Posts Tagged climate change denial
Five Stupid Quotations From Climate Change Sceptics (and how I’d answer them if only I could think on my feet)
Posted by Gareth Eynon in Climate Change Denial on October 24, 2011
As an environmentalist … No. Stop. Not environmentalist; I hate that word. (Thinking out loud again, sorry)
Ok. Take 2:
… As an advocate of the movement to save this planet and everything on it from extinction due to climate change; pollution; deforestation; drought; famine; irresponsible multinationals; GM food; banks; nuclear proliferation; media moguls; desertification; Audi drivers and oceanic acidification, I often find myself embroiled in a heated debate over climate change with people I like to refer to as The Denialists.
Occasionally, I will manage to have a meaningful, in-depth, well-researched, enlightening discussion with one of these people. All too often, though, most denialists just seem capable of coming up with the same tired arguments and replies regarding the realities of climate change and environmental degradation. Below are the five that I hear time and again:
Stupid quote#1: “Man-made climate change isn’t real: Earth’s climate has always gone in cycles”
Answer#1: Yes agreed, the earth’s climate has always gone in cycles – hot, cold, hot, cold, hot, cold, etc. Well done. However, what we are doing by polluting the atmosphere with too many additional greenhouse gases is interrupting the delicate process that causes these cycles thus pushing the whole system into overload. Ironically, we are jeopardising the precise mechanism that denialists so love to wave in our faces.
The earth has maintained an intricate balance over the last few billion years because it had all the tools it required: sunlight, clouds, ice, forests, gases, minerals, plants, animals, etc, etc. What we’ve done over the last few centuries is come along and thrown some truly momentous spanners in the works. Still; the unbelievers think that we should just let the Earth get on with it while we do the same. Ok. What an interesting experiment…
Stupid quote#2: “What’s the point in curbing carbon emissions when China and India are building a coal-fired power station every week?”
Answer#2: Yes, yes, yes. That’s the attitude. Why bother? We’re buggered anyway.
Geeeeez people, since when did two wrongs make a right? Of course this makes the task before us even harder, but we’re tougher than that, aren’t we? This life we currently enjoy must be worth fighting for, if not for us, then for our children and our grandchildren.
An analogy that springs to mind here is that it’s like the guy who goes to the gym and is then perceived to undo all the good work he’s just done by having a burger and a cigarette afterwards. Yes, you could argue that there’s no point in going to the gym if he continues to eat junk food and smoke. I would argue, though, that whether or not he eats badly and smokes, he’s still ultimately doing himself more good by going to the gym than if he’d stayed away.
If by curbing our destructive ways of life we are – at best – just cancelling out what China and India are doing; well then at least we’re doing something.
Dr Jorge Argibay also added this valid point: “It is precisely by doing something about carbon emissions that we can acquire the authority to ask China and India to do the same!” Exactly, thanks Jorge.
Quote#3: “The Earth will survive no matter what we do to it”
Answer#3: Perhaps. But we’re talking about our survival here, aren’t we? Excusing inaction by offering this quote is dumb at best. Surely we want to protect this planet’s ability to sustain life so that our ancestors can also enjoy life… don’t we? To say something like that shows up a selfish streak a mile wide.
Anyway, how do we know the planet will survive? Has it ever been tested like this before? I agree, that it’s managed to thaw its way out of an ice-age or two, but let’s remember: the earth has at its core a massive nuclear fusion reactor that’s hot enough to melt rock. So it’s not really surprising it has the capacity to thaw itself. But to cool itself when so many of its cooling mechanisms have been stripped away, altered or poisoned? Who really knows?
Stupid quote#4 “We’re not running out of fossil fuels. We have loads of oil, gas and coal left”
Answer#4: Agreed, but this oil and gas is continually getting harder and more expensive to find and extract. This also comes at great risk.
I’ll just sum up with these three words: Deep. Water. Horizon.
Stupid quote#5 “Climate change is a myth fabricated by the big corporations and governments of the world so that they can increase profits and raise taxes on the back of it”
Answer#5: So the entire world’s scientific community is on the payroll of the corporations? Oh please. That’s as silly as saying that George. W. Bush planned and executed 9/11. Admittedly, there are plenty of vested interests in keeping the climate change debate alive, but the fact that it’s made up simply to make money just doesn’t ring true.
