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The Forum > Article Comments > Do we really have control over our climate? > Comments

Do we really have control over our climate? : Comments

By Ray Evans, published 8/2/2007

Climate change: the current guilt-ridden hysteria, which seems to have captured the chattering classes of the West, shows that the veneer of rationality is very thin indeed.

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I admit freely that I don't know much about the differing agenda's of those involved in the current climate debate, nor do I have any but the most general knowledge of climate control. What I do know however, is that the historical climate changes of which the author speaks are all verifiable. Both primary and secondary extant historical sources attest to this, as do archeological data.

While I don't have enough knowledge either to agree or disagree with the article per se, I can offer the objective fact that the effects of such changes are an integral and empirical component of historical study.
Posted by Romany, Thursday, 8 February 2007 11:59:59 AM
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"Primitive societies?" "Chattering classes?"

But hang about. Antoine Lavoisier was beheaded during the French Revolution - wasn't he? And he instructed his assistant to count the number of words his severed head attempted to mouth.

Since Mr Evan's group has adopted the famous/infamous? Lavoisier's name, shouldn't they know a little more about the chemistry of burning fossil fuels. Lavoisier, branded a traitor, was a tax collector but also a renowned chemist, though he had a tendency to use the results of others without acknowledgement then draw conclusions (often erroneous) of his own.

Mr Evans is correct to a point. Climate change and global warming is part evolutionary - always has been. Even the "primitive societies" and "chattering classes" acknowledge that. The concern is the attribution of anthropogenic pollutants from burning hydrocarbons.

It is scientifically proven that hundreds of different burnt hydrocarbons are carcinogenic to humans and animals. Benzene for example is a Category 1 carcinogen. Dioxin (a result of poor combustion from industrial stacks) is a DNA altering carcinogen along with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and tetrachloroethene.

All these chemicals, when burnt, convert to CO2.

Man spews these compounds into the atmosphere by the billions of tonnes.

Why don't the Lavoisier group acknowledge the profound health impacts of man's uncontrolled, unregulated emissions of fossil fuels?

And what right does anyone have to suggest that we continue to play tit for tat with Mother Nature?

If for no other reason other than the health of humans and animals, these emissions must be drastically reduced.

Most reasonable people know that for every action there's a reaction though there is often, such a lag time, that one forgets the action which started the reaction.

Mr Evans may take heart in the business-dominated task force's recommendation of an international carbon trading scheme - which is just another joke, implemented to protect the status quo.

In the meantime, the destruction of the environment from man-made sources will become even more evident and planet earth will continue to rebel in her objections to the pollution of her atmospheres, lands, oceans, forests and all living species.
Posted by dickie, Thursday, 8 February 2007 1:11:48 PM
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Lavoisier - yes, a most appropriate connotation with the author of this particular article:
The unfortunate M. Lavoisier, the famous Chemist who got the chop, was told when his fate was being determined: "We have no need for men of science".
Posted by colinsett, Thursday, 8 February 2007 2:46:26 PM
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As a layperson in the Global Warming debate I have read the recent IPCC Fourth Assessment Report and just finished reading Tim Flannery’s book “The Weather Makers”

The IPCC Report graphs the global mean temperature for the last 150 years (pg 17).
The cooling period from about 1940 to 1975 caught my eye. I do not think the report made any mention of this period other than another graph (pg 18) showing the greatest decline in temperature took place in North America.

Flannery explained it thus on Pg 159/160 “ Scientists now think that the temperature decline of the 1940’s to 1970’s was caused by aerosols, with sulphur dioxide being particularly responsible.”
With the ‘scrubbing’ of sulphur dioxide from the emissions from coal power plants in the 1970’s it’s sunlight reflective capability was lost, exposing the global warming trend we have seen since.

With sulphur dioxide degrading at 1% to 2% at normal humidity ( Flannery pg 160) per hour and a finite number of coal burning power stations operating 1940 to 1975, can someone tell me the tonnage or ppm of emitted sulphur dioxide in the atmosphere at any one time during this cooling period?

The figure cannot be all that high meaning that the reflective capability of sulphur dioxide must be extraordinary high to be particularly responsible for cooling the earth
Posted by Goeff, Thursday, 8 February 2007 2:51:16 PM
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Of course we don't control climate. Perhaps global warming is just part of a natural cycle to which mankind contributes only a small part. But that part, whether small or large, can be influenced by our actions now and in the future. Maybe we can't influence that part which is part of the ongoing cycle but that doesn't mean we can just sit back and do nothing. When there has been significant climate change in the past we did not have the world population we have now, we didn't have the global integrated economies (especially agriculture) that we have now. If the current trend towards warming continues for the rest of this century there will be major ramifications for all life on the planet. Maybe our best efforts can only alleviate the effects at the margins but we owe it to all still to come to give our best efforts - sticking our fingers in our ears and shutting our eyes in the hope it all just goes away is just not good enough.
Posted by rossco, Thursday, 8 February 2007 4:14:12 PM
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Good onyer Ray! We can't be TOO dogmatic, of course - because the natural world is imperfectly understood; but Billie was off the mark when he/she said: "At the time of Chaucer it was warm enough in western Europe for grapes to grow in England, other parts of the planet were cooler in the same 300 year period." Previous papers, and now Miyahara et al 2006, "Variations of solar cyclicity during the Spoerer Minimum" J. Geophys. Res. v.111 A03103, tie cold/warm cycles in NW Europe to variations in solar activity. But solar activity is NOT a local phenomenon - its influence is more likely to be hemisphere-wide, or indeed global. The Mediaeval Warm Period and (say) Maunder Minimum (1645-1715) are events closely matching solar variability. It is implausible that these externally-driven variations are local - rather than regional and global. This raises a far broader question. Is observation still the underpinning of science - or is it now belief? Doubtless, Galileo, Darwin and Wegener would all have had a view.
Posted by fosbob, Thursday, 8 February 2007 5:05:45 PM
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