Guest 725- Registered: 7 Oct 2011
- Posts: 1,418
Alexander you worry too much.
Guest 683- Registered: 11 Feb 2009
- Posts: 1,052
Philip
your link is to a piece by unqualified weatherman Anthony Watts. I have found this about Anthony Watts:
and:
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2009/07/29/204427/the-video-that-anthony-watts-does-not-want-you-to-see-the-sinclair-climate-denial-crock-of-the-week/?mobile=nc
It's all well and good to decry the demand for qualifications but noisily voiced personal beliefs do not carry the same weight as peer reviewed scientific research.
Guest 725- Registered: 7 Oct 2011
- Posts: 1,418
That video is a joke video right?
By the way did you read the story and what is your opinion on it?
Guest 683- Registered: 11 Feb 2009
- Posts: 1,052
I read the story and am non the wiser. It smacks of 6th form debating to me and is inconclusive. I am not saying he is right or wrong but it is not an academic piece of work. I can find no references to Paul Homewood other than many similar articles he has written. Do you know what his credentials are?
Guest 725- Registered: 7 Oct 2011
- Posts: 1,418
What is this obsession (exclusively restricted to this issue I might add) with ones' credentials?
It doesn't matter who wrote the piece. It might have been written by a jug maker in Plymouth or a packer on the production line of a soft drinks manufacturer it's the thrust of the piece which minds should be concentrated on.
Essentially, the piece looks at how clueless the Met office is when it comes to explaining why the weather did what it did last year. They couldn't blame AGW and were hopeless in finding other explanations despite a multi-million pound computer system, an army of meteorologists and one great big sign above their door saying that Man is affecting the climate catastrophically.
Incidentally, contrary to what that amateur video you linked wants us to believe wattsupwiththat has, for the third time, won the science weblog of the year.
Now that's no small deal.
Guest 683- Registered: 11 Feb 2009
- Posts: 1,052
Credentials lend credibility. Are you saying that anyone can write a contrary article and expect it to be considered seriously? I can listen to any number of passengers on the Clapham omnibus saying climate change is a myth but, unless they can back it up with evidence it is just opinion and no more.
From what I can find it would seem that the Science weblog award is voted for by the readers of the weblog therefore it has no validity outside that readership group.
Guest 725- Registered: 7 Oct 2011
- Posts: 1,418
Well, why not take up the challenge - give Me an instance of an effect of Man-made climate change that is empirical and can be proved beyond doubt.
Guest 683- Registered: 11 Feb 2009
- Posts: 1,052
Philip
I am not making a case for man-made climate change. The ball is still in your court.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
surely it is up to those who believe in man made climate change to make a case mark, the trouble is we will be long dead before the answer is known.
opportunists on both sides of the divide know this and will continue to make films, write books and what not to earn out of it.
Guest 683- Registered: 11 Feb 2009
- Posts: 1,052
Howard
I couldn't agree more. But I am not making that case. Philip, however, is clear that there is no man-made climate change and I am asking where the evidence for this is.
Guest 725- Registered: 7 Oct 2011
- Posts: 1,418
It doesn't make sense. That's the same as asking Me what proof I have that there is no such thing as God. It's up to those who believe in God to prove their case that there is, indeed, a God.
It's also the same as saying that some pigs do fly. You are, by your logic, asking Me to prove that pigs don't fly when I have never asserted that pigs fly.
So to ask Me to prove that there is no such thing as AGW is ridiculous because I didn't make up the idea. It's up to those to prove the case because that is their belief.
Null hypothesis.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Guest 683- Registered: 11 Feb 2009
- Posts: 1,052
Philip
Just as I thought!
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Philip, nuclear power caused the Cernobil catastrophe, right!
The BP oil spill caused a huge catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, yes?
The Exon Valdes and a few others also caused immense damage to sea and coast, OK!
So is your case about disputing climatic (or atmospheric) change, or about denying that fossil energies can cause catastrophic events at all?
Probably caught you off guard here.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
I may have forgotten to mention Fukishima.
Currently there is a radioactive spill of contaminated water from a container, leaking underground and on into the sea.
