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ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE HAS attracted growing concern over recent decades. The recession in most European states has diverted attention, temporarily, to problems of debt, low-growth and under-utilisation of resources such as labour. Yet, the natural environment plays a huge role in shaping the lives and choices of humanity. It is beyond doubt that changes in the environment have been the result of human behaviour and choice. In this century, climate change and the quality of our environment will be the central problem demanding a global response.
The problem of climate change, energy supply and energy cost continue to pose a huge challenge to societies across the globe. For the Republic of Ireland the challenge is twofold:
Changes in attitude, behaviour and public policy is a long-term and complex project. However, because it is long-term and complex does not argue for postponing the task. It remains vital and urgent. Climate change and the associated issues raised constitute, it is argued, the greatest single challenge for societies in the 21st Century. This needs to be reflected in political economy and in public policy across the globe. Waiting for international agreement is not an option. An overriding priority must be to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the coming 15 years. New targets need to be set for the period to 2030 and policy monitored and evaluated regularly.
The weight of scientific evidence strongly indicates that a long-term and profound shift has occurred in global temperatures and this is likely to be related, among other possible factors, to an acceleration in the burning of fossil fuels since the onset of the industrial revolution. It is estimated that, today, 30% of CO2 gases in the atmosphere is related to human behaviour. The decade ending 2010 was the hottest on record.
The prospects for international agreement and corresponding action to significantly limit and reduce CO2 emissions within the next ten years appear to be negligible – this in spite of the growing evidence that such emissions will lead to an irreversible and disastrous rise in temperatures with consequences for global balance and societies near and far. There is a moral imperative on all countries to cooperate in this matter as well as given a lead through example in addressing the underlying causes – which are political and moral as much as technological and financial in nature. While a totally decarbonised economy may not be feasible, more rapid progress in the right direction is needed and much greater priority needs to be accorded to this goal.
The recession-related modest fall in total net greenhouse gas emissions in the Republic of Ireland from a peak of 125 of 1990 levels in 2005 to a level of 106 in 2011 is welcome. This leaves the Republic marginally below the 2012 Kyoto target of 113. However, further progress is needed especially as some of this fall was clearly related to the sudden disruption in economic activity in 2008.
Progress, in the case of the Republic of Ireland, has been very slow compared to the EU28 average which was 83% of 1990 levels in 2011. The UK level was 75% in 2011. Levels of energy intensity as measured by gross inland consumption of energy divided by GDP (at constant 2000 prices) fell in the years up to 2007 but have increased a little since then. On the positive side levels are lowest among all EU Member States. Levels of acid rain precursor emissions, here, has been trending downwards since 2000 to reach a level just slightly above the Gothenburg Protocol target emissions level in 2010.
Gradual progress has been made in a number of areas of environmental policy as noted by the Central Statistics Office (2012): ‘The percentage of waste recovered in Ireland rose to 38% in 2010, from just under a quarter in 2003, and 53% of waste was landfilled.’ While the rate of waste recovery is not far from the EU average there is scope for significant further improvement given rates in excess of 50% in some EU States in 2010.
Eurostat measures energy dependency as net energy imports divided by the sum of gross energy consumption. The figure for the Republic of Ireland was 89% in 2011 compared to 54% on average for the EU27. Only the islands of Cyprus and Malta together with the Duchy of Luxembourg had higher rates than that of the Republic of Ireland. Given the exceptionally high dependence by the Republic of Ireland on fossil fuel imports it is clear that changes need to happen to patterns of consumption, production and energy use and importation.
A sudden shock to the global economy arising from a hike in energy costs could have a disproportionate and destabilising effect on Irish economic conditions. While there is the possibility that energy supplies may not necessarily be as constrained as feared some years ago – due to the possible development of new sources through oil and gas finds off the Irish coast or through the development of new technologies and sources in other countries – the high dependence on imports of oil and gas is not desirable.
