THE VANISHING BUTTERLIES.

I am sure that many readers will share my view that the Butterflies which frequent our British countryside are an attractive adornment and we should do what we can to ensure that they flourish. However the population of UK butterflies fell last year as a result of a wet summer. It happens and of course it is regrettable but the one thing that we can ALL be clear about is that the wet summer of 2007 had NOTHING to do with AGW. And so, I read the BBC’s report on this and sure enough – the “Biodiversity Minister” (Turn in your grave, George Orwell) Joan Ruddock gets to assert that “Butterfly populations also indicate the speed and extent of climate change.” It’s remarkable the way in which the AGW agenda is promoted at every opportunity and no rebuttal is permitted. We may seek biodiversity but assuredly when to comes to the topic of “climate change” diversity of opinion is not required.

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85 Responses to THE VANISHING BUTTERLIES.

  1. backwoodsman says:

    Yep, when they have a beeboid position, they don’t like inconvenient facts getting in the way !
    They are getting increasingly commical in the reasons put forward against a cull of tb infected badgers in Wales on Farming Today. Their latest attempt is that a cull can’t take place , because the National Trust isn’t taking part.
    What relevance the NT land has to the dairy farms involved, wasn’t explained – They deliberately set out to create the impresion that there are enormous difficulties where none exist in practice.

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  2. Redders says:

    The BBC have no concept of wildlife or the countryside in any form its just one big play area to them . Im sure if veiwers knew the the idilic farm where bill oddie does spring watch is actually part of a large pheasant shoot , and they still hunt foxes over the land the BBC might have red faces !

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  3. Jack Bauer says:

    Float like a butterfly, sting like a Beeboid.

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  4. Nearly Oxfordian says:

    “the one thing that we can ALL be clear about is that the wet summer of 2007 had NOTHING to do with AGW” – demagogic nonsense, I am afraid. You cannot be ‘clear’ about any such thing. We simply don’t know enough.

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  5. Jack Bauer says:

    Actually the only “demagogues” in the biggest “scientific” hoax in history are those who are pushing the ludicrous suggestion that “mankind” has any affect of the climate of a planet. Liker Al Gormless.

    It is merely the “cause” all the communists and anti-capitalists and state totalitarians glommed on to once Reagan destroyed their fave murderous ideology. Watermelons indeed.

    Which is why the Warm Earthers and Logic Deniers have dropped “global warming” and substituted “climate change.” As if the climate has been in stasis and never changed in 4 billion years, until little old us had an industrial revolution 200 years ago.

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  6. Travis Bickle says:

    Who cares whether we are responsible for climate change in any case? There’s huge research grants and tax revenue up for grabs and, heck, if a few million more poor people starve to death because agricultural land is now used to fill fuel tanks rather than stomachs why should this even warrant a mention from our state broadcaster? Anyway they can always fill a couple of day’s scheduling a year with endless numbers of hypocritical musicians and entertainers trying to pin the blame and guilt trip on the rest of us.

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  7. thud says:

    The lefts retreat from global warming to climate change is fascinating and amusing….to the rest of us its simply…weather.

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  8. Nearly Oxfordian says:

    Utter nonsense, Jack. Do you have a science background? I do. The changes over the past 100 years have been very rapid, especially CO2 concentrations. Neither you nor I know for sure what the effect is. To say categorically that human activities have NO effect on the climate is, therefore, ignorant and/or demagogic. The nonsensical statement that ‘little old us’ could not possibly affect the climate tells me that you failed science at the age of 12 and never caught up. You understand nothing about cumulative effects and unstable systems.

    I see that you (and others) are trotting out once again the idiotic crap that this is a ‘communist’ conspiracy. Given that I have been anti-communist, indeed anti-socialist all my life, and the same goes for many others, puts the lie to this drivel.

