great.

I used to be a 'global warming is obviously true'. I'm more a skeptic now rather than a denyier, but if there is one thing i'm sure of its a gift-horse-in-the-mouth tool for screwing us out of money and making us conform.

There are several economists being counted there including Lord Lawson of Blaby the man who thought it was a good idea to try and shadow the Deutschmark. Or whatever he was trying to do defying advice and keeping interest rates low, came unstuck.

"Felicity" does not represent Climate Camp.

This one phrase taken from the original posting betrays the truth behind the climate denying:

"because attempts to cut emissions will slow development.."

"I used to be a firm supporter of the co2 argument until I did a little private research last summer, what an eye opener, the IPCC panel is nowhere close to representing the majority view among scientists who are specialists in this field. Can't say how pleased I am to know others will now realise how they have been scammed."

Can you point me in the direction of some of the sources of the private research? And a bit about the IPCC panel? I'm curious.

Mind you, it doesn't change my view that I don't enjoy breathing in smoke, seeing sprawling chimneys, hearing about the labour conditions in factories, or the poisoning of lakes, seas and rivers by mercury and god knows what else in the name of the capitalist economy. So even if the CO2 argument is false, I still have my own reasons for opposing the fossil-fuel consuming capitalist society.

The irony for me is that I was once a dedicated follower of the idea that Carbon Dioxide drove climate change until I was at the Climate Camp last year, it was seeing the near religious devotion to the idea and very little questioning of it that drove me to investigate further, at first to reinforce my views and achieve confirmation for what I thought but soon I came to realise how this is probably one of the biggest frauds ever put to the public.

I don't think it was planned, I'm certainly not a New World Order / Jews / Illuminati / etc types run the world from a secret bunker but I do think that it grew from a scientific theory that was one of many to having become accepted wisdom by some for a number of reasons.

1 - Journalists - they like an easy, not too technical, short message. CO2 drives climate change fitted the bill.

2 - Politicians - Easily offers the opportunity to do two things that they love, Control the movement of people and tax them.

3 - Academia - research money was drying up, Earth Science departments were closing, there was no glamour in the work, no motivation for a graduate to become involved. Climate Change became the money tree, link some global warming to your research and you got some money.

Now here's the difficult one
4 - The activist movement liked the idea it was true, it matched our hot spots, it gave us an opportunity to hate further the targets we already hate, big multinationals, the USA, industry, aviation, the motor industry. The Cold War was over, the nuclear debate was finished, the political militancy of the 70's and 80's had gone and for groups like Greenpeace here was a way to increase funding.

In part we have ourselfs to blame, we almost wanted it to be true so much we were prepared to overlook the scientific evidence when it didn't match our viewpoint.

We should be at the vanguard of the opposition to this fraud, if it was any other issue we would be the ones pointing out how this is being used to control people, the movements, their money. Climate Change is being used as an excuse for controlling migration, for investing in nuclear power, for preventing development in parts of the world.

We should be shouting about this from the rooftops !

I never claimed to represent the Camp, I am one of many who have worked long and hard to make the camp happen and I think it would be a shame if all that hard work went to waste.

The Camp for Climate Action has evolved an effective way of working, which enables us to include as many people as possible in the decision making process, whilst letting the people doing the work get on with it with a minimum of interference.

The decision making body of the Camp is the series of national gatherings, which take place about once a month. Each meeting has a prepared agenda which is put together by the local group running each gathering, with assistance from the Process Group who have overall responsibility for the Camp’s administrative systems. All decisions at gatherings are made by means of consensus and run by a team of people trained in the facilitation of consensus meetings.

The decisions of the gatherings are implemented by one or more of the Climate Camp’s working groups. Each group is accountable to the Climate Camp as a whole, but they generally act autonomously to make their “bit” of the Camp happen. Another aspect of the de-centralised nature of Climate Camp is the network of local groups which carry on Climate Camp’s work in towns and cities up and down the country throughout the year. These groups also form the basis of the neighbourhoods at the Camp itself.



Felicity

Felicity,

Not wishing to be rude but I think you are missing the point here, we know people have worked hard to set the camp up, I am sure that meetings, emails, finance, planning and the rest have taken up much needed time for a number of individuals but the problem is the camp is based on a flawed premise, the idea that Carbon Dioxide drives climate change. The growing evidence is that is does not and the Camp is being used by the State to further an agenda. We know you and the Camp are not part of that by design by you are by accident.

You may need to rethink why you are involved with the Camp and what it's objectives are.

Bloody 'ell - open, honest debate on IM! Any chance of the same on immigration?

I don't get this idea that pro-global warming is due to self-interest. Like a few academics are going to deliberately make up global warming just for a few scraps of grant money!?!?

Contrast that to the billions and probably trillions that the oil, coal and other capitalist companies stand to lose if we stop fucking up the planet and curtail our consumption of consumer crap.

It just does't add up. The latter total dwarfs the former by many orders of magnitude.

I'm sure a lot of global warming denial is promoted by these big energy companies through PR companies and viral marketing, it makes perfect economic sense for them to do that. But there are also some people who genuinely believe it. I suspect a lot of them are motivated by ultra-libertarian free market ideology though. They tend to ignore external factors such as damage to the environment.

Can't there be some kind of flag on each thread so I can see the rough direction of each poster's opinion?

I come on IM to read stuff from like-minded people. If I want to read BS from right-wing corporate whores I can read the Daily Mail, Times, Telegraph or Guardian.

If you had some kind of flag like that then whoever posted this "Biggest Lie" could have flagged himself as a wanker and Felicity and I needn't have bothered opening the thread at all.

I'm still waiting for the arguments - the arguments (some facts perhaps?) which changed you from being a "believer" to being a "denier".

The longer it takes to get a response, the more likely I am to feel that this entire thread has been a distraction designed by BP, Shell, George Bush, and a bunch of other people I'd rather not associate with.

The point that the oil industry has more money than academy that was made a bit earlier - well, sometimes the most obvious points are overlooked, so thanks for that one :). I can't remember many wars about universities, but can point to plenty about oil. Its all in the £££££$$$$$$$€€€€€€€€€.