Is climate change due to human activity?

[Guest]

There isn't any real contention that the earth's climate goes through changes (not so many hundreds of years ago, for example, they had ice fairs on the frozen river Thames); the debate is about whether our present changes are due to human activity. If interested here's a recent short piece from the Guardian about it...

Scientists attribute extreme weather to man-made climate change

And also, by way of balance, another recent short piece from the Daily Telegraph...

Climate change will mean new and larger tropical forests

Without getting too much into politics and all that stuff, maybe it would be interesting to see what people on this board think about the climate change debate?

What perhaps is particularly relevent is your own personal experience of climate change, whether you are in the UK or overseas.

Is the weather really changing, and if so is it caused by us humans?

[Pabmusic]

An interesting article from December 2009:

http://crooksandliars.com/nonny-mouse/climate-change-idiots

[Dave2002]

.Is the weather really changing, and if so is it caused by us humans?

On balance I'd say yes to both questions. The Guardian article suggests that some events would be likely to happen anyway, without our fossil fuel burning influence, but my gut feeling is that some of the weather changes are real, and most likely would not have happened without human activity.

[teamsaint]

This is all much wider than just CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. Big business has just figured out that it can make money from trading carbon emissions, which is why that is such a big issue.

It is inexcusable to damage the planet the way we are....we should leave the scientists to deal with the detail, and start living really sustainably..all of us, in all countries.
Part of living sustainably would include reducing income/increasing tax for the very wealthy, so that their conspicuous consumption (private jets etc) is curbed, both as end in itself, and as an agenda setter.
America, as the crooksandliars link suggests, is the place to start. 20/25% of the worlds resources used, less than 5% of its population.

(unfortunately, i guess this means moving to downloads rather than CDs,)

[ahinton]

Oh, dear - we've been here before, have we not?

Those who believe that all or part of recent and current climate change is down to human activity invariably seek to persuade us that it's a consequence of overuse of fossil fuels. What heavy fossil fuel use certainly does do is cause immense environmental pollution which can only be regarded as having a negative effect. Whatever the differing views on its contribution to climate change, the best and most effective way to find out for certain is to reduce fossil fuel use as much as possible as soon as possible by developing and using viable and sustainable alternatives, of which several of variable effectiveness (depending upon their location) are already in use. If, after, say, 20 years of this, an 85% or so reduction in fossil fuel use could have been achieved but there will have been no material difference in climate change, the environmental effects of the exercise will still have been greatly beneficial in reducing air pollution, so it will not have been a complete waste of time. Personally, I do not believe that climate change is all down to human activity but, at the same time, I have little doubt that certain such activity has been and still is aggravating the situation, so the sooner more research is undertaken and more alternative installations manufactured and commissioned, the better.

[ahinton]

This is all much wider than just CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. Big business has just figured out that it can make money from trading carbon emissions, which is why that is such a big issue.

A big issue? I call it a scam, personally - and an exceedingly cynical one at that, when one considers the gravity of what it purports to but doesn't even begin to address.

It is inexcusable to damage the planet the way we are

Of course it is.

....we should leave the scientists to deal with the detail, and start living really sustainably..all of us, in all countries.

Yes, as far as possible.

Part of living sustainably would include reducing income/increasing tax for the very wealthy, so that their conspicuous consumption (private jets etc) is curbed, both as end in itself, and as an agenda setter.

I don't agree; not that many wealthy people use private jets, increasing taxes for the very wealthy won't work because they'll simply refuse to pay them and it wouldn't in any case bring in sufficient net revenues to make much difference even if it were all to be allocated to dealing with this problem (which it wouldn't be in UK, because it would all go into the same pot as all other taxes do). In any case, if - as should by now be the case - wealthy people could fly around in private jets run on solar electricity, would you still try to accuse those people of causing problems or would your remark then be seen as one fuelled (sorry!) more by envy than by a desire to be constructive? Reducing incomes won't help either, because that will mean less tax revenue. Who are these wealthy people anyway? Someone would have to decide on a universally agreed figure for asset values and income levels before any such taxes could be restructured - and not two governments would pick the same figures, for sure!

[Roehre]

Climate change is happening. It has happened all the time.
Climate is not a constant entity - it changes through time.
Even within the last two millennia we have had little glacial periods and little hotter ones.
Thames froze over, but there was a lot of wine produced in southern England, and agriculture cultivated on Greenland.
There are some arguments, whether the weather (read: a small change of the climate) contributed to the famine which i.a. caused the French Revolution.

Something is going on. Statistically the weather occurrences of say the last 25 years are consistent with climate change.
What we now see happening, is climate change which is without doubt to some degree influenced by human interference. Btw: it was one of the conclusions of the 1972 Rapport of the Club of Rome.

The problem is, that there are more factors in this than exclusively this human interference: is it CO2, is it the grand scale deforestation and desertification? That definitely is human influence.
But the by definition relative instability of weather systems is influenced by the Earth's rotation, and the Earth's ax is wobbling itself.
Or is it the solar activity? Is it the relative position of Planet Earth within the solar system within the Milky Way?