    And the usual ‘sarcastic’ remarks from other scientifically illiterate idiots about the change from global warming to climate change, show also that they don’t understand the first thing about how science works. A warming effect was observed. The theory was then refined, and the behaviour of unstable systems understood in more detail. It is perfectly possible to have a cooling effect take place over certain periods, as a result of destabilising the homeostasis. The change in name reflects a change in the theory, as a result of more data. So what?

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  9. Barry says:

    I can’t quite understand the “right”‘s stance on climate change. Perhaps someone can clarify it? And no, this isn’t some smartarse leftie making a point – I’m genuinely interested. Is it a pre-requisite of rightie membership that you have to ignore the vast majority of the world’s scientists when it comes to this issue?

    Given, Al Gore’s film presented a lot of presumptions as fact – the snows of Kilimanjaro and that African lake, for example, were shown as definite examples of GW, but have not been proven – yet there is little other reason for it. Other than the stock response “it’s a natural cycle” of course. From what I’ve read outside of the Beeb, it’s the not just the increase in sea temperatures but the RATE of increase which points to mankind’s contribution.

    The butterfly thing IS ridiculous, and down I think to sloppy journalism rather than bias, but in general I’m confused as to how the majority of environmental scientists can just be brushed off. If the BBC were DENYING global warming/climate change, would the people on here be criticising them for it?

    Surely when the scientific community is all-but unannimous in its findings, the “state broadcaster” should accept its findings.

    Like I said, I’m not trying to make a point – I like to think I have an open mind about most issues – so please educate me.

    Baz.

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  10. Barry says:

    And what exactly to the BBC and the “left” have to gain?

    I’m sure there are grants aplenty, but seriously, is it really making these scientists rich? I’ve not seen any of them driving around in Jags or Merc.

    Have you?

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  11. Lurker in a Burqua says:

    Start reading Baz

    http://antigreen.blogspot.com/

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  12. Phil says:

    Nobody really knows what is happening to the climate, if anything, let alone what might happen in the future. That doesn’t stop it being used as a pretext more more taxation:

    The “green levy” on motorists announced in Alistair Darling’s first Budget will double car tax revenue to £4 billion but reduce vehicle emissions by less than one per cent, Treasury figures have showed.”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/24/nlevy124.xml

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  13. Jack Bauer says:

    Nonsense NO.

    Do you know how much CO2 (the colourless odorless gas also known as dry ice) is released into the atmosphere by mankind, in comparison to that by nature.

    Here’s a clue. Imagine that the total CO2 produced by mankind and nature is a huge mound of 157,000 Smarties. Now take away 14. That’s the total amount the British government was boasting we reduced our “CO2” emission in 2005.

    Are you one of these “scientists” (sic) who says that the colourless odorless gas CO2 is a “pollutant?”

    Do you know how that compares to “water-vapour” as an alleged “greenhouse” gas.

    Maybe it’s because you are a scientist you have no idea what the word demagogue means.

    Because the only demagogues on this issue are those who peddle MMGWing junk science. Like AlGore • who even used CGI clips of Ice Sheets melting in his demagogic crappy movie.

    Demagogues that used to whine about “global warming” but have now changed that to “climate change,” because even these dopes know that it’s difficult to get people to agree to massive tax hikes to combat “global warming” when the figures show that this plateaued some time ago • and it’s bloody freezing outside.

    And anticipating you next point, don’t bother to say “well, you can’t use local weather” to prove something about a “climate.”

    Guess what… that’s EXACTLY what the junk scientists and their scientifically illiterate media whores have been doing EVERY YIME we have hot weather in the UK.

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  14. Anonymous says:

    Yes. The REALITY is there has been no “global warming” for the last 10 years. Yet the green losers simply “claim” that you can’t make a judgement over such a short period. Yet they themselves use individual events in the last 10 years to “justify” their position about climate change.

    For example, the recent flooding, which as those of us who don’t work at the BBC or hang around public toilets know was caused by over population, the lack of investment in drainage improvements and the concreting over of large areas of land. Not to mention the builidng on known flood plains!!!