As for the governments; well, they don’t need excuses to raise our taxes, let alone an excuse that costs as much as concocting something as big as climate change. Get real people.
In summary then…
So then, if like me, you find yourself confronted by climate change denialists who seem intent on spouting these ever-used quotations to back up their arguments, then please feel free to call upon the answers above, if like me, you also find that you can only ever think of a suitable repartee once the debate is over (usually around a week later in my case).
Of course you are probably clever enough to counter to these dumb-assed quotes for yourself. If you do have cleverer, wittier or shrewder answers to these arguments than mine, then please let me know and I’ll add then to this post (and also use them myself, if I may). Thanks.
GR
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Photos courtesy of Arvind Balaraman, Valerij Dedkov, An Apollo astronaut and Kostas Tsipos
Climate Change: This Time, it’s Personal!
Posted by Gareth Eynon in Climate Change on October 17, 2011
Until now, my concerns over climate change have been pretty much altruistic in their outlook. In other words, I’ve primarily been worried about the potential droughts, famine and floods that – let’s face it – will have a far worse impact on the poorer people of the world and our future generations than they will on us.
I’ve always thought that I will somehow remain sheltered from any cataclysmic climate events and that I personally won’t feel the nastier effects of our impact on the planet.
Not any more:
While reading recent news reports I have watched climate change creep a lot closer to home, sporting venomous fangs, multiple eyes and long hairy legs.
In a previous post, I had a moan about how climate change had altered the UK’s weather pattern and stolen my summer, which is bad enough on its own. Now though, it’s responsible for venomous, biting spiders appearing in UK homes, with potentially more to come.
I’ve always known that climate change could (and would) affect me in some way or another, but I figured this would be in the form of higher food prices, energy shortages or perhaps some exposure to extreme weather. I didn’t expect to have to worry about biting spiders.
This green and pleasant land I live in was once so gentle: If out for a stroll in the countryside, the worst one had to fear was prickles from a blackberry bush, a rose thorn stuck in a finger, a swipe from a stinging nettle, maybe a bee or a wasp sting, or – at very, very worst – an adder bite. All painful, but none of which life threatening – expect perhaps the adder bite in extreme cases. Being attacked by a spider, though, was almost unheard of, and it appears you can get bitten whilst just sat at home in the garden.
We are now seeing the nests of false widow spiders appearing in homes in Milton Keynes (of all places). According to Milton Keynes Council, “They won’t kill you but one person’s already had to go to hospital with symptoms including chest pain, nausea and vomiting.” Nice.
The false widow has been in the UK sometime, but was confined to a small area of Devon. This, however, has changed over the last few years and the spider is now spreading around the country.
Another arachnid delight we are seeing more of since the 1990’s is the tube web spider (the nice looking chap with green fangs pictured above). This is another invading venomous spider, and unlike native spiders, one that will not run away if provoked, but will jump up and attack you. “Well that’s simple”, I hear you say, “just leave them alone”. Ok, try telling that to my two-year-old wannabe-entomologist.
This is all because of climate change (and a little globalisation)
While global trade may be responsible for bringing the spiders here, it’s climate change that’s keeping them here. In the past these spiders would not have survived the UK winter, but the trend towards shorter, milder winters is allowing these immigrants to survive. Stuart Hine, of the Natural History Museum’s Insect Identification Service said that the much more dangerous black widow may not be far behind the false widow, and it may be “just a matter of time” until it shows up here. Marvelous.
Yes, I’m a wimp…
I have never really liked spiders. Nevertheless, I’ve had to man-up since being a father and a husband (more so the latter) and I do take my spider-purging duties very seriously. However, I have previously been comforted by the fact that none of the spiders I’m trying to squeeze between a glass and some paper will bite me. So how am I supposed to act like the man-of-the-house now that the spiders terrify me as much as they do my wife? (Although I don’t think I’ll ever let out a feral call of distress quite as chilling as she does on seeing one)
Like so many others concerned about climate change, I cannot promptly or personally do a thing about it. Naturally I do my best to avoid further environmental degradation: I make green choices wherever I can, and I also try to get others to do so too. But as far as what I can do about these invading spiders – I am helpless. I don’t like that. In no small part because it makes me oh so conscious that as individuals, no matter what we do, we are all strapped into this climate rollercoaster no matter where it may be going.
