Shelagh

"By the start of the twenty-first century, the serious risks associated with the continued tinkering with the planet's thermostat had become all too apparent. They included a wide range of problems:" severe and unprecedented droughts affecting agriculture in some areas. Droughts, short or prolonged, are not uncommon occurences. They can be meteorological droughts: or hydrological drought: severely inflating global food prices making conditions more favourable for wildfires in other areas: Summer fires in the UK are most often started by teenagers. The problem is exacerbated in drought years. increases in extreme rainfall events leading to widespread inundation, destruction of crops, casualties and property loss/damage. Sea level rise over the decades would again affect agriculture due to loss of fertile low-lying lands and would also lead to population displacement and mass-migration. Mankind was, in essence, busily engaged with making areas of the planet's surface uninhabitable for future generations.This is mere speculation and exaggeration.

I read through the history of climate science on the skeptical science website. I followed the explanation to the end. The conclusions reached in no way matched the explanation: I would be more willing to accept the link between human activity and climate change if scientists desisted from making outrageous predictions.

Humans have been polluting the environment since 1815 (Industrial Revolution). In the Yorkshire town of Haworth, home of the Brontës, the mortality rate was extremely high: Today, the town is a tourist attraction and life expectancy is within normal limits. Put into context, climatologists using climate change as a political football seems slightly obscene. China and other developing countries should be looking at ways to clean up their environment for the well-being of those forced to live and work in unhealthy environments. Climatologists should stick to science and stay out of the political debate.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends_of_Science

The science would improve if it stuck to the facts: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate. FACT: The "hockey stick" graph proves that the earth has experienced a steady, very gradual temperature decrease for 1000 years, then recently began a sudden increase. FACT: Human produced carbon dioxide has increased over the last 100 years, adding to the Greenhouse effect, thus causing most of the earth's warming of the last 100 years. FACT: CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas. FACT: Computer models verify that CO2 increases will cause significant global warming. FACT: The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has proven that manmade CO2 causes global warming. FACT: CO2 is a pollutant. FACT: Global warming will cause more storms and other weather extremes. FACT: Receding glaciers and the calving of ice shelves are proof of man-made global warming. FACT: The earth's poles are warming and the polar ice caps are breaking up and melting. FACT: - See more at: http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?id=3#.dpuf

Ditto.

The 97% Consensus Study proposal by John Cook: The Statistical Destruction of the 97% Consensus: Full explanation of why the 97% consensus claim does not stand up:

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/12/reprieve-binding-paris-treaty-now-voluntary-mush/

It's late in the UK, so I'll say goodnight. This video might explain my stance better than I can:

Did I say that burning fossil fuels was a good thing?

There isn't always an answer for every question. I don't know everything. Some here would say I don't know anything.

Yes. The ideal solution.

"Ah," said the doctor as he looked at the X-ray. "The femur is fractured, but there are no instructions about treatment with the X-ray, so I can't help you. But I do know the problem, and I'm almost certain that if you continue to walk on it, you will experience a lot of pain. I would recommend complete rest until it mends itself. Oh, and try to avoid whatever it was that caused the break." Patients with broken legs want immediate treatment and a speedy revovery, not advice to reduce their activity for a very long time so that the leg can heal itself!

This is not journalism at work. Dame Julia Slingo said this a few hours ago on the BBC news. Suggesting that there's a link between global warming and winter rainfall, without offering a practical solution is insensitive and unnecessary. Research is all well and good, but this particular area of climate research appears to have no practical use at present, and dubious practical help in the future. Enough already.