While the development of nuclear power or shale extraction (fracking) have been cited by some as necessary alternative sources of energy in Ireland the case for this has not been convincingly established given the environmental and other risks associated with such developments. Investment in renewable sources of energy is justifiable from the standpoint of diversifying energy sources in a way that reduces our exposure to external shocks as well as ensuring a more ecologically friendly form of energy consumption.
The costs of investment in renewable energy are considerable and, depending on the form used, may have undesirable impacts for some communities (such as, for example, the establishment of inland wind turbines). However, some forms of alternative renewable energy production still in their infancy and future technological change may open up safer, quicker, more stable and lower cost options. Investment in renewable energy is, therefore, an important component of a medium-term strategy and not a panacea.
A number of urgent policy initiatives that are within the grasp of Irish and European policy-makers are needed:
Tom Healy is Director of the Nevin Economic Research Institute (NERI). Tom has previously worked in the Economic and Social Research Institute, the Northern Ireland Economic Research Centre, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the National Economic and Social Forum and the Department of Education and Skills. He holds a PhD (economics and sociology) from UCD. His research interests have included the impact of education and social capital on well-being.
This article originally appeared on the NERI website.
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Unfortunately tax and restricting use of fossil fuels and chemicals that do damage to the ozone layer are worthless if every country plays along.
We here pay about 70% tax on a litre of petrol and the Chinese just think “Great, more for us to burn” but they’re pumping the fumes into the same atmosphere
I totally agree, people can’t go outside their doors in Beijing or Nanjing (or any of China’s citys) because of smog.
How in the name of Henry Ford is Ireland going to make a difference.
Well you should still try and improve the environment we live in here in Ireland unless you would prefer to be looking at smog too.
“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.”
― Edmund Burke
“The Irish are taxed through the point of vehicle extinction so half the world can pollute the other half”
Me.
So Mike your solution is to do nothing positive to protect the environment. If humans had the same view of human rights where would we be now. The solution to this problem is complex not impossible .
The major component in fuel price inflation is the price of wholesale oil. Carbon tax is a small fraction.
@ one off, your wrong there.
We pay 70% tax on fuel, vehicle tax, tax on parts, tax on service, tax on labour service, vehicle registration tax, tax on insurance.
Enough is enough.
I said the major part of ‘price inflation’ is the wholesale price of oil. So I am not wrong. Tax is proportional, so if price inflation goes down, so does tax.
And i mentioned Carbon Tax only. All of the other taxes have nothing to do with reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Its like deja vu al over again. In the late 1960′s I was a very keen young man on matters of environment and then along came the Club of Rome and their propaganda publications such as ‘Limits to Growth’ and ‘Resources and Man’ and here I am a pensioner watching the same stuff being regurgitated almost 40 years on.
The boy who cried wolf was eventually correct. It is Cassandra ‘s curse. 40 years is nothing and while you may be gone, your grandkids will suffer the consequences. Any analysis of the LTG study shows that they were pretty much spot on.
History is chock full with doomsday scenarios, peddled by profiteering charlatans, scenarios that time and again keep getting postponed decades into the future. Man running out of oil in 20 years has been around for a century. The claim still keeps getting made even by people who really should know better. And every time the goal posts end up getting pushed back
And very many of those doomsday scenarios have come to pass. All civilizations, at least historically, have ultimately collapsed. The LTG scenarios are unfolding all around us. We do not live at the end of history.
The projection that oil production will peak before 2040 is accepted by even the oil companies.
It’s the central issue now just it will take years for the politicians to follow suit.
We need to take action now.
We wont. It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.
Of course the climates changing. Its part of the planets natural cycle. It shocks me that modern science hasn’t caught up with this. Look at Gore’s inconvenient truth now. Most of his assertions have been completely dismantled, the documentary almost comes off as satire. It and Team America are probably 2 of my favorite rips on modern USA.
