SkepticLance

bascule said : So sorry, that site does not meet my criteria of "PhD climate scientist". The site list includes two Professors of paleoclimatology, and one Professor of Atmospheric Science. I would be inclined to say that is one hell of a lot of relevent expertise. However, let's not get involved in that as an argument. I already said I take their views with a big grain of salt. Just as I do the views on realclimate. Good data I accept. Interpretation has to be considered potentially wrong. Or right. But it needs to be shown to be correct. The falsification principle. Bascule, I respect a lot of your views, and I do not think you and I are actually very far apart on our views. The main one appears to be a debate on 'certainty'. I do not believe that anything that comes from logic, deduction, theory, or calculation is certain. Thus, the idea that human activity is the main cause of global warming is something I accept as a strong possibility. Just not as a certainty. That is where we differ.

Edtharan said : Why not use those 30 years to develop other power generation technologies rather than spend it on Nuclear power plants which, by the time they are built will be obsolete? That process, of course, is already well under way. The first hybrid cars are on the market, and research into hydrogen fuel cells, and into biofuels is massively funded. Research into new generation electricity generation is also well under way, and will continue. However, it is unlikely to realise any major new method of meeting humanity's needs for quite some time. It is more difficult that most people realise to convert a 'good idea' into a realistic and practical generating method. It is a matter of time scales. Short term, we need coal, natural gas, hydro and nuclear generation. Medium term (20 to 50 years) we need massive investment in nuclear. Long term (50 to 100 years) we may see new and dramatically better electricity generation methods taking over. My guess is that in that time, we will see nuclear fusion becoming practical, and that is the grandaddy of all power generation methods. It is a complex system and you present simplified examples that just barely escape being Strawman (due to their simplifications) arguments against GW and it's effects. Deep sigh. This argument is getting tedious. I see you and others trying to apply the situation relating to interglacial warmings to the current warming. The two situations are not the same, and we are leading each other up the proverbial garden path. Let's just agree to argue about the situation today, shall we? So your counter argument to this problem is not really a counter argument at all, it does not change the fact that the sea level is rising and eventually the country of Tuvalu will become the proverbial Atlantis and sink beneath the waves. Edtharan. Take another look at this, please. You have no data to support this statement. The fact is, we cannot predict the future of Tuvalu. We don't know if the currents lowering local sea level will increase, decrease, or reverse for all we know. Let's keep our arguments focused on facts. Edtharan, on modern use of DDT. This is an extremely careless use of it. You seem to only look at the most simplified aspects of any system. This is either because you don't understand how the complexities of the world really are, or deliberate. I merely reported how it is currently being used, and why. My understanding of the complexities of the system are irrelevent, since I have not designed the DDT application, or approved it. That is up to the authorities in South Africa. I suspect they know what they are doing. Edtharan on sea level rise What is your source on this data? You have used this several times and I haven't heard where you got this from. This figure was mentioned several times in the latest IPCC report. In fact, it is still a little less than 2 mm per year as a global average. I agree with most of your 'basics' but must comment on a couple, anyway. 4) Increased temperatures will decrease the amount of ice that forms in winter. Actually, not always. Warmer air means more water vapour in the air. As that air moves to higher altitude, such as over Greenland, it gets colder and drops the water as snow. Thus, the inland parts of Greenland (and probably Alaska and Siberia) get more snow and ice than before. 6) Land formally locked up in ice that is now thawed has vegetation which will rot and cause more greenhouse gasses to be released. This causes a positive feedback loop (one of many such loops both positive and negative) And on top of the rotting vegetation, a forest grows. Edtharan, I am not a global warming denier. I know, as you do, that the world is growing warmer and anthropogenic greenhouse gases are probably a prime cause. I also know that it is smart to look to alternative fuels and alternative ways of generating electricity to try to reduce this effect. However, we need to keep a balanced view of this, and avoid unrealistic exaggeration.