Land management of the British Isles has been an essential activity for thousands of years. When the Romans left Britain at the beginning of the fifth century A.D., the country was left with an infrastructure of Roman roads, viaducts and aquaducts, parts of which exist to this day. Since that time, the land has been managed by landowners, who ran vast estates employing thousands of low paid workers. Cheap labour produced a highly efficient, sustainable countryside with managed forests, rivers, lakes and resevoirs. Today, people work in town and cities, and many of the country estates have been split into small, privately owned farms and small holdings. Those who work in the countryside no longer work for meagre wages. The cost of managing our waterways, and sewerage and drainage system is many times greater than it was just one hundred years ago. If you couple this lack of investment in the infrastructure of the country with the amount of asphalt laid, the tremendous rise in the number of new homes being built, and torrential rain, the outcome is more predictable than global warming. You don't need to be a scientist to understand that, if rivers cannot cope with a deluge of rainfall, banks will overflow and cause widespread flooding. When your home is under three feet of water, scientists explaining to you that it's because of global warming is of little consolation. What people want to understand is how much government funding will be spent on dredging or diverting rivers, and replacing old, worn-out drainage systems. They want the country to be the way it was years ago through affirmative action at grassroots. They do not want to be told that everything will be okay in fifty years time if they lower their carbon footprint! The people in Britain know what needs to be done; they want the government to spend money preventing flooding, not pouring in billions of pounds to pay for the tremendous damage to property and the environment after the rain has fallen. Scientists can continue to collect their data and build their mathematical models; just stop ramming it down everyone's throats.

Whether the climate experts are right or wrong is not the main issue: http://www.express.co.uk/comment/expresscomment/625876/Global-warming-blame-northern-floods-James-Delingpole The causes of changing weather patterns (which may or may not be occuring) are not a priority. Defences against weather damage have to be improved. We expect extreme weather conditions; instead of being up-to-date with science, people would prefer to be ignorant about what causes climate change but better prepared to set up strategies to cope with extreme weather conditions.

Too much uncertainty.

But the assumptions made to account for these drivers are too simplistic and result in incorrect estimates of TCR and ECS, said climate scientist Gavin Schmidt, the director of NASAs Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York and a co-author on the study By the way, the clue is in the title: NASA Study: Examination of Earth's Recent History Key to Predicting Global Temperatures

So NASA is trying to kill two birds with one stone. Predictions of global temperature rises that were not met have been explained away as based on too simplistic a model that did not incorporate all the data. A new, more complex model incorporates data not included in the earlier, simpler model. Climate drivers other than CO2 have been added for the new calculations. These non-CO2 drivers have a cooling effect that accounts for the difference in the predicted, global temperatures and the actual temperatures. Future predictions will be based on the new, complex model with the implication that those predictions might have to be adjusted if they prove to be as inaccurate as the present predictions.

My first post with your response: I had high hopes you were going to present some good scientific arguments, based on other posts (hard to believe you called science a religion after your views in another thread about atheism and religion - it's almost like you're two different people). You can't have read even a small portion of the rest of this thread. That's an assumption on your part; unless you know something to be true, you really should not speculate. No, do yours?

My level of intelligence seems to be as much up for debate as the topic under discussion. That is unacceptable.

Discussing a topic out of general interest is a valid reason to join in. You are trying to pigeon hole me into being something I'm not. Bullying takes many forms. One aspect of bullying is to try to assert authority: if a group of people can persuade someone who is plainly opposed to their point of view, they can influence many more who are less opposed to their viewpoint. That seems to be happening here.

Ophiolite, The question asked was: "Who here is a global warming skeptic?" not: "Who here can justify being a global warming sceptic?" Gang up on me all you like; it won't make any difference. Force of argument is no substitute for reasoned argument. I am sceptic about AGW, and nothing on this thread has persuaded me to think differently.

I don't reject climate science, but supporters of AGW are making claims that are not bring met, which leads to scepticism. It's years since I read Bronowski's Ascent of Man. I still have a copy of the book, so maybe I should read it again. I don't remember any reference to Darwin trying to debunk religion. He was passionate about animal and plant life. His scientific discoveries were a natural outcome of his research. When his daughter, Annie, died his grief actually helped him to make the decision to publish his work: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100597929