The inactivity on the suns surface at the moment has caught the attention of many -
Myles,
Science has a handle on this…check out english.pravda.ru.ice age…and look into what paleoclimatologists have to say about what’s happening. This planet has gone thru multiple ice ages with periods of warming in between. Man’s impact on the warming cycle of this planet is minute at most. Unfortunately, the enviro-whacko scientists are organized and aided by a corrupt liberal media, a corrupt UN and corrupt governments all looking for more of your money. As usual, follow the money trail to the truth (see: Al Gore)…
Skeptics are not as organized as they tend to come from diverse scientific fields and they’re not competing for handouts from corrupt governments. Enviro-whackos look upon skeptics as flat earthers, yet they fail to understand the term. Flat earthers believed the science was settled and there was no room for argument or competing science. Sound Familiar?
Climate science is well aware of long term background variations in climate and there are lots of publications on it.
Regarding the next Ice Age..can’t see how this alters our predicament?
One-Off,
You say “climate science”, is well aware of the history of the planets climate. So they’re aware that history says we’ll enter another ice age inside 2000 years. They’re aware then, that rising temperatures PRECEED raised levels of CO2…not the other way around…correct? They’re aware of the massive impact on climate and weather of the sun and the earths wobble. Yet they want to spend billions and trillions of our hard earned dollars/euros to accomplish what? No matter what we do, the planet will continue to warm…as it always has…until the Sun and the wobble cause a change in the pattern and it begins to cool…as it always has.
Yes, they are clearly aware of long term trends, that is why they are called Climatologists. Nobody can be sure when the next Ice Age will occur. Most of the peer reviewed research I have read puts the next glaciation at 50,000 years.
To accomplish what? Firstly, so as to not hasten the demise of humanity within the next century. Secondly, no matter what we do fossil fuel energy upon which mankind currently depends for our welfare and which is driving anthropogenic climate change will cease to be available to us. Advanced civilization will not survive unless we develop alternative energy sources that also curb the carbon emissions.
I think they are worthy goals. You may disagree. Or we could just say sod it, the sun is going to turn into a red giant in a few billion years so lets just be the authors of our own destruction!
Who said anything about glaciation ?
Glaciation is a scientific term for what you might describe as an ice age
Goodness me, and we have to wait 50000 years for that? I guess the possibility of a Little Ice Age in the coming decades is due to…AGW ?
i have seen no research that AGW could cause a little ‘ice age’
The earth heating up by 1d can alter the direction of polar winds resulting in what we are experiencing now –
Australia has noticed .
Europe also .
US getting record breaking weather patterns each year .
This isnt the place to be talking about 1D/One Direction
ummm…the US is NOT getting record breaking weather patterns every year! That’s nothing more than alarmist hyperbole…
You know what comes after a period of warming on this planet? No? Tell you what, if you plan to be around in another 1-2 thousand years…bring a sweater!
In the meantime, if you want to have ANY impact on warming and weather, figure out how to manipulate the Sun…and figure out how to control the earth’s wobble…
Places like Sioux city have had back to back record breaking highs and lows .
…and the previous record high was when? The record low? When was the record before that? Without looking it up I’ll guess that the previous record high/low was 30-50 years ago and the ones previous to that were 100+ years ago…
I’m not saying that warming isn’t happening…it is. What I’m saying is that it’s not man-made and that you’re statement above is pure hyperbole…
Never been a record low one year – record high the next .
In the record books anyway.
Ahhhh…well obviously that’s proof positive that snow in the US will be a rare site by 2010 and that the snow and glaciers in the Himalayas will melt dry by 2030…
It’s 2014
I’m willing to reconsider if you can Point me to some scientific research which conclude that current climate trends are not manmade
Climate change challenge illustrates 2 things: (i) impossibility of addressing the issue in just 1 country and (ii) the deep failure of markets to address externalities. Response must therefore be (i) global and local at same time and (ii) focussed on a new social model where regulations, controls and redistribution are the order of the day. Capitalism as we know it could yet spell the end of history. How ironic.