    Even better. On No News 24 just now some dopey feminist reporter was wanking on about how we need to stop animal species being wiped out as creatures like Sharks are really useful in curing disease. Oh really, so the left now think it’s OK to kill animals to improve human health?

    Funny thing was, the dopey bitch ran off a list of animals that “might” help in finding cures, but then showed a clip of a Polar Bear. Now perhaps I’m missing something, but can anyone tell me what contribution the Polar Bear has made to human health?

    It was just another pile of BBC shit dressed up as a story to bang on about climate change. Give it up BBC tossers, we don’t believe you.

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  15. Barry says:

    Thanks, Lurker, but I’ve read a lot of these sites and they only seem to regurgitate the “nah-nah-nah I can’t hear you” stuff. The common statement that I’ve seen on here “there’s been no noticable net increase in the last ten years” is deeply flawed in that some years are much, much hotter while another year is much colder/wetter.

    Perhaps the science just sounds more authoratitive.

    My own non-scientific conclusion, having weighed up my layman’s reading of both pro and con GW sites/newspapers is that 1)Man has had a significant effect on climate change and 2) No one knows what to do about it, or the exact extent to which we can help stop it.

    If everyone in the world suddenly stopped driving motor vehicles and went back to horse and cart, irrespective of the actual effects of carbon emmissions, this would only account for 3-5% of CO2 – I can’t remember where I read that – while the whole “carbon neutral” home crap is even less.

    IF this is correct, and once you sort through the leftie/rightie bias I think it is, the cause of climate change is down to big business – the US, China, India etc. And IF this is the case, am I being a communist in thinking THEY are the ones who need to act rather than hammering schoolmoms taking their kids to the gates in their 4x4s?

    One final point, probably my most valid one (hopefully!), is that okay, it’s not 100% proven one way or the other, but there IS definite evidence of some kind of effect by man’s activities. Until we know exactly what that is, surely we should do something? IE, do something and it turns out the vast majority of the world’s scientists are wrong, and we’ve lost nothing (except a couple of senior execs’ bonuses), but if we do nothing and they are right, then we all lose.

    Sorry to babble on, but coming back to the point of this website – we are forced to pay for the BBC, and by their own editorial policy they should be UN-biased in all their reporting, but doesn’t that mean for every 9 reports bleating about climate change they only need 1 story saying it’s hokum?

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  16. Barry says:

    Anonymous says:
    “For example, the recent flooding, which as those of us who don’t work at the BBC or hang around public toilets know was caused by over population, the lack of investment in drainage improvements and the concreting over of large areas of land. Not to mention the builidng on known flood plains!!!”

    Despite my allegdly leftie stance, I heartily agree with this one. The SCALE of the damage was not down to climate change, and – in Yorkshire anyway – the force of the deluge was caused by a lack of WIND. The clouds hovered and emptied themselves over the county instead of spraying it around Geordie land and the North Sea as it’s supposed to.

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  17. Roland Deschain says:

    “the one thing that we can ALL be clear about is that the wet summer of 2007 had NOTHING to do with AGW”

    Perhaps DV was thinking of this BBC story:
    The UK’s summer floods of 2007 were a freak event unrelated to global climate change, according to a report from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH).
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7287988.stm

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  18. Nearly Oxfordian says:

    Utter, drivel, Jack. You are using the demagogic trick of setting up a strawman. I never claimed that CO2 is a ‘pollutant’, so stop talking out of the back of your neck.
    I know perfectly well what a demagogue is: you are one, for a start. And incidentally, having studied the philosophy of science in detail, I have fairly sensitive antennae to non-arguments such as yours.
    Here’s another trick: the amount of smarties removed from the pile by the government is irrelevant. I was not discussing what we might DO about the situation: I was discussing the situation itself. Since mankind has been releasing EXTRA CO2 (and other gases, of course, but I was using it as an example; by all means list them all, from methane onward, every time you wish to discuss the general principles. I won’t) for a long time, I don’t imagine that one small island, however industrially advanced and active, can reverse the global trend overnight. Not only didn’t I suggest it, I wasn’t even addressing the operational aspect. Hence, another strawman you set up.
    But you seem to be completely unaware that unstable systems can be tipped by a very small effect.
    I have addressed the global warming -> climate change issue in some detail, so your sneering means you haven’t read – or possibly, haven’t understood – what I wrote.
    Thanks for the patronising lecture on CO2. I used to be a physics teacher and examiner, so I could probably teach you a lot more about it than you could teach me.

