Quote: He dismissed any suggestion that the film was political propaganda......yeh right :)

Did you know there isn't a single company in the UK let alone Scotland that builds photovoltaic systems.. The last one was bought by a Canadian outfit..

Did you know that a guy invented a system so that all car engines to be adapted to run on water, two years later he died of cancer. This is the 2 minute clip http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-81372753257766...

and here is the 15 minute version that yet again has poor bandwidth from google http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=395363451914658...

I meant to say COULD be adapted....anyway the point is they KNOW of technologies that are out there. ITS about control and the greed of the few

What ball-breaking hypocrisy from Ross Finnie. His party backs massive air subsidies, un-necessary roads by the dozen, and couldn't give a stuff about the environment. They could not be less green if they tried. The Lib Dems are an utter disappointment.

(oh, and scott, that's total nonsense too and you know it. he was caught with a battery in his car! here's an explanation: http://anti-rant.blogspot.com/2006/05/simple-truth-about-...)

What absolute propaganda for Gore's pack of lies and distortions! AG has refused to debate thhe science with climatologists and other scientists preferring instead to market his snake oil. I hope the students can take legal action against this mumbo-jumbo in future years.

Comment@7 TED, thats total B@ll@cks and while we are at it explain the Atomic Hydrogen Torch, which by the way is yet another source of over unity....go check the patents on that and loads of others. Zero point energy exists
Heres another vid for you to pour scorn over, but it must be asked......why ?
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=748573249359777...

There are two interlinked issues here. One is reducing emissions the other is weaning ourselves off hydrocarbon fuels. We need to do the latter because a) they're getting too expensive b) the negative impact on our balance of trade and c) cos the stuff is running out... If that has a benefit in terms of carbon emissions then that's fine...

But - and it's a big BUT... Nobody should be under any illusion that either the UK or Scotland will have a major part to play in developing the technology we will need because a) the Treasury is not providing the research funds and b) the City is more interested in carbon trading than investing in technology.

All very nice but someone should explain to Mr. Gore that he is backing up the wrong tree. Outside his own country he should be lecturing India and especially China. As a percentage Britain’s contribution to world pollution is like a 'pee one fifty five' in the ocean. The damage China is doing is truly on a word scale.

What I would also like to see are the same school children lectured on the other side of the coin. For example how economies grow, industrial revolutions (historical and modern) and especially how political propaganda is used and to what effect. Then they can make their minds up!

I hope Gore tries for the US presidency next year. The environment has been one of his main issues for a while. That's quite rare, and US politicians often seem more likely to ridicule those views than support them. Imagine how different things would be now had Gore beaten Bush.

It said on the news last night that this "warming" has happened 8 times before, they have samples of ice from thousands of years ago, so is it conclusive now, or were previously unknown humans driving about in cars we never knew about?
Is it us or is it natural, thats the real issue for me, I would find it easier to swallow if every single solution was not going to be a revenue raising exercise for the Worlds governments.

#13 Global warming, caused by humans or not, is one environmental issue. Drilling for oil in Alaska, the destruction of the rainforests, the extinction of species caused by humans are some others.

#13. A reasonable point.
The last ice age was say 12 to 15 thousand years ago. The ice on average has been melting ever since and in this time has reduced dramatically. Dramatically in our case being most of Northern Europe.

It is an absolute disgrace that the Scottish Executive is attempting political indoctrination of our children. This is not education. Education is about teaching facts. Human Induced Climate Change is not a fact, it is political hype and scaremongering. They are just trying to brainwash future generations into accepting more stealth taxes and restrictions on civil liberties. Will children be taught about the scientific evidence disputing Gore's claims. No. QED.
Gore is just a failed US presidential candidate trying to revive his career based upon a lie.

Natural or man made? We can't take the risk that it's natural - what planet-sized egg we would have on our faces if it wasn't, that's if humanity was around to see the consequences... Reducing factors that casue global warming have other benfits too... Wake up to reality

This is total Hypocrisy on the part of wee Joke McConnell. On the one hand he is going to aid an abet the snake oil salesman Gore to flog copies of his junk science video and book in Scotland, and on the other hand, he is willing to let his political masters in Westminster plant their Tridents in Scotland.

I don't see why Scotland should be the leader on these green issues. Why should WE, a small nation of polluters relative to others, try to wean ourselves of fossil fuels and campaign for a tree-hugging nation when we have nations like China going for it hammer and tong to try and catch up with the biggest polluter of all...the States.
I am not going to change my consumer behaviour until something else is developed, widely available and cost-effective..we have not got this yet.

Plus, think of the Scottish economy if we go independant, decide to outlaw oil & gas exploration activity in our waters and then find we have shot ourselves in the foot!!!

No one disputes that warming has happened before. It's a question of the rate of change of the concentration of greenhouse gases being much higher than at any previous warming period. That's what's alarming the scientists more than anything else, because there's no analogue for the situation we find ourselves in.

The fear is that the entire system (our atmosphere) will begin to behave in an unpredictable way, that it might reach some critical, tipping point where any negative changes become irreversible.

This isn't fantasy, it's a plausible scenario. The only possible explanation for the high rate of increase of these gases is human activity.

I personally don't want Gore over here brainwashing our kids. We can brainwash our kids for ourselves.

Has anyone read what is containted in the Kyoto treaty? Norestriction on the dirtyest producers-India and Communist China. It was writen with "white Guilt" to tax and damage the economies of the West. Rememeber the garbage of CFC's and the ozone hole? CFC's are supposed to breakdown and release chlorine.Problem-the greatest release of gasosus chlorine by a factor of 1000's of times is the chlorine used to purify your drinking water.

As adults we choose what to learn about. But it's nice to think we give our kids a basic grasp of major issues. Climate change is an issue of the day, whatever our thoughts on it.

For me, the film actually made a rather dull subject rather interesting. I sat there thinking, "I wish my teachers had communicated that well."

I don't know about you, but climate change isn't something I can usually get excited about on a daily basis. The kids (and our teachers, who are saved having to prepare a presentation) can maybe consider themselves pretty fortunate.

http://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/reviews.php?id=5149

There's too much evangelist preaching going on about the environment.

It is right to live in harmony with the environment and have respect for it but all we get these days is doom and gloom and how were are all going to fry.

Its scare mongering and this is really being pushed by a wealthy few.

Guess they expect us all to rush out and buy a useless turbine for the roof of our house.

Wouldn't dream of having one on the roof, they are known to go on fire and the blades break. Heaven help anyone nearby.

Save tuppence on the electricity a year and pay pounds more on an increased insurance premium for all the hazards!

If we do manage to invent a car that runs on water then all the tree-huggers will moan about is the amount of water we're using that could be used to water the barren wastelands somewhere in the back of beyond in deepest Africa!!

What a great idea!

An American telling us how to save the world so that the US can squander it on their extravagant lifestyle.

You couldn't make it up!

Fossil fuels are here to stay..I hope..If you think human interventin is to blame on climate change...which it isn't...then you have been sucked in by a bunch of scaremongerers.

So what if there are more hurricanes or monsoons on record, and so what if some stupid villagers in parts of England and Wales decided to build near flood-prone areas...humans have only been on the planet for a short time relative to the life of the planet and records only started in that 150 years at the most!! GET A GRIP AND DO SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE RATHER THAN MOAN ABOUT THE BLOODY WEATHER!!

Let us all indeed hope it is not to late to preserve and ehnance the world we all share - but first the world needs to understand the word share.

Al Gore was a veep without a personality under Clinton and during his own bid for the White House.

Now he has a crusade, a cause and grown a pair! What a change in a man! It's a pity he's so tainted, by his time with Clinton. Otherwise, we might've listened to him.

Infadel

There is merit in what you have written. However, I think what Scottwebb was trying to dig at was that there are "emulsifiers" on the market that allows petrol and diesel to be mixed with water and thus padding out the resource. The car doesn't actually run on water. However, the down side was that the subsequent mix has a lower calorific value.

The most efficient engines are actually external combustion engines with an external heatsource and internal heat sink but that's another story.

Thankfully my children are too young to see this politically inspired nonsense. If they were, unless a balance debunking Gore's fantasies is also shown I'd remove them from school on the day they were to see it as they are obviously not being eductated properly.

Why does anyone believe what our politicians say about the environment? We all know what they're doing when their lips are moving.

He dismissed any suggestion that the film was political propaganda, saying there was firm evidence of climate change and that anyone disputing it "has got to be on planet Mars".

I must be on Mars then, Al.
Many of his 'facts' don't stand up to scrutiny.

Humans have probably contributed to climate change, but just how much is debateable. For example we have been in a general warming trend since the early to mid 19th Century. The world was a great deal less industrialised back then and there were no cars.

If the weathermen can not predict what the weather will be like more than 10 days in advance with any degree of reliability, why should I believe any predictions of what the climate will be like in 10, or 100 years?

We need a proper grown-up debate on the enviroment, and a great deal more science.

##33##...EXACTLY Ken. Politicians including Al would campaign for the rights of the little green men that live on the moon if there was a few bob in it for him...wake up people, he doesn't know what he is talking about .. stop flapping!

The sceptics in this forum should open their minds. The facts are there for everyone to see. Research your opinions before spouting your doubting crap. If you can back it up scientifically, then yeah, spout away.
Me, I'm off to sit my final exams this morning for an environmental science degree. I don't take anyones word for anything unless its well and truly backed up and no I'm not some snotty nosed idealist, I'm a forward thinking 40 something, that was a sceptic until the evidence became too convincing. Open your minds for your childrens sake.

Yeah warming and cooling has happened before, are we accelerating it this time? Probably but its difficult science to prove that.

The point is that its better to do something and find out that you are wrong than to do nothing and find out you were right.

I dont understand why anyone who has children would have any issue with trying to make sure this planet is livable in the next 50-100 years, and the truth is that in a lot of cases the things we can do to limit emissions actually make business sense.

Good on you Al.

#12 but Gore DID beat Bush technically, its just the America's system is so flawed that Bush was able to use his brothers influence in Florida to hoodwink everyone. Gore does seems the most unusual of things - an intelligent American who cares about the environment.
To those of you claiming the environment is fine or it isn't us causing it - I have one phrase for you "wake up and smell the coffee" ...which you'll probably be able to grow on Cairngorm soon!