1veedo Do you realise how arrogant and patronising your last post is?? I can assure you that I, and many others who have the temerity to disagree with you, do have a firm grasp of basic science. You do not need to take us through juvenile school. You said For a very simple positive feedback loop, that's how it works, but in climate science, there are several different feedback loops that come into play. Your post claimed nothing but a very simple positive feedback loop. If there were other parameters involved you did not mention them, not did your realclimate reference. If you want to introduce other factors, fine, but try to do it up front. The thing about previous glacial cycles is that the sun, all by itself, would not causes the temperature to vary anywhere near as much as it has. Between 1910 and 1940, there was a warming which, decade by decade, was as great as modern warming. This in spite of the fact that greenhouse gas increase was minimal. Then, during a time when greenhouse gas increase was far greater, from 1941 to 1975, there was a cooling of 0.2C. These temperature changes went against what we would expect from greenhouse gas variations, and were almost certainly the result of solar variations. Since 1976, there has been a warming that is consistent with greenhouse gas based predictions. Solar activity has increased, and probably is a part of what exacerbated the warmings. In spite of this, I have not claimed that warming since 1976 is caused solely by the sun. Anthropogenic greenhouse gases are undoubtedly a substantial part of this warming. A bias for science is much better then a bias against science. Again, this comes across as very arrogant. I am not sure you mean to be. However, what you appear to be saying is that your interpretation of the data is science, and anyone else's is not. I hope you did not really mean that, and your wording was purely an accident. Global warming is real and humans are causing it. That's a dumbed down version of modern climate science in a nutshell. Again, a statement that comes across as pure arrogance. Do you really mean this? Modern climate science is still far from nailing anything down with certainty. Even the latest IPCC reports cannot give prediction of future warming with any reliability. 1.1 to 6.4 Celsius warming by 2100 means they expect the next 100 years warming to be anything from 100% more to 1100% more than the last 100 years. Do you call this precision? Do you call this good science? I do not. What I call it is a serious problem with enormous doubt and uncertainty.

bascule said : The site is run by a PhD climate scientist and includes collaboration from other PhD climate scientists. Can you find me a "global warming skeptic" web site run by a PhD climate scientist? Yes, the New Zealand based climate coalition web site, which I have shown you before. I do not trust that site either. Bias at either end of the spectrum is suspect. Both sets of climate scientists use the same facts but come to different conclusions, which shows that interpretation is important. Scientists are people also, and make interpretations through the veil of their pre-existing beliefs, whether those beliefs are alarmist or sceptical. There are so many studies on climate change, and so many sets of results, that people can draw almost any conclusion by data mining. I find it difficult to get definitive conclusions, and I certainly do not trust biased views. The idea that climate scientists form a consensus is also wrong. Even the recent report of the IPCC, which is touted as being a consensus of 2500 scientists is not. It is a compromise, drawn from many dissenting views. It is so easy to come to a conclusion that matches your bias. Take ice in Greenland for example. Separate studies have shown the following. 1. Sea ice is melting rapidly. 2. Glaciers at the sea's edge are melting and collapsing, often spectacularly. 3. The thickness of ice in inland areas is thickening, and the total mass of ice on land in Greenland is increasing. This has been shown with GPS studies. This is supposedly due to a higher moisture content in the air, leading to more precipitation. Depending on your bias, you will say that melting ice in Greenland is contributing to sea level rise, or else that thickening ice in Greenland is contributing to slowing sea level rise. I can predict what your interpretation will be.

To 1veedo. I think you should take another look at your own reference. The 4200 years of warming make up about 5/6 of the total warming. So CO2 could have caused the last 5/6 of the warming, but could not have caused the first 1/6 of the warming. I am not a fan of the realclimate web site, since it is as biased towards global warming alarmism as certain other sites are biased towards global warming scepticism. However, in this case, at least they are honest enough to admit that their dogma has a high degree of uncertainty. They used the words "could have' instead of the unmodified word "caused". The reason I have said carbon dioxide does not cause a positive feed-back loop in the warming periods of the last nine odd interglacial periods is because the data shows no acceleration of warming. The very nature of positive feed-back implies an accelerating effect, at least for a time. The argument that carbon dioxide increase a million years ago has something to say about carbon dioxide increase today is so much nonsense also. The two situations are distinctly different. I accept that today's increase is anthropogenic, and that it is a major cause of current warming. That is quite different to previous times. You said : I think the bit that you don't understand is iths, " Uranium can be used relatively safely, because the 235 isotope can be blended with the 238 isotope to make a mixture that will work in a reactor but not in a bomb." I am not a nuclear physicist, but puhlease! That is so basic. I am fully aware of U235 vs U238 and which is used for what. I do not think you understood my point about Uranium being safer, because the active U235 can be diluted with U238 making it impossible to use in a bomb. To enrich the Uranium again to make it explosively fissable requires technology beyond a terrorist organisation. However, Plutonium can be purified using simple chemical means, which is well within the ability of said terrorists. This means that if terrorists steal Uranium reactor fuel (ie purity too low to make a bomb) they will not be able to make a bomb. But if they steal Plutonium, they will.

