We need to get our green facts straight to shut the climate change deniers up

Whilst decrying the conflicting advice that emanates from a simplistic view of impact, the author wants a nice simple guide that provides the last word! The point is that the issues are so complex that, as is illustrated in the article, there is no simple solution. Rather than eating New Zealand lamb, perhaps the writer should consider giving up eating babies. That way he reduces his carbon without having to weigh another country's production methods to the UK. To compare the effects of all human activity on the planetary biosphere to the effects of food on our bodies, is again to think simplistically. One simple thing he could do, and everyone else could as well, is, rather than using a screensaver [which I've known for over a decade were energy wasting] or leave the PC on when not in use, he should use an EcoButton, which sits on the desktop, plugged into a USB port, and enables you, with the touch of the button, to power down the PC, thus using no energy. On returning, the PC is brought back to life again with another touch, with everything still open as you left it. There's even a program which calculates how much carbon, and money, you've saved. The carbon taken to make this gizmo, and its cost, is soon repaid and then you're into profit. EcoButton is available from a number of suppliers including here http://www.ecotopia.co.uk/wl.aspx?40000091&req=63-dd0036. Certainly we need more accurate information on all aspects of our consuming lives, but the biggest thing everyone can do is reduce consumption; that includes using only energy efficient lightbulbs, turning appliances off rather than standby [which uses up to 80% of normal power] and making sure energy [heat] isn't lost from buildings. Reduce, re-use, recycle has been the mantra of greens for decades. I'm pleased to see many others are coming on board. [a note to any who think climate change is a hoax and think they'll post their idiotic denials here, don't bother, you are a dwindling band of no hopers, soon to be exposed as the fantasists you are].

Posted by Peter Simmons at 10:33am on July 21, 2009

What this article does well is to highlight the stupidity of following the ridiculous crusade against carbon dioxide, of all things - a vital gas without which we would not have life on this planet. How did we get to a point where serious, well-intentioned, educated people are debating whether it's better to get your lamb from down the road or the other side of the world, when millions of people are starving, living in poverty and children die every few minutes from easily preventable diseases? Nobody is denying the climate is changing, what's at question is why you think this is a problem to be fixed, or that CO2 has anything to do with it. If you want to worry about something or fight a cause, let's put the focus back on the life and death situation facing real people right now. You cannot change the weather, but you can help stop a child from starving.

Posted by Polsonby at 11:10am on July 21, 2009

It may be greener to buy NZ lamb but that simply wastes money since Welsh and Highland Scottish lambs have a much better taste and are therefore greater value for money. The whole topic of global warming and climate change is under-discussed by independent minds since many scientists have a vested interest in creating scares and policies, and governments seeking to create new avenues of taxation and employment.

Posted by mikidiki at 1:01pm on July 21, 2009

Contrary to the usual Green "denying-the deniers" routine, nobody really now denies that the climate is changing. As suggested, the question is what one then does about it. Do you worry yourself silly about buying this lamb or that lightbulb and go around showering with friends, freewheeling down hills and not turning on the heating in winter, or do you adopt a sensible approach to energy saving, making economies and recycling where possible, but not going overboard about it? After all, if the permafrost in the Russian steppes is now releasing 250 billion tons of methane as it slowly thaws out, turning off a few lights ain't gonna make much difference! And finally, what's the point of buying an Ecobutton, made of expensive plastics, for 15 pounds when you can use the good old "hibernate" facility on your PC for free?!

Posted by Carruthers at 1:25pm on July 21, 2009

"... hands the initiative to climate change deniers." There is no denial that climate changes, just, as many climate scientists point out, there is a total lack of any empirical or historic evidence. that CO2 from burning fossils fuels exclusively or predominantly causes it. Scientists also point out nobody really has a clue how climate works. But that does not stop the bonkers brigade planting trees or eating only tofu produced locally. Do 4 trees eat more CO2 than 6 trees or could it be they eat the same in total but each of the 4 get a bit more so grow quicker/bigger than the 6? What humbug when idiots imagine they can control climate by planting trees, or any one of the other cock-eyed notions. Personally I favour incantations to Lord Canute patron saint of climate controllers.

Posted by John at 2:27pm on July 21, 2009

"...to shut the climate change deniers up". Hmmm. In what other areas of science, politics and so on would you like to 'shut up' opinion? Why not start at page 10 of this link and write to the 700+ people listed and tell them to shut up. http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=83947f5d-d84a-4a84-ad5d-6e2d71db52d9 Probably none of them would deny 'climate change' because the climate changes constantly and always has. They likely would as do I dissent from the dumb theory that man made CO2 has any measurable effect, and by the way, let's stick with 'global warming', the term used by the nuts when they announced 'the debate is over' and 'the science is settled'. Odd to change anything after that, really! Morons.