The comments on this board show why we need to educate the children, esp. when adults refuse to take a serious look at the evidence for climate change, instead ruling it out as "political" or "not happening" etc... Science does NOT prove anything conclusively. It can't and it never will. So, there will always be uncertainty in all future predicitions. However, this does not mean that predictions cannot be made, which will be improved as new data come in. Scientists have had a consensous opinion on this issue for a while now and far from a political issue it's only recently that the politicians are catching up. Unfortunately, as the comments on this board aptly demonstrate, most people are totally unable to have a rational debate about this, preferring to scream "politics", "made up" when they have absolutely no idea what they are talking about having never really taken the time to look at the issues beyond what they might read in the "newspaper" -- probably a tabloid -- hardly the keeper of balanced science. It's tragic but true that things need to be put more into black and white for the public to understand, as the complexities of the issue are far beyond most peoples ability to understand. However, as Stern recently pointed out, the economics of the situation make action the only logical course, beside any other argument.
Finally, if you disagree with the above anyone posting about cars running on water just proves the point about the lack of scientific understanding amongst the population at large....

##36## off you go..good luck with your exam. I sit my reservoir engineering exam in the next two weeks so that I can consult on how to extract oil and gas reserves more efficiently and effectively!!

I bet you aren't riding a donkey to your exam though eh?

sorry guys, I thought they still had Gore in his little room, just remember when watching his fictional film, that this is the man who stood up and proudly took credit for himsrelf and his boss for inventing the internet. Also pay attention to the credits at the end, Vote Gore has an address to send money to.

FINNIE, a Liberal Democrat, said "there are [other] parties who have perfectly sensible environmental credentials". But that doesnt include our present Minister for the Environment a LIB-DEM his record speaks for its self. Surly time to retire Ross.

Kennybhoy

Best of luck with YOUR exam mate! I will expect nothing but straight A's from you! ;-)

#22 - CFCs and the ozone hole - that's not garbage, those well known pinko environmentalists,NASA, monitor it regularly.
Your comment about release of chlorine from purifying water supplies is, however, garbage; chlorine at ground level does not damage the ozone layer, it is when CFCs break down in the upper atmosphere that the ozone layer which protects us and most other lifeforms on this planet from the damaging forms of UV is destroyed.

#13 Bite-Back

To pick up just one point out of many posts, Bite-back asked about the evidence from ice cores from the Antarctic (and Greenland).

These now go back over 800,000 years and the amount of CO2 (and other gases) that were present in the atmosphere when the snow that formed the ice fell has been measured. It is also possible to indirectly measure temperature (from oxygen isotope ratios) and detect other substances like sulphuric acid (from SO2 from volcanoes) and dust etc..

What these cores show is that that carbon dioxide was always between 180 parts per million (ppm) and 300 ppm during the 800,000 years prior to 1750. Now it is 382 ppm. Methane (another greenhouse gas) was never higher than 750 parts per billion (ppb) in this timescale. Now it stands at 1,780 ppb..
The rate of change of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is even more dramatic and far more rapid than ever before. Carbon dioxide never increased in that 800,000 years at a rate exceeding 30ppm per 1,000 years. Now carbon dioxide has risen by 30ppm in just the last 17 years.

They also show that the climate for the last 10,000 years, since the end of the last glaciation, has been relatively stable. This corresponds, of course, with the time that humans have developed agriculture and civilisation. Now global temperatures are increasing (probably – the data is too course to be absolutely sure) faster than at any time in that 10,000, in concert with the increase in greenhouse gases like CO2.

The 8 cycles of glaciations and warmings that Bite-Back refers to are well studied. These occurred about every 100,000 years and are considered to have been caused by alterations to the Earth’s orbit – look up “Milankovitch” if you are interested. Also, the “Climatic Research Unit: information Sheets” is a useful source of information.

Yes, Bite-Back, the evidence for human caused global warming is conclusive.

Whether man made global warming is real or not we don't know - it's certainly not proven. To attempt to indoctrinate every school pupil like this is shocking and frightening. We really are living in an Orwellian nightmare. They'll be putting spy chips in our dustbins next - whoops too late !

So taxpayer's money is to be spent on pushing this stuff because Gore's film isn't political propaganda & anybody who says it is must be "from Mars", according to Finnie.

Different in practice but not in principle to showing schoolchildren films comparing Jews to rats as another government did. Since Al Gore was 100% supportive of Clinton's practice of genocide in Krajina & genocide & child sex slavery in Kosovo & Bosnia this is perhaps fitting.

This IS propaganda & nobody with the slightest aquaintance with liberal principles can say otherwise. Of course if the intent is to inform children rather than brainwash them we will be seeing an equal amount of the education budget going to providing copies of Michael Crichton's State of Fear, by a vastly better educated man.

# 19/#28 Kennybhoy........ Because it's one huge economic opportunity that's why.. The market for clean energy technology is already big and what's more important is that it's growing rapidly.

And - Hydrocarbons aren't here to stay... What's happening in the N Sea is happening world wide. Decline is accelerating and new developments - particularly offshore - are more and more difficult to find...

Has any of the head in the sand commentators on here actually seen the video??

The more hysterical politicians and the media get over man's contribution to global warming (global warming is proven to be a naturally occurring phenomenon) the more I start to question their motives. Check out what Broon is doing on car fuels and air tickets - stealth tax opportunities and nothing to do with protecting the environment.

Al Gore says that "the debate is over" - my question is what debate? I didn't even know it had started. My idea of a debate is that you get to hear people's view for and against the motion. When did you last get to hear the voices of the climate experts who say that man's contribution to greenhouse gas emission is so small that removing it completely would make no difference. The PC brigade always pretend that carbon dioxide and carbon emissions are the sole greenhouse gases which is simply untrue. Man contributes less than 1% of all greenhouse gas.

With regard to the TV programme BiteBack commented on what I noted was that specimens of coal had been found under the South Pole demostrating that at one time trees had grown there. Now we are not talking about thousands of years but millions. Surely there were no cars about then.

Well I've jsut let rip so that's another 0.0000000000000001% contribution to methane output. However, I'm not a vegetarian or vegan as every time they let rip thats 0.000000000000001% contribution!

How long before the winter storms in the US http://www.cnn.com/2007/WEATHER/01/17/winter.blast.ap/ind...
are blamed on global warming?

Forget the "political message" - if there is any in his film - and let the students and teachers concentrate on his environmental pleas.

I live in a sustainable, environmental-friendly condominium that was built in 1995 and I really appreciated all the features of my residence when the temperature this morning when I went out to walk "Chester" my Labrador retriever at 5:00 a.m. was -24C with a windchill of -32C. Rest assured it was a short walk!

It is interesting that the new environmental houses unveiled by The Prince of Wales have about 80% of the features that have been built into Conservation Co-operative Homes.

Here I speak of triple-glazed windows with an inert gas - argon - between the panes to seal in heat and prevent cold from getting in. Also, the balcony stacks are sunk into the ground to prevent cold or heat getting into the building because they are separate from the mainframe or "envelope".

I must write HRH or one of his staff to say that I have been living in a sustainable building for ten years and it's nice that HRH has caught up with us.

At least he is doing something for the environment and his views - formerly considered wacky and strange - have now been vindicated by the world-wide concerns for sustainablility and global-warming and organic farming and garden produce.

Even his father has been convinced of the intelligence of is son's concerns and The Duke of Edinburgh has been reported as one hard nut to crack at times.

More information can be obtained by going to our website if you googlise "Conservation Co-operative Homes" and there are links to articles and other information of interest to those who now realise that we have to take care of the planet Earth or we will turn it into an unpleasant, uninhabitable wasteland.

Also,the films "Baraka", "Koyannisqatsi", and "Powwaqatsi" (music by Philip Glass for the two latter)

all environmental problems have one source. too many people on the globe. we need to discourage people having 3,4,5 kids.

#53 Paul..... You mean like the unusually warm weather in Moscow where the brown bears in Moscow Zoo are waking up early from their annual hibernation...

Dave from Barra

Tooooooooo much information

..re-article--Hans Blix, "i am more worried about Global Warming in the long run than WMD". this quote by a former UN weapons inspector, who is aligned with algore in this , should have every parent questioning the mentality of Ross Finnie.....
..#11---i agree!
..#16---hooray!!--when presenting a "hot button" issue like this to children w/out presenting the opposing views is a very dangerous practice......
...#19--excuse me!!!!--might you present proof of your statement "biggest polluter of all..the states"?
...#47---absolutely!

Ravis, I've got 3 kids with a 4th on the way. Unfortunately I cannot hand them back. ;-)

However, we do live in an underpopulated part of this over populated world.

Sorry Dougie. ;-)

#53--your right,for here in Pennsylvania @7:25am, the temp is 16 & dropping w/lots-a-snow. total global warming!!!

50 Can you explain to me how the change in air passenger duty or other budget measures, which was plastered all over the papers and TV, and has continued to get lots of news coverage over the last week, is in any way a "stealth" tax? Presumably you live in a cave?

This is great news.

Scottish children might not be able to read or write properly, but at least they'll be opinionated little barstewards.

Why not Our kids Have FAT asses now

Al Gore is chairman of a company called "Generation Investment Management" which advises people to invest in so called climate friendly companies, and makes money from doing so. So, Al makes money out of people investing in the likes of wind power and, therefore, it is in his financial interests that the general public believe in man made climate change. Quite simply the man is producing this propaganda to increase his own wealth and it is obscene that kids are going to have to sit through his outpourings.
As for the comments about being on "planet Mars" if you don't believe this propaganda; well 60 leading climate scientists signed the following:
""Climate change is real" is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified. Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural "noise". "

http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/articles/canadianPMlet...

So not only is Al spreading propaganda but it is propaganda with no science to support it, what might be commonly called lies. Why to the Exec want to force kids to listen to lies? Oh yeah, think of the taxes you can force on them.

If I remember rightly Al Gore's company was set up with the merchant bank Goldman Sachs whose prime interest is in saving the environment. Or was it making money? I forget which.
Totally outrageous to suggest that the world/Scottish executive has been duped by these people.

It would be great if there was a separate comment forum for those people who have not taken the time to see this film, then the rest of us could debate the issues it raises without having to read so many hopeless, and pointless illinformed and irrelevant comments.

Go see the film folks...You may find your complacency about climate change challenged. And even if seeing this film does not change your views about this planet and the future , the experience will at least inform you of the real issues at stake here, and help the debate about what really has to be done to address the scientific evidence that is relentlessly demonstrating that something has gone seriously wrong with the world's CO2 balance.

I saw Mel Gibsons film about Jesus Christs cruxifiction. It did not change my opinion regarding religion one iota and he died for our sins.

Do not believe in false idols.

California is in the middle of a cold wave, and we will loose most of our citrus crop to Arctic air. Al, where is your Global Warming?

