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Published Date: 04 January 2008
My letter on global warming (2 January) contained a small but significant typo. The predicted rise in global temperature is from 2C to 6C, not 60C.
In the last glacial maximum, 20,000 years ago, much of the northern hemisphere was covered in ice sheets several kilometres thick, sea levels were 120m lower than today and you could walk from England to France, while global temperatures were only 5C cooler. This shows that seemingly small changes in global temperature can have significant impacts on the earth. Humans would never survive an increase of 60C.

DARIUSH BAZAZI, Marchmont Road, Edinburgh



Page 1 of 1

  • Last Updated: 03 January 2008 10:50 PM
  • Source: The Scotsman
  • Location: Edinburgh
 
1

WJohn,

Wonderland 04/01/2008 09:20:52
Nobody noticed.
We are so used to exaggerations, half truths and terminological inexactitudes on this subject.
2

Slioch,

Scottish Highlands 04/01/2008 10:27:41
#1 WJohn

I noticed. I stated the following in #2. No doubt if I hadn't done so first, someone else would have made a similar point.

" 2 Slioch, Scottish Highlands 02/01/2008 09:26:10
The letter should, of course, read "are expected to increase between 2C and 6C by 2100"."
3

Neil,

Glasgow 04/01/2008 11:09:24
There are ominous signs that the earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramaticly and that these changes may portrend a drastic decline in food production - with serious political implications for just about every nation on earth. The drop in food production could begin quite soon... The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumalate so massively that meterologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it.
- Newsweek, April 28, 1975 discussingb the coming Ice Age

"This cooling has already killed hundereds of thousands of people. If it continues and no strong action is taken, it will cause world famine, world chaos and world war, and this could all come about before the year 2000."
- Lowell Ponte "The Cooling", 1976
4

Guthrie,

Edinburgh 04/01/2008 11:56:59
Neil, we've already told you that Newsweek was not reliably reporting good scientific results. If you were consistent in your dishonesty, you would admit that if Newsweek is to be taken as gospel, then all these millions of news reports about the warming earth would cancel it out and you would agree about global warming.
5

Slioch,

Scottish Highlands 04/01/2008 12:19:50
3 Neil,Glasgow

Once again, you spread misinformation. You state that the Newsweek article of April 28, 1975 was "discussing the coming Ice Age". It was not. It made no prediction concerning a coming Ice Age and did not discuss a coming Ice Age.

The only reference in the Newsweek article to ice ages was the (more or less correct) assertion that average global temperatures during the Ice Ages were just 7 degrees below the warmest times, and a reference to the "Little Ice Age" between 1600 and 1900.

The article also, (though this was not sufficiently clear at the time) pointed to the reason for the decline in post-war temperatures, viz:

“A study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3 per cent between 1964 and 1972.”

6

Unimpressed one,

04/01/2008 12:52:23
#5 Slioch, you're only clutching at straws. You really should read this:

http://www.businessandmedia.org/specialreports/2006/fireandice/fireandice.asp

to see how foolish and gullible it is to accept that we are contributing to a 'climate disaster'. Us 'deniers' might be impressed if you could point to ANY doom-laden predictions made by scientists or eco-fanatics regarding environmental disasters, that were even remotely accurate.
7

Slioch,

Scottish Highlands 04/01/2008 13:55:05

#6Unimpressed one

As the subtitle of that silly Business and Media article correctly states, it is a selective compilation of what journalists have written. This is the subtitle:

"Journalists have warned of climate change for 100 years, but can’t decide weather we face an ice age or warming"

If you get your information about climate change from journalists it is little wonder you are confused. Anyone who seriously interested goes to the peer-reviewed scientists.
8

Upbeat,

04/01/2008 17:56:50
Articles from 1974 and 1975 are being quoted now. Just how desperate is it possible to get to seek " mud" to hurl at those with whom you personally disagree, regarding the gradual warming of the global climate which has accelerated over the past 25 years.

In fact 1976 was one of the hottest summers with unusually settled weather over most of the UK for many months. It sparked news articles, that year , about the viability of vinyards in Scotland too. But I note that Neil does not now recall this !
9

Slioch,

Scottish Highlands 04/01/2008 18:09:24
#6 Unimpressed one

Could YOU point to ANY doom-laden predictions made by scientists or eco-fanatics regarding environmental disasters?

If you can provide a properly referenced "doom-laden prediction", then I'll be happy to examine what happened.
10

Unimpressed one,

04/01/2008 19:57:14
Slioch, you know full well that scientists like to make the headlines as much as air-brained celebs. The UK government's own (retired) chief scientist, David King, is on record for having stated publically that climate change was a greater danger than terrorism and that by the end of this century the only habitable continent will be Antarctica. He may not have written any papers stating this, but if his these are his personal views then he's obviously a basket case and his scientific credibility is highly suspect to say the least!
11

Slioch,

Scottish Highlands 04/01/2008 22:14:06
#11 Unimpressed one claimed,

"David King, is on record for having stated publically that climate change was a greater danger than terrorism and that by the end of this century the only habitable continent will be Antarctica."

Where is the record? Give the reference, date and correct quotation.

And could you provide ANY means whereby the two putative "predictions" you provide could possibly be judged to be correct??
12

Itchy,

04/01/2008 22:21:54
#4 if you were consistent in your dishonesty, you would admit that you were sorry that the Germans didn't win WW2 and that the Russians didn't win the cold war.

Every post you ever make is straight from the big government party line.
13

Neil,

Glasgow 05/01/2008 12:47:01
Guthrie ALL I put in my post was quotations so that when you say that my post showed "dishonesty" you can only be saying that I made up the quotes.

While I recognise that claim as representing the absolute pinnacle of honesty of which you are capable it is, quite obviously, a total & deliberate lie.

The quotes are genuine, your are lying, I ask you to withdraw the claim & am certain every honest "environmentalist" (admittedly a vanishingly small group) will dissociate themselves from you.

3 other quotes - there are a lot of them out there:

An increase by only a factor of 4 in the global aerosol background concentration may be sufficient to reduce the surface temperature by as much as 3.5 deg. K. If sustained over a period of several years, such a temperature decrease over the whole globe is believed to be sufficient to trigger an ice age. - S.I Rasool and S.H. Schneider
Science, v173, p138, 9/7/1971.

A global climate treaty must be implemented even if there is no scientific evidence to back up the greenhouse effect.
- Richard Benedick, an employee from the State Department working on assignment for the Conservation Foundation (from his report Who Needs Evidence?)

[W]e have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.
- Stephen Schneider (quoted in Our Fragile Earth by Jonathan Schell)



 

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