Posted by alec kitson at 2:48pm on July 21, 2009

John, Your captions says it all: "the urgent need for facts we can trust". You have been, like many others, the victim of a conspiracy to discard or distort the "facts" for "belief". The earth has been cooling for the last decade, entering a cooling cycle more closely following sun spot activity than anything man made. C02 trends "follow" climate changes so are not the cause. You'll never know what action is appropriate to take to manage our changing climate until you get the underlying facts understood to base an approach. Try googling: Prof. Ian Plimer, Lord Christopher Monckton, Prof. Bob Carter, David Bellamy, etc. and many others who evidence that the science Al Gore et al present is often false or misleading and is tilting at the wrong windmill. That's why you cannot get your head logically around the subject as preached by the C02 lobby - and never will. It's based on false science.

Posted by Ian Edwards at 3:05pm on July 21, 2009

Does this apply to Parliament? Or MPs? Or Ministers with their cars which ferry them 300 yards to their extensive office suites? When MPs turn out their unnecessary lights and stop flying all over the place for fun - sorry for gruelling research conferences - that is when I shall start to take them seriously.

Posted by prziloczek at 4:51pm on July 21, 2009

Al Gore is in it for the money and nothing else. He gives expensive lectures, then walks off the stage refusing to answer questions or discuss his bank account.He has energy burning monster houses all over the United States, as does his Canadian counterpart David Suzuki, another consumer of large houses. These people speak with such authority that governments feel obliged to agree with them. Al Gore makes a fortune from "carbon credits", his own invention,"you can pollute for a price". This has been the coldest spring in a hundred years on the Canadian prairies, so could somebody explain that? Where are the global cooling nuts when you need them? Or was that Gore and Susuki before things warmed up a little, and they came up with the word "change" instead? Weather is cyclical, but not alway in our lifetime.

Posted by Michael Grisdale at 4:55pm on July 21, 2009

Michael Grisdale. You appear to think global warming was invented by Gore. Which may suggest your age since it was an issue decades before Gore heard about it. Your criticism of Gore is nothing to do with this issue, he is a politician, and nothing more needs to be said on that subject. On your request for someone to explain why Canada has had the coldest spring for 100 years, you are a tad confused and I'm unsure you could understand the explanation. For what it's worth; global warming is to do with the planet [that's what global means] the planetary ecosystem is vast and a little drop [all it takes] in Canada, a small part of the Earth, is part of the constant variations. That the planet has warmed is not disputed other than by the truly challenged. Just as an ice cube can exist in boiling water for some time before melting, so parts of the planet can be colder than others in relatively short time spans. And no, Gore didn't 'come up with the word change, you just weren't paying attention. Climate change is the RESULT of global warming, got it yet? The globe warms, and the result is the climate becomes unstable. This instability means some areas will experience typhoons while others are bathed in heat waves and yet others are shivering. You conflate climate and weather, they are not the same thing. Weather is what it's like outside your window today and tomorrow, climate is what occurs across the planet and across decades and hundreds of years. So no, the climate isn't cooling, your little local fluctuation is nothing compared to the inexorable march of climate change. The rest of you are morons who get your 'information' from deranged websites run by idiots who don't understand science, and not trained scientists and have limited intellect for understand complex issues like a planetary ecosystem. My advice is get interested in collecting stamps or flapping your hands in front of your faces, and leave science and reality to adults who can think. You are all sad creatures who will one day realise you were wrong as the flood waters creep up YOUR house, and starvation threatens because crops need stable growing seasons to produce our food, and there are alread crop failures around the planet as a result of the change already happened, and it's barely started yet. Perhaps when things get really nasty, people will turn on you deniars...

Posted by Peter Simmons at 11:24am on July 22, 2009

Polsonby, CO2 in certain proportions is vital to plant life. CO2 in increased propertions is bad for animal life, especially advanced lifeforms. ANYTHING is a pollutant in the wrong quantities. Are plants growing faster or bigger? I don't think so, having heard nothing about crop yields increasing. The problem is too many naked apes, so curing diseases is the least of our worries since we are already crowding out other species in our crazed desire to cover the planet with our aberated, selfish, psychotic ape species. Then, when the world's covered with concrete, how you gonna live?

Posted by Peter Simmons at 11:28am on July 22, 2009

Ian Edwards, no, it is you who have selectively cherry picked to 'prove' your unscientific theory. And it says it all about you that you quote Bellamy; senile ex-TV presenter with a desire, no an obsession, with getting noticed. He was always a figure of derision, lampooned by Lenny Henry, and was never a climate scientist, he was a #TV nbaturalist' whatever that means, probably no different to the gardeners they feature. The rest are all in their own ways cranks with a drum to bang and a mission. What makes you think they are any different from David Icke?

Posted by Peter Simmons at 11:45am on July 22, 2009

@Peter Simmons: "...morons who get your 'information' from deranged websites run by idiots who don't understand science, and not trained scientists and have limited intellect for understand complex issues like a planetary ecosystem." You are wrong in all respects. I don't begrudge you the right to puff your ill-informed prejudices, but please try to be a bit less unpleasant while displaying your ignorance.

Posted by Polsonby at 2:15pm on July 22, 2009

Peter Simmons: I don't have a scientific theory, I've just looked at the scientific evidence as an intelligent layman, and, as others like me have concluded, it's not a C02 issue. Carbon footprints, carbon offset, carbon trading is all barking up the wrong tree. That's the side of the scientific argument I am currently on and I've been on it since 2006 after I spent many a long hour trying to figure out why I just wasn't confident with what the IPCC, Gore, Stern, were saying. So I looked around and found there were other scientific arguments out there as well. I looked at those and found them broad based, deep, reasoned arguments. They were considered climate change deniers in those days; now they are merely ignored or personally denigrated; tomorrow they may be proven correct - we have to see. It was several years after the Wright brothers proved their case before "mainstream" science accepted it. But right now I stand with that science position, not your peoples, even if they do tell better jokes sometimes.

Posted by Ian Edwards at 11:40am on July 23, 2009

Wow - Peter Simmons is a bit touchy, isn't he!! He obviously doesn't like anyone else doing the thinking on global warming. The crux of the matter is - yes, the climate is changing as the planet heats up, we can all agree on that, but we haven't a snowball's chance in hell (or in the Arctic?!) of stopping it happening, whether or not we "recycle, regurgitate and reoffend", or whatever he said, so nobody is denying anything, just accepting that a natural climate cycle is taking place. Of course it makes sense to economise, and to re-use precious resources - but won't change the climate one iota!

Posted by Carruthers at 6:25pm on July 23, 2009

I learnt yesterday that it took 120 litres of water to deliver a small expresso coffee to your table in London. I am no treehugger, but that is an astonishing number, given that we are heading into a massive water shortage crisis...........

Posted by A. Headhunter at 8:39pm on July 23, 2009

MY ignorance! No Carruthers, not a bit touchy, just tired of the procession of idiots airing thier baseless, unproven, unscientific, second hand idiot drivellings here, and everywhere else the subject is aired. Seen it all before, and it's been rubbished endlessly, which doesn't stop the hard of thinking repeating the ill informed nonsense as if it made sense, and quoting a bunch of names as if they carried weight. Ian Edwards, whatever makes you think you're an 'intelligent layman'? You have not 'looked at the evidence' you wouldn't even understand the evidence, you have looked at the non evidence of people who don't know what they are talking about [but have a book to sell perhaps] and others who always have to be on the denial side, it's a character fault. You have regurgitated nonsense, and think it makes sense. You really haven't a clue, so stop thinking you are an intelligent layman, and start trying to think logically and, if really interested in the subject and not just a contrarian for the sake of it, go find the actual evidence, you know, the evidence that has convinced every single government that they have to act. The evidence amassed over decades of intensive study. Polsonby, oh, boo hoo, don't address my points, just whine about my being unpleasant. If you think this is unpleasant, you should see when when I'm angry. If you can't stand the heat, get the hell out of the kitchen. I'm angry, because the naked ape is destroying the ecosystem so increasing numbers of other species are being made extinct; destroying havbitat to build more Walmarts and other cathedrals to hominid idiot consuming of the planet. I have grandchildren whose lives are going to be miserable, brutal, and fraught because too many human monkey brains never got thinking together, but instead just stuff their mouths until their overblown bodies have to be transported everywhere in machines. And that's just America.

Posted by Peter Simmons at 10:22am on July 24, 2009

Do any of you denial merchants have any idea how stupid you sound? Just like the idiots who say that because the Koran says the sun revolves round the Earth, that's what happens, the Earth is flat, after all, we can all see to the horizon so it's self evident to anyone no matter what their IQ. There are some who like to be out on a limb, however unstable it seems, because it makes them feel special, in possession of secret knowledge that few understand. But in reality, you are all sad little people, unimportant in the extreme, ignorant, self obsessed, and without the scientific understanding of the average schoolkid. When [if] you have a case to put, rather than this ridiculous posturing you indulge in [which usually includes a sneer at Gore who is such a Johny-come-lately that merely mentioning him marks you out as people who have only recently found this subject and, in a very short time, have decided you don't accept it is happening, based exclusively on 'facts' you have garnered from the likes of Bellamy, whose denial is largely because he's a Nimby, campaigning ceaselessly against wind turbines 'spoiling' his privileged TV luvvy view. Ranbged against many of the top scientists who actually do know what they are talking about. You're all a joke, a waste of my time refuting what amounts to nothing. Go away and do some serious reading, is my advice.