#68 I think what you are saying is that you are disappointed having to deal with the science when all you want to discuss is the sales pitch of a second hand car salesman. While that attitude is frequently found among those converted to the man made global warming religion it doesn't make anything the religion says true. The fact is that science kills the propaganda dead and there is nothing wrong with the world's CO2 balance. 96% of the CO2 produced each year comes from non-human sources, the implication that man has some great power to control nature is misguided, at best.
While it is quite acceptable that you, as a responsible adult, should choose to believe in the man made global warming religion it is obscene that we are forcing the message of this religion upon children so that Al Gore can bulk up his pension fund. Al's movie is merely advertising for his commercial enterprise and should be treated as such.

68# The eco-nazi censorship syndrome always appears at some stage in these discussions.

Having watched An inconvenient truth, I believe that This film should be compusory viewing for EVERYONE not just school children,

if you want to believe a lot of sh*tola

Dave fae Barra...

I agree, how can Mel be Jesus AND Braveheart? I don't believe a word of it..these Hollywood people must think we are eejuts...everyone knows Braveheart was over 6 feet tall, where-as Mel is a midget...and everyone also knows that Jesus was in love with Magdeline and they had illegitimate babies..none of that was in the film..total nonsense!!

#69.

Blaming the messenger again eh ?

It is very hard to find anyone anywhere that could never be accused of having some " ulterior motive" for what they do. All of us are motivated by desire for comfort, wealth, happiness etc

Is every message always to be ignored because we may find reason to disagree with the motives of the "front man" ?

Where on earth will anyone learn anything if they cling to that ridiculous prejudice.? The logical argument would then be that no book is worth the paper it is written on, no one speaking in public can be trusted , all broadcasts are inherently suspect ... and so on.

Would the message of 'An Inconvenient Truth' have been more acceptable if fronted by Nelson Mandela, the Pope or the Grand Mufti , Madonna, or George Michael ?

Many contributers to this discussion will have gleaned their understanding of world events from surveying current affairs. Why some of them hold any views at all , considering their attitude to any of the " messengers" they disagree with , remains a mystery.

#63 Yes I can explain. It is a stealth tax in the sense that it is a simple tax increase dressed up as an environmental tax, therefore a stealth tax. I think you know exactly what I was getting at. :)

#68 It may be an entertaining film but don't accept everything in it without at least asking some searching questions. By the way, so many people talk about CO2 as if it's a nasty thing. Without any CO2 on this planet we would be in dire straits.

#70 In my experience the Al Gore thinkalikes blame ALL extreme weather on Global Warming. They don't ever refer to any real science to back up their claims. To challenge the claims is politically incorrect ie Global Warming Denial!

#73 Jane - God help us all if you ever get into a position of power! Compulsion! You neglect to say why but I assume it's because you think it will make us all Gore Clones. Would you accept that a film showing the opposite should also be compulsory or is a balanced debate too much for you?

#76 Are being deliberately vague or do you really not understand science?

Al Gore invented the Internet as well as much of the dribble he puts forth in this movie - fake documentary. Your educational community should know better than to consider a politician who flunked out of a divinity school as a scientist and spokesman for Truth. Not polluting the environment is wise and right, and if Gore were to stick to that, it would be great, but there is no concensus among scientists (other than 5-1 against) that man is causing global warming via green house gases. That the Green House Effect even exists is just a "theory." The only people agreeing with Gore are politicians with an agenda and news media people (who know less than Gore) looking to scare ignorant people and sell newspapers.

Climate change has been about for over a billion years. Its nothing new and its certainly nothing to be concerned about.

Unless offcourse you stand to make billions from conning people into believing that there is..

Go out and by a Hummer today! Its the least we can do

can't we make sure that every dimwit politician in the world sees it first, it's a bit late by the time current school kids become the future decision makers in 20 yrs or so

Media 1

Don't always see eye to eye on things with you, but on this particular subject, I agree with you 100%!

Did Al Gore fly in to tell us this?

I sincerely hope the plane is made of recycled materials and ran on electricity produced from wind turbines.

#45 (and one or two others)

Thank you for some informed comment amongst all this dross.

Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth

One-sided, Misleading, Exaggerated, Speculative, Wrong

#45
Carbon dioxide levels have indeed changed for various reasons, human and otherwise, just as they have throughout geologic time. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the CO2 content of the atmosphere has increased. In addition, the rate of increase of CO2 in the atmosphere during this period has also increased from about 0.2% per year to the present rate of about 0.4% per year,which has been constant for the past 25 years. However, there is no proof that CO2 is the main driver of global warming. As measured in ice cores dated over many thousands of years, CO2 levels move up and down AFTER the temperature has done so, and thus are the RESULT OF, NOT THE CAUSE of warming. Geological field work in recent sediments confirms this causal relationship. There is solid evidence that, as temperatures move up and down naturally and cyclically through solar radiation, orbital and galactic influences, the warming surface layers of the earth's oceans expel more CO2 as a result.

td #68
Can you confirm completing Crichton's State of Fear, as I previously requested you do, since obviously it would be highly hypocritical to criticise others for debating without seeing the pictures while you do so without seeing the facts?

How many times, in your opinion, times must one watch Triumph of the Will before being allowed not to deny the Holocaust? Presumably, with your high opinion of the genocidal Mr Gore, you would object to any of us doubting his ability to walk on water unless we had seen a film of him doing so?

"A GENERATION of environmental activists is set to emerge from Scotland's schools after it was agreed every pupil in the country will hear Al Gore's "powerful message" about the dangers of climate change."
Great! this is wonderful, no kids pestering their parents about driving lessons, progressive reduction in vehicle drivers as those die hard drivers die off, no need to tax motorists off the road.
Wonder who will pay for the NHS and schools?

#89
You might find the following interesting background Andy

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070115/59078992.html

The fact is that the Russians seem pretty confident from their studies of solar cycles that we are about to enter a period of dramatic cooling. This should be of much more concern to us that Al's money making movie. Especially in Western Europe we need to think how we will produce the energy to see us through a period of cooling.
The following, while clearly produced with an agenda, provides and interesting and amusing overview of how the media have treated climate change over the last 100 years or so:

http://www.businessandmedia.org/specialreports/2006/firea...

The science would seem to indicate that they need to get their global cooling hats on again in the pretty near future. I wonder will they suggest that we need to produce more CO2 to warm us up? Not that it will work as our atmosphere is almost saturated in terms of its ability to absorb radiation, water or water vapour account for about 90% of this, and so to warm us up by any significant amout we would have to increase CO2 concentrations way beyond what would be fatal to us humans.

I am disappointed not to have seen a reply in another newspaper in response to the man from Leith who believed that 10% of our electricity comes from wind farms when the actual figure is 3%. And has put a date in his diary to get back to someone.

It is my sincere hope that along with Al's film there will be other scientific evidence and differences of opinion which are given "equal time". If not, I'm glad that my children are not in the education system of Scotland! BTW, Al Gore has gotten very chubby lately... I wonder if he is really doing his part for the environment... surely his caloric intake has some negative effect on things environmental.. he may even be eating endangered species.

#73 is a fascist... watch out for those kind !!!!

This guy should be on Mars - maybe then he would realize that the polar ice caps of Mars (CO2, dry ice)are also melting ! Do these guys ever consider the possibility that there is higher solar output which is warming our entire solar system?

Damn those Martians and their infernal SUV's!

#75... everyone also knows that Jesus was in love with Magdeline and they had illegitimate babies.. Please!! do you take all fiction work like you do Dan Brown's and Al Gore's?? Please provide your evidence for the statement above (other than the fiction work, "The DaVinci Code").

#44> Jennie ...chlorine at ground level dose not harm the ozone layer!

You may be right, I wouldn't dare to disagree with you!

Would exploding nuclear weapons over innocent humans; exploding chemical, napalm, and radium tipped bombs likewise over innocent humans, harm the ozone layer?

Alk Gore is a total idiot. He came into office only because of his father's reputation, in one of the most backward states in the nation-- Tennessee.

He claimed several years ago to have invented the internet. Can you believe it? I mean, what kind of moron is this?

He's like Prince Charles and the coffee high-colonic enemas. The two of them latched onto some lunatic fad-propelling pseudo-intellectual and this is the result. Of COURSE the movie is compelling. Hollywood has a long experience with changing facts and changing history and people actually believe the crap they churn out. It's called "The Streisand Effect." Any publisher knows the incredible power of visual material. Human beings are hard-wired to believe what they see, whether it's reality in front of them, or on a movie screen in front of them.

The FACTS are these: No one knows for certain what impact the human population has on climate. We know some things about the climate, but not enough to state categorically that humans are changing it.

Secondly, empirical evidence from core ice samples indicate that the world has gone through many cycles of hot/cold climate changes. We are 10,000 years past the end of the last big ice age, and 150 years past the end of the "little ice age" (1350-1850 A.D.).

Where I grew up in Upstate New York, you can still see boulders on the ground left by retreating glaciers thousands of years ago, and glacial morraines are common-- they are now exploited for construction uses. There is still permafrost not too much farther north in Canada.

If two or three Pinatubo-style volcanos were to erupt simultaneously, the earth would be plunged into cold wet misery. Then maybe people would shut up about global warming.

If you are interested in "An Inconvient Truth" you will also be very interested in "Infinity's Rainbow: The Politics of Energy, Climate and Globalization."

"Infinity's Rainbow" makes clear the connections between globalization, climate change, peak oil, wars for control of remaining oil, and control of the people by political and religious means.

"Infinity's Rainbow" includes graphs which show that petroleum usage, human population, and global temperature all began an exponential growth curve in the late 1800's. And we know that exponential growth curves are unsustainable.

"Infinity's Rainbow" also explains how global warming will have uneven effects because normal weather patterns are disrupted, so that some areas will become hotter and others colder than they now are. One area of particular vulnerability to cold will be Europe, because if the Gulf Stream is closed down due to glacial melt from Greenland, the warm currents the Guld Stream carries to Europe will stop. Remember that Europe is on the same latitude as Nova Scotia.

Some late research indicates that methane is thawing and bubbling out of the oceans and bogs at an increasing rate, due to global warming. This is a very wild card that could accelerte global warming beyond anything we are capable of imagining.

To the skeptic about the recent cold winter in the US: have you ever heard of simulaneous winter **hurricanes** in the US, such as has happened recently? "W" and Laura even had to be evacuated from Crawford recently because of **tornadoes** in winter! So even the cold is getting weird.

There will be a sequel to "Infinity's Rainbow" to tell us what to do about these issues: how to survive the great upheaval that is now inevitable, and how to reconstruct civilization afterward. But "Infinity's Rainbow" helps us to understand how human civilization got to this dangerous point, and what

The idea that no-one is allowed to doubt the 'global-warming' fairy tales of Al Gore without being insulted is pretty intolerant,offensive, and uninformed.While supporters of the theory tell us that '2500 respected climatologists' support the theory, they convieniently leave out the real'inconvienient truth',the 25,000 climate scientists who disagree with the theory.Climate data that only goes back a few centuries,at best, is a pretty small sample compared with billions of years of the earth's existence.Yes, the climate changes over time.It did before the invention of the wheel,and will after the invention of the latest environmental scare story about supposed threats created by man's existence on the planet.Let's not let the selectively self-informed self-promoting socialists of the environmental movement enslave the population of the world with their earth-worship,mankind hating religion.