CO2 contributes. Not doing anything is not an option.
Regulation of CO2 emissions is an avenue.
Wind energy is renewable, but not without its own problems either: climate change by the influence of wind farms in the United States have been proven already - wind farms mix air from lower and higher layers in the atmosphere and thus are disturbing the weather patterns, and as a consequence: climate.
Water, either through tidal power plants or by dammed rivers + reservoirs, causes problems too.

Whatever humankind does, it will affect the Earth.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

it is a measure of the succesw of exxon et al that this question can still be asked

try here for a start

[teamsaint]

I am bored of people making excuses for the obscene and ever widening gap between rich and poor.

More equal societies are happier societies. You don't have to be envious to want a better society or world.

Edit. I can have no complaints about my financial lot in life either.....compared to the vast majority on the planet.

[ahinton]

I am bored of people making excuses for the obscene and ever widening gap between rich and poor.

More equal societies are happier societies. You don't have to be envious to want a better society or world.

Edit. I can have no complaints about my financial lot in life either.....compared to the vast majority on the planet.

I presume that you're referring to my remarks above. The only point that I made here is that the issue under discussion is not amenable to resolution by taxing the wealthiest people more (if that could even be done) or by people reducing their incomes (especially as the later would generate less tax revenue); this thread is not about social equalities but about the extent to which human activity is influencing climate change. I'll ask again; if it were possible for people to fly in planes powered by solar electricity which would not risk causing environmental damage by fossil fuel use or affect climate change, would you find this environmentally acceptable?

As I've mentioned elsewhere, those who can manage to live in passive houses can, if so they choose, manage on smaller incomes anyway but, if they do, there'll be less taxes paid by them as a consequence; someone whom I know who does this and drives a fully electric car is now being paid for his domestic fuel bills and drives almost for free so can manage on much less than used to be the case - this is one of the most effective tax avoidance schemes going, especially as no one can realistically point the finger of moralism at it.

[teamsaint]

I have no problems with flying if it doesn't affect the environment worse than other forms of transport.
Its quite possible to argue that flying in a scheduled flight is more eco friendly than driving a car with no passengers .
I do , really, have a problem with a world where some people can afford private jets and other people can't afford to eat.
As to your point about equality and climate change....the structure of our consumer driven society where inequality drives excessive consumption at all income levels, is a big part of the problem.

[ahinton]

I have no problems with flying if it doesn't affect the environment worse than other forms of transport.
Its quite possible to argue that flying in a scheduled flight is more eco friendly than driving a car with no passengers .

Fair comment - except that if the car without passengers is also fully electric, especially if solar powered or boosted, it, too, would be as environmentally friendly as the plane concerned.

I do , really, have a problem with a world where some people can afford private jets and other people can't afford to eat.

So do I; our differences here, however, are probably that you see this as a problem arising from financial inequality whereas I see it as one arising from poverty and it is the latter that needs to be dispensed with.

As to your point about equality and climate change....the structure of our consumer driven society where inequality drives excessive consumption at all income levels, is a big part of the problem.

I don't believe that it is inequality of any kind that drives this. Excessive consumption is indeed a problem, but one has also to define excessive; if we all managed on environmentally friendly sustainable fuel sources and we managed the world's available water supplies properly, there would be room for vastly more consumption at all levels for almost everyone than is the case now. In such circumstances, would you find that immoral or otherwise unacceptable?

[Serial_Apologist]

if we all managed on environmentally friendly sustainable fuel sources and we managed the world's available water supplies properly, there would be room for vastly more consumption at all levels for almost everyone than is the case now. In such circumstances, would you find that immoral or otherwise unacceptable?

It would depend on what the vastly increased consumption was of, surely? Consumables are fine if society's basic needs are being equitably met, but this is of course by no means the case; they have become a substitute for creativity and demarcator of who is accceptable by having the right gear and who not; the shopping mall has replaced the church as today's place of worship.

If it was of product still made by continuing to deplete irreplaceable natural resources other than energy non-renewables, that would represent five steps forward, five steps back.

[ahinton]

It would depend on what the vastly increased consumption was of, surely? Consumables are fine if society's basic needs are being equitably met, but this is of course by no means the case; they have become a substitute for creativity and demarcator of who is accceptable by having the right gear and who not; the shopping mall has replaced the church as today's place of worship.

OK, but I wasn't writing about the situation today but of what might and could happen in the future.

If it was of product still made by continuing to deplete irreplaceable natural resources other than energy non-renewables, that would represent five steps forward, five steps back.

Or worse - indeed so - but then who's to say at this stage whether and why certain "natural resources" that might now be deemed irreplaceable must always and irrevocably remain so?

[Serial_Apologist]

but then who's to say at this stage whether and why certain "natural resources" that might now be deemed irreplaceable must always nd irrevocably remain so?

With the exponential global population growths predicted today, it might be wise to make precautionary assumptions about replaceability, I think.