Too hot to handle

Comments (2)

• 1 John Duffield Sep 15, 2009 5:24 PM

  I'd say it isn't so black and white. I'd agree that claims about the effects of climate change have been exaggerated and the media have been too alarmist. But I'm not skeptical about climate change. The evidence is there, it's happening.

  The thing is, it isn't necessarily the most important problem we face. I'd say overpopulation is closer to the mark, along with selfishness and greed that results in "the tragedy of the commons" affecting the seas, the rainforest, and everything. Climate change is just one adverse consequence, but let's face it, if overpopulation results in a severe pandemic, we won't have to worry about climate change any more.

  In the same vein and closer to home, if we don't get our energy supply sorted out in the UK over the next few years, the lights will be going out. We'll be on part-time power. Then people will be burning oil, wood, etc, anything they can get their hands on, and there will be considerable public anger that climate change caused government, and arguably scientists, to take their eye off the ball.

  As an aside, can I say that I particularly dislike hearing the phrase "climate change denier", because I've seen it used in an attempt to discredit reasoned debate of what IMHO ought to be a wider subject. It smacks of the "racist" hurled at anybody who voices criticism of travellers.

• 2 Ted Vollers, Ph. D. Sep 18, 2009 9:45 PM

  As a mechanical engineer involved in heating and air conditioning design services, I am interested in this question. While I understand the arguments being made implying climate change with rising temperatures and present observations, it is also my understanding that we are now at the end, based upon duration only, of the longest recent interglacial historical period known. There is also what I understand to be a known mechanism likely to be triggered by the decreasing concentration levels of salt in arctic waters being caused by dilution with current high levels of glacial melting. This could rapidly stop the thermo-haline density based circulatory flow of the oceans and thus modify the global heat transfer between equatorial and arctic regions. I also understand that there are current reductions in the thermo-haline density based circulation of the Gulf Stream as one element of the long series of flows of the total global circulatory pattern of the oceans. So why is the "scientific consensus" that there is nothing going on or potentially going on other than global warming without any braking mechanism possible other than stopping the release of carbon dioxide by shutting down society based upon current fossil fuel energy sources? What says absolutely that we are not in fact about to see a non linear transformation of the system driving forces that puts us into a period of glaciation? Or has this gone out of the arena of scientific discussion and into the realm of political correctness only? Why are we not 'due' based upon millions of years of glacial/inter glacial cycles to enter another glacial part of the cycle? What do we know about all of those past transitions from no or little arctic ice to the start of a new glacial cycle that says that this time is different and nothing can possibly happen but global warming without end? As a 'non-scientist' out of the pecking order, and retired to boot, I am unafraid of asking what you might wish to judge to be a 'stupid question'. But can anyone provide a serious answer to it?