[Bored chemist]

 I don't know to what extent this is hype or true.

[Tim the Plumber (OP)]

Thousands of deaths in the UK are linked to diesel from cars, I don't know to what extent this is hype or true.

since the number of deaths from non-cancer respiratory disease seems to decrease each year, despite an ageing population, the "link" seems to exist only in the deranged minds of politicians and this year's tree huggers (previous generations thought diesel was good).

Yes, it would be nice to have the integrity of science assured.

The proper sorting out of fish stock protection is left on the back burner to pander to the anti-CO2 madness.

Fish stock protection is anathema  to the European Union, which is about market price protection. The annual argument between fisheries scientists and the EU fishing lobby always results in a "compromise" brokered by the corrupt Commission. As any sane member of this forum knows, you can't "compromise" with science. The Norwegian government, meanwhile, sets total catch quotas based on actual and predicted stocks and insists that you sell everything you catch, so the market price isn't protected but the  fish are. And CO2 doesn't come into it.

My point exactly.

If the envirnmentalist urg in all of us, we all want to see a nice healthy world, was not channeled into hysteria about this none problem of CO2 the rest of the issues, much more needed, would get sorted out much better.

Rain forrests are cut down to farm sugar to make petrol and diesel.

Not sure what the point is here. Rain forests don't feed many people, but sugar, petrol and diesel do.

The point is that the drive against CO2 has consequences which are at odds to the wishes of true environmentalists (political defenders of nature).

[Tim the Plumber (OP)]

I know it's from a site that will raise hackles with some but this may be what it is all about;

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/05/22/climate-alarmism-the-mother-of-all-availability-cascades/

You know the situation that the very strongly held view that Global warming is very bad and all, but even on this science forum that position is elusively hard to actually defend.

Their need for social acceptance and political correctness, coupled with the apparent sophistication of the new insight, overwhelm their critical thinking. Imitation and conformity, rather than critical analysis and independent thinking, are at the heart of a meme. The public concern then puts pressure on political policymakers to make policies to address the public concern. The public then see confirmation that their concern over the man-made climate change crisis must be valid – after all, the politicians are enacting policies to address it. It is a self-reinforcing loop of irrationality based on a very poor understanding of what the science actually says – in fact even a very poor understanding of what the scientific authorities actually say.

[puppypower]

I live in New England where there is a slogan, attributed to Mark Twain around 1876, " if you don't like the weather in New England, just wait a few minutes. This humorous observation was made because this area is subject to rapid and varied weather changes, even on an hourly basis.

This is part of his speech delivered at the New England Society's Seventy-First Annual Dinner, New York City, Dec. 22, 1876.

"There is a sumptuous variety about the New England weather that compels the stranger's admiration -- and regret. The weather is always doing something there; always attending strictly to business; always getting up new designs and trying them on the people to see how they will go. But it gets through more business in spring than in any other season.
In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four-and-twenty hours."

What was observed back then is now being attributed to manmade global warming. When a new generation comes along, especially the millennial generation, who have been overall coddled and PC dogma prone, old songs appear to be new recordings.

Mark Twain, who was an observer of the human condition, was not yet aware of the modern reasons for the old patterns in the weather. If anything, I notice less variety today, than what he appears to describe. It is possible global warming is stabilizing New England weather and climate compared to 136 different weather conditions in the spring in 24 hours during the time of Twain. Has anyone gone back to compare the modern observations to that of the old timers like Mark Twain to see if this is new, or just an old song recorded and pitched as new? 

[Bored chemist]

You know the situation that the very strongly held view that Global warming is very bad and all, but even on this science forum that position is elusively hard to actually defend.

Actually, it's quite easy to defend.
More energy coupled into the weather gives rise to more extreme weather which will kill people which is a bad thing.
What's difficult is to get you to accept that.

[Bored chemist]

...
What was observed back then is now being attributed to manmade global warming.
...

No.
What has been recorded reliably in many places for years and indirectly (but still reliably) for even longer shows that there has been a recent change which is attributable to mankind's activities.

[Tim the Plumber (OP)]

You know the situation that the very strongly held view that Global warming is very bad and all, but even on this science forum that position is elusively hard to actually defend.

