George Monbiot today has another excellent piece on climate deniers and Bellamy here.
Its official: scientists say the earth stopped warming fully 10 years ago and has in fact been cooling ever since.
According, that is, to one scientist, some time TV presenter and British naturalist David Bellamy, who could be heard this week being interviewed on the Pat Kenny Radio show Today on RTE.
Bellamy is well known for his climate-skeptic stance, which according to Wikipaedia has lead to his fall from grace in media circles including the BBC.
Bellamy’s earlier claim that most of the world’s glaciers are in fact growing in size has been well debunked by George Monbiot who wrote on the subject a few years ago saying
“It is hard to convey just how selective you have to be to dismiss the evidence for climate change. You must climb over a mountain of evidence to pick up a crumb: a crumb which then disintegrates in your palm. You must ignore an entire canon of science, the statements of the world’s most eminent scientific institutions, and thousands of papers published in the foremost scientific journals. You must, if you are David Bellamy, embrace instead the claims of an eccentric former architect, which are based on what appears to be a non-existent data set. And you must do all this while calling yourself a scientist.”
None of this seems to have phased Bellamy who was once again heard confidently pronouncing that the vast body of scientific data supporting anthropogenic climate change is simply wrong- If the world has been warming it is a natural result of sun spot activity- but records show that the earth is as a matter of fact cooling. Bellamy sites Hendrik Svensmark and Nigel Calder’s book “The Chilling Stars” which posits the theory of cosmic rays as more significant than greenhouse gases. (Calder of course was implicated in the Great Global Warming Swindle film as well, lending his credibility as some-time editor of New Scientist to the skeptic’s camp.)- he saw this as being “good science”, while Kenny defended his show and media impartiality on the basis that they had reviewed the book and were therefore open to a wide range of viewpoints-
can we expect some serious interviews with members of the Flat Earth Society Pat for balance ?
So how do we know he isnt right if in fact global temperatures have been declining as he states? Apparently it is not that complicated- 2008 may well be the coolest year of the decade, but it is still a lot warmer than in pre-industrial times. The general trend in temperatures and CO2 levels are, like the oil price, still rising. The last ten years on their own are not representative- we have to look at the longer time scale. It is a question of comparing long term climate change to short term weather variability.
A bit like claiming we are going into an ice age because there was abit of a frost on the car this morning- not really the kind of calliber of argument you would want from a world-renowned scientist, defender of nature and household name, but there you go.
A good discussion of this can be found here at RealClimate.org.
Another climate skeptic is Irish Times journalist Kevin Myers who was interviewed by Paul Cunningham for the book “Ireland’s Burning”. Myers is quoted as saying that the “obsession” with environmentalism is like a new religion- “you conform or you are some kind of heretic and unworthy.” He particularly slates the Catholic Church’s call for action on climate change through Trocaire
as a cynical ploy to get money and get people to church. This all seems rather odd because, from the climate activists’ perspective, and that of many climate scientists’ as well, there is anything but obsession with climate change from government and the public, just lip service at best as we vigorously continue to pursue business as usual. He also thinks that a lot of environmentalism is based on fear- “fear of death and fear of the consequences of not having lived a good life.”
On probing deeper, however, it seems Myers may hold rather contradictory positions on the subject:
I dont think there is very much we can do about this. If the damage has been done on the lines people have said, then it is already too late. We have to recognise this possibility that we have stepped into the funnel and that the planet is doomed. It’s possible this is the case.
Now, coming from a climate skeptic, that sounds like real doom-mongering indeed.
Myers has become a drab little reactionary in his old age (or was he always so?)
Recall his article “We owe Africa nothing”, where he criticised the allocation of food aid to famine victims, as the end result was over-population – OK, this is true – but then went on to make a gross racist remark about the starving black infant growing up to be a “Priapic” soldier with an AK47 and multiple offspring.
Cause, y’see, them black folk has big willies. Myers career should have ended at that point.
