But surely history has been given some spin here. If we had kept on feeding mashed up infected cows to other cows and then carried on eating stock from the herd, while not cleaning up the NHS's act w.r.t. cleanliness etc, then the situation could have been much more serious.
'The Scientists' predicted a possible health disaster, action was taken and nothing happened.
So, do we say:
'Well done all round'
or do we say:
'What a waste of money?'
Do we praise those involved for a job well done or condemn them for scaremongering?
And AGW is an even harder case to push.The advice we are being offered is to take action now to ameliorate a potential problem in 50 years time. So you have to ask do you trust the scientists or not?And its seems that most don't.
Which is a worrying trend, because it does seem to be a trend.
Creationism as an extreme example,AGW as the example under question here, the Swine Flu vaccine is another area where 'The Population' have turned away from trusting science, the rise of homeopathy and numerous other examples can be evoked.
No spin, the prions had been in the food chain for about 20 years, long enough for any cases to develop and they just haven't materialised. However the paranoia continues within the NHS. Cleaning will make no difference against prion proteins as they are nigh on impossible to destroy. Routine autoclaving of equipment does not denature them. Its not like a bacteria or virus.
The less said about homeopathy the better! The problem with the swine flu vaccine is that by and large the disease is mild and the vaccination has a lot of potential side effects (though they may not be that common). Previous vaccination against the last outbreak of swine flu caused more problems than it solved hence reluctance to take it up this time.
What? They maintain that 1998 was the warmest so NONE of the subsequent years have exceeded that.And don't forget that this is all based on 'adjusted' data.
You do realise that the effect of additional CO2 is logarithmic, yes?
Maybe the NASA ERBE project is helping to answer this.It seems thatextra heat can be radiated out into space.
http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009GL039628-pip.pdf
Further, from the climategate emails:
As is typical of warmists, you claim 'basic physics' proves the hypothesis.Nonsense.No-one questions the absorption properties of CO2, that is established.Even the greenhouse hypothesis acknowledges that CO2 itself cannot possibly produce the kind of warming being predicted - it relies on positive feedback mechanisms that have not been observed.
Please, no more references to the absurd "hockey stick".The data to produce the 'flat line' is based largely on tree-rings that show a decline (that the climategate mob were so keen to hide) since the 60s whereas the temperature according to thermometer readings has gone up. Therefore they cannot be reliable temperature proxies.
Whatever happened to the other one thousand nine hundred and ninety eight 'ClimateGate' e-mails?We only seem to ever see 2 of them.data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
Well here's another reference for you:
Arguments from Global Warming Skeptics and what the science really says
Have a trawl through these, you never know, you might learn something.
Oh there's more than two:
ClimateGate - Climate center's server hacked revealing documents and emails
Not a lot to 'learn' there. Opinions stated as fact. Facts selectively used. Incorrect facts stated as accepted fact.
A slightly more balanced view:
BBC iPlayer - Earth: The Climate Wars: The Battle Begins
Alright, I'll bite. Seeing as we're all pretending we're scientists, I want you to cite your sources.
By the way, any intelligent people out there with open minds might like to read this:
How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic: Responses to the most common skeptical arguments on global warming | A Grist Special Series | Grist
And to all those who are fixated on the leaked emails as proof of a major conspiracy, how about the flip side of the coin?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/science/earth/24deny.html?_r=2
data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7 And remember folks, "The revolution will not be televised". data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
Anyone see Newsnight yesterday?
In what the presenter himself introduced as a "very unscientific experiment" they used two plastic bottles to 'prove' global warming. data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
This has to rank up there with the biggest scams by a supposedly serious TV program since Panorama's famous 'spaghetti tree' April fools joke back in the 1950s.
Then they wheeled in some climate change industry charlatan (out of the snow), full of tales of woe to try and scare the [-]children[/-] audience.
Needless to say, in the spirit of what goes for BBC 'balance' these days, they didn't invite a dissenting voice on.
Faced with that overwhelming 'evidence' a couple of the audience fell for it. //static.avforums.com/styles/avf/smilies/facepalm.gif
It was the most shameful bit of TV I think I've ever seen.
It's on Iplayer now:
BBC iPlayer - Newsnight: 16/12/2009
It starts about 13.30 minutes in.