In regard to the spiders; all I can do is hope that a little bit of eco-karma will come my way, protecting me and my family for these nasty creatures, instead, sending them the way of the climate change denialists and those who just can’t be bothered to change. Yes; let these guys get bitten by a venomous spider while they are telling the rest of us that climate change is a myth concocted by the corporations, or whatever other nonsense they care to prattle on about. Maybe then they’ll realise this is for real.
As for me. Well, I know climate change is for real, but after reading these reports about venomous spiders – it just got a lot more real.
And here’s the really ironic part…
I wrote this blog on Saturday, all ready for publishing on Monday (hence this is just an addendum at the end). On Sunday afternoon, however, I went up to fetch some bits from my loft (attic) and what did I find crawling around in the rafters? A bloody false widow, that’s what! And a nasty-looking thing it is too. So much for eco-karma, eh? I’m off to buy a 4×4…
GR
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Photos courtesy of eurospiders and Shae Cardenas
The Autumnal Sun is Finally Here: You Didn’t Think Climate Change Would Deny us That Too Did You?
Posted by Gareth Eynon in Climate Change on October 3, 2011
Why do people seem so surprised at this wonderful period of autumnal weather we’re currently experiencing? I personally have been waiting for this spell of sunshine to arrive… well… all summer. Then last week, bang on cue, just like the predicted shifting weather patterns of climate change, here it is. Erm… hooray?
You would have to be a in a pretty extreme state of denial to have missed the fact that the UK’s weather pattern has changed over the last few years. I’m not talking about the occasional hot or cold week here or there, but a tangible change in the British climate – especially in summer.
The last five summers in the UK have actually arrived in springtime, teasing us with a few glorious weeks in April or May. We are then subject to a ‘summer’ of grey cloud, rain, the occasional sunny day and plenty of good old fashioned British weather-bashing. Then, once the school holidays are over, we get a couple of weeks of marvellous sunshine and generally clement weather (just like I’ve been waiting for) followed by the descent into winter and Christmas.
UK Weather on the 1st & 2nd October 2011
Whatever you may think is the cause of this, something has definitely happened to our weather. For the past several summers we’ve been told it’s because of an El Niño year; then a La Niña year is responsible and then last year it was all the banks’ fault. What’s the reason this year? I don’t pretend to be a climatologist or a meteorologist, but I’m thinking it could be something to do with the Atlantic Ocean heating up, thus allowing more water to evaporate and collect as clouds, which then blanket out our sun from June through to August. Or maybe it’s the enhanced greenhouse effect messing around with the conventional summer air pressures. I just don’t know; but something has definitely changed for the worse.
This is more than just a mere blip like the snow of last December; this is becoming a pattern. Will the snow do the same? In fact, can I be brave enough to stick my neck out and make a prediction of the UK’s average weather for the next, say, 20 years? Of course I can. Ok then, here’s my UK average weather prediction for 2012-2032:
January: Rubbish. February: Crisp and dry, with a little rubbishness thrown in. March: Rainy (what was previously April showers). April: Beautiful, but too dry for farmers. May: Promise of a good summer. June, July, August: Good summer never arrives – wet, wet, wet. September, October: Lovely, warm, sunny. November: Coldish. December: Snow and travel chaos. All UK airports shut.
Note to self: Check this post again in 20 years and see if you were right…
Another note to self: If you were right, adopt an attitude of supreme smugness for at least a week.
Final note to self: Don’t put notes to self on a public blog…
Ok…
I don’t know who this person is, but I liked the picture…
The ‘Indian Summer’ is now nothing new
While this has been the hottest September since 1895, I’m not one who will hoist this aloft as irrefutable proof of climate change. I don’t need to; that proof will come when the next September like this repeats itself after just 50 years, then just 25 years, after that just 10, just 5, and so on, and so on…
Much as it’s great to see everyone making the most of the heat, for me there’s a certain melancholy to this wonderful weather we’re having at the moment: I just keep wondering where this sun was when I went camping, or had my family over from France, or tried on numerous occasions to plan a trip to the beach. Why do we get holiday temperatures when my daughter goes back at school and my wife (now a teacher) goes back to work? This sun is as frustrating as it is welcome – I don’t like that feeling. Does anyone feel the same?