#75 Kennybhoy: Oh, now we "Know" that Jesus and Mary Magadalene were lovers and had a child or children? How exactly do we know this, except from myths and Dan Brown's totally fictional book, in which he twisted numerous real facts and evidence 180 degrees to serve his plot?

See, this is the kind of thing that people were doing in the Middle Ages. They believed the Black Plague was caused by witches or sins, so they tortured and hanged suspected witches and flogged themselves into pulp as penitence.

We have not come very far since then, when masses of people are led astray by scare-mongering for political reasons. "Ecology," a valid science, has become a political catch-word and a pseudo-religion to its fanatical adherents. They don't even mind murdering innocent people along the way. Eco-terrorism is a reality, while climate change by humans may not be real at all. The latter may be part of the earth's dynamic, or it may be caused by the Sun's activity. Fact: no one knows.

The former, eco-terrorism, is definitely a human phenomenon based on the same woeful ignorance and hysteria that fueled the witch scares 600 years ago.

While it's laudable to teach children to conserve energy and other commodities and think about the environment from a proven scientific basis, scaring them into becoming hysterical eco-fanatics is going to work against you 20 years hence.

Go spread the message to the Third World: they are the great polluters now. And as for the Russians and their predictions, Russia has long been a nursery for excellent basic research. We should listen to them and start preparing for huge energy overloads if we enter a sustained cool period.

~90 Neil,

Here we go again...

It may have escaped your notice ( somehow..? ) but this discussion ( and our last tussle) is about "An Inconvenient truth" and whether people should be advised/compelled or pursuaded to see it.

From our previous exchanges it is clear that you have not seen this film, do not know what it says, or how the message is put across, and are in a state of denial about it.

Instead you spout your prejudices because of the " packaging" of this lecture on Global Scientific fact.

Waving a red herring about whether I have studied some other book is irrelevent to this subject. Bringing in other issues is equally irrelevent.

People may note that at no stage have I claimed that this film contains all the facts, or all the arguments. Similarly I have never claimed that it's front man is above reproach.

All I have said is that in the absence of first hand knowledge about the contents of this film and its subjective examination of a wealth of scientific evidence people should be ill advised to attempt to debate the subjject of its accuracy.

B.T.W. When the time comes to have some debate on Dr Crichton's book I may get involved...or choose not to .. What I will not do is pontificate about it from any position of ignorance about it's subject matter, or criticise those PEOPLE who have also studied it. The conclusions they draw may be opposed to mine.....and if so I would always be quite at liberty to "debate" these conclusions properly.... while never criticising the right of those persons to hold opposing views to any I may hold.

#81. What you don't understand about this correspondant cannot hurt ...can it ?

Ramona, you should note that the Gulf Stream keeping Europe warm concept is, for the most part, a myth.

http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/ass...

The writer, Richard Seager, is a senior research scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

So, while I'm sure your Rainbow is lovely and probably appeals to an audience willing to believe myth over science you really shouldn't place to much faith in it as a document of truth.

Oh, and as for the story that the permafrost is melting and releasing methane, well here is what science has to say:

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20050822/41201605-print.html

"Academician Vladimir Melnikov spoke to RIA Novosti about the problem. Melnikov is the director of the world's only Institute of the Earth's Cryosphere. The Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute is located in the Siberian city of Tyumen and investigates the ways in which ground water becomes ice and permafrost.

"This is just another scare story, this time about the Siberian swamps." This was Melnikov's first reaction when asked by RIA Novosti to comment on claims by The Daily Telegraph that thawing Siberian permafrost could cause an ecological crisis."

Ramona: tornados are common in the deep south and south Texas in winter, because that's the boundary of hot/cold air masses that spawn the twisters. In warm months, the boundary is farther north and the tornado outbreaks occur in the Spring , Summer, and Autumn in our midwestern states. These Texas tornados are hardly a new phenomenon. Winter is the tornado season in Florida for the same reason, although if it's a cold winter we can get them in the early Spring as well. We get occasional water spouts and smaller tornados (level 1 or 2 on the Saphir-Simpson scale) here in Florida that never make the news as far as Scotland, because they either do no damage or the damage is slight.

In late spring and early autumn, the cold air masses moving from Canada and the Rockies collide with warm air coming up from the Gulf of Mexico and with rising air from natural ground heating. The collision can be so violent that the air starts to twist, making conditions favorable for tornados to begin. A devastattornado is caused when a finger of cold air that is twisting in a circle breaks through the hot air layer beneath it and sinks rapidly to the ground. These fingers of cold air can also remain harmlessly in the cloud layer as well; it is the "tornado on the ground" alert that causes terrible destruction and great fear. These later -season tornados in Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio are monsters, some of them a mile wide and capable of traveling hundreds of miles, unlike the much less dangerous tornados of the winter season (they are bad enough, believe me, but nothing like the level 5 tornados of later on in the season and a thousand miles farther north).

The internet was invented by the Department of Defense in the 1960s through its Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). The first working net was called ARPA-Net and was operational in the late 1960s. I know several of the people who were instrumental in its creation an

Woops: major CORRECTION:

The scale used to measure the size and power of tornados is the FUJITA scale, not the Saphir-Simpson scale, which is an indicator of the size of hurricanes.

So an F1 or even F2 tornado is much, much smaller and weaker than an F4 or F5, which is capable of total devastation of any and all objects on the ground to an almost unimaginable degree.

Here in Florida we sometimes see funnel clouds in the cloud layer above us; these can be precursors of real tornados that do sink to the ground, but up in the sky they do no damage.

A "tornado sky" is an ominous sight. The clouds lump downwards and can be greenish and/or purplish in color. There may be frequent lightning. If you are near a tornado, the wind begins to howl and shriek and there is a noise like 100 freight trains in the background; this is from the column of whirling air that comprises the tornado.

We were in a tornado in Goodland, Kansas in the late 1960s; a gust of wind hit our fully-loaded station wagon and hurled it 30 yards from the westbound lane of Interstate 80 to the eastbound lane across a wide median strip. The actual tornado was five miles away at this time. The sky was awful and really terrifying. It was greenish-black and threatening black clouds were hanging down toward the ground in the classic shape. I was literally in fear of my life and the lives of my small children who were in the automobile with us.

Since the Great Plains are extremely flat at that particular place, there was absolutely no shelter for us that would have been even remotely safe. The only safe place would be a storm cellar buried in the ground.

Most Europeans have no concept of the extreme weather that visits all parts of the United States. Eighty percent of the world's tornados, for example, occur here. We get violent hurricanes originating in the Atlantic between here and Africa, or in the Gulf of Mexico; and occasionally California

Have just read Michael Crichton's State of Fear.
This should be compulsory reading regardless of their opinion on global warming. The title says it all. Fear is engendered by the state to keep the punters worried about something. Read the book !!
Also check the degree days for the ares of Scotland. Degree days are a measure of the heat requirement. They currently indicate an upward trend. This indicates things are now cooling and more heat will be required, this is despite the warm summer.
Also check out the references at the back of Crichton's book. Very interestin.

Another slant on the global warming scare...
The scientists who are reporting the global warming theories are usually drawing large grants to study the issue. Should they report that permanent global warming is'nt happening those grants dry up.
Think about it.

what the hell is the matter with you people in Scotland,why would you allow any type of propaganda film to be shown in schools without any kind of rebuttal.Parents ,tell the politicians if I want my kids to see this film I will,otherwise but out and teach my kids reading,writing and arithmetic and leave the rest to me. P.S.Gore is nuts.

#102, Ramona,
Are you sure it's not Finnigans Rainbow?

Scottwebb - those links are awesome. Some of those guys are obviously loonies, and in some of them there is clearly genius at work. And all that was more than 10 years ago. Where are they now? And what's happened to their technologies?
And I completely agree about the state of posts on this forum being evidence enough for the need for better environmental education. We're like the best most small minded country in the world. Duh...

Why hasn't anyone asked Mr. Gore how much he is contributing to global warming by all of his travels to promote this piece of crapoganda.... i.e. private planes, limos etc. Never once have I heard of him taking public transit or even commercial airplane.

Like Bono & his tax strategy its a classic case of "Do as I SAY, not as I DO".

Thanks, fellow Bipedal Hominid.

I was just wondering what stones all these people (?) crawled out from under. Whhhhaattabunch of troglodytic ostriches...

So I guess that 2+2 = whatever I feel like making it today;
- the earth's a disk some 6000+ years ago created by some local deity wearing a Rolex watch;
- the Sun moves around said disk; and
- Copernicus and Darwin were snake-oil salesmen, and...
- Scotland's not part of this world anyway and wants no truck with it...

So we shall have to raise more taxes to build nursery schools and loony bins the size of Glasgow to contain all these poor wee things with bees in their bonnets about politicians plotting to rob them of their last hoard of pennies. Nurseries for those susceptible of learning their two times tables, nuthouses for the rest.

Being a teacher of business and economics, and a graduate of one of the top five business schools in Britain, I can without doubt say that our political/economic system has and continues to: destroy countless species; poison the bodies of every human on the planet with dioxins, mercury, etc; warms the planet; alters weather patterns.

The belief that the environment comes first should be interegrated within the curriculum. Also, techniques such has composting should be taught, along with other Earth-friendly practices. Our very culture should be centred upon environmenttal issues, from making it taboo not to turn unused lights off (even if they are energy saving), to riding on public transport, to cycling to work even when it is raining.

We may have reached the point of no return already. However, to allow at least hope to exist, we must, today, change our way of thinking, be compassionate about not only humans but also animals and ecosystems, and continually teach and learn how to balance ourselves with nature's needs.

If this requires voluntary reduction in population by having fewer or no kids over a couple of generations; if this means not drinking soft drinks from alluminium cans (alluminium costs huge amounts of energy to create); if this means reducing consuption, slashing profits and economic growth, and building things to last, so be it.

Educate yourselves and those you love. Protect your children by not consuming, by recyling everything, by voluntarily having fewer children. The world isn't about you anymore. It isn't about your family. It is about the Earth - the landbase without which you, your children, your neighbour, your civilization, cannot exist.

Paul #93
Thanks for noticing - as the writer of the original letter which was "answered" by the rubbish about Scotland getting 10% of electricity rather than about 3% from windmills I did send a response to the another paper involved. As it did not appear I have repeated it with an extra about the solar power letter today. I expect that the other paper will publish it, or something similar from someone more qualified, tomorrow.

