The Great Global Warming Swindle

I've watched this, and i must say. It's just as bad as "Inconvenient truth"
But in the end the docu is closer to the truth then the Gore movie, imho

I have a book called "Unstoppable Global Warming" which makes the case that similar warm periods occur every 1500 years. One of my favorite bits of evidence is the fact that Mars appears to be warming up as well. Another important consideration I think is that the scientific method requires a control subject, and since we don't have a second earth that contains no human civilization, human contribution to climate change cannot be proven, nor measured scientifically.

What a load of shit.  There is consensus in the climate scientist community.

Using common sense for one second, what has the scientific community got to gain? Please.

Hideous Monster, that is misleading at best.

I'm glad in the state of Victoria, Australia (where I live) - policy is driven by the fact of global warming. Otherwise we would probably wait out this "climate cycle" and find one day we have no water at all.

jojo, the real problem about this subject is what you believe its the same as religion. People follow and don't think for themselfs. I've added this docu since it't the opposite of the Gore movie. And really, both are full of misleadings. But seeing this movie would let you understand that they can make people everything believe.

Now there is no single reason why the gouverment shouldn't take care with energy. It makes energy cheaper, it cares for the local enviroment and everyone knows oil will be exhausted someday. Reason enough to have enviromental policy, or actually, energy policy.

But the main problem about the enviroment is in human beeing themself, are you arrogant enough to think you have any single influence on things like the weather? about your life? It makes me sick seeing people be so arrogant. And with that, scientist really are a bounche of lying stealing shitholes. one of mine best mate is Drs. earthscience and bilogy and he claims scientist are just as human as everyone. Don't forget scientists will work for themselfs not for humanity. And the prove are these 2 movies!

Now you know im from the netherlands, which is lower then sealevel. If any country have to be afraid of raising sealevel and globalwarming it should be us. But instead of panic we try to think(mine gouverment does) and study, and develop. And there is no reason to protest against globarwarming the way it's been done now. It would be like protesting against God himself. For you God don't excist so protesting against him would be worthless right?

If it's our CO2 or the sun that makes the earth warm we humans didn't figure it out yet, but there is just 1 fact, it's getting warmer and we have to deal with it.

Don't get me wrong. I'm very much for reducing air and water pollution. But there are plenty of reasons to do that. I don't see why everybody's so determined to label humans as the cause for climate change. The climate goes through cyclical changes all the time. We're not going to run out of water, either. some parts of the world, including mine, are getting record levels of rain, and glacier melting is certainly not going to lower the amount of available water. I think this issue is a political one at its core. It's meant to generate fear, so certain politicians can win votes, and certain businesses can gain profit. It's no different than the WMD's in Iraq. I don't put a lot of faith in "consensus of scientists," either. "Scientists" is just another word the government uses to dupe the populace into coming over to their way of thinking. The fact is there are plenty of scientists who don't agree with the human-caused climate change theory, and they're just not getting the attention and publicity. But it doesn't matter! Why should I believe something just because somebody says that scientists say it's true? Yes the weather seems unusual, but I'm not just going to assume that the most popular explanation is the correct one.

Boomstam, I wont disagree with you on the issue on people not thinking for themselves. I won't disagree with you on public hysteria. This issue isn't about that. I don't care about the Al Gore movie, there is still scientific fact on humans as the cause of climate change. Do I individually affect the weather? Wrong question - collectively we do.

Scientists are human beings. Don't you think that's a little dramatic with your charaterisation? It's Irrelevant when you understand the Scientific Method. Government Policy is better served with scientific fact. Consensus is building politically outside the US, which in turn is creating positive, sustainable policy.

Mr. Hideous, the affect of climate change across the world wont be uniform. You may get more rain. We don't. We're in a drought. And our state government acknowledges it, and is taking action, and not overzealously. (Though I doubt overzealousness would hurt)

Which political parties win from this? The greens? Which businesses? Photovoltaic manufacturers? Any political party or business that bangs the climate change drum is a speck compared to fossil fuel industry and the lobbying that goes on in the US government. Please tell me I'm misinterpreting you.

You can believe whatever you want. I wont disagree with you on the fear/manipulation point. But when something has been peer reviewed to death by experts in the field reaching a consensus, I'm going to take it a little more seriously. Your welcome to point me to the climate skeptics - first thing I'll ask is credentials, backers and motive.

So it's okay for you to be suspicious of a scientist's motives and backing, but not me? Perhaps certain foreign companies, held back by the regulations, unions, and taxes in their own countries, want to restrict competing companies in other countries that grant more privelages and allow more tax exemptions to their domestic companies, and thus bring said competitors down to their own level of restriction. I don't know.  Maybe there is no backing, maybe different scientists simply have different data, and the ones that theorize the human cause, do so out of populaity, rather than solid data.  Just because temperature rises during the same period that fossil fuels burn, it doesn't mean the two are related, especially since we have no data showing that all previous warm periods were coincided with the same thing. Climates change! Magnetospheres fluctuate, our whole solar system moves through the galaxy, the sun pulses periodically, volcanos erupt, meteors smash into the earth, and you're worried about fossil fuel emissions. I don't know about you, but the moment politicians start proposing laws, to protect us from the dangers that they see, I start to get skeptical.  Should we find alternative, renewable fuels that don't pollute? Sure! I'd be the first to buy it, provided it fit my budget, but when it comes to legal restrictions, and new taxes, I always vote no.

Ok lets get down to specifics. What are the motives of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change? In the US, what are the motives of the National Academy of Sciences, The American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science? All in consensus over climate change. Give me some real scientists who can refute those conclusions. What have you got that backs up your claims?