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  19. Nearly Oxfordian says:

    “Oh really, so the left now think it’s OK to kill animals to improve human health?” – what drivel you do talk. Some on the ‘left’, which is not one undifferentiated mass (if the word even means anything concrete), believe in lab trials on animals to improve human health, yes. Others don’t. Some of them bomb research labs. Others, surprise surprise, work in such labs.
    The bottom line is, you simply have no clue what you are ranting about. You lump together serious scientists and BBC illiterates, which is a REALLY intelligent way to go about analysing anything (irony alert for the slow of thinking).
    Some idiots draw unwarranted inferences from what happens in any given year (they include Jack, they include BBC idiots) – stupidity is not restricted to one particular political conviction. Others, and that includes all proper scientists, understand that we need to look at longer trends. This is another basic and imo simple scientific issue that seems to elude many apparently rational people. Perhaps it’s not that simple at all. Or something. Verbum sap.

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  20. Nearly Oxfordian says:

    Barry, thanks for a rational discussion. But I will say this: 4x4s contribute greatly to urban pollution. For me, that’s a very good reason to hammer them.

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  21. Anonymous says:

    The scientists have some basic facts (such as CO2 absorbing long wave radiation emitted from the earth’s surface) which can cause heating which are accepted. Then the scientists have found a correlation between increased CO2 concentration in the atmosphere and warmer temperatures at the earth’s surface. They’ve then run some computer models with a load of input assumptions which determine the outcome, and voila, we have all these negative outcomes. The problem with this approach is that the models are not right and the computers running the models are not powerful enough to accurately model the earth’s climate. Secondly, there are far too many unknowns concerning feedback effects in the climate (like if the earth’s temperature increases, how will the oceans respond?), that scientists have to guess them as input assumptions to models. A statistical correlation proves nothing I should add.

    Finally, it is very clear to me that politics has overtaken the science. For me, the science is still unproven. That doesn’t mean that climate change isn’t really happening, it’s just no one can sensibly stand up and say that the evidence is unequivacal, although that is exactly what politicians are doing. So why are they doing it? Are they doing it because they’re socialists? Probably not. Are they doing it because they really care about cliamte change? Maybe. Are they doing it because they know fossil fuel use is increasing due to Chinese and Indian demand pushing prices through the roof and diminishing reserves causing our living standards to plummet? Almost certainly yes. Whether it’s true or not, we need alternatives to oil, and fast, and in a way, this climate change thing is just the ticket to encourage some innovation/invention. Of course, I could be wrong.

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  22. Lurker in a Burqua says:

    Barry, thanks for a rational discussion. But I will say this: 4x4s contribute greatly to urban pollution. For me, that’s a very good reason to hammer them.
    Nearly Oxfordian | 24.04.08 – 1:27 pm | #

    Yep, Hammer `em.

    Choose something you dislike and hammer it. There are many, many things that I dislike and I guess that many others have many different things that they dislike, so in the world of Nearly Oxfordian we can all go around hammering each other.

    ………..oh wait a minute, haven`t we tried that before?

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  23. Anonymous says:

    It says it all when politicians become scientific experts overnight and come out with drivel like:

    “Butterfly populations also indicate the speed and extent of climate change”

    It’s precisely the uncertainty and vagueness about whether climate has anything to do with out that politicians love to pick up on.