I pointed out several other errors in the letter for which the writer might wish to apolgise. If they don't publish it it will eventauly appear on http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/

td when you are willing to look at, let alone debate, the facts I will consider looking at the pictures - until then stop telling us how wonderful Al "smoking is a significant cause of global warming" Gore is & how pleased we should be to be allowed to pay for shovelling his propaganda on children.

Dear Mr. Hominid,
Can I enquire if you've heard of the 2nd law of thermodynamics?
Yours,
Caorach.

Mandrake 117 I am amazed to find that they teach the value of composting & the chemistry of dioxins & how many people it kills (zero) at the top 5 business schools. Rather similar to the way theological college had prepared a previous letter writer to know that the science of global warming was beyond dispute.

It is SO easy for some posters to throw about the word "fascist" when somebody disagrees with them. Here I speak of # 29 from Livingston and #96 from Washington State in the US. I have also noticed te word "fascist" creeping into many of the other forums on this site.

Is this a specifically Scottish phenomenon where a word with a specific PRIMARY meaning is adopted by lazy writers because it has become the "mot du jour"?

If one has a vocabulary that moves beyond puerile obscenities and crass observations on everything one would be using other words to describe Gore and his film. You tell me the words and try and be erudite and don't go into fits of self-righteousness. Thank you.

Those who have lived in fascist states/countries know the true meaning of the word through personal experience and would be appalled at its degradation in this forum.

Is that too much to ask? It is like the person who uses the word "f**k" every second or third word because their vocabulary is as bereft as their reasoning processes.

In response to Neil 120:

I never said dioxins kill. However, the retardation of the children of artci people, the herpmaphrodisation of polar bears, the weakening of the immune system of seals so that hundreds of thousands die of distemper (bit like having AIDS), all are scientifically linked to mercury, dioxins and other pollutants. If this is not the case, why is it that the US warms pregnant or nursing women not to eat fish from the pacific? For the largest body of scientific investigation in the last twenty years, look no closer than the Feroes Islands, which is due north of Scotland.

As for composting being taught a university: you are quite right, it wasn't. However, once I had been taught one world view, I continued to learn, and have learnt a lot more since by myself than I ever did during college years.

Several incorrect, incomplete, unclear, uninformed, or misleading comments were posted in response to mine (#102).

Re the rebuttals (Martha) on Gore inventing the internet see snopes.com cite at: http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp

Re the rebuttal (Martha) on methane releases see: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060907102808...

Re gulf stream and climate rebuttal (Caroach) see the meta-directory of articles at: http://www.gulfstreamshutdown.com/

Re record tornadoes (Martha) and Seattle's extreme weather storm see: http://alternet.org/mediaculture/46801/

Meanwhile the airports get more and more crowded every year. Ask the average person if "global warming" is a real "crisis" - and will they change THEIR behavior, starting TODAY. Such as driving less or flying less? How many of you will cancel that long vacation flight to "stop global warming." Not Tony Blair, - for damn sure.

I just have three words about this - State of Fear

I followed that link Ramona, it stated the following:

"Q. Some reports talk about a "shut down" of the Gulf Stream. What does this mean?
A. Under no conditions will the Gulf Stream shut off entirely! This strong ocean current is driven by winds as well as ocean density differences. It is the latter portion of the flow -the thermohaline circulation-that brings ocean heat to the high northern latitudes and could be affected by salinity changes that are now taking place in the North Atlantic. The winds will continue to blow over the ocean and the Gulf Stream will continue to flow even if the thermohaline circulation slows or shuts down. Its flow may be reduced, or its route slightly redirected, but it will continue to flow. "

http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/viewArticle.do?id=101...

So, science quite clearly indicates that the Gulf Stream is not going to stop and it also clearly indicates, as per the link I posted, that the Gulf Stream is not a major factor in our climate. So, what are you worried about? In case you missed it the science says the Gulf Stream will not stop and also that it is the Rocky Mountains that keep our climate so warm, nothing to do with the Gulf Stream.
Al is lying, you have helped us demonstrate this, but the point is that should he, and the Exec, be allowed to force our children to watch these lies?

I suppose the trouble is that I was taught a few things about interactions in the natural world when I was a schoolkid nearly sixty years ago. Not so common at the time.
Besides, my materialism - just a part of a complex make up - has nothing to do with the crass, disconnected, uncaring beggar-my-neighbour and b****r anyone who gets in MY way version now triumphant.
More like Lucretius: what a wondrous planet we're privileged to have been born on. Unbelievable, endless beauty and power. I love this Earth with all my heart, with my guts, passionately. And I long for all our children and their children and all the voteless and shareless of the planet, now and to come, to know a better world than we have and to live together better than we and our forebears have known how to...
And I get the impression that so, so many supposedly intelligent and informed people, who can even read and write, never learned to think and well, it's as though they'd never had any potty training.
As for theology, I for one couldn't give a damn for dogmas or seminaries or beliefs, scientistic or religious, when it comes to these things.
Neil (120#): Of course, of course, there's no such thing as a science that's beyond dispute. (Tho' most people don't know that and treat science as dogma). The problem seems to be rather with the attitude of lots of the people in and around my close when it comes to interactions (of any kind) with our environment; only multiplied by zillions.
Meaning that everything that takes place on this planet interacts with everything else; and what mankind DOES has EFFECTS, just as what I do or you do has effects on neighbours and neighbourhood. And vice versa.
Look at the colossal changes, and damage to huge areas of the planet brought about by man thousands of years ago, when we didn't burn hydrocarbons or use internal combustion engines - deforestation, desertification, etc. - and compare with techno

I found this interesting quote:

"Education should aim at destroying free will so that after pupils are thus schooled they will be incapable throughout the rest of their lives of thinking or acting otherwise than as their school masters would have wished ... Various results will soon be arrived at: first, that influences of the home are 'obstructive' and verses set to music and repeatedly intoned are very effective ... When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for more than one generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen."
Bertrand Russell quoting Johann Gottlieb Fichte, the head of philosophy & psychology who influenced Hegel and others – Prussian University in Berlin, 1810

118 Neil again.

Keep your head in the sand then, and carry on criticising those that try to inform you about things that may not suit your prejudices. Just don't expect the rest of the world to take you seriously.

As regards the effects of the activities of modern mankind and the body of science that points to documented indicators that the globe is indeed warming and world climate changing..It is rather a place of where to start in this discussion.

Should we start with coral reefs around the world that are dying because the oceanic conditions necessary for their sustinence have altered....should we start with the location of the southern border of the Sahara desert which has moved south over 500 miles in living memory ... Should we look at the extent of the Caspian sea. or the melting of the permafrost which surrounds lake Baikal in Siberia. Should we look at the Pacific Islands that are gradually sinking below rising water levels. Do we look at the fact that the Greenland Icecap is clearly melting at a rate never before paralelled in the ice core record of the past 100,000years. Do we look at the huge areas of the Amazon that have been cleared of Rainforest in the lifetime of many of us, and the correlation with global CO2 levels. Should we consider large scale tree felling in Tropical areas which are correlated with extensive dessication of surrounding rainforest which is now dying. Should we notice that silt levels in tropical seas from runoff are changing the algae and plant habitats. Should we talk about the past 10 years as having contained 7 of the warmest years in Europe since records began. Should we look at the increased snowfall in areas of Antartica which correlates with a major change in the atmosphere above the continent.

Don't ask for a discussion of real science unless you continue to hold an open mind. For if you simply accept any one source ...even Dr Crichton... you may too easily be deceived.

If you

Re post #125 Caroach:

Great that you checked the reference! Thanks.

The material available there makes it clear that the heat released by the Gulf Stream is very significant to the climate of N. Europe. just look at the map showing the heat release there. It (rightly) is cautious in making predictions as to what will occur in the near future as the current accuracy of computer models is not good enough as is noted.

However, while we can't *predict* accurately based upon these models, we can *retrodict* very accuratly (that is we can look at physical records from the past) and then infer from these records to our present and near future.

The best popular source for this is is John D. Cox's book Climate Crash. This is centered upon readings from ice cores extracted (seperately) from the Greenland ice sheet by EU and US scientists. These two ice cores each recorded the past 110,000 years temperatures. They agreed with one another as to these temperature variations. They show a pattern of rapid (w/in about a decade) increases and decreases in temperature of up to 25 degrees F corresponding with the rate of flow of the Gulf Stream, which was itself determined by the amount of freshwater melting of the Greenland glaciers. Slowing of the Gulf Stream means less heat is released off of NW Europe, meaning it gets colder ASAP.

Given this incontrovertible reality, is it reasonable to assume that if such things have occured often in the past, and if human activity in the present is causing rapid melting of these same glaciers, that what occured in the past under similar circumstances will not occur in the near future?

Re post #125 Caroach:

Great that you checked the reference! Thanks.

The material available there makes it clear that the heat released by the Gulf Stream is very significant to the climate of N. Europe. just look at the map showing the heat release there. It (rightly) is cautious in making predictions as to what will occur in the near future as the current accuracy of computer models is not good enough as is noted.

However, while we can't *predict* accurately based upon these models, we can *retrodict* very accurately (that is we can look at physical records from the past) and then infer from these records to our present and near future.

The best popular source for this is John D. Cox's book Climate Crash. This is centred upon readings from ice cores extracted (separately) from the Greenland ice sheet by EU and US scientists. These two ice cores each recorded the past 110,000 years temperatures. They agreed with one another as to these temperature variations. They show a pattern of rapid (w/in about a decade) increases and decreases in temperature of up to 25 degrees F corresponding with the rate of flow of the Gulf Stream, which was itself determined by the amount of freshwater melting of the Greenland glaciers. Slowing of the Gulf Stream means less heat is released off of NW Europe, meaning it gets colder ASAP.

Given this incontrovertible reality, is it reasonable to assume that if such things have occurred often in the past, and if human activity in the present is causing rapid melting of these same glaciers, that what occurred in the past under similar circumstances will not occur in the near future?

That Al Gore (failed politician not scientist) is going to have a hugely politicised non scientific movie shown in every secondary school in Scotland is an utter disgrace.

Can you imagine the howls of protest if the oil industry (which feeds, heats, clothes and transports us) wanted to do something similar?

Few sensible people dispute that the climate is changing, but with human beings only producing 2% of the ‘alleged’ problem CO2 there is a long way to go on how to tackle this, if indeed we can.

The solitary fact that Ross Finnie backs this fantasy should be warning enough.

You have to be kidding. Over here his film has been laughed at. It's nothing but political propaganda. We're expecting him to announce some time that he is going to try running for President in 2008. Should be interesting.

