Stormy Weather

[MrGongGong]

As far as climate change is concerned I am an agnostic: I simply don't know.

I wasn't being confrontational


It's not "meaningless waffle" just something you don't understand
There are many things I don't understand but I wouldn't describe them as meaningless

[mangerton]

There's nothing like a crisis on London's doorstep to get the meejah interested!

Oh tut! What are you implying?

It's surely well known that nothing happens until or unless it happens in London.

(I must admit, the same thing occurred to me today, with the egregious effusions of Cameron and Miliband.)

[Beef Oven!]

I wasn't being confrontational


It's not "meaningless waffle" just something you don't understand
There are many things I don't understand but I wouldn't describe them as meaningless

I do not understand the 'global -warming' con, is that the same thing?

Think that makes me a global warming atheist.

[MrGongGong]

I do not understand the 'global -warming' con, is that the same thing?

Climate change is real
get over it

[mangerton]

For the avoidance of doubt, I am not trying in any way to diminish the gravity of the flooding in the south. It is a dreadful situation, and I wish all affected well.

Nevertheless, I did find it offensive to see how the media today leapt to their keyboards and microphones when London was threatened.

[teamsaint]

well i don't know about climate change. I do know that we (in the west and especially in America) are doing some awful things to environment, which are likely to, in fact are, impacting our world very badly one way or another.
In my opinion, and its just an opinion, the emphasis on climate change , of the sort that we are told is caused by carbon emissions, fulfils two important functions for those with power and wealth.
1. It gives them an opportunity to make yet more money through things like carbon trading and other shortages.
2. It is a convenient diversion from the even more important effects that our badly out of balance economic system is having on our environment. land erosion, over consumption, economies built on ceaseless cycles of production, consumption, obsolescence, waste and so on.

If those at the top (and they can afford the best advisors)really, I mean REALLY believed that public enemy no 1 was carbon emissions, they would do something about it. Wouldn't they ?
But they don't. They encourage fracking, do close to **** all about encouraging renewables, and will do NOTHING to cut back the real causes of carbon emissions, which is that our economies can only function with growth and the madness of ever increasing consumption.

[Beef Oven!]

Climate change is real
get over it

Climate change is real. The 'global warming' con is, well a con. Do you really think that things like 'renewable energy' are for the benefit of the people? It's for big business to rake it in!! Check your utility bills, pal!

[MrGongGong]

For the avoidance of doubt, I am not trying in any way to diminish the gravity of the flooding in the south. It is a dreadful situation, and I wish all affected well.

Nevertheless, I did find it offensive to see how the media today leapt to their keyboards and microphones when London was threatened.

Having just left Peterborough on the train going North
I say bring it on
lets see the home counties underwater
that'l lern em

[Beef Oven!]

Nevertheless, I did find it offensive to see how the media today leapt to their keyboards and microphones when London was threatened.

Come on, be realistic. It's the capital, the biggest and most important city in the kingdom - it's bound to get special attention.

[Bryn]

Climate change is real
get over it

Oh come on MrGG, next you'll be suggesting evolution is not just a theory, or that global warming and it mechanism was described by the likes of Arrhenius back in the 19th century.

[Richard Tarleton]

The 'meaningless waffle' comment was in respect of this:

"The attribution of these changes to anthropogenic [caused by humans] global warming requires climate models of sufficient resolution to capture storms and their associated rainfall".

It took David-G several paragraphs to come anywhere near explaining what this meant. It seemed, and still seems, typical bureaucratic gobbledygook.

As far as climate change is concerned I am an agnostic: I simply don't know.

Pet, forgive me if I speak severely , I speak as someone professionally involved with the issues of climate change and its effect on the coast for the last 10 years of my career, so had to immerse myself in the subject matter pretty fully. You can be an agnostic about the causes of climate change, whether it's part of a long term cycle, etc., if you like, but about climate change itself there is no room for doubt. It is happening. Sea and air temperatures are going up, glaciers and icecaps are melting, sea level is rising, something as simple as harbour gauges around our coast tell the story from the last 200 years.

I found the sentence helpfully decoded by David-G perfectly straightforward, if clumsily expressed - I read it as saying the modelling available to us is not sufficiently sophisticated to attribute fully the anthropogenic component in any given storm system. Not gobbledegook at all, but you do need to familiarise yourself with the subject matter.