1veedo said : For 5/6 of our geological history, temperature and CO2 rose together. CO2 rarely ever lags behind temperature. This clearly shows that, obviously, CO2 is a cause as well as an effect of temperature. The data I have seen relates to the last million years. For most of that time, warmings have been followed by carbon dioxide rising. Coolings by it falling. For the period 1910 to 2006, we have seen substantial carbon dioxide rising, and warming also. It is probable that carbon dioxide is a main driver of that warming. However, this does not apply for the previous million years. Uranium isn't the only fuel source for nuclear power plants. Plutonium, which can be found in huge stockpiles of nuclear weapons, can also be used. Of course I guess it's too liberal to suggest we get rid of nuclear weapons by creating electricity, but you never know. Uranium can be used relatively safely, because the 235 isotope can be blended with the 238 isotope to make a mixture that will work in a reactor but not in a bomb. We cannot do that with Plutonium. It is always easy to purify to a strength capable of making a bomb. This creates a real problem with Plutonium. How can we use it for peaceful nuclear energy without it being potentially available to be stolen by those who want to make a terrorist bomb?

To Edtharan. I agree with you that building more and more coal burning power stations is a very bad thing, for several reasons. Currently, in my own very humble opinion, the biggest problem for the immediate future is the enormous number of such plants going up in China. I do not see any alternative for some decades to nuclear power. You talk about solar and geothermal. OK. They may become important. However, my point is that they are not suffciently developed as of right now. Nuclear is. If we want to build more power stations that do not pump out GHGs, then nuclear is the only viable option. By the way. There is a major flaw in your argument about the cost of nuclear fuel. Fuel is one of the small costs in running a nuclear power station. The biggest costs are building the station, and in decommissioning it when finished. Fuel by comparison is a small cost. Thus a doubling in cost of fuel will not anywhere near double the cost of nuclear power. We may run low on high purity Uranium ores. However, we can and will develop ways to extract it economically from lower purity sources, and there are plenty of these, and the total amount of Uranium available in these ores is enormous. This source will be available when needed, and any increase in cost will not, as shown above, be a real problem. You said : What you seem to be missing here is the concept of a positive feedback loop. On the contrary. I am very aware of positive and negative feed-back loops. For the graphs we were discussing, a positive feed-back is not indicated. On such a graph, this would be shown as an acceleration of warming, or cooling. The graph does not show that. So you can't really use it as proof that the sea levels are not rising. It is experiencing an unusual situation that temporarily reverses the effects of sea level rise. I was not trying to say that. Tuvalu is a red herring. That is all I was saying. Sea levels continue to rise steadily at 2 mm per year as a global average. Are the people that wish to bring back DDT considering these problems? The current use of DDT in South Africa is very sensible. It appears that the Anopheles mosquito has the habit of landing on a surface somewhere before swooping to suck blood. This is exploited by spraying DDT on the inside surface of the huts people live in. The mosquito lands and dies. No bite. Since the DDT is just a thin film on a restricted surface, there is no health or environmental problem. You suggest we have to think long term. In fact, we have to think short term and long term, both. Short term, as I said, we have to go with proven technology. Long term, we develop new technology. We introduce new technology over a period. In spite of all the people running round panicking, like headless chickens, nothing dramatic is likely to happen for the next 30 years. Oil will still be extracted and burned in cars etc. However, a slow introduction of new methods will happen, and within 50 years, our energy economy will be seriously different.

1veedo said : The same thing that is true w/ our seasons is also true with ice ages. Orbital variations cause ice ages approximately every 25k,40k, and 100k years. Every 25, 40, and 100k years, you can see both CO2 and temperature rising/falling. The key point is that carbon dioxide changes follow AFTER the warming or cooling. While this is not proof, it does imply causation, with the warming/cooling being cause, and the carbon dioxide concentration change being the effect.

To Swansont. Sorry. I lost the exact reference. The main claim about DDT now shown incorrect was that it is a potent human carcinogen. The main study I read about involved WWII veterans - some of whom were absolutely doused in DDT powder on return home to kill lice, and some of whom were not treated at all. Apparently, the later cancer rate between the two groups was the same. To BhavinB The relationship you are talking about was during the glacial and interglacial periods of the current Ice Age. Carbon dioxide rises a little after warming takes off and drops a little after cooling sets in. Probably mainly due to solubility changes of carbon dioxide in warm and cold oceans.