Actually, it's quite easy to defend.
More energy coupled into the weather gives rise to more extreme weather which will kill people which is a bad thing.
What's difficult is to get you to accept that.

Can you outline the mechanism more than that? I mean it's a lot simplistic. Given that wind is driven by temperature differences (via pressure differences) and all.

Then can you cite some sort of science supporting this mechanism?

Then we can have a look at how much of a real problem it is.

Although you could look back at this thread for the science that says the opposite.

[alancalverd]

What has been recorded reliably in many places for years and indirectly (but still reliably) for even longer shows that there has been a recent change which is attributable to mankind's activities.

If only it were so.

1. Correlation is not proof of causation.

2. The supposed mechanism of carbon dioxide forcing temperature rise is contradicted in recent times by the Mauna Loa data which shows that CO2 maximises in the summer, when anthropogenic CO2 is minimal.

3. Said supposed mechanism is also contradicted by ice core records which show in the long term trend that CO2 lags the temperature curve by about 200 years: causes usually precede effects.

4. There have been innumerable recent "adjustments" to the temperature record, all of which remarkably make the adjusted temperature graph look more and more like the CO2 graph - a clear case of fitting the data to the hypothesis, which is not the path to understanding

5. The modern temperature record is full of anomalies before 1970, most of which I have discussed before.  One would have thought that subsequent satellite data would be unequivocal, but for reasons best known to true believers, even that needs "adjustment" to fit the hypothesis.

It is clear that the climate is changing. It is obvious that it always has changed and always must change. It would be very convenient if there was something mankind could do to control it, but alas the evidence for such a possibility is weak.  Faith will not save us.

More energy coupled into the weather gives rise to more extreme weather which will kill people which is a bad thing.

Sadly, the evidence is lacking here too. The frequency of  Grade 5 hurricanes has decreased during the last century, but the damage done by each one has increased as more people live in coastal locations.

Extreme weather requires extreme temperature gradients - sudden mixing of hot and cold air. Overall warming actually reduces the temperature contrasts between weather systems in the temperate zone.   

[jeffreyH]

The problem is that we are no longer an adaptable species. We are tied to large conurbations and depend largely upon delivery of pre-processed foods. Our working environments are in static locations. We can no longer live a nomadic existence. Our dependence upon technology will not help us.

[Bored chemist]

What has been recorded reliably in many places for years and indirectly (but still reliably) for even longer shows that there has been a recent change which is attributable to mankind's activities.

If only it were so.

1. Correlation is not proof of causation.

2. The supposed mechanism of carbon dioxide forcing temperature rise is contradicted in recent times by the Mauna Loa data which shows that CO2 maximises in the summer, when anthropogenic CO2 is minimal.

3. Said supposed mechanism is also contradicted by ice core records which show in the long term trend that CO2 lags the temperature curve by about 200 years: causes usually precede effects.

4. There have been innumerable recent "adjustments" to the temperature record, all of which remarkably make the adjusted temperature graph look more and more like the CO2 graph - a clear case of fitting the data to the hypothesis, which is not the path to understanding

5. The modern temperature record is full of anomalies before 1970, most of which I have discussed before.  One would have thought that subsequent satellite data would be unequivocal, but for reasons best known to true believers, even that needs "adjustment" to fit the hypothesis.

It is clear that the climate is changing. It is obvious that it always has changed and always must change. It would be very convenient if there was something mankind could do to control it, but alas the evidence for such a possibility is weak.  Faith will not save us.

More energy coupled into the weather gives rise to more extreme weather which will kill people which is a bad thing.

Sadly, the evidence is lacking here too. The frequency of  Grade 5 hurricanes has decreased during the last century, but the damage done by each one has increased as more people live in coastal locations.

Extreme weather requires extreme temperature gradients - sudden mixing of hot and cold air. Overall warming actually reduces the temperature contrasts between weather systems in the temperate zone.   

Re 1
Nobody said that it was

Re 2
That shows that the short term variations over the course of a year are bigger than the typical effect of tehtrend over a year.
Nobody said otherwise.
So it doesn't prove what you said that it proved.

and so on.

