Sunday, March 04, 2007

And doesn't this make more sense?

"I think this is a turning point and in five years the idea that the greenhouse effect is the main reason behind global warming will be seen as total bollocks." Thus spake Martin Durkin, director of a new documentary, "The Great Global Warming Swindle". From the article:

One major piece of evidence of CO2 causing global warming are ice core samples from Antarctica, which show that for hundreds of years, global warming has been accompanied by higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.

In ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ Al Gore is shown claiming this proves the theory, but palaeontologist Professor Ian Clark claims in the documentary that it actually shows the opposite.

He has evidence showing that warmer spells in the Earth’s history actually came an average of 800 years before the rise in CO2 levels.

Prof Clark believes increased levels of CO2 are because the Earth is heating up and not the cause. He says most CO2 in the atmosphere comes from the oceans, which dissolve the gas.

When the temperature increases, more gas is released into the atmosphere and when global temperatures cool, more CO2 is taken in. Because of the immense size of the oceans, he said they take time to catch up with climate trends, and this ‘memory effect’ is responsible for the lag.

Another:
The programme claims there appears to be a consensus across science that CO2 is responsible for global warming, but Professor Paul Reiter is shown to disagree.

He said the influential United Nations report on Climate change, that claimed humans were responsible, was a sham.

It claimed to be the opinion of 2,500 leading scientists, but Prof Reiter said it included names of scientists who disagreed with the findings and resigned from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and said the report was finalised by government appointees.

The documentary even features the co-founder of Greenpeace:
Patrick Moore is shown saying: "Environmentalists have romanticised peasant life, but this is anti-human.

"They are saying the world’s poorest people should have the world’s most expensive form of energy – really saying they can’t have electricity."

So, will this anti-global warming documentary have a chance at an Academy Award nomination? Not in a million years!

Finally, putting the onus right on the politicians where it belongs:
Philip Stott, professor emeritus of biogeography at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London , who also features in the film warned the issue was too complex to be down to one single factor, whether CO2 or clouds.

He said: "The greenhouse effect theory worried me from the start because you can’t say that just one factor can have this effect.

"The system is too complex to say exactly what the effect of cutting back on CO2 production would be, or indeed of continuing to produce CO2.

"It’s ridiculous to see politicians arguing over whether they will allow the global temperature to rise by 2C or 3C."

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