Comment@114. Bipedal Hominid, Roslin. thanks dude, Its the enormity of the real world and even when i watch the picture of AL Gore, there is symbolism. I think the only reason they let me live is they are curious lol. Watch this and look again at Al Gores Scotsman pic there http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-66679965652767...

So much unwarranted crap from a bunch of head in the sand sceptics.
Well everyone is entitled to an opinion, and fortunately for us, (like it or not), the top 3 UK political parties aim to impose environmental taxes on pollution / polluters in an attempt to clean up emissions and conserve resources etc., so unless you are willing to vacate the country, your going to have to pay regardless of who is in power. Like it or lump it, you environmental sceptics will be forced to capitulate.
Incidentally, these parties have adopted their stance because they recognise that the majority of voters are convinced by the science and expect positive measures to protect the environment.
Education is key to change and well done The Executive for promoting this film. Sure, present the opposing stance too. Our kids aren't stupid. Let them decide, but at least allow them to be educated in environmental affairs. Its more relevant than RE to most.

Well done, “td Highlands” (and a few others Nick1975, Dick, Ramona) for trying to bring some rationality and evidence base into this dismal thread.
Otherwise, we seem to have had more than the usual dose of denial, nonsense, puerile comments and ignorance.

Three prizes for total nonsense statements could be awarded to:

Connaughtboy #50 “man's contribution to greenhouse gas emission is so small that removing it completely would make no difference.”
No. Man’s contribution has increased atmospheric CO2 from about 600 billion tons to 800bts, and we are adding 7 to 8bts a year from burning fossil fuels.

Caorach #71 “there is nothing wrong with the world's CO2 balance. 96% of the CO2 produced each year comes from non-human sources”
Nothing wrong?? – atmospheric CO2 levels are higher than at any time for the last more than 800,000 years, due to human emissions in the last few centuries.

Bruce-in-MO #82 “there is no concensus among scientists” … “The only people agreeing with Gore are politicians … and news media people”
It’s astonishing that anyone can be so ignorant and yet want to make a comment. Have you heard of the IPCC Bruce? It is the largest scientific collaboration in human history, and the thousands of scientists involved conclude that anthropogenic global warming is real, certainly damaging and potentially catastrophic. The www.realclimate.org site of climate scientists states, “Al Gore's presentation on the subject, provides an accurate, engaging, accessible, thought-provoking and (at times) even humorous introduction to one of the most important scientific issues of our time.”

The Gulf Stream certainly does warm Britain-- and northern Europe to a lesser extent. Glasgow (lat.55.52) is a degree higher in latitude than James Bay, Canada 54.30, at the southern tip of which is the town of Churchill. Tourists go to Churchill to see polar bears. Yet because of the Gulf Stream, southern Britain can even support a few palm trees, which grow in Cornwall (lat. 50'63) N. I don't think you see polar bears on the west coast of Britain. But polar bears have been spotted as far south as the coast of Maine, USA, although admittedly only on rare occasions. This is because the Gulf stream goes in a northeasterly direction, so the entire northeast of the United States does not benefit from the warm current and our winters in Vermont, Maine, and northern New York State are as cold as Siberia. You can hardly call your island comparable to Siberia in terms of temperature. Moscow is at lat. 55.45-- almost the same as Glasgow, but there's just this teensy temperature differential...or hadn't you noticed? It's the Gulf Stream that keeps your island from looking like Greenland w ith a mile thick ice cap.

No one in America wants to hear anything Al Gore has to say, why should Scottish children have to endure this abuse.

Slioch: scientists are people too and some of them aren't exactly geniuses. It's impossible to conduct repeatable experiments to determine whether the climate is actually changing because of man's activity on the planet, or whether the changes are from some as-yet-unknown cause.

And, bear in mind that weather statistics have been kept for barely 200 years, far less in some locales. So something that is "record breaking" only goes back a little more than a century, which in terms of climate is a nanosecond.

The fact is, we have to have something to fear, apparently. 35 years ago, in New York, the papers were full of its being a "little ice age" because we had five or six ferocious winters in a row. Now we're having a series of warm winters in some parts of the world, so everybody is yapping about global warming. Scientists are just as capable of taking up fads as the next person.

Global warming is a fad that is not based on real science, but provides third world countries a handy way to get money from the developed world via the Kyoto Accords. Let's hope we don't have a volcanic explosion like Krakatoa, which lowered the earth's temperature for two solid years, and gave North America a year without a summer. The trees didn't bud, nothing grew; icy rains and snow fell in July. Would that make you happier? I could easily believe that Krakatoa spewed out more gasses in its eruption than all the emissions from fossil fuels in a century.

PS-- I think Prince Charles might actually be a hair more intelligent than Al Gore. But it's not difficult to be smarter than Gore-- most people are.

We rejected Al Gore in the US and Scotland should do the same.

His "global warming" crusade is a farse. Scotland should not let fertile school-age children be exposed to Gore's outlandish far-left ideas.

Just try reading, say, 45# and 128#, then stop a moment and try thinking - if you know how to...

Martha, wouldn't it be a good idea to read what Slioch wrote (45#) before dismissing what you suppose him to have said?

Anyway, I think I've had enough of this pigsty.

So many of you Americans seem to believe whatever your bigmouthed local preacher has to tell you, and not much else. Or else you "believe in" science as though you'd been catechised to learn dogmas - which is not at all what it's about.

If we can't allow our children to be exposed to anything but our own bigotry and prejudices, we're in dire trouble. Either we'll be faced with another generation of stiff-necked complacent little pharisees or they'll detest their parents and act accordingly.

As for the rationalist Inquisitors with their dogmas - ugh. Maybe worse.

So many lines here that make me want to puke...

Only, I have seen worse.

When a certain journalist was murdered this year, I incautiously opened the column below the report on her death - no, not the Scotsman, I think it was Yahoo. I'd raised the lid of Hell.

We really should watch our thoughts and our actions a little more carefully, and not just slide helplessly down towards the pit...

#139 Martha
And then look who you voted for!!!!

One thing most posters have failed to note is who is paying for this film to go into schools.

Scottishpower - a windfarm developer.

Could it be that they want to scare the next generation witless so they support every windfarm application until the last hill in Scotland is covered in turbines. As if that would make any difference to global warming.

Seems they have convinced the Executive already.

In the meantime millons die each year from lack of clean water and other easily solved conditions while we are supposed to worry about what may or may not happen in 100 years time.

If we put our money where it matters today then the peoples of the world will have the means to deal with the future whatever it brings.

Ever heard of the fact that climate changes come in cycles, Mr Gore?

Why do the likes of Elmer P. Chickenshit Junior--the Third have to be on some kind of missionary trip all the time? I mean, if they really acted accordingly. But they don't. Al, why didn't you convince your former Big Boss to sign the Kyoto Protocol? Yeah, pestering little kids and the half-way educated is so much easier.

#134 Hi Digger-dawg

Are you familiar with the famous quote by Daniel Patrick Moynihan,

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."

That, I suspect, is why you (and I, and several others) find much of what is written in these threads so dispiriting. Many people obviously have made no attempt to investigate the evidence or look at the data concerning global warming, even though it is easily obtainable. They do not change their opinions in the face of that overwhelming evidence, but pretend that it does not exist or change it to suit their own pre-existing opinions.

#138 Martha said “It's impossible to conduct repeatable experiments to determine whether the climate is actually changing”

Martha, do you believe that the moon causes the tides on the Earth? We can’t do repeatable experiments to investigate that either, or indeed on a multitude of aspects of fields of knowledge such as history, geology, climate science, archaeology, ecology etc., but that has not stopped the accumulation of evidence, data and knowledge.

“weather statistics have been kept for barely 200 years”
As I outlined in #45, data on temperature and CO2 are known in extraordinary detail from polar ice cores. Have you ever bothered to look? Thousands of scientist years have been expended to accumulate this knowledge. It is there! Why not take a look. (Thanks Peter #144, grim isn’t it!)

“I could easily believe that Krakatoa spewed out more gasses in its eruption than all the emissions from fossil fuels in a century.”
Why not look at the data about volcanoes? The cooling effect of volcanoes is caused by sulphur dioxide and dust emissions. The amount of CO2 emitted by volcanoes is 130 million tons per year according to your US geological survey. Humans produce over 7,000 million tons a year of CO2. The contribution of volcanoes is thus less than 2% of that produced by humans. That knowledge d

#148 Porry illustrates my point in #149 perfectly.
Porry's heard somewhere that "climate comes in cycles" but hasn't bothered to see if and to what extent that is true.
Yes, the changes in the Earth's orbit, which does happen in regular cycles, has in the past influenced the Earth's climate. That is what is considered to have triggered the 100,000 year cycle of glaciations and warmer interglacials of the ice-ages. But that is not what is causing the present warming. In other words, to use an analogy: what is happening to the climate at present is as odd as if it became daylight at midnight - it is totally out of kilter with the natural changes of the climate.

#150 Slioch, you said something about everybody's right to their own opinion, but not to their own facts. That's probably why you give us nothing but opinions. It is a fact that the degree of radiation from the sun changes. Presently it is growing, and that is what is responsible for the warming we experience right now.

So, people who dispute global warming "has got to be on planet Mars." (Which also has global warming.)

#152 Porry said “you give us nothing but opinions”

On the contrary, I have provided a number of numerical facts, for example, obtained from ice cores in #45, CO2 levels in #135 and volcanoes in #149.

“It is a fact that the degree of radiation from the sun changes”

True

“that is what is responsible for the warming we experience right now.”

Not true. Though I am aware that for example, the George C Marshall Institute, (that between 1998 and 2005 received $630,000 funding from Exxonmobil), commisioned contrarian Sallie Baliunas to write several articles positing that solar activity might be responsible for global warming. This misinformation is part of the climate change denial campaign funded by fossil fuel companies.

(For the full paper by the Union Of Concerned Scientists about how ExxonMobil used the same techniques that the big tobacco companies had used to deny the link between smoking and cancer, to deny anthropogenic climate change see,

http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/ExxonMobil-Globa... )

The variation in solar activity is not considered by the climate scientists of the IPCC anything more than a minor influence on climate in the last fifty years. Hansen gives the forcing due to changes in solar activity as +0.4watts/metre squared whereas man-made greenhouse gases are +2.6W/M2.

Kerry is a screwball into the POWER thing, Lie forceful enough and many will believe!

Why would anyone want, even dare to, force feed this bunch of trumped up garbage to the school children of an entire Country.

Our environment is and has been changing on a dailey basis for Eons!! AND no government or Left Wing politician is going to change, or , stop this changing

It is just as cold on the Deleware River this year as it was when Our George kicked Your George the hell out of Deleware!

No.149 Slioch.