What exactly was the time frame for the change of tune on this warming lark? It was AGW then Catastrophic Climate Change now it’s just Climate Change [ which it always does] anda few other bits but when exactly did the changes take place?
i think only you called it Catastrophic Climate Change
Amongst those who used the term Catastrophic Climate Change were the Guardian, The Independent, Greenpeace and none other than the world famous scientist Obama.
the term catastrophic can be used as an adjective in front of many terms, including Climate Change, that doesn’t mean it should be read as a term in its own right – only people who try to pigeon hole science as alarmist use such terminology.
“Even the IPCC confirmed in its fifth assessmernt report from last September: There has been no statistically significant warming in the last one and half decades. [...]
Thus global warming has stopped – and has done so even while CO2 emissions have increased unhindered.”
P Gosselin
That is factually incorrect.
Warming of global surface temperatures has slowed. Overall warming has increased massively.
define “massively”
at a rate of approx..4 Hiroshima bomb detonations worth of heat every second.
wow…I’m speechless. That is quoted from ThinkProgress.org, a VERY left wing organization. Oh, and you got the quote wrong…It’s 400,000 Hiroshima bombs per day. No hyberbole there ;p
These warmist fanatics are turning on the IPCC now as the scam collapses.
Yes its a Marxist conspiracy! Never been to thinkprogress.org but I think they got the number wrong
This data comes from a paper lead authored by Australian climate scientist John Church and the number is 4
I have lived long enough to see the 50-60 year climate cycles in action without the aid of google ,wiki and the CRU , I’m sure that some folks in Ireland have seen even more.
Great piece of scientific wisdom!
In climate one measure is to be mentioned negatively in the leaked emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU). On May 22, 2008 Phil Jones to Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt.
PPS Our web server has found this piece of garbage – so wrong it is unbelievable that Tim Ball wrote a decent paper in Climate Since AD 1500. I sometimes wish I’d never said this about the land stations in an email. Referring to Alex von Storch just shows how up to date he is.
He refers to a book edited by Raymond Bradley and Phil Jones published in 1992. In other words it preceded the shift into corrupted, manipulated, politicized climate science publicly manifest in the 1995 IPCC Report. Benjamin Santer’s unsupported insertion of the phrase “discernible human influence” was clear evidence of what was happening. ”
Dr Tim Ball
Cut and paste.
From Dr Tim Ball.just like it says.
Further, is it inaccurate?
Sorry, busy decoding messages from the Supreme Soviet but the old brain microchip isn’t working too well. Damn, will have to delay the global communist takeover for another day.
Can’t tell if it is accurate or not, your cut and paste job has made it genuinely hard to read.
“In other words it preceded the shift into corrupted, manipulated, politicized climate science publicly manifest in the 1995 IPCC Report. Benjamin Santerâs unsupported insertion of the phrase âdiscernible human influenceâ was clear evidence of what was happening. â
There you go.
Still indecipherable and repasting it doesn’t help. Lacks punctuation, can’t tell what’s a quote or not from reading it – it starts off in the third person, switches abruptly to first person than switches back again.
Gibberish.
Can technology fix the problems technology creates…
Only time will tell.
Great question..i don’t think it can. Some good work ongoing on this in the “post normal” science field
Economy v Environment, imo… I just hope the economic model hits a downward collapse spiral before the environment does.
Thus far Economic recession is the only proven way to reduce emissions and energy use.
Pupil must try harder. Growth based on sustainability needed.
Sorry, student is well past that nonsense, ‘sustainable growth’ is an oxymoron.
And what I said above is correct, unless you can point me to an example which shows otherwise?
I couldn’t give a fuc* about the environment because every American is driving a 4×4.