    It’s every socialist’s wet dream because its a perfect excuse for more taxation and big, intrusive government and a means of stalling America’s (incredibly successful) capitalist system.

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  24. Jack Bauer says:

    NO – I though you were reasonably sane after reading some previous posts on other topics.. But I now gather you are an irrational nutcase on this issue.

    I am a single person posting here. How in God’s name am I a “demagogue.”

    Here’s the actual, as opposed to, NEARLY OED definition of a demagogue…

    “A political LEADER who seeks support by appealing to popular desires and prejudices rather than rational argument.”

    I am not a political leader. The only political leaders demagoguing this subject are those seeking to bamboozle citizens that it is THEY who are responsible for causing a whole frackin’ planet to warm up. Such as the ONE I mentioned.

    Now the whole lamentable history of mankind is littered by the irrational thought that people have delitarious affects on the weather, causing floods, droughts, pestilence, crop failures.

    They used to sacrifice people to guarantee the harvest. Or punish them for causing their crops to fail by witchcraft.

    I see nothing much has changed. As to your offer to “teach” me. Go stick your arrogant idiocy.

    But he’s one fact to suck on. 96% of the Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere is produced by nature. So thank you very much, but I’ll continue pumping out as much CO2 as humanly possible, confident in the knowledge that it will have zero affect on the climate of a whole bleepin’ PLANET.

    However there’s nothing to stop your own personal production of CO2. Just stop breathing.

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  25. Cassandra says:

    Nearly Oxrordian,

    You clearly have an entrenched position on so called global warming and you seem to think that anyone who disagrees with you is retarded/not qualified/stupid/not a scientist?
    As I read your post I caught the kind a irritation and agression that is the hallmark of the intolerant believer?
    I have listened to and read about both sides of the debate and quite frankly it seems to me that the BBC/UN IPCC/media are pushing this AGW just a little too hard and I wonder why other highly qualified scientists of which there are thousands and who have signed petitions against the wild MMCC claims and invalid computer models are not allowed to make their case.
    You fail to mention that ALL the IPCC computer models have been proven wrong OK? and all subsequent model corrections have also been proved wrong OK?
    The whole earth atmosphere contains approx 00.36-00.38% CO2 and of this trace amount 95% is natural OK? Let me put it this way, if the atmosphere was a hundred story building, the CO2 content would consist of the lino on the ground floor!
    Does it seem likely to you that over the billions of years of wild natural climate swings,dips and highs and wild CO2 content swings to many many times the current tiny PPM rate that a miniscule CO2 increase would cause a ‘tipping point’/’run away climate change’?
    Space based sensors are recording large drops in world temperatures and the Argo sea sensors are recording falling sea temperatures as I write this OK?
    Anecdotal evidence points to a sharp cooling and since last year and the slight warming of the 70s/80s/90s has levelled off and is starting to fall again OK?
    May I suggest that instead of the anger and blind support for the AGW theory, why not visit ANTIGREEN BLOGG/GREENIE WATCH? They have more peer reviewed science than you can shake a stick at! The reason for B-BBC involvement is that any dissenting opinion has not been allowed on the BBC despite the huge quantity of evidence that contradicts the MMCC thories OK?
    In an ideal world there should be free debate and mutual respect and science should be allowed to do what science does best and that is the search for truth, however incovenient the end answer may be.
    Carbon dioxide is a life giving gas and we would not exist without it! It has been proven that increased CO2 leads to increased crop yields and the recent cyclic warming has allowed the human population to increase hugely!
    I have looked at both sides and I have seen the one sided media smear skeptics and silence free debate and I have searched for and found much evidence that runs counter to the AGW/MMCC beliefs! Have you truly looked at both sides of the debate with an open mind? Do you respect people who arrive at different conclusions to you? Are you able to offer your opinion without resorting to insults and lies and smears? I have looked at the evidence as best I can, have you?
    Instead of throwing the insults why not put your side in a civil way and be open to counter opinions?

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  26. Andy says:

    Just some basic questions that someone should put to armchair scientists.

    Is there a rigorously clear and certain connection between butterfly populations and the wetness of summers? Did these people draw this conclusion from ONE single year?

    It is not at all certain that wet summers will increase in frequency and we would probably need another 30-50 years of collecting data in order to tout wet weather as a cause of butterfly decline.

    Even if global warming is true, it is unlikely that wet summers will increase in frequency.

    Assuming the computer models are accurate, they predict more warming at nighttime and a leveling out of temperatures (reducing the diurnal temperature swing ) than increases in extreme weather.

    In any case, the uncertainty in these computer forecasts should be be taken into account, and with the BBC it never is.

    What happens during other extremes – heatwaves or cold spells for example? Did they find that the wet period was beneficial to other species during this period?

    The more questions I think of the less certain the assertion that wet summers = less butterflies becomes.

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  27. Jack Bauer says:

    cassandra — stop being such a demagogue!

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  28. Jason says:

    Climate change will still happen even if we stop all emissions now and go back to subsistence farming. We cannot possibly hope to stop a natural cycle which has been happening for millions of years.

    The best way for us to deal with any climate change is to adapt. Adaptation requires the creation of wealth and technology. It is the poor who will be most affected by any climate change, the poor who are less able to relocate from coastal areas, etc.

    What these people need is the creation of more wealth, or rather the opportunity to create their own wealth. Capitalism and industry has done more to lift the poor out of poverty than any other force or economic system in human history. In just 200 years the industrial revolution almost doubled our average life expectancies and slashed infant mortality rates.

    Science, technology and wealth will help us cope with climate change we can’t possible hope to prevent. Simple methods of organic farming won’t. Cutting back on emissions and slowing the growth of wealth won’t. Flogging ourselves and calling ourselves evil and greedy and selfish won’t. Contrary to the general mantra of the left, we need more capitalism to solve this problem, not less.

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  29. Peter says:

    Why is AGW,Global Warming,Climate Change being push,because it is simply the biggest money spinner since the dot.com bubble,and bubble it is.This rivals Tulip Mania and the South Sea Bubble in its madness.
    Wind turbine produce electricity which is subsidized at the expense of the consumer.Green road taxes fill the governments coffers.Carbon trading is a huge business,the EU gave generating companies carbon allowances FREE.Those companies have sold them to the consumer.
    Al Gores British based carbon offset company is minting it.
    This is about MONEY,trillions of pounds of money.
    The dangerous part is that nobody knows whether it is warming going cold or neither over the long term.
    Perhaps it would be a good idea if the subject were to be examined rationally.
    The current bio-fuel decisions would appear to be the wrong answer to the wrong problem.Adequate food production is the real problem.

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  30. Cassandra says:

    Jack Bauer,

    I am so sorry for being a demogogue. Its just that I am a mad dictator bent on world domination you see? Today B-BBC tommorow the world! All us deniers are demogogues who will crush our enemies and our cunningly evil plans will triumph and… Oooops, there I go again with my demogogory or whatever its called!

    Love Cassie x

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  31. Sebastian Weetabix says:

    CO2 is of course a greenhouse gas; it is also the foundation of life on earth so it is odd that deep green loonies call it a pollutant. Adding C02 increases plant growth & crop yields. You never know, it may even help us feed ourselves in the years to come (though the greens will no doubt want to turn the food into bio-diesel).

    Judging by the way the sun is behaving lately (very quiet, almost no sunspots) it looks like we are going to see a couple of decades of cooling. Colder climate = less food = people dying. Al Beeb’s stance on the subject of man-made GW is going to rebound on them embarrassingly in years to come.

    You’d all better buy patio heaters & crank them up since the world stopped heating up in 1998.