You know, what is so obvious is that many people aren't interested in changing their lifestyle because they are too comfortable and that no matter how compelling the scientific facts are, it doesn't suit them to accept well educated and respected opinion. Forget that these people are in no way expert in these matters, that's irrelevant. They have their own opinions and ain't going to change.

Such shortsighted opinions I feel will die out through time as these 'dinosaurs' eventually expire. As the realities of climate change and global warming increasingly affect our lives, then people will ask... " why didn't our predecessors act sooner? What held them back? Why was there opposition to change despite so many expert opinions warning of severe impacts ?"

A simple answer will be that they didn't want to be inconvenienced, so choose to ignore. They were from the least affected regions, affluent in their time and could afford to pay extra to maintain their lifestyles regardless of their effects on others.

The sad fact is that for those likely to be worst affected are those least responsible for global emissions (Africa). Undoubtedly they will suffer the greatest hardships. Famine, drought, war, disease, flooding, Mass displacement of people. etc. We can expect all of these as a result of GW in years to come. Yes we have all seen these situations arise before, but never as a result of rapid climate change and GW.

Can those who flatly deny there is evidence to support anthropogenic GW or Climate Change really be so ignorant of the consequences that scientist are warning of?

Ignorance is no excuse, thankfully Governments are getting there slowly and will end up taxing heavily. Educating the young is probably the only realistic hope to change attitudes in developed countries. Lets hope its not too late.

He’s baaaack! Resurrected again.

Let’s see… There might be a theme here. Before former Veep Albert Arnold "Al" Bore, Jr. hopped upon his daddy’s gravy train to the US Senate, he dabbled with religious studies at Vanderbilt University for a couple years.

Our former seminary student is simply picking up the evangelistic garment from whence he dropped it, hoping to build a one-world crystal cathedral of worship for his cadre of gaia-worshiping eco-nuts. 'Tis no surprise that our brilliant international messiah of eco-theology is zealously dedicating himself to his true calling. I am the Al-pha and the Aum-ega Gore?

His Al-pha male holiness has indicated that he plans to recruit thousands of new disciples, captive adolescents of all ages, to inculcate them with his eco-theocratic dogma. And from the four corners of the world disperse these newly indoctrinated Gorites to recruit more converts from their communities and schools. Let's hope the Arab states will demonstrate tolerance in this endeavor.

The proceeds (An Inconvenient Truth) will fund his global crusade, putting your tax dollars to good use.

Al Gore, Alpha Male -- with a Feminine Touch
"Vice-President Al Gore has been paying Naomi Wolf, the feminist author, thousands of dollars a month to help him figure out how to become the top dog. Ms. Wolf has been telling Mr. Gore that he is a beta male, a subordinate figure, and must learn to become an alpha male, or leader of the pack, before the public can accept him as President... "
The New York Times, Nov. 1, 1999

Branda

101 Martha

Al Gore never claimed to have invented the internet. He said that he was pleased to have been a part of passing legislation that allowed the internet to be invented. Check out the Congressional record; it wasn't even axaggeration, let alone a lie/fantasy.

What kind of morons have you been listening to?

With losses this past week of $1billlion to the California citrus industry - the coldest temperatures in over 20 years -- how much longer will rational people listen to Al Gore's chicken-little prattle - enough is enough - stop the nonesense

So tell us - how many of you global warming "believers" are cancelling your long-haul airline flights to exotic vacation spots to reduce CO2 emissions? Or maybe you don't REALLY believe that global warming is an imminent crisis that requires immediate action on YOUR part ...

Thanks, Slioch and Digger-Dawg for introducing a little quiet good sense into this deluge of puerile paranoia.

I really don't know what the hell this essential issue has to do with "left-wing" except in the tiny brains of pig-ignorant rednecks.

I'd have thought conservation of our planet was, if anything, a conservative viewpoint. Certainly, several of the people who have most influenced me in that direction came from a very conservative background and never would have dreamed of casting a vote left of centre... But the c word has been so debased that it means no more now than "finding's keeping"; or: "I hold on to what I've got and all the rest of you can go to Hell". An idiot's philosophy, as skilful as sawing off the branch you're sitting on...

As for Al Gore, the man really must have some very real qualities to bring forth so much gratuitous venom and bitchery. So he's boring?

Do you recall the prayer: grant that we may not live in interesting times? Better a bore in power than some superhero muppet charging in where angels fear to tread.

You know, when I'm in the States - which I love and admire - I often wake up with the feeling that I'm on another planet. Is that what comes of your being historically a nation of fugitives, on the run from the cruel world? OK, that's a rather unkind one, but think about it. Escapists or not, demigods, kings-of-the-castle or whatever, you're all just humans like the rest of us, no better, no worse. And, like it or not, we do share the same planet. It might help if you and your masters behaved accordingly.

No one in their right minds should believe in what Al Gore is saying. In the news here they spoke about a 135 year old record of lack of snow in the upper mid-west. Right now our low has beendown to 16f degrees or -10c at night on Saturday and a high of 38f/6c. I live 20 miles from the beach. This type of weather pattern happens around evey 60 years. A history book I am reading speaks about Scotland 500 years ago and how the weather is changing that the lochs and lochans of this one persons childhood have dried up and how the rains have decreased over time. What does Al Gore say was the cause too many horses. To those of you who believe in Al Gore's movie, you all are stupid. And to those who keep pushing the dumb movie go somewhere you will not harm the rest of us. Besides what brought the last ice age to an end.

China builds one new coal-fired power plant every week and will soon be the world's leading emitter of CO2. Think about it.

Come on guys... don't you know Al Gore is an expert of the environment. He is also an expert in eating.. thats guy is fat. Maybe he should worry about his calorie intake before global warming... I think that may kill him before the melting of the snow caps. Global Warming! What a farse!!

For real.. are there climate changes? Of course there are. There is, has and always will be climate changes. Whether or not our by-products we produce as humans contribute to these changes is still unknown and those whom "pretend" to know are arrogant and misinforming. Should we show our children both sides of the debate (because thats all it really is, a political debate), absolutuely. It is inevitable that throughout time there will be storms, earthquakes, tsunamis, tornados, hurricanes, etc.. of larger and perhaps larger magnitudes. Its like a high jumper breaking the world record in the Olympics, then 8 years later his record is broken by another high jumper. Scientists are not infallable. They too disagree about the issue of global warming. Do I think maybe we should rethink our way of life??? Yes I do... I think people need to start eating better and exercising more. If we all strive to be healthy we will have a healthier world!!! But seriously, if you Scots and Brits want to keep fussing over minute global changes that happen and have happened throughout time, then be my guest. I am sure it will be us Americans who will save your asses the next time you are invaded (hopefully that will never happen) so you can keep this smoke screen of an issue alive. P.S. Al Gore doesn't care about the environment he drives an SUV and has a private jet, multiple homes in tropical areas where he blasts the air conditioning year round!

#158 to Martha's #101

"What kind of *morons* have you been listening to?"

Heck, I dunno who the woman's been listening to. Perhaps Wolf Blitzer's CNN interview on March 9, 1999?

Al Gore said, "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet."

Oh, c'mon. The guy is entertaining. Who can resist having a little satiric fun? Politicians leave themselves wide open for this stuff. Republicans endured former Veep Dan Quayle and the *potato* gaff for months before the frolicking media moved on. Quayle has wisely faded from the public eye. Albert Jr. has not. He keeps resurfacing to preach the great sin of the internal combustion engine.

"We now know that their cumulative impact on the global environment is posing a mortal threat to the security of every nation that is more deadly than that of any military enemy we are ever again likely to confront." (Earth in the Balance, pg 325)

I personally prefer the time when Al-pha man Gore, during a tour of Monticello, also took the initiative in creating an informal inquiry while pausing before a row of marble busts. Regarding the *unfamiliar* faces of George Washington and Ben Franklin he asks: "Who are these people?"
www.positiveatheism.org/pix/gore.au

Cheer up! At least these two great intellects, Gore and Blix, are on the same page: They are both more cocerned about global warming than mushroom clouds.

"I am more worried about global warming in the long run than weapons of mass destruction." (Dr. Blix)

Ka-BOOM!

Branda

Oops. I grievously forgot to include the Marquis de La Fayette (French aristocrat and military officer) and John Paul Jones (well-known Scots-born naval hero) among the gallery of worthies that the Veep was regarding when he posted his question.

But of course I would not expect Albert Jr. to recognize those two heroic revolutionary faces either.

Branda

Paul 93 & mine 118
Today's Herald has not published my response to the lie that 10% of Scotland's electricity comes from windmills & that I am therefore lying. Nor have they permitted a letter fron anybody else pointing out the facts.

I must admit that if they do not do so shortly this will seem to be incompatible with any claim to journalistic integrity.

Mandrake 121 - If you agree your alleged qualifications are completely irrelevant to your claims it is discourteous to try to bludgeon us with them. The alleged & improbable "hermaphrodisation of polar bears" by dioxins is irrelevant to the question of warming.

td 128 - A moments thought should convince you the delivery of silt to estuaries by rivers has absloutely nothing to do with alleged global warming & has been going on since rivers first ran downhill. Without that effect over millions of years the coast of china wouls be hundreds of miles further inland. Most of the rest of your "facts are either untrue or contradictory or, as in your claim that the seas are rising to cover islands but only killing off not covering coral reefs, contradictory. Your claim that you have not upheld the wonderfulness of gore is disingenous since we both know you did exactly that on a previous post.

Slioch 135 etc - To call the IPCC "the largest scientific collabortation in history" is rubbish. The Manhattan Project, Moon Landings or Human Genome Project can compete for that. The IPCC is a panel of UN political appointees, headed by an engineer not a climate scientist, which has repeatedly rewritten its conclusions after the scientists have been sent home. That is all it is.

Your claim that only orbital change can explain previous climate changes is untrue - it does not explain the medieval & late roman warmings which even you have acknowledgrd on previous comments is at least as warm & probably warmer than today.

This plus the fact that

Prince Charles is to fly to New York, booking the entire first-class and business class section of a jumbo jet for his 20-strong entourage - to pick up an award for his work on the environment.

During the trip he plans to emphasise the importance which the British Government places on climate change as a key international priority.

Also see

CO2 offset schemes to be given 'gold standard' rating

To underline his commitment to reducing his 'carbon footprint' - the amount of carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere during the flight - he is to travel by scheduled flight instead of a chartered or private jet.

But he and his 20-strong party will travel exclusively in the first and club class sections where there are a total of 62 seats.