Actually I drive a 4 cylinder Saab…but nice try…
Coming at it from a Geologist’s point of view, we should be doing everything in our power to shift energy sources. But not to wind and solar. Once we solve the problem of cold fusion everything will be fine. And I believe we will. Between now and then, all we have to sufficiently cover out energy needs is an ever dwindling supply of fossil fuels in a world that is getting hungrier for it. And don’t mind, mass mono culture farming utilizes fertilizers which have an order of magnitude greater global warming effect than Carbon Dioxide pound for it. We need to change what we eat as well. The days of cheap food will come to an end in the next fifty years and with it, so will the meat based diet. It’s too energetically expensive and environmentally destructive. With any luck, in the next hundred years we will all be vegetarians capable of growing our own food and driving around in fusion powered transportation. Combine that with maybe halving the population and we have a fighting chance. Otherwise? We’re in deep trouble. Just remember, I want to do something not to save the planet. But to save US as a civilization . The planet has been here for over 4 billion years, it’s not going anywhere. The petrol we burn in our cars is a physical relic of the failures of eons of animals and plants which survived much longer than we did and they all died out.
I agree – welcome to the Anthropocene
but “Once we solve the problem of cold fusion everything will be fine.” – what makes you think we will? I needs to be delivered, fully operational and scaled up in the next 15-20 years – I have severe doubts!
” The primary reason for the downward crude oil prices is the increasing number of global oil reserves that are resulting from improved drilling methods. The Roland Berger study writes that currently there are an estimated 2.6 trillion barrels of crude in easily accessible reserves and 3.3 trillion barrels in unconventional reserves like oil sands and shale”.
http://www.process.vogel.de/management_und_it/branchen_maerkte/markt-barometer/articles/430407/ In German but the facts are there.
there has been no downward crude oil trend
Peak Oil does not mean we are running out of oil. It means production will peak, no matter how much is left in the ground
We treat the planet like we have another one to go to :(
I think the cooling of the planet over the last 18 years has upset the AGW codology. The Russians and Chinese did not buy into the fad and now they are having aright old laugh at the pseudo science behind it.
But of course it hasn’t cooled
The IPCC has admitted [through clenched teeth] that they were wrong on the part that CO2 plays in our climate and yet the zealots continue to chant about it.
where?
Development of climate as a vehicle for political control was achieved through various meetings that culminated in Rio 1992 at which Agenda 21 established the political agenda and the UNFCCC set up the IPCC to predetermine the scientific proof that CO2 was causing global warming. An underlying division emerged that few recognized or understood that is very important in todayâs debate. more on this later :-)
please, no need!
Coal is having a great revival as the renewables scam fades away and new mining methods are so much more eco-friendly and helping to bring energy costs down which will create lots of jobs.I know that this goes against Agenda 21 and the brave new world order but it’s nice to see prosperity on the horizon again even if Ireland will be left behind.
Ireland doesn’t have any coal.
Wow, the amount of people on here denying climate change is astonishing. I thought you only saw that in America. Even if you’re stupid enough to think the planet isn’t warming, you should still be pro-environment. You don’t have to believe in climate change to want to fight pollution, deforestation and mass extinctions. All of which are quantifiable and clearly anthropogenic. People just love the conspiracy theory and don’t want to accept that their lives and how they live are completely unsustainable and are more than content to just ignore the problem and kick it down the road when it’ll be too late. The IPCC has never been 100% on it’s predictions. Nobody is claiming that. Sometimes they’ve undershot the mark, a lot of the time reality is even worse than predicted. It’s not some bizarre plutocrat with a magic crystal ball trying to trick us into buying solar. There is no short term economic argument for climate action. That’s why it’s such a hard sell. Why would anybody make it up? It’s just greedy, lazy and selfish idiots who don’t care about the future when they’re gone.
or read “Conservatism” with a capital ‘C’
Not too many deny climate change Sean, the argument lies in whether its man made or not. Now I don’t know what to believe myself, so many seemingly “valid” arguments coming from both sides but i do agree with you on everything else you said. Fossil Fuels are finite, and unless we act now to become fully independent of fossil fuels in the future, we’re fully goosed!