I want my summers back
I’m sure that over the next ten years we will have a couple of glorious summers, but I think they’ll be the exceptions. The general weather pattern has changed – and I don’t like it! Global warming indeed… pah! Feels more like global raining.
Much as I like to be right about absolutely everything (and I think I am right about this change becoming the norm) I really, really don’t want to be right about this. I hate the weather pattern we’ve had over the last few years and want my summers back. If the next few years witness a return to a ‘proper’ summer and we can all enjoy our time in June, July and August, then I will most happily eat any of the above words.
Just quickly to finish off: If we in Britain say autumnal (meaning of the autumn) what do the Americans say? Fallumnal? Fallesque? Fallout? Fallover? Answers on a postcard please…
GR
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Photos courtesy of Fedor Patrakov, Dmitry Ersler and the BBC Weather Department
The Sun Will Slow Down Global Warming: Ironic Isn’t It?
Posted by Gareth Eynon in Climate Change on June 27, 2011
Well, that’s it then; we’re saved. Apparently the sun is decreasing in activity, which means we can forget all about the dangers of climate change and global warming. In fact, if the evidence is correct, we may actually need to increase CO2 emissions, just to stop us all from freezing.
The story of a renewed ice age is nothing new; we have been told this is coming for years now. This particular warning is born of the fact that our sun is about to enter a period of decreased activity; the harbinger of this being an observation by the US National Solar Observatory (NSO) that there has been a reduction in the number of sunspots. The last time this happened was the Maunder Minimum between 1645 and 1715 and it famously resulted in the River Thames freezing over.
Put in very brief terms these sunspots (not to be confused with the ever-popular sunny spots) are an indicator of solar activity and when they drop, the energy from the sun drops. The trouble we are seeing now is that “when sunspot numbers drop at the end of each 11-year cycle, solar storms die down and all becomes much calmer. This “solar minimum” doesn’t last long. Within a year, the spots and storms begin to build towards a new crescendo, the next solar maximum. What’s special about this latest dip is that the sun is having trouble starting the next solar cycle“.
So then, we’re all doomed: No sun equals no heat, no crops, no daytime TV and no holidays. Yes I’m exaggerating and this isn’t really the case. What is expected to happen is simply a reduction in the amount of solar energy available to us; the inhabitants of planet Earth.
Of course the global media has been all over this story, claiming an end to global warming and the start of a very long winter. I have to say, I can’t blame them. They are simply going on information from the Global Warming Policy Foundation who are warning of major implications for the Earth’s climate. What self-respecting journalist wouldn’t jump all over that? Much as it galls me to say, the Daily Mail actually didn’t sensationalise it as much as they usually do (they must be feeling a little off-colour), but Fox News didn’t disappoint.
There are two problems with the media getting hold of a story like this: The first is that they are only listening to the scientists who corroborate the story they want to hear. There are many scientists out there who don’t actually believe this will have that much of an impact.
The second, and more concerning, problem is that if people believe climate change is no longer a danger, we could be in real trouble. It may be easy to think that one little piece of scientific evidence can’t have that much of an effect, but look at how far the MMR scandal set back vaccinations in this country. Because of this one story being accepted by the media and fed to parents around the country, we witnessed a rise in diseases previously thought to be under control. Proof of this lies in the fact that we have just experienced our worst measles outbreak in 13 years.
I’m not saying that this news is enough to bring the fight against climate change to a screeching halt, but the public are wavering. After climategate, a toothless Copenhagen conference and the coldest winter for years, people are begin to look at the dangers of climate change with a scary degree of sceptisim.
It is widely believed that this data regarding the sun is correct. However, it is also accepted that its impact will be minimal. To put things into context; the Earth’s average tempetature is predicted to rise by between 2ºC and 4ºC . The expected cooling effect of this solar inactivity is about 0.3ºC. Not quite an ice age then.
Now I should really have a pop here at the climate change denialists who have, naturally, jumped all over this as proof that global warming will never happen. However, I have chosen to remain silent because, first of all, my beef is with those denialists who claim global warming is a hoax, and second, no matter what they may claim; they never saw this coming. Even Dr. Frank Hill, associate director of the NSO’s Solar Synoptic Network admitted “this is highly unusual and unexpected”. So, if the science and conclusions behind this are correct, then great. Let’s accept this bit of breathing space offered to us and use it to get our energy consumption issues sorted out once and for all.
