Jerry is now on my banned senders list

About bloody time, I reckon. Salter's "duck" wave power device was torpedoed by the nuclear industry on the basis of a life cost estimate that included decommissioning, at the same cost per tonne as a nuclear reactor. The Severn Barrage was torpedoed because the same people made calculations assuming a life of 30 years for the civil engineering works after which it would, again, require complete removal. And let's be clear, the amount of money being spent on this is still very small, it's a spit in the bucket compared with the bank bail-out, for example. Guy

Very true. NTM the auto bailouts. Here in the US we've added more than a Trillion Dollars to debt our great grand children will inherit and we've got bugger all to show for it! Not even the promised jobs. Had we let them all go bankrupt at least some lessons would have been learned. And our new lot are not any better than the last bunch. Worse, they Pretend to be better! $500 Billion well spent (i.e. nowhere near the UN or Al Gore) on "climate" would be better than the whole trillion spent on bankers and speculators.

I think the US car industry has its head stuck up its arse. What are US car makers known for? I'd say 4x4 - trucks and SUVs. American SUVs are virtually unsellable outside the USA. The best name in SUVs worldwide is probably the Toyota Land Cruiser; it is cheaper, more economical, more reliable, more capable and easier to drive than any US built SUV. The Toyota Hilux is lauded by Top Gear as "the car we couldn't kill" and is reckoned to be just about the most dependable vehicle on the planet. Ford and GM seem to think the biggest threat to them is making them reduce emissions. It isn't. The biggest threat to them is car makers who can produce cars that are more reliable and cheaper to run and can be sold in more markets. You can't sell half of GM's output in China because it doesn't meet their emissions and fuel economy regulations. You can market them in Europe where we don't have fuel economy controls, but you can't /sell/ them because people won't buy them. The only place US cars sell in significant numbers outside the US is in the Gulf states where petrol is cheaper than water. even there, when reliability and off-road capability matters, the locals will use Toyotas. And don't get me started on the Crown Vic... Guy

You are aware that the US Navy has now published its Arctic ice shelf thickness records, compiled by its submarine fleet, and shown that they have thinned dramatically since the 1960s, aren't you?

Ice cores contain bubbles of air trapped as the snow fell. You can clearly see the effects of the US Clean air Act in ice cores, and you can objectively and accurately measure atmospheric CO2.

That was an argument of the 80s. The winner of that argument was the group that proposed reducing CFC emissions. The world has no ended because we now use CFC-free aerosol propellants and refrigerants.

No, it's about looking at very complex multivariable systems, analysing them and trying to predict. We have record levels of extreme weather events, record atmospheric CO2, record species extinction rates (faster than during the extinction of the dinosaurs), record rates of melting of polar ice caps. All these are objectively verifiable and pretty much undisputed by scientists (with one or two prominent individual exceptions who dispute minor parts of it).

"It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." Most of the climate sceptic material is produced by the US-dominated energy industry who have an immense vested interest in continuing to use as much fossil fuel as possible. If a climate scientist were able to prove that there is no global CO2 increase and no global warming, he would become immensely rich very quickly. It hasn't happened. Guy

Large areas of China are also at risk. The Chinese have introduced car fuel mileage regulations and are beginning to accept that they need to clean up their coal-fired power stations, but you're right that China is a challenge. That said, both per capita and in total China still emits less pollution than the USA.

China is going to be interesting in the next few years. There is now a Chinese professional class which has embraced Western values to an extent much greater than in previous years. I foresee that within the next 10-20 years at most there will be a quiet revolution in China and the Communists will be out of power. It won't be like Gorbachev, quite, but I don't think it will be a bloody revolution either. I suspect they will recognise the game is up and quietly fold their tents and go. I could be wrong, of course, and that is one reason why it's so interesting - we have no idea because information on what goes on behind closed doors is much less likely to leak than it was in Russia. Guy

"Wolf K" wrote

I'd agree absolutely, the UK should have joined the Euro many years ago, but the Tory government at the time saw it as a loss of UK sovereignty and monetary power. We're certainly paying the price today.

Incidentally I'm not absolving the Labour government by citing the Tories for that; Labour have been in power long enough to change that Tory folly.

John.

"simon" wrote

Scargill was an arse of the same quality as Thatcher, but she didn't import Ian Macgregor from British Steel to help the long term future of the coal industry.

John.

I am with you there John. It is that subject above all others which indicated that governments of all shades have been determined to retain devaluation as a first line weapon with which to avoid paying debt and throw the load onto peoples who cannot bail out to off shore hidey holes. Fixing the exchange against a whole basket of currencies brings fiscal respectv and in turn requires policies which are rather more open and honest.

Peter A

In billions, what was the population of the industrialised world

600,000 years ago? OK, we'll allow for any kind of fire use that generates more than, say, 5% of the annual CO2 emissions of the current US population. Guy

Nope. China passed the US for CO2 in the last year or so. They are well past every industrial nation in water pollution. IIRC, they build a new coal fired power plant every few weeks. They have no interest in stopping, nor do the Indians.

In the US, the prairies were set on fire 8-10,000 ybp to drive game. Not that it equals the CO2 output, but it doesn't take much to modify a landscape and thus the climate of the affected area.

Look at it from their point of view.

First world countries achieved their prosperity through polluting industry. Developing countries see a double standard and want propsperity themselves. China has enormous coal reserves so it uses those.

SNIP ...

But Guy are you sure you arent a politition, I demonstrate where someone misused statistics to give an apparent simple statement of fact, you went off at a tangent discussing weather and climate change. You appear to consistently ignore the content of any replies, hence my question re politics :-)

Cheers, Simon

No it isnt a good parallel as evolution can be shown to have occured within the fossil record. Plus the opposition to evolution is based purely on faith.

SNIP ...

SNIP...

I find the lack of dissent disturbing. It isnt an exact science so would expect healthy debate. However if some people are saying that the rise in temperature is there but insignificant whereas others are saying it is higher then thats fine. It would also mean no conclusion may be drawn from the review. Its so easy to present some interpretation that whilst it is not lying gives a completely false impression.

Cheers, Simon

Heck no, look at the geological record, there have been one or two events that nearly cleared the planet of anything alive. Isnt the reason for the extiction of dinosaurs still under discussion. Just how rapid was it ?

Cheers, Simon

True on both counts, she was more interested in the country as a whole and the coal industry was far too expensive.

Cheers, Simon

There is certainly such a thing as global climate change.

I will be sure to tell the global climate coalition that there is no such thing as global climate, though, it's just the sort of thing they'd love to have more people believe. Guy

I'm not wholly convinced that is the case. The cost of the unemployment benefits, rise in crime due to deprivation, and balance of payments importing coal, may well mean that it was cheaper to pay them to dig coal out of the ground than to pay them to sit at home and practice on their flugelhorns. Guy