In message , Gianna
writes
Stewart Robert Hinsley wrote:
In message , Gianna
writes
Norman Lynagh wrote:
The following site is quite interesting
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/
Table 2 and Fig 2 suggest to me that time and money would be best
spent on finding ways of coping with the inevitable climate changes
rather than pussy-footing around trying (unsuccessfully?) to find
ways of reducing the growth in emissions by a few percent. But I
suppose that drawing up a plan for the evacuation of Central London
within the next 50-100 years is not exactly a short-term vote winner
:-)


Very well said!

The issue of who or what is to blame seems to have more importance
than working out how to adapt to the consequences, when in fact it
does not matter.
If you insist on ignorance about the causes of global warming then
you are insisting on tying one hand behind your back when it comes to
taking remedial action.

LOL! Thank you for making my point for me.
As the OP implied, the need is to *adapt*, not delude one's self about
'remedial action'.

If you insist that you don't know the causes of global warming then you
have no grounds for adopting energy conservation, energy substitution,
carbon sequestration, no-till cultivation, reafforestation, etc. as
strategies to respond to it.


Those who favour the 'people did it' view automatically move along
to the 'then people will fix it' view, all the while missing the
point that if their view is correct, then it was always too late to
try to mend something by damaging it a bit less in future. There
are more important things than their egos.
But you would seem to have it that if we've damaged the climate,
it's OK for us to go ahead and damage it even more. The problem isn't
so much the change to the climate that as already happened as the
change that we can foresee happening if we carry on with "business as


Now whenever did I suggest anything remotely like that? Never!

It seems to be implicit in the paragraph that I was responding to.

Why do you completely overlook the change that *will continue* to
happen even if all 'problem' emissions cease completely right now
(assuming AGW)?

To quote you, "Now whenever did I suggest anything remotely like that?
Never!". There is some change in the pipeline, as the oceans and
ice-cover adjust to the warmer atmosphere. That still doesn't mean that
we don't want to minimise future climate change.

We can adapt to some changes in the climate, and we will do so, but as
the changes get larger the costs of adaptation escalate. We can probably
adapt to 400 ppm CO2, there seems to a consensus that we can cope with
500 ppm, but I'm not sure that we can cope with 1000 ppm. Even if we can
poorer countries will suffer disproportionately, and the world will lose
thousands if not millions of species.

In reality, global emissions will not cease, nor reduce significantly,
in the foreseeable future. If the UK ceases all emissions immediately,
the effect on the climate of the world will be zero.
What is 'right' or 'correct' has absolutely no relevance because what
is economically and politically viable for each country is what each
country will do. Why pretend otherwise?

Interestingly, I have done everything I can to reduce my emissions to
the minimum. I have done this as a believer in Natural Climate Change
because there is always the possibility that I might be wrong (and
because it saves money).
I am also supporting the attempt to transform my local power station
into the first carbon capture station, in spite of the UK government
attempts to frustrate the plan.

Isn't it a shame that all those who believe that the change *is* their
fault (as members of the AGW causing human race) have not already done
similarly. Isn't it also a shame that they cannot conceive of the
possibility that they might be wrong - or is that why they resist using
a smaller car, or changing their light bulbs, or getting up off their
bottoms to turn the TV off at night?

You can accuse me of ignorance if it makes you feel good, you can even
claim to cleverness too if it massages your ego, but what are you as an
individual going to do? Have you taken steps towards 'going green'?
Have you done all you could do? Are you ready for the new type of
weather? Are you adapting?

To reiterate the original point, you wrote that the cause ("what is to
blame") of climate change "does not matter" when selecting our response.
That is equivalent to acting as if we were ignorant of the cause, and is
a flawed position, for reasons that I've given above. That is not the
same as accusing you of ignorance.

And you might like to turn down the level of ad-hominem, such as the
"more important things than their egos", in your first post in this
thread.

Or are you just whining because someone disagrees with you?

Have you had a doctor look at that beam in your eye.
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley