Do you believe Greenland's glaciers are melting?

@badminton And when it grows back in the next cooling period you are are going to sound the alarm bells about global cooling? Too funny. Liberals and their lack of history.

@hippyjoe1955 Unless something really weird happens, none of us alive now will be here to see the next glaciation! I recall that was a widely-expressed but short-term prediction about 40 years ago, but still assuming millennia to come about.

I have no idea what "liberal" means in your context (different country), but fortunately Nature could not care less about shallow political labels...

@ArishMell We can only hope. 10000 years ago my house would have been under a mile of ice. Some people have no sense of history.

@hippyjoe1955 My area was not under an ice-sheet but was Arctic tundra, and traces of its geological effects are clearly visible (if you know what they look like) only a few miles from my home.

I don't quite see your point about "sense of history", although I grant you that it is not always easy for people to visualise geological time-spans when we are more used to thinking a mere 100 years a long time - which it is in human terms, about 4 generations.

@ArishMell A sense of history gives you grounding.
Was the earth ever warmer than it is now? Answer yes.
Was the earth ever cooler than it is now? Answer yes.
Has the CO2 levels ever been higher than they are now? Answer yes
Has the CO2 levels ever been lower than they are now? Answer yes
If the CO2 levels have been higher and the temperature warmer then what is the great concern? Obviously the temperature and the CO2 levels went down without our aid just as they went up without our causing it.

@hippyjoe1955 I do not dispute those "yes" points, but the concern around the world now is two-fold.

Firstly, Mankind's effect on the rate of change even if not its cause; secondly, its general ability to cope with the effects of such change.

Past significantly different climates probably had little if any significant effect on the far smaller human population of the time. The changes were very slow in human terms and it was relatively easy for most of those people to accept their surroundings and drift to more comfortable ones.

Our vastly greater present-day population lives in very complex, very fractious societies of many widely-differing nations, cultures, economies and needs. It would find the effects, and adapting places and ways of life to them, very hard indeed. Especially if the rate of change is relatively rapid (major in <100 years, as some now predict).

@ArishMell Since we don't know the rate of change previous there is no way to tell if we are having any effect at all. That is the entire point. If you don't know your history you have nothing to compare it with. What you are engaged in is little more than sacrificing virgins to make it rain. There is no actual science that indicates we are having any effect on the climate at all.

@hippyjoe1955 I can't help thinking you want the idea of anthropogenic effects on the climate to be considered as one huge "conspiracy-fantasy" lie to suit God-knows-whom; irrespective of it being eventually proven correct or a huge, embarrassing but honest mistake.

If you do... why do you?

@ArishMell Did you ever hear Eisenhower's farewell address? If not go find it and read it.

@hippyjoe1955 I hadn't so I did.

It's certainly a very literate and considered lecture.

It's clear he hoped for peace but made it clear without naming names that the USA faced new threats - obviously he would have been particularly concerned about Communism from the Soviet bloc - but cautioned against defence against that undermining the democracy it is trying to defend.

Other than that, it was mainly just an up-beat assessment of the economic and political health of the United States of America of his time.

Generally the speech seems to have been written to tell very patriotic fellow-Americans of both political parties, what they wanted to hear; but anyway as a farewell address from a skilled statesman it was hardly likely to be otherwise.

The idea that humanity might be wrecking its own home never rears its head in Eisenhower's speech, but that's understandable. Few if anyone then could have thought that way; or if they did they comforted themselves by believing science, engineering and economic development would solve all Mankind's problems without creating fresh ones.

@ArishMell So you didn't catch the warning about the military industrial complex and the government scientists?

@hippyjoe1955 I did, but read it as meaning two things. Firstly scientists working very closely with the defence industry, on defence projects, because defence was perhaps the main theme. Secondly, the risk of such work undermining democracy - a matter perhaps of unintended consequences.

He may have meant particular things current in the USA at the time, but if so, I do not know what they would have been.

I don't know how the national scientific service in the USA works - nor whether it is independent or is tied very closely to the White House, Washington and commercial interests.

Nevertheless, I did notice that NASA was not afraid recently to agree publicly with other countries' scientists on recent temperature trends, despite President Trump's official dogma that there is nothing amiss with the climate.

'

I am used to a Civil Service - in all fields not just science - that does what it is asked by governmental policy, but jealously guards its political neutrality and financial probity.

Unfortunately large chunks of it have been sold off to commerce to suit purely financial theories.

Indeed, when the (ironically) Labour Government headed by Tony Blair privatised the Ministry of Defence's research arm via a shady outfit on Wall Street, the US Govt. insisted the UK as a NATO member, maintains part of it within the Civil-Service as a barrier organisation to protect that impartiality and probity.

@ArishMell I have yet to see any impartiality coming from the civil service. NASA is dependent on government funding. When Obama made a big deal out of climate change NASA fell in line. They had to or they would lose funding. Funny how that works and that is exactly what Eisenhower was warning about. I don't care what the bureaucrat says. Said bureaucrat should be fired after 10 years of service. I have family that are high up in the federal government here in Canada. Impartial they are NOT!

@hippyjoe1955 The UK Civil-Service is dependent on tax-payer's money, obviously, but is impartial and often envied in other countries for that.

If the Government of the day is really opposed to what the CS and other institutions like universities advises, its usual response is simply to shelve the reports and ignore the advice.

Generally though it does listen, take notice and act at least to an extent limited by financial or political constraints, on the advice or recommendations.

The UK's present government's policies on "tackling climate-change" to use the usual phrase, are stringent and would never get past President Trump in his own land; but are based on studies by both the domestic Civil Service and international research.

++++

However, you have still not answered my question -

- Why do you want the principle of anthropogenic climate change destroyed whatever the truth may turn out to be?

@ArishMell Too Funny!!!!!! The civil service runs the elected officials not the other way around. Everybody who has ever had dealings with the government knows that. It is impossible for the civil service to be impartial. They simply delude themselves into thinking so. What high level bureaucrat didn't get to his/her position without having a personal agenda and purpose? NONE!

@hippyjoe1955 I don't deny that individuals go wrong, in any role anywhere, and there are some countries that are riddled with corruption; but you speak for your own country's administration and I will speak for mine....


As for
That is so loose a charge it applies equally to people promoted
in any work in any organisation, including those who reach their positions by honest endeavour and ability. The only reward it brings is a higher salary.


Besides, it's the elected MPs and local-councillors I worry about, not civil-servants.


(Signed) A retired, low-grade industrial-role civil-servant (before the Government sold us off)...

@ArishMell The fact is the elected officials are elected to set policy and direction. However within a few years if not months of being elected they learn that they are just the spokespeople for the entrenched bureaucracy. I heard an old reporter say that he knew the minute the elected official had been turned to mouthpiece. He said when the elected official say "I" he is his own person but the minute he comes out and says "We" he has been turned. The bureaucracy is only interested in its own agenda, aggrandizement, growth and success. Yes it lies about the weather or anything else it needs to lie about in order to accomplish its goals. Sadly the media has been co-opted into being the bureaucracy's mouth piece.