Actually I find terms like "atheist" or "agnostic" unhelpful in this context as they imply that an element of belief is involved. It isn't - it's about the science. Arguing (as I've more or less given up trying to do) with saloon bar climate change sceptics is a waste of time because they are resistant to the evidence - for them it really is a question of belief.

Here are a couple of helpful websites - the Met Office one speaks for itself, the UKCIP one (nothing to do with UKIP ) is the UK Climate Impacts Programme at the University of Oxford which advises DEFRA etc. - you'll have heard it referred to several times on the news in the last few days.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/monitoring/ukcp09/

http://www.ukcip.org.uk/

[MrGongGong]

Actually I find terms like "atheist" or "agnostic" unhelpful in this context as they imply that an element of belief is involved. It isn't - it's about the science. Arguing (as I've more or less given up trying to do) with saloon bar climate change sceptics is a waste of time because they are resistant to the evidence - for them it really is a question of belief.

Well put

[eighthobstruction]

....just like the South and Wez country Stormy Weather seems to be experiencing some inclement whether or whether or not.....

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Pet, forgive me if I speak severely , I speak as someone professionally involved with the issues of climate change and its effect on the coast for the last 10 years of my career, so had to immerse myself in the subject matter pretty fully. You can be an agnostic about the causes of climate change, whether it's part of a long term cycle, etc., if you like, but about climate change itself there is no room for doubt. It is happening. Sea and air temperatures are going up, glaciers and icecaps are melting, sea level is rising, something as simple as harbour gauges around our coast tell the story from the last 200 years.

I found the sentence helpfully decoded by David-G perfectly straightforward, if clumsily expressed - I read it as saying the modelling available to us is not sufficiently sophisticated to attribute fully the anthropogenic component in any given storm system. Not gobbledegook at all, but you do need to familiarise yourself with the subject matter.

Actually I find terms like "atheist" or "agnostic" unhelpful in this context as they imply that an element of belief is involved. It isn't - it's about the science. Arguing (as I've more or less given up trying to do) with saloon bar climate change sceptics is a waste of time because they are resistant to the evidence - for them it really is a question of belief.

Here are a couple of helpful websites - the Met Office one speaks for itself, the UKCIP one (nothing to do with UKIP ) is the UK Climate Impacts Programme at the University of Oxford which advises DEFRA etc. - you'll have heard it referred to several times on the news in the last few days.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/monitoring/ukcp09/

http://www.ukcip.org.uk/

very well said!

[Beef Oven!]

Pet, forgive me if I speak severely , I speak as someone professionally involved with the issues of climate change and its effect on the coast for the last 10 years of my career, so had to immerse myself in the subject matter pretty fully. You can be an agnostic about the causes of climate change, whether it's part of a long term cycle, etc., if you like, but about climate change itself there is no room for doubt. It is happening. Sea and air temperatures are going up, glaciers and icecaps are melting, sea level is rising, something as simple as harbour gauges around our coast tell the story from the last 200 years.

I found the sentence helpfully decoded by David-G perfectly straightforward, if clumsily expressed - I read it as saying the modelling available to us is not sufficiently sophisticated to attribute fully the anthropogenic component in any given storm system. Not gobbledegook at all, but you do need to familiarise yourself with the subject matter.

Actually I find terms like "atheist" or "agnostic" unhelpful in this context as they imply that an element of belief is involved. It isn't - it's about the science. Arguing (as I've more or less given up trying to do) with saloon bar climate change sceptics is a waste of time because they are resistant to the evidence - for them it really is a question of belief.

Here are a couple of helpful websites - the Met Office one speaks for itself, the UKCIP one (nothing to do with UKIP ) is the UK Climate Impacts Programme at the University of Oxford which advises DEFRA etc. - you'll have heard it referred to several times on the news in the last few days.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/monitoring/ukcp09/

http://www.ukcip.org.uk/

You misunderstand. I am a a 'global-warming' con atheist. As I say in post #11587, climate change is real. It's when it becomes political that the emotions come into play and science takes a back seat. See posts #11592 & 11594 for emotional outbursts of confirmation of belief and faith.