This means their effective 'carbon footprint' is three times what it would be if every seat was used and the short return trip to New York will result in the emission of 24 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

Ramona... per your tornado & "extreme storm" in Seattle. Here is the author of the article you linked: "Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, winner of the 2005 Nautilus Award for the best book on social change." Think he may have an agenda? Now, get this... I am a forester who has worked in the forests of Washington since 1974. Every day, in the woods. As such I'm very attuned to weather. This last storm we had in Washington ranks as only a mediocre storm in most places. We had MUCH worse storms in my life time. The reason this storm caused so many problems are: 1) Our soils were way beyond field capacity for water due to previous rains. 2) There has been unmitigated development in our state since the environmentalists from New York and California began flocking here around 1980. This development has caused a lot of forest fragmentation. Once a Douglas-fir forest is fragmented, it has edges that are open to the wind that once were protected by neighboring trees. The first storm with winds over about 30 knots will cause much windthrow along these new edges. We have had remarkably few winter storms since 1996/97 at the same time we've had unprecedented development. ADD TO THIS A LITTLE MEDIA HYPERBOLE AND YOU HAVE A DISASTROUS STORM OF THE LIKES .... BLAH BLAH BLAH...

#170 Neil

Ref. Your comment about td128

Global warming is causing and is predicted to cause more intense periods of rainfall. This causes a greater rate of run-off from catchments into rivers, thus causing more silt to enter the rivers. The greater flow of the rivers causes more flooding and erosion both of which introduce more sediment into the rivers. Increased silt in river system has a lot to do with global warming, along with land-use changes, particularly deforestation.
Td’s other statements in td#128 are valid and yours in response are your usual mix of misquotation and misunderstanding.

Ref. Your comment about my posts Slioch #135 etc.

Neil: “To call the IPCC "the largest scientific collabortation in history" is rubbish.”
The IPCC deliberately involves scientists from as many nations as possible – that is why it is the biggest collaboration. I would agree that the other projects you mention (Manhattan, Moon, Human Genome) are of comparable importance.

Neil: “The IPCC is a panel of UN political appointees”
The scientists on the IPCC are appointed by their respective governments, not the UN.

Neil: “Your claim that only orbital change can explain previous climate changes is untrue”
I made no such claim.
Once again you misquote and misrepresent. I stated, “changes in the Earth's orbit, which does happen in regular cycles, has in the past influenced the Earth's climate. That is what is considered to have triggered the 100,000 year cycle of glaciations and warmer interglacials of the ice-ages. But that is not what is causing the present warming.”
That is true.

Neil: “you have held up td an an example of accuracy”
No I haven’t. I commended him for “trying to bring some rationality and evidence base into this dismal thread.”
You constantly demonstrate that you are unable to understand what people are saying to you.

#108 #138

Hey Hey Martha.

I see you are at it again. In any single day do you experience a single thought that is free from negativity.
Are you a Hermaphrodite, your comments seem loaded with a sense of frustration !

GC

#155 - A Scott in Texas wrote:

"It is just as cold on the Deleware River this year as it was when Our George kicked Your George the hell out of Deleware!"

That's total poppycock! I live in southern New Jersey only 6 miles from the Delaware Bay (by the way, Texan, the river and state are not spelled with your rather abberant second "e" - try "a") and cross the Delaware everytime I go visit my son. And I can tell you )as can every weather report published) that this has been one of the warmest winters we've ever had. Today is the first "winter cold" day this season.

When George Washington crossed the Delaware on Christmas Eve during our late unpleasantness with the UK, it was bitter cold, and there was ice as a dangerous major presence in the river. There hasn't been dangerous — or any — ice in the Delaware around Trenton and south to Philadelphia or even farther south down where I live in many years. But when I was a kid one could often walk across the river on solid ice.

As for all the folks saying that no one pays attention to Al Gore, that's poppycock, too. They are just taking their own political opinion and suggesting quite incorrectly that everyone else shares it. Such arrogance! The election was very close, so close that Mr. Gore actually won the popular vote. Surely "everyone" does not now ignore him or his opinions. While not conclusively saying "no" to a run at the White House again, he has indicated that he is right now more interested in pursuing his current interest in talking about global warming.

Also, let's be a bit more careful about the distinction between "hypothesis" and "theory." People who fail to make that distinction are not scientists, so I discount their opinions by about 50% immediately.

Hey People ,

A warning;
After you sliced up the dog don't try to get inside the carcas,

You won't fit !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am a poorly educated homo sapien living in a vast ocean of hypocites, sandwiched between Mexico and Canada.

Chill - people - chill

Just in case anybody is still following this topic, and has a bit of enthusiasm for some personal research I refer them to the list of possible topics outlined in my #128 post.

Here I suggested a list of things that could be debated.

Today I spent 20 minutes on Google typing in various topic key words, just to check how accessible these topics were for those who doubt reality.

Data on Antartic atmosphere changes was in two articles on the British Antarctic Survey website in articles dated 30/Mar/2006, and 16 oct 2006. This tied in with detail available to those who have had the chance...as I did recently , to visit the exhibition at the New Zealand Antarctic HQ. in Christchurch.

Data on the melting of the permafrost in Siberia was contained in several top ranking Google search results.

The change of level of the Caspian sea also featured high in google search results. With photos from NASA to confirm changes.

The southward movement of the Sahara over recent decades is also supported by satellite images. But whether this is cyclical or a long term movement is not really established yet.

For the accelerated melting of the Greenland Icecap Google produces a huge number of scientific reports.

For the destruction of Coral reefs likewise.

Destruction of the rain forest in tropical regions leading to increases in run off ...papers can be found readily on this too. The alteration of sea ecology due to increases in silt carried down to estuarine areas is also discussed there.

All of these topics are worthy of investigation should anyone really be confused enough to imagine that the acceleration of Global Climate change is just some conspiracy theory.

What may interest some of you is that there are plenty of editorial and libarary reviews of Neil's " talisman". This book by Micheal Chricton is a work of fiction and has muddied the waters by confusing scientific theory with personal theory.

Sorry a typo has crept in ...It should of course read Crichton. ( above)

Slioch |
If you or td have any evidence that river silt has increased by a dangerous amount, at least 50%, in the last few years then give it. If not then he & you owe retractions.

If not I will have to assume that your claim, that the silting up of rivers is a major problem proveably caused by global warming is, while representing the standard of honesty to which you aspire, is in no way honest.
---------------
You obviously know nothing whatsoever about science. Many projects involve people from around the world. You have not apologised for your clearly untruthful claim the the IPCC is the biggest ever project. Do so or I wall have to assume ....(see above)
-----------------
You are trying to win on a silly technicality here & are still wrong. The countries nominate & they are almost automatically, at least for the big countries, accepted but the UN is the appointing body.

You know perfectly well that this is a silly point because either way you are accepting that the IPCC are political appointees (indeed slightly moreso your way since while it is, just, conceivable that the UN would show no political concerns in its appointees it is clearly impossible every single country would nominate without having politics in mind)
-----------------
That is exactly the claim you made. You gave, as the only reason for warming “changes in the Earth's orbit". I know you know better because you have, in earlier threads, accepted the existence of the medieval & roman warmings without orbital causes. I ask you to acknowledge publicly that these warmings did happen, weren't caused by orbits, or by human industrialisation & were most probably caused by the sun's variability, on which a thousand Kyotos would have zero effect.
-------------------
I accept your position on the last point;
"Neil: “you have held up td an an example of accuracy”
No I haven’t. I commended him for “trying to

Wot td no evidence that silt never ran down rivers before the industrial revolution - gosh I am surprised.

As regards Climate of Fear - you are criticizing a book you still haven't read which is exactly what you were attacking the rest of us for in the first line of your first post here. Why am I not surprised?

NEW LAW for England:

If you cannot speak English, read. and write English correctly you cannot live or work (temporarily or permanently) in England:

Hey David Cameron, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, if you have backbones, use them before England becomes another multi racial slum.

GC

Hey people , in case you do not know it,
the USA has a barrel full of social and military problems.

But it blows my embryonic brain to see that England the Mother of Parliaments will not elect its next Prime Minister when Tony Blair resigns.

That ain't no democracy or even close.

Historical non elected Monarchy's don't cut the mustard, and don't make no democracy, maybe a tyrant state or one packed with snobs. !!

In the US we have Disneyland, not that old but profitable.

This G. Brown fellow sounds and looks like a stale fat, boring bureaucrat. How can this man Brown inspire the English voters ?

Still if the English voters like a dull grey cloudy and boring man to be their PM ...got for it.

Even the tory D. Cameron looks a better bet for that job.

Chill - people - chill

Environment Evangelist my foot.
Me thinks Ian Johnston suffers from an acute anatomical position !!

GC

And so algore hops on a huge airliner and wastes how much of our precious fuel to go around the world telling us that we are responsbile for "global warming". Get real!
and when he arrives at his destination, he is plopped into a limousine which ,again, is wasting our precious supply of fossil fuel.
and how much is he getting for SELLING this equivalent of snake oil?
Has anyone realized this is a BUSINESS. Do they really think he cares about anything else?

Neil #180

I'm not going to respond Neil other than to say this:

If I say I like oranges, it means I like oranges. It doesn't mean I don't like apples. It doesn't mean I do like apples. It doesn't mean I've never eaten a banana. It just means I like apples.
Get it? No, I know you don't.
That it is why there is no point in me saying anything else.

~181. Oh dear Oh dear ! what now ???

You still don't get it do you ?

I never claimed anything when I mentioned one version of a theory about river silt. This is just one issue which scientists are most concerned about., not least because of possible connections with inbalance in the oceans leading to changes in Oceanic oxygen levels.

If you read my post carefully enough you will see that in response to your challenges I simply raised some ideas as potential topics which could perhaps be discussed here in a genuine debate -(if you understand the meaning of the word.) However before embarking on this debate it would be advisable to actually study a cross section of the scientific papers on the subject first , as others have . These can be accessed quite easily via Google searches.

Similarly I have never either claimed to have read your famous book nor have I ever denied reading it. It is simply a red herring you have introduced ...presumably because you have read it yourself ??? ) Read what I wrote carefully enough ... then you will see that I have simply refered people to the many, and frequently highly critical reviews of this book, by many Literary groups and scientific panels who are far better able to hold a believable objective opinion, about a book of this sort, than I am.

The same critical type of revue is not so true of the film which has started this discussion.. Most people around the world seem to agree that " An Inconvenient Truth" is a very useful way of raising the profile of global warming and climate change around the world It certainly has managed to get you " hot under the collar" hasn't it.?

Instead of rushing in each time, with your incomplete grasp of this subject in full view ,you really should calm down and think seriously and open mindedly about the issues that several concerned people on this thread are still trying to help you and others to understand.

The fi

#185

Oh blow me down. That last line of course should have been:

"It just means I like ORANGES"

As td said "Oh dear Oh dear !"