Contaminated fish and that. All official news from the Japanese nuclear power plant operators and the Japanese authorities.
Guest 653- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,540
No one (as far as I am aware Alexander) is saying that accidents don't happen, but because they do, doesn't mean to say we shouldn't use those forms of energy or fuel.
Each one of those accidents wasn't caused by that particular fuel, but by the corporations using them, or nature itself.
Roger
Guest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
An alternative opinion by.......
Owen Jones: Thatcherism was a national catastrophe that still poisons us
We are in the midst of the third great economic collapse since the Second World
War: all three have taken place since Thatcherism launched its great crusade
In the coming days, some on the right will attempt to snuff out criticism of her legacy,
arguing that it is somehow disrespectful, spiteful or ghoulish. Absurd, of course:
she was a politician - the most divisive in modern British history - and what she
represented must of course be debated. They will use the moment of her passing
to batter Thatcherism into the national psyche: that she somehow saved Britain from
ruin, put the "great" back into "Great Britain", and so forth. Those who grew up
in the Britain that Thatcher built will be patronised: you were still learning how to
walk at the height of her power. And that is why it is crucial to separate Thatcherism
from the woman who spearheaded it.
Thatcherism was a national catastrophe, and we remain trapped by its consequences
. As her former Chancellor Geoffrey Howe put it: "Her real triumph was to have
transformed not just one party but two, so that when Labour did eventually return,
the great bulk of Thatcherism was accepted as irreversible."
We are in the midst of the third great economic collapse since the Second World War
: all three have taken place since Thatcherismlaunched its great crusade.
This current crisis has roots in the Thatcherite free market experiment, which wiped
out much of the country's industrial base in favour of a deregulated financial sector.
A poisoned "debate" about social security rages in Cameron's Britain. It focuses on the
idea that there are large numbers of people stuck on benefits. It is certainly true that
there were more people languishing in long-term unemployment last year than there
were in all forms of unemployment 40 years ago. In large part, this is a consequence
of Thatcherism's emptying communities of millions of secure, skilled industrial jobs.
Large swathes of Britain - mining villages, steel towns and so on - were devastated,
and never really recovered. Even when Britain was supposedly booming, the old industrial
heartlands had high levels of what is rather clinically described as "economic inactivity".
Five million people now languish on social housing waiting lists, while billions
of pounds of housing benefit line the pockets of private landlords charging rip-off rents.
The scarcity of housing turns communities against each other, as immigrants or anyone
deemed less deserving are scapegoated. But the guilt really lies with the Thatcherite
policy of right-to-buy and failure to replace the stock that was sold off.
Champions of Thatcherism hail the crippling of the trade unions, which were battered
by anti-union laws, mass unemployment, and crushing defeats of strikes, not least after
the rout of the iconic miners. This has not only left workers at the mercy of their bosses
, but has made them poorer, too. Four years before the crisis began, the income of the
bottom half was stagnating, while for the bottom third it actually began to decline - even
as corporations were posting record profits. With no unions to stand their corner
, workers' living standards have long been squeezed - driving large numbers to cheap credit.
We could go on. Britain was one of the most equal Western European countries before the
Thatcherite project began, and is now one of the most unequal. Thatcherism is not just
alive and well: it courses through the veins of British political life. The current government
goes where Thatcherism did not dare in its privatisation of the NHS and sledgehammering
of the welfare state.
The challenge ahead is the same as it was yesterday: to tear down the whole edifice
of Thatcherism, heal Britain of the damage done, and build a country run in the interests
of working people. It's a fight we must all fight. The champagne is on ice until we win it.
Guest 714- Registered: 14 Apr 2011
- Posts: 2,594
Emotive stuff full of the cliches, for instance:
The challenge ahead is the same as it was yesterday: to tear down the whole edifice
of Thatcherism, heal Britain of the damage done, and build a country run in the interests
of working people.
How does he propose we go about that?
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
interduce a 18 hour working day,with a half day on sundays and pay them a pound a hour.
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
an interesting article in the daily mirror this morning,stating that 1 in 3 people saying that thatcher famley should pay for the funeral and not the uk taxpayer.times of austeraty you know.any way 10 million quid is to mush for such a thing.