Just on your final point, you ask why would anyone make it up? We’ll here’s one uneducated layman’s theory for making it up… If you can convince everyone in your nation to reduce their carbon footprint, by maybe taxing them on carbon emitting fuels etc, you can make some handy coin…. and if people buy the story and play along you can also create carbon credits . You can then make some serious money by selling those carbon credits internationally to somewhere like china, where they can afford to buy them and continue to manufacture plastic crap (or solar panels) to sell back to us and easily cover the cost. Just a thought.
The 2013 Global Sea Ice Extent was above Average for first time in 9 years and is now the same as 1986, this is the ice that warmists claimed was melting. Some of them even got stuck in the ice to prove that it had melted away. I wonder who will pay for the rescue operation ?
There are problems on a political level of course. Implementing a system to counter climate change is extremely difficult but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s happening. Science is pure, I have no doubt that people are trying to make money off it. But nobody could argue that the Science is corrupt.
Climate science is corrupt,read the CG2 emails. Given the corruption and gate-keeping weâve seen in climate science over the past 2 decades, We can be glad that we have real data and observations. But even some of those are being massively tampered with. Such is the sad state climate science has devolved to[ P Gosselin]Then we see the closure of Patterns Recognition in Physics just last week by Martin Rasmussen. As Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt put it “A scientific article authored by 15 highly esteemed scientists did not please you as a publisher because their conclusions did not fit with the doctrine of the IPCC. And in a craven reaction, the journal was terminated. You regret that you were unable to prevent the publication. It is written in the fundamental law: âCensorship does not occurâ. You have understood very little about science, and from scientific freedom of the fundamental law even much less so”
BTW when Hansen left GISS so did all the data from the 1930′s which showed it to be the warmest decade in the last century but which was later altered. I have some of it regarding Dublin Airport saved thanks to a chap on another news site. but the before-and-after bits have been removed from the GISS website. Not what I would call Scientific integrity.
sorry, you are corrupting science!
So cutting down forests has nothing to do with the amount of carbon they take in which in turn cool the planet down -
China has dug so deep into the coal mines that they digging coal(dead trees) that was buried 50 million years ago .
So the trees leaves are taking in the carbon which cools the atmosphere and now it’s having the complete opposite effect as it’s being burnt.
The Carbon dioxide blanket levels were 300 parts per million in the 1930s -
This year it’s reached 382 – the highest levels in 100s of 1000s of years .
We are burning too much fuel which creates too much carbon dioxide -
We are cutting down too much forestry which prevents the carbon reaching the atmosphere -
It’s a downward spiral .
RSS data shows cooling,the slope over the last 17 years is -0.000122111 per year. That’s cooling. Do look it up.
on “Watts up with That”?
RSS data here for those who are interested in science and not trolling.
ftp://ftp.ssmi.com/msu/monthly_time_series/rss_monthly_msu_amsu_channel_tlt_anomalies_land_and_ocean_v03_3.txt
Website http://www.remss.com/
that is simply an incorrect analysis, it is worthless arguing the point with you.
http://www.climatechange2013.org/report/review-comments-disclaimer
The so called ‘pause’ applies only to surface temperatures, which only represent about 2 percent of the overall warming of the global climate. As the IPCC reports indicates, over 90 percent of global warming goes into heating the oceans, and it continues at a rapid pace.
Is there a tree that needs a hug
“Reduce energy consumption through better insulation of buildings”
Hemp – don’t just go carbon neutral, go carbon negative.
BBC to Phil Jones “Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming?”
Jones reply Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.”
Santer et al. “Our results show that temperature records of at least 17 years in length are required for identifying human effects on global-mean tropospheric temperature.”
RSS and 5 other data sets now show that the 17 year mark was passed last September.
the IPCC confirmed in its fifth assessment report from last September: There has been no statistically significant warming in the last one and half decades. [...]
Thus global warming has stopped – and has done so even while CO2 emissions have increased unhindered.
Maybe some of the warmists might like to actually read the IPCC 5th assessment ?