In that article, he compared the African response to famine with that of the Irish, citing our greater common sense in not over-populating our land base. This ignores certain key points:
Immigration. Millions of Irish people were born who could not be supported by the landbase. Most ended up in places called “America”, “Canada”, “England” and “Australia”. If KM ever left the confines of Dublin 4 he might have met some of these people.
The Irish ARE living out of balance with their landbase, as are all industrial societies. The fact that we’re not in a state of starvation right now is due to the fact that we’re drawing down non-renewable resources and trading with overseas producers of food. Does Ireland grow 100% of it’s own food supply? Unlikely. To understand this is to master simple abstract thought – which is clearly beyond Kev.
The Irish Famine followed a period of massive deforestation by the British, which opened up lands for the growth of potatoes. The result was population overshoot, the destruction of the ecology of much of the country, and famine: http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/4498 We, in the modern world, are no more immune from this scenario than our ancestors were. To be smug about such a topic raises very serious questions about the smugee.
Anyhow, that’s Myers on famine. Clearly he’s no better on the environment. It’s amusing and heartbreaking to hear the attacks on the pitiful attempts by the Green Ministers to affect change. Even something as harmless as phasing out incandescent bulbs with CFLs became a source of hilarity on RTE’s “Liveline” program – admittedly, not the best forum for discussions that involve critical thought. Caller was an irate woman who gets migraines from CFLs. She was outraged(!) that incandescents were being banned. She admitted that she had already found overseas sources for these, and would be buying them on the internet. This didn’t prevent her from snivelling about the “injustice” to Joe Duffy. Next caller took the biscuit: asserted that there were “Scientific Studies” proving that incandescents were more energy efficient than CFLs, as they produce heat, and thereby reduce home heating costs.
While true that they produce heat, it is as waste, and the source is usually hanging from a ceiling – heat your home like that in an Irish winter and see how long you last.
People in Ireland, like elsewhere, are just NOT SERIOUS about making meaningful lifestyle changes. They want to make totem gestures to alleviate themselves from eco-guilt. Give them back their choice of plastic bags at Tescos, and watch what happens.
In any event, it is worth remembering that the real issue isn’t Myers, Bellamy, or morons whining to Liveline. The real issue is that the human population doesn’t understand the implications of a growth based economic system. The following hour long lecture by Albert Bartlett should be broadcast every day on every channel on every station on Earth until a critical mass of the population gets the implications through their thick skulls:
http://globalpublicmedia.com/lectures/461
It’s difficult to be optimistic. In the meantime, I have an eco-friendly TV made with bio-degradable polymers which used 50% less electricity.
Let the Greenwashing Commence!
Unfortunately it only takes one David Bellamy, plus one Kevin Myers, to provide a denial fantasy for the public to buy in to. But what does that say about those that consistently buy into such fantasies?
On a related note, CFLs have many more downsides than advocates often let on, mercury-related pollution being only one of them.The full life cycle analysis suggests that incandescents shouldn’t be written off quite so quickly. For more on this check out http://www.ile.org.uk ( UK Institute of Lighting Engineers) “smashing the light bulb” and make up your own mind.
LEDs appear to be a much better technology, but I say that in the knowledge I may be proven wrong by supply chain and resource constraints and as-yet-unknown downsides to the production process.
LEDs are still struggling to catch up with compact fluorescents for retrofit aplications. Yes, you can get 80-100 lumens/watt if you buy individual LEDs but which consumers are going to do that. Most commercial ones are very low efficiency and riding on a wave of hype. Nothing realistic beats a T8 fluorescent at 85-100 lumens/watt, my parents have had one in the kitchen as the main source of light for years. I’m trying to source one with 2700 degrees colour temperature to give a warmer light.
Their time will come but not quite yet I think.
I’d second Gareth’s comment, LEDs are still early in their development and are currently most suited to niche applications. The industry is advancing quite quickly and we already see low level street lighting, security and city beautification (LED flood, LED line etc.) products appearing. But the industry is still feeling it’s way with this technology and I expect a few dead ends along the way. For many applications T8, compact (non-integrated) fluorescent (PL-C/T) or their newer more efficient versions (PL-R) still have a lot of life left in them yet.