About 15 years ago, there was a news item that stated the results of an American investigation. Apparently the Soviets had been dissolving nuclear waste and pumping it down a pipeline into the Arctic Ocean. An American team (now buddies with Russia) were invited to carry out an ecological investigation to look for environmental damage in the ocean. They found none. I was curious, and checked on the expected dilution rate, which was enormous. There are 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 tonnes of sea water in the oceans, and even a small bit of ocean contains enormous quantities of water. My question. Would informed people please comment. If we were to take nuclear waste, store for a few years to allow short life isotopes to decay, and then dissolve it in acid, and heavily dilute it, and pump it well out to sea, how much ecological damage would result, if any?

Edtharan asked about Tuvalu The sea level might be falling there (I have never heard this my self, so could you explain how it is occurring), It is an unusual situation. Ocean currents on a large scale are moving in a circle (actually, an ellipse, but who's counting) and this creates a wide scale effect of dropping sea level. Since these currents have intensified, the sea level has dropped. 2 mm per year is a global average and it varies. It is often hard to tell if sea level is rising or land is falling. For example : there is a group of islands off Papua New Guinea that is rapidly becoming the 'new Tuvalu' for the media, since they are washing away, and the people will need to be evacuated. Sea level change there is 20 mm per year. The media call it global warming. In fact, these islands are in a tectonically active area and there is a slow slumping of the entire area. The sea is not rising (more than 2 mm per year). Instead, the land is falling. Take Malaria and DDT as an example. Let's not. Modern testing has reversed a lot of early conclusions about the deleterious effects of DDT. It is now staging a come-back in places like South Africa as a means of controlling malaria. It would be better to jump sooner rather than later. I am not arguing against taking measures. Just being sure that they will not cause humanitarian harm. The best approach is to develop new technology and introduce it. As far as oil based fuels are concerned, we are going to burn all easily extractable oil anyway, regardless of the rhetoric. It will take 30 years to use up most of that resource, which gives us a bit of breathing space. The real threat is coal. It contains far more carbon than oil, and the logical progression when oil gets scarce is to move to liquid fuels made from coal. We need to develop alternatives and introduce them before too many coal to liquid fuel plants are built. Similarly, power plants burning coal need to be stopped. As far as I am concerned, at this point in time, only nuclear is a solid, viable alternative. Solar seems the best option out of the lot. The plants have not been described as eye sores, they don't make loud noises (like wind and wave power), they don't produce pollution, they can be located in places far removed from people, etc. The only thing is that the technology is not mature. And the only reason the technology is not mature is that it doesn't receive a lot of funding for research or production. You need to specify which kind of solar. Solar cells? Mirrors turning water to steam for turbines? Giant solar chimneys creating rising air? What? There are lots of alternatives for energy generation. However, the big four are the ones that electricity generators world wide spend most investment on. And this is true in nations where there are no subsidies. Solar may come into its own. Who knows? Right now, the big four are the ones to concentrate on. Coal and gas make greenhouse gases. Hydro is close to capacity. This leaves only nuclear as having the potential right now of taking over from coal burning.

Thanks, Gilded, for the reference to the French fact sheet. Looks good. I was interested in the fact that they store the waste for three years under water before further treatment. It is often stated that the most dangerous thing about nuclear waste is the long period taken to render it safe - about 10,000 years. However, the most dangerous time is the first few years. In that period, short half life isotopes are spitting out radioactivity at a high rate. Storing the waste for a time reduces the most dangerous isotopes to a much safer level.

Edtharan said : There is Solar, Wind, Hydro, Geothermal, Wave, etc that have claimed far less lives that Nuclear, so Nuclear is not the "Safest", This is correct, but not very helpful. The four big generations methods are coal, gas, nuclear and hydro. Each produces more than 12% of global power. Wind produces less than 2%, and the others produce less than 1%. It would be seriously unlikely that any of your alternatives will ever compete with the big four. I sincerely hope wind power stays small. I have seen land where wind farms predominate and they are ugly, ugly, ugly! If we could avoid the effects of global warming, should we? Mitigate rather than avoid is a better word. The answer to the modified question is yes. However, we need to be sure that the cure is not worse than the disease. Many methods of panicky global therapies would be humanitarian disasters. Any action should be carefully thought out and applied by careful management. First world countries have a nasty habit of doing things for their own benefit and letting impoversished third world countries collect the garbage. If the sea levels rise too much, then whole countries will disappear into the ocean (look up a country called Tuvalu). Where will these people go. Will your country take them in, Current sea level rise is less than 2 mm per year. Tuvalu is actually in a spot where sea level is falling, though this is a fact never mentioned by the media. Tuvalu had the fortune to have a lot of coral sand moved during WWII to make an airfield. The place where the sand was taken filled with water, which was photographed. Said photos are on the internet, and newspapers buy those photos to illustrate articles on global warming and sea level rise. In other words, to support a big lie. Sea level rise is real, but not in Tuvalu.