If you are still worried about the science behind this, then watch this video; it should cheer you up a little: irrefutable evidence presented by one on today’s leading scientific minds, it is not, but it does explain the story in real laymen’s terms. For something with a bit more credibility, watch this…
If, like me, you are concerned about climate change and on voicing this concern you are fully expecting your friends, colleagues and the average Joe in the street to give you both barrels of “what a load of rubbish, the decreasing sunspots will stop global warming dead”, well just sit them down calmly and explain in easy to understand terms that what they may have read in the sensationalist press is a load of nonsense; we are still in trouble and we still have to change our ways.
GR
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Photo courtesy of Michal Marcol
Energy Related Carbon Emissions Are Up: Or Is That Made Up?
Posted by Gareth Eynon in Climate Change Denial on June 10, 2011
So, the International Energy Agency has told us that energy related carbon emissions reached an all time high last year. Not really surprising, but is this going to make a jot of difference to some of the nonsense being emitted by climate change denialists? I doubt it.
After the recession afforded the Earth a little breathing space in 2008 and 2009, we are now back to our old ways and pumping huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Energy sector emissions in 2010 reached a staggering 30.6 gigatonnes, or, put another way: 30,600,000,000 kilograms.
Please don’t get me wrong. I don’t have anything against climate change denialists per se; and I honestly think that there needs to be a counter balance within this debate. What does frustrate me, however, is the notion that climate change has been conjured up by those in power to hike up taxes and inflict any number of horrible schemes upon us – the innocent public. Let’s be realistic here people; they’ll raise taxes anyway.
I can fully appreciate the uncertainty inherent in climate science: unforeseen feedback loops, oceanic thermal currents and the unpredictability of global weather patterns. I mean the BBC weather people almost always get it wrong over the 5 day forecast; let alone the next century. (And if you can’t trust the BBC, then who can you trust?)
Because of this uncertainty and the gradual, almost imperceptible nature of climate change, it is very easy for us humans to wonder if this is for real and if we should really believe the hype.
Well, lets ask ourselves: what’s actually at stake? Anything that’s really important to us?
Off the top of my head I would say:
- Global food and pharmaceutical production (we kind of need food, and drugs are pretty handy too)
- Potential mass migration (the UK seems to struggle with just a few plumbers from Poland)
- Life in the oceans (no more fish fingers, dagnammit)
- Many of the Earth’s plant and animal species (us included)
- The whole space and time continuum (well, maybe I made that one up).
So that’s just a tiny part of the list, but I think some of the stuff above is pretty important. Don’t you?
When it comes to denial, it’s like I said: many, many, many of the climate scientists’ predictions are not set in stone and may never happen (hopefully). However, there are some things that science seems pretty certain about:
- CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Fact.
- Greenhouse gases are partially responsible for maintaining Earth at a nice cosy (average) temperature. Fact.
- We have just pumped record levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. Fact.
To me this looks like the climate scientists may be onto something when they tell us that putting extra CO2 into the system may have some dodgy results for all of us.
Now, if we take these scientific certainties versus the high stakes, we come up with the chance – I repeat; the chance – that our climate will be adversely effected. In light of this, would it not be wise to be a little bit cautious? Just a tad? You know: curb the emissions, find alternatives to power our lives, change some of our destructive behaviour: that kind of thing.
I admit that there are people out there who would have us all living back in the Measly Middle Ages, but I’m not one of them and I certainly don’t want that. However, when people are shouting, and posting and blogging and digging and tweeting about how climate change is a hoax, perhaps they wouldn’t mind easing off a touch and looking at the certainties; there are a scary amount of them.
So there it is; another blog having a pop at the denialists (I still don’t know if that’s a real word). But, in my defence, these guys are always doing a little “I told you so” dance when a piece of hard scientific evidence backs up their argument. I am now doing the same; so there.
Energy related emissions are at a record high. Isn’t it time even the sceptics try to do something about this?
GR
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Photos courtesy of Julia Pivovarova and Lostbear