The year 2013 ties with 2003 as the fourth warmest year globally since records began in 1880. The annual global combined land and ocean surface temperature was 0.62°C (1.12°F) above the 20th century average of 13.9°C (57.0°F). This marks the 37th consecutive year (since 1976) that the yearly global temperature was above average. Currently, the warmest year on record is 2010, which was 0.66°C (1.19°F) above average. Including 2013, 9 of the 10 warmest years in the 134-year period of record have occurred in the 21st century. Only one year during the 20th century—1998—was warmer than 2013.
•Separately, the 2013 global average land surface temperature was 0.99°C (1.78°F) above the 20th century average of 8.5°C (47.3°F), the fourth highest annual value on record.
•The 2013 global average ocean temperature was 0.48°C (0.86°F) above the 20th century average of 16.1°C (60.9°F) and tied with 2006 as the eighth highest annual temperature on record and the highest since 2010, the last time El Niño conditions were present in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. ENSO-neutral conditions were present in this region during all of 2013.
•Precipitation measured at land-based stations around the globe was near average on balance for 2013, at just 0.31 mm above the long-term average. However, as is typical, precipitation varied greatly from region to region. This is the second consecutive year with near-average global precipitation at land-based stations.
We have read it Auntie! The fact is that even though you cherry-pick comments and even try to use blatantly selective quotes from scientific people who actually have a totally opposing view to yours, the fact is that the IPCC, all of the national and international met agencies and scientific institutions of any repute completely disagree with you. There simply is no debate about this any more, unless you want to be completely scientific and go against the consensus of everybody who is actually qualified to understand this stuff – so who does that leave you with as regards any kind of expert view? A few old cranks and David Bellamy???
Are you really asking us to believe YOU as opposed to the scientists who are qualified to understand the science.
Here’s the annual State of the Climate statement from the extremely reputable National Climate Data Centre at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And if you think they have made up all their thousands of observations then I give up!
“The globally-averaged temperature for 2013 tied as the fourth warmest year since record keeping began in 1880. It also marked the 37th consecutive year with a global temperature above the 20th century average. The last below-average annual temperature was 1976. Including 2013, all 13 years of the 21st century (2001-2013) rank among the 15 warmest in the 134-year period of record. The three warmest years on record are 2010, 2005, and 1998.”
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/
Here’s the UK Met Office giving their global average temperature prediction for 2014, along with information on how accurate their predictions of warming for 2013 turned out to be…
“The global average temperature in 2014 is expected to be between 0.43 °C and 0.71 °C above the long-term (1961-1990) average of 14.0 °C, with a central estimate of 0.57 °C, according to the Met Office annual global temperature forecast.
Taking into account the range of uncertainty in the forecast, it is likely that 2014 will be one of the warmest ten years in the record which goes back to 1880.
The forecast range and central estimate for 2014 are the same as were forecast by the Met Office for 2013.
Using observations up to the end of October 2013, this year’s global average temperature is currently estimated to be between 0.39 °C and 0.59 °C, with a central estimate of 0.49 °C*. Using this central estimate, 2013 currently ranks as the 9th warmest** year on record, but final figures for the whole year will not be available until March 2014.
The current central estimate of the global temperature for 2013 is within the range forecast by the Met Office last year. 2013 is also in the top ten warmest years and is more likely than not to be warmer than 2012, both of which were predicted in last year’s global average temperature forecast.”
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2013/global-temperature-2014
The Australian Met Office say on their website that 2013 was the hottest year in Australia since records began…
None of this sounds like cooling to me!
I am sure you know all of this anyway and wonder why you work so hard to stand in the way of progress that is critical to our children’s futures? Sad :-)
its here for the last 80 years at least, The Tesla Coil.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC4swOYYuTQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGk3O-zg2E8i
its here for the last 80 years at least, The Tesla Coil.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC4swOYYuTQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGk3O-zg2E8
have your say