1veedo You are referring to a graph that I have to regard with deep suspician. It violates an extremely important scientific principle. That is, do not change test method halfway through a scientific study. If you look at the graph, you will see that last 100 years or so is done in red. That is because the results are obtained by a different method. Before that, indirect methods such as tree rings were used. The red bit is direct thermometer readings. I have seen graphs in which the whole thing is done using the same method. One tree ring data graph shows a much lower rate of increase over the past 100 years. My own interpretation of this is to say that the indirect methods underestimate temperature change. The direct readings are more accurate. Applying this interpretation to the previous 1000 years means that the warming/cooling changes are underestimated in your graph. ie. The Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age are much more marked than your graph suggests. This interpretation is backed up by historic data. The Medieval Warm Period involved Nordic settlers growing no less than five crops in Greenland - which cannot be done today. Historic data shows that during the Little Ice Age the North Sea froze as far south as England. Again, your graph would make this impossible. Historic data strongly suggests a much bigger temperature change than your graph would permit.

How you drink tea and coffee is a matter of choice, and with a wee bit of self-discipline, you train your tastebuds to like it that way. I was raised to drink tea and coffee with two spoons of sugar. Decided that was unhealthy and decided to train myself to do without the sugar. For a month it tasted absolutely dreadful, then it tasted good again. I did not realise how much I had changed my testebuds till someone gave me a cup of tea with two spoons of sugar. I was nauseated, and couldn't finish it.

aswokei I think the problem is a poor choice of words. The word 'docile' carries all sorts of emotional baggage. May I suggest you take it back, and replace it with a phrase such as : "In general, women are less aggressive than men." I don't think too many would argue with that, and it might take away the emotional bulldust surrounding this argument.

Bascule said : I don't know what scientific method you're using, but the one I'm familiar with is concerned with things like "testable predictions" and "falsifiability" These are important aspects of modern scientific method. I am relating back to the beginnings of modern science, when Sir Francis Bacon wrote down the essential principles that broke science free of the ridiculous anchors holding it back, as a result of the ideas of the old Greek philosophers. Bacon emphasized empirical evidence. It is a debatable argument, but I feel that this central principle still holds true.

Bluenoise is correct, except that it would take something the size of the Encyclopaedia Britannica to do it justice. May I suggest, that the one most vital thing is the core principle behind the scientific method, which is the need for empirical evidence.

The leading theory on the asthma problem is increasing hygiene. It appears that there are two modes of resistance to disease. One is triggered by exposure to certain bacteria at an early age. Without that trigger, it is likely to develop in a 'broad spectrum' mode, attacking a wider range of organisms, including sometimes the persons own tissues. In recent decades, young children are far less exposed to infection, and so are far more likely to get the auto-immune defect. Asthma is far less common in children on farms, and children who have pets from an early age, exposing them to the animal's bacteria. It is far less common in third world countries, though death from various bacterial infections is far higher there. The high incidence of asthma is not related to microwave ovens. Incidentally, it has been increasing for 100 years, not 30.

John. If you are quoting court records to try and make a scientific point, why don't you go all the way and quote Mrs. Jones snake oil blog instead? Lawyers are not scientists and the history of law includes thousands of examples of total scientific nonsense. In fact, many lawyers will go to extreme lengths to prevent proper scientists testifying. Guess why. Lawyers do not stand for the truth. They stand for getting their own way regardless of the truth. As far as cooking meat is concerned, microwaves have been used for this purpose for decades now. There are lots of ambitious epidemiologists out there who would just love to prove a connection between microwave cooking and any kind of ailment at all. No such connection has been even sniffed at. After all this time, that means that it is enormously probable that no such connection exists.

