JUST TO STATE MY OWN POSITION

Thread Started on Dec 5, 2009 I do believe the climate is changing, (marginally). It always does, imperceptibly on the human timescale of three score years and ten. We are coming to the end of the latest in a long series of brief interglacials which punctuate the normal (last 2 million years or so) extensive glaciation of both hemispheres. I do believe the global temperature may be warming ever so slightly and that a tiny fraction of that rise is due to anthropogenic CO2 from fossil fuels. I accept the physical laboratory properties of CO2 as a greenhouse gas. I do not know, and neither does anyone else, how this translates to its role in the REAL complexity of the climate "system". I do not believe that atmospheric CO2, from whatever source, whether amplified by water vapour or not, can cause runaway catastrophic climate change and instability. I think a bit of warming presents no problem to the world; when it warms crops grow bigger and better and deserts are greened by extra rainfall. CO2 fertilizes plants. I do not believe sea levels have recently or will rise more than the modest trend we have experienced over thousands of years. That adds up, of course, but mankind has always adapted to it and will continue to do so. I believe regional climate conditions are also affected by urban heat island effect and land use/land cover changes like agriculture and deforestation which affect carbon sinks, albedo and rainfall. These are indeed anthropogenic, but not in the commonly used sense of the word which is interpreted as applying to CO2 alone. I do believe pollution should be tackled at source by legislation not by taxes. I do believe renewable sources of energy should be developed for reasons of national and international energy security and because oil is too precious to burn. I do not object to nuclear energy generation, although I used to. Circumstances alter cases. I would like to see Britain's mines re-opened (we have 300 years supply of coal underground) and a new generation of clean coal-fired power stations built. I want to see people raised from poverty and able to enjoy the life chances we enjoy in the West. I believe world population is too high and "unsustainable". I remain unconvinced that the paradigm of "natural" variability in the climate system has been overturned. I am a humanist, an atheist and a rationalist. I believe the world CAN be made a better place for ALL. I believe the ideology of "climatechangeism" is a distraction.