I'm always skeptical about government proposing new laws from fear. In the case of the US, the playing field is not level in the energy industry. US government provides the oil industry with corporate subsidies. First thing, get rid of them. Second, any company should pay for their externalities. You wouldn't want the nuclear industry dumping toxic waste unregulated. In the end, someone else pays for it. These two things are not unreasonable. Level the playing field, and the alternative energy industry will kill the fossil fuel industry in no time. We'll pay for it in the short term, but the bigger picture is that we'll have cheaper, sustainable energy into the future with a minimal impact on the environment.

If climate awareness can catalyze the sustainable energy industry, I'm all for it. I don't see the problem here. 

"If climate awareness can catalyze the sustainable energy industry, I'm all for it."

So, basically your main reason for believing it is the positive societal effect that you think it would have, rather than the accuracy of its conclusions. See, this is what I think is a likely motive for this scare. I think intelectuals are using natural climate change, to improve the behavior of people, and that they're not all that concerned about whether or not the real cause is human behavior. They just think that if lying to the public makes people more environmentally friendly, then it's a lie worth telling. I totally disagree with that. I think environmentalism is a good philosophy, but that if you have to lie to people to get them to agree with you, then you're ignoring the root of the problem, and not really helping anything. Honesty is an even better philosophy. It's the same thing as saying it's okay for your preferred presidential candidate to lie to win votes, as long as he turns out to be a good president, and the other candidate doesn't win. 

I'm not going to get into a "who can name the most, and most believable scientists" war with you. You already told me that you're going to begin by calling into question their backing and motives, anyway, and I've been in enough of such debates to understand that opposing experts never convince anybody, anyway. There are plenty of books and documentaries out there siting data which conflicts with the popular climate change model, one of which is the item on which this page is centered. If you were interested, you would go out and get them yourself. Why should I care if you agree with me or not, anyway?

I don't refute a strong human contribution. I simply doubt it, and in science, there's always room for skepticism, especially in climatology. I've looked objectively at enough data from both sides of the fence to see that there is enough evidence to motivate a reasonable doubt in me. Not the least of which is a long history of fluctuating climate, which over the ages, while and before we ever walked the earth has been much more violent than what we see today.

That statement is a footnote. I've made my case. The science precedes policy and its beneficiaries. I'm happy to read anything that refutes the position of those scientific bodies. Maybe you don't have confidence in your sources?

Follow the money. Common sense leads me to believe its the hegemonic fossil fuel industry skewing data, not the fledgling alternative energy industry. Skepticism is a tenet of science, but I think the jury is in on this one, and at worst leans in the way of my case (factoring non man made causes).

By itself I still think it is fair to kill fossil fuel subsidies and make companies pay for their externalities.

Oh, I'll support cutting government funding on any industry, program, service, or research. It's a common argument to belittle somebody's opinion, because they aren't interested in convincing other people to agree with them. I don't plan on building a case refuting your opinion. Your evidence is as much hearsay as mine. Hearsay, by the way, is not scientific evidence. I don't put faith in the wisdom of a consensus. I believe any centralization of a decision-making process has a retarding effect. 

I will not support the creation of more legal restrictions on any entity but the government itself. Period.

My evidence is hearsay? Short of becoming a climate scientist myself, those listed organisations and others with the expertise and resources have come to the conclusion that that human beings are the most likely cause of climate change. Read that article.

Faith doesn't enter into this. This is not a religious topic. You have a whole bunch of scientific organisations here, where is the centralisation?

Have the opponents of climate change provided papers for peer review in their respective fields? I wonder if this is anything like the whole intelligent design controversy - intelligent design "scientists" jump up and down saying the whole life science community ignores their POV, yet haven't provided papers for peer review.

Don't take my position as belittling yours - I'm just calling it as I see it. You and Boomstam are quite intelligent (and I'm not being patronising) - and I think you can take something away from this.

A consensus is a centralized decision, and you are repeatedly calling your attention to consesus. Besides this, I have yet to see irrefutable proof that the rising global temperature is primarily the result of human activity. Do I support turning to more environmentally friendly technologies, and industries? Of course I do. Do I recognise that the earth is getting warmer relatively rapidly? Most certainly. But am I certain that human technology is the primary cause for global warming? No. That specific connection is simple assertion, and everything you point out supporting it is hearsay, and pure theory. Am I certain that this warming period will not suddenly plateau, and reverse if we don't change our habits and technology? No. I am so scientific, that I don't even believe scientists.

Do I believe the government should restrict the amount of so-called "greenhouse gasses" that an organization, individual or product produces? I do not, and I would not, even if I were certain that humans were indeed accellerating global climate change. That's only because I'm a philosophical anarchist, and believe that the environment governs us more fairly than our own governments. However, I myself, given the opportunity, would lower the amount of such gasses that I, as an individual, produce, whether the government told me to or not.

Given these conclusions of mine, I don't see why you're so insistant that I believe in anthropological climate change. If my personal behavior or political opinions would not change whether I agreed with you or not, then what's the point? Your insistance that I take a consesus of scientists as gospel is very strange from my point of view. 

Ah, Jojo and Hideous Monster! I'm so glad you've met. :)

We can re-assert the same position over and over again. Thank god I have better things to do.

And isn't that the conclusion of all online debates?

jojo: "We can re-assert the same position over and over again. Thank god I have better things to do."

 thats why i keep mine mounth shut for a while :p
But still great to see you 2 writing stuff about it

I eat my own feces