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  32. redpepper says:

    I was going to post a reply to Oxfordian, but Cassandra has said it all. Thanks.
    Anybody interested, who takes the trouble to do a little basic research quickly finds the holes in the believers arguments.
    And then, of course, there is the famous Hockey stick graph presented by the IPCC as proof of modern global warming which was quickly withdrawn when it was shown to be a fraud.

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  33. Nearly Oxfordian says:

    Nonsense, Cassandra. The intolerant demagogues are those who say ‘Actually the only “demagogues” in the biggest “scientific” hoax in history are those who are pushing the ludicrous suggestion that “mankind” has any affect of the climate of a planet’. These people are intolerant, scientifically illiterate (do you make categorical pronouncements on brain surgery without knowing the first thing about it? Well, that’s what they are doing), they attack those who disagree with them as being ‘loonie lefties’ (a beeboid-type gambit par excellence), they are patronising (explaining what CO2 is to people who were teaching this stuff professionally for decades), they invent strawmen in order to pull a fast one, and they conflate disparate things (e.g. BBC drones v. scientists) for the sake of scoring political points (another beeboid strategy).

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  34. Nearly Oxfordian says:

    Red pepper, shall I explain to you how to read and analyse an argument? I am not a ‘believer’. I said quite clearly that I don’t know for sure what the actual situation is. If you think this is tantamount to being a ‘believer’, I suggest that you sue your primary school teachers for failing in their statutory duty to teach you how to read an English text.

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  35. Nearly Oxfordian says:

    “Carbon dioxide is a life giving gas and we would not exist without it!” – tendentious and irrelevant. Oxygen is a life-giving gas also, but it is highly dangerous in excessive concentrations. So are many other substances. Your argument is fallacious and ignorant – and then you talk about ‘armchair scientists’. Do let us know what your degree is in, dear.

    “It has been proven that increased CO2 leads to increased crop yields and the recent cyclic warming has allowed the human population to increase hugely!” – which has a hugely adverse effect on the survivability of the human race.

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  36. Cassandra says:

    Sebastian W,

    The ‘watermelons'(green on the outside & red all the way thru) are causing the very problems we now see with food production! For years they have fought against GM crops and got DDT banned(killing millions) and opposed industrialisation of food production/modern pesticides/trade deregulation and in fact every attempt to modernise and industrialise the third world AND to top it all they have been successful in causing caps on CO2 output which has caused energy inflation. The greens have played a major role in the biofuel fiasco which is causing most of the problems we see today in food inflation!
    As I see it, any problem we have in this world, at the root of them all are the ‘watermelons’ so lets stop the watermelons before they destroy us all, starting with al(demagogue)Gore!

    CASSANDRA SAYS: BAN WATERMELONS IF YOU WANT TO LIVE.

    Im going for a lie down now!

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  37. Nearly Oxfordian says:

    Jack, the nutcase is you. I am saying that the science is inconclusive, whilst people without any scientific qualifications whatsoever are stating that the science is wrong: well, I know who the nutcase is …

    “I am a single person posting here. How in God’s name am I a “demagogue.”
    Here’s the actual, as opposed to, NEARLY OED definition of a demagogue…
    “A political LEADER who seeks support by appealing to popular desires and prejudices rather than rational argument.” –

    utter nonsense. Anyone who spouts demagogic platitudes instead of rational arguments is a demagogue.

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  38. Nearly Oxfordian says:

    OIC: Cassandra is one of those lunatics who are incapable of grasping the damage that DDT was causing. Everything is falling into place.

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  39. Peter says:

    The Climate Change has been aPropaganda exercise.

    “I am not a ‘believer’. I said quite clearly that I don’t know for sure what the actual situation is”

    This of course is the problem.Don’t you think you should find out before the political elite indulge in ecological “Charge of the Light Brigade”?

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  40. Cassandra says:

    Nearly Oxfordian,

    I do not appreciate your insults OK? I do not insult you and demean you for your opinions do I? So stop it!