[Tim the Plumber (OP)]

The problem is that we are no longer an adaptable species. We are tied to large conurbations and depend largely upon delivery of pre-processed foods. Our working environments are in static locations. We can no longer live a nomadic existence. Our dependence upon technology will not help us.

If there is a particularly bad winter (that's cold = bad) or a particularly sunny hot summer like 1976 (hot = very good, we all liked it) the difference between those tenperatures and the average is far more than the difference between today's average and the highest predictions of the IPCC.

It is reasonable to be scared of the prospect of tigers wandering the streets.

It is not reasonable to be scared of the prospect of mice being out there.

[alancalverd]

Re 1
Nobody said that it was

  The distinction betwen "attributable to...." and "caused by...." may be obvious to a priest, politican or philosopher, but I have little time for professional dissimulators.

Re 2
That shows that the short term variations over the course of a year are bigger than the typical effect of tehtrend over a year.

The precise repeatability of the annual CO2 cycle, over as many years as Mauna Loa  has been collecting data, is remarkable. The fact that it is almost exactly 6 months out of phase with the anthropogenic emission of CO2, and in phase with day length and average daily temperature, suggests that anthropogenic CO2 is may not be the prime cause of temperature rise. Added to the prehistoric data and the fairly obvious biolgical significance of CO2, it strongly suggests that CO2 is the thermometer, not the thermostat, and anthropogenic emission is inconsequential.

Scientists, unlike politicians, appreciate such subtleties as phase relationships in correlations, and like to take note of negative as well as positive correlations. We often find such things illuminating.

[jeffreyH]

Some process, initiated at the start of the industrial revolution, has caused the rise in CO2 we are seeing now. This is likely some change in the water cycle. However counter intuitive this may sound, that is my opinion on the matter.

[jeffreyH]

https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/greenhousegases/industrialrevolution.html
"Here, the isotopic composition of water vapor (deuterium to hydrogen ratio, 2H/1H), forming the surrounding ice, varies with temperature. The higher the ratio of deuterium to hydrogen, the higher the temperature."

[jeffreyH]

We are sailing on a ship of fools.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_fools

[Tim the Plumber (OP)]

We are sailing on a ship of fools.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_fools

Wot???

There was poor me thinking that science was about saying exactly what you meant and not spouting gibberish to try to look clever.

[jeffreyH]

We are sailing on a ship of fools.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_fools

Wot???

There was poor me thinking that science was about saying exactly what you meant and not spouting gibberish to try to look clever.

The problem is that no one is in charge. You tell me who exactly is in charge. It is either organisation by committee or by dictatorship.

[Bored chemist]

If there is a particularly bad winter (that's cold = bad) or a particularly sunny hot summer like 1976 (hot = very good, we all liked it)

No we didn't.
It F***ked the farming.
Fortunately, we are a rich country and can buy food from elsewhere.

[alancalverd]

Irrelevant, by BC's criterion. 1976 was "weather", not "climate", beacuse it really pissed down in 1974, and 1977 was about average.

Climate change requires longterm evidence of disaster, and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/weather/9777749/Interactive-graphic-UK-rainfall-in-every-year-since-1910.html shows no discernible trend. Indeed

2012 was the wettest year on record for England but only the third wettest for Wales, 17th wettest for Scotland and 40th wettest for Northern Ireland.

underlines the fact that the smaller the sample, the less meaningful the statistics!

[Bored chemist]

Irrelevant, by BC's criterion. 1976 was "weather", not "climate", beacuse it really pissed down in 1974, and 1977 was about average.

Climate change requires longterm evidence of disaster, and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/weather/9777749/Interactive-graphic-UK-rainfall-in-every-year-since-1910.html shows no discernible trend. Indeed

2012 was the wettest year on record for England but only the third wettest for Wales, 17th wettest for Scotland and 40th wettest for Northern Ireland.

underlines the fact that the smaller the sample, the less meaningful the statistics!

The observation that someone is trying to back up their side of the debate by saying something that's not true, is relevant.

There's better rainfall data here
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KHw9D1AC4h_w5OJK4i0c8UllhZvrB2jbJurzy2fpvzk/edit?hl=en_US&hl=en_US#gid=0
if you want to do a real analysis.