Silverslith. Predicting the futue is a hazardous undertaking, with a strong likelihood of being embarassed. You might be correct in suggesting that geothermal and tidal will become very important. However, based on what little I know, that seems unlikely. Incidentally, New Zealand does not gain 20% from geothermal. Not quite sure the exact number, but it is way less. Something like 5% if my memory is right. And the easy resources for geothermal have already been tapped. Tidal power requires specialised situations with big rise/falls of sea water. OK, they do exist, but finding some easily tapped is difficult. It seems unlikely to become a major contributor for quite a while. Wind power from high altitude energy is theoretically possible, but there is a long way to go before the technology is developed to the point of practical application. Nuclear is current, and can, in theory, be expanded very substantially - probably at least 20 fold. While fuel is limited in high yield ores, it is extremely abundant in lower yield ores, and these can be mined and exploited. We can speculate about all sorts of future energy sources, and some may eventually become important. However, based on todays technology, nuclear is the best immediate bet for large scale generation expansion.

I agree with John. Why does microwaved blood go toxic? Or does it? I see no reason in theory, as long as there are no localised concentrations of energy, and the warming is kept to the level it is supposed to. Microwaves are not the same kind of radiation as that given off by Uranium. In fact, we really should have two different words. Microwaves are just electromagnetic radiation of a particular wavelength - somewhat longer and lower energy than sunlight. The only special property in relation to this is that they are of the exact wavelength required to resonate with water molecules, thereby transferring energy to water, and causing it to heat up. Why should gentle microwaves cause blood to go toxic?

Let me once again state my theory on rape. First : In evolutionary terms, under normal conditions, in a normal human society, rape is counter to reproductive success. Let me explain. Normal human society, over most of the 250,000 years Homo sapiens has existed as a species, is a tribal hunter/gatherer society. If a man in such a tribe (50 to 200 people) commits rape, he cannot get away with it. And the woman he rapes has father/brothers/husband. The rapist will be lucky to escape with his life. Exile would reduce his chances of successful reproduction. And a single act of rape, with all those devastating consequences, is seriously unlikely to result in successful reproduction. Thus, committing rape inside the tribe is counter to evolutionary success. However, there are two situations where rape, and subsequent reproduction, can be carried out without harmful consequences. 1. Time of war. Tribe A is fighting Tribe B. This is a bit like the viking story. Kill the men and rape the women. 2. Slavery. An outcome of war. The men are killed and the women made into slaves. And this happens all through human history and pre-history. The female slaves are raped, probably repeatedly, by their owners. Usually, any offspring become part of the fathers tribe rather than slaves. Ideally evolution would have resulted in males who are inhibited from rape within their own society but are only too willing to rape in wartime, and with slaves. Actually, this is quite close to the truth for most men. However, the genetic reshuffling that takes place with conception results in people who are genetically varied. Thus the inhibition to rape will be highly variable, and some will have relatively little such inhibition. This leads to a minority of men who will rape even inside their own group.

Edtharan said : changing temperatures cause pests to enter new areas (now that they are warmer) and eat all the crops, or the ranges of diseases like Malaria also change as the vectors that carry them now enter these new areas. Note that both malaria and yellow fever were widespread across North America and Europe during the Little Ice Age. They were controlled by killing mosquitos, which can be done by prosperous nations. These diseases are diseases of poverty, not global warming. Pests entering new areas have been happening for hundreds of years. They are the result of a breakdown in biosecurity, not global warming. To control them, we need to improve biosecurity, not fight global warming. There is also the concern of positive feed back loops in the environmental systems. These create "Tipping Points" where once a critical point is reached, there is no way (or extremely difficult and expensive ways) to reverse certain changes. Eg: As the ice at the poles melt, this will reflect less sunlight back into space, which increases the amount of energy in the system, heating the Earth up more which increases the rate of ice melting. There are also negative feedback loops in the system. For example, warmer seas stimulate plankton, which release dimethyl sulphide into the air, which acts as nucleation points causing low altitude cloud, reflecting heat back into space. This has been shown to occur by observations over warm patches of oceans using satellites. Long term, will positive or negative feedback prevail? No-one knows. I do not argue against realistic measures to combat greenhouse gases. There is a lot of research under way into biofuels, hydrogen fuel cells, new means of generating electricity without releasing carbon. etc. And these are good. In time, we will have to move to a fossil fuel free energy economy. However, panicky measures will cause enormous humanitarian damage. We must introduce change in a properly managed way. These are reasons why I argue against exaggerations in global climate change theory, and against foolish panic measures.