    DDT saved the lives of millions of people and nearly eradicated malaria and dengue fever OK? The problems with DDT were grossly exagerated and in reality the problems were small in relation to the millions of lives saved OK?
    Can you not dissagree with others without resorting to shouting down others? Without insulting and demeaning others? This is a free forum and people have different views OK? You are being a bully and a tyrant so start being civilised please!
    FYI I am not a lunatic OK I am a human being with my own opinions OK?

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  41. Roland Deschain says:

    Nearly Oxfordian:

    What damage was DDT causing, compared with the prevention of some of the 70,000-110,000 child deaths from malaria referred to by EU Referendum?
    http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2006/04/do-they-have-conscience.html

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  42. Jack Bauer says:

    NO sounds like one of those evil lunatics incapable of grasping the damage that the “banning” of DDT did in killing millions of poverty stricken people in third world shit holes.

    Everything is falling into place now, given you other comments about population. You HATE people as a concept. You would rather damage people by denying them goods and services and food.

    The fact that increased Carbon Dioxide has and would help produce lusher vegetation and healthier crops to feed people is irrelevant to you.

    The fact that in the past CO2 levels were far higher than today just passes you by, which is odd as you have chosen a 150 million year time period for your pen name.

    No doubt you’re one of those selfish dicks who worships Rachel Carson — the woman who wrote the seminal Silent Spring fraud about DDT, and who is personally responsible for millions of people dying from malaria.

    I’ve tried being reasonable, but it turns out you have a borderline personality disorder, and are incapable of understand the word “demagogue” even though I have printed the actual OED definition.

    AL GORE — political leader. Damagogue.
    Me — an individual using a pen name on a blog.

    You can lead an Ox to water but you can’t make him think.

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  43. David Vance says:

    NO,

    I follow your arguments but my point is really that there are different opinions on this – there is no consensus – and the BBC should make much more of an effort to allow those such as myself who are hugely sceptical on the issue. It’s diversity of opinion that needs aired – don’t you agree?

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  44. Cassandra says:

    Jack B,

    Well said sir, You are my hero of the week!

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  45. Peter says:

    Since there is a distinct possibility that the Earth is cooling,that carbon reductions are the diametrical opposite of what will be required,less religious fervour and most sceptical analysis is what is needed.

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  46. Jack Bauer says:

    cassandra — thanks buddy! I’m agog!

    But not a demagogue, okay?

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  47. Jack Bauer says:

    peter — there is a theory that rather than an increase in “global warming” being a function of an increase in Carbon Dioxide, it is the opposite.

    An increase in Carbon Dioxide is a function of an increase in temperature.

    I am still waiting for laboratory testing of the hypothesis/theory that the manmade CO2 has led to any climate change.

    Then real scientist who follow the scientific method of falsification and refutation can actually do some real science, and not shuffle around with bogus climate computer models.

    Meanwhile Sir Karl Popper is still revolving at 78 rpm, six feet under.

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  48. Peter says:

    Yep,Warming precede carbon levels by some four hundred years on a previous “warming event”.
    The whole “scientific consensus” nonsense is simply unscientific.
    BTW what happened to David Gregory’s fact sheet?

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  49. Nearly Oxfordian says:

    For Jack to call on Popper, who insisted on keeping an open mind and not rejecting anything that is capable of disproof but has not been disproved, must be the best joke I have heard in ages.

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  50. Nearly Oxfordian says:

    I agree, David, but once again for the record:
    1. I have never said or implied that the theory is proved;
    2. I am rejecting the spurious equating of BBC drones with the many serious scientists who have established that –something– is happening here.

    Those posters who reject out of hand the possibility that an effect is happening, merely because the BBC is saying it is happening and everything the BBC is saying must be a lie per definitio, are exhibiting a beeboid mentality analogous to those who say that whatever Israel is saying must be a lie because Israel is saying it.

    Tarring me as a ‘leftie’ because of my views on this topic is like tarring me as a Zionist Fascist because of my views on Israel.

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