Posted by Peter Simmons at 10:37am on July 24, 2009

Peter Simmons, do you realise just how stupid YOU sound? Those of us who are old enough will well remember that in the early 1960s the 'experts' were warning us of an imminent ice age!! In fact the winter of 1962-63 was the coldest since 1739-40 and, if my memory serves me correctly, a temperature of -27deg C (yes, MINUS 27 C) was recorded at Birmingham airport. Back then, Joe Bloggs put it all down to the H-bomb. Earlier bouts of freakish weather had been blamed on the A-bomb. My mother died last year aged 96 and used to say that when she was a girl, radio waves got the blame. Today it's the pitifully small emissions of CO2 that get the blame. Scientists used to explain that the 'enormous' power of the H-bomb was a mere gnat's fart compared to the power of the average volcanic eruption: now we're supposed to believe that an increase of 0.002% of CO2 in the atmosphere is infinitely more destructive than the combined power of all the A-bombs and H-bombs we have exploded over the last 50 years! Since water vapour is (according to scientists) by far the most powerful of all the 'greenhouse gases' in the atmosphere, why are we not being told to stop boiling kettles, saucepans etc. or using steam irons or steam cleaners? Yes, I know it's a stupid question but somebody had to ask it! As for your concern over human greed and the destruction of other species: there I agree with you completely. We ARE multiplying at an alarming rate and using or polluting natural resources as though they were inexhaustible. If we found that any other animal were multiplying at the same rate as WE are, we would deem it to be a plague which needed to be severely culled before it destroyed the planet. Nobody, least of all politicians, will acknowledge that the human species has already reached plague proportions and by sheer weight of numbers we will surely wreck the planet we inhabit unless something drastic is done about it, and quick! But it won't be through CO2 emissions - unless of course it's by the combined exhalations of the 6, soon to be 9 billion humans! This is surely the biggest con trick of all time. I find it utterly amazing that the politicians have managed to pull the wool over the eyes of such a huge proportion of the world's population. Of COURSE the climate's changing: it always has been and always will be. It's not our fault AND THERE'S NOTHING WE CAN DO ABOUT IT!

Posted by Roger Evans at 11:27pm on July 25, 2009

It is illuminating that Peter Simmons did not try to refute my comment regarding the effects of the natural release of greenhouse gases such as methane into the atmosphere - we cannot stop this or even slow it down, so we will just have to endure the effects of climate change somehow (but it should at least stop water shortages in the south of England...). However another factor has now been mentioned, that of overpopulation...with deforestation providing grazing land for millions more ruminant beasts harvested to feed that increased population, but which also emit huge quantities of the greenhouse gas methane from their digestive systems. CO2 certainly has a part to play in global warming, but it forms such a small proportion of the atmosphere that I feel that we are just possibly looking in the wrong direction to find the real culprit.

Posted by Carruthers at 12:35pm on July 27, 2009

Roger Evans - oh good grief, another 'ice age, what next' post, I wondered when that old non point would be regurgitated. Yes it was a stupid question, but why do you think someone had to ask it? Water vapour is a greenhouse gas, and is part of the feedback mechanism that is and will become instrumental in turning the process into an unstoppable one. Water vapour production is increased from the oceans as they warm, that's why rainfall is increasing and why there are extreme weather events when a month's rainfall is deposited in 24 hours. It's called a month's rainfall because in all our experience that's what we've usually had in a month. I'm old enough to remember what seasons were like, before they became swappable; heatwaves in the middle of winter, hailstorms in August etc. Carruthers, I didn't refute your comment about methane because you were right, it is an important component of greenhouse gas emmissions, and yes the meat trade is largely responsible, and no, I don't eat meat. I also agree that the chances of stopping climate change are tiny, but to continue as normal [ie. how we've behaved for the last century] will mean that it will be that much more violent and disrupting and will make life for humans difficult if not impossible. We therefore owe it to the next generation to do our best to mitigate what we have done with our selfishness and greed. Those denying we are responsible just want to continue with their greed, like spoiled kids who want their sweeties.

Posted by Peter Simmons at 10:52am on July 30, 2009