Do you worry about climate change?

www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/dec/10/wind-energy-is-a-key-climate-change-solution

I worry that Cameron has stopped helping to fund renewable energy technology, and that he thinks fracking is the way to go. He has been saying one thing at the Paris talks and undermining renewable energy in this country.

www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/13/green-bank-sell-off-fears-mps-peers

This has just been posted on the Guardian website. This is what I was talking about. If it goes private, they will not have to use it for environmentally useful projects. How, then, can it be a green investment bank?

No point in worrying since nobody seems to know what us going on! I just googled Arctic ice and found a report by NASA saying that in 2014 the sea ice had reached record levels! Clearly nobody seems to know anything except that they have hit on a jolly good wheeze to keep taxing us.
Obviously we all need to use the earth's resources sensitively and do our bit not least because it keeps the household bills down.
Climate cycles will continue to happen as they always have so we just need to be prepared for anything. I admit that I am not unhappy about the weather not being so cold as I don't like being cold but am so sorry for people who have been flooded out of their homes.

I haven't the scientific knowledge to say definitively that global warming is a result of increased CO2 emissions. However, I do think there is global warming, that it is in some way connected to human activities and that it has very serious implications for a lot of people. It is nice to have warmer weather but not if it means that other people will suffer as a consequence - and I do believe it will affect everybody in the long run.

Do I lie awake worrying about it? No. But it is a nagging concern at the back of my mind - what will happen to future generations - and, perhaps focusing selfishly on my own grandchildren, are they facing a much more dangerous and uncertain future?

I would be less concerned if I thought this government had any intention whatsoever to take these issues seriously but such faint hopes were dispelled when David Cameron made his "green crap" remark.

durhamjen I don't need convincing, I agree with you. How fantastic if all new houses were built to the standard of Colin Usher's house. He's an architect who understands energy efficiency and I wish him well in his attempts to get properties built using his knowledge. The building industry is always as sign of how the country is doing. Plenty of new homes are being built, but I don't see any real concerted efforts to coordinate the building of zero carbon properties. It's all small beer. I would put money on other countries leading the way on this.

The amount of media coverage of the conference is in stark contrast to the interest of the general public.

I have quite a diverse group of friends and acquaintances but it's just not something we ever discuss .... ISIS, refugees, foodbanks, Xmas, family problems, yes, but never Climate Change.

I don't know whether to be or

Synonymous the artic sea ice is at a record low level whereas the antartic sea ice is increasing.

The melting northern polar ice cap is affecting weather and raising sea levels.

Did no one else hear the woman from the Marsall Islands talking on Jeremy Vyne ? I think many south sea islands are in trouble.

I heard several of the representatives of island nations stansgran and very moving they were.

Best not forget we're an island nation too.

Where do you feature on this map?

I worry far more about the greeniacs and their sub Marxist, authoritarian agenda. Talk to one for more than two minutes and your will hear about their VW (ha!), their long haul holidays, their thoughtless materialistic consumption, their Eco homes ( when they could have bought an existing home without the massive energy waste in building it) and their countless virtue signalling enterprises that more often than not waste rather than conserve CO2.

I have serious concerns about:-
- the continuing inaccurate data
- the 'dodgy' science as when scientists at UEA lied
- the fact that the world is actually cooling and threatened inundations of islands have not happened
- the fact the the green business lobby is using the movement to rip off poor people
- the fact that China, India and emerging economies will not reduce their carbon output so will render our efforts useless and redundant
- the fact that poorer countries are using the issue to extract vast subsidies from so called richer countries
-measurements of the temperature of the earth need to be taken in the context of thousands of years not decades to be meaningful. There was a mini ice age four hundred years ago and it passed
- scientific data is manipulated to look worse than it is and the public is too poorly educated to see through it and resist the hype
- the fact that conferences about green issues are always in places like Bali or Paris and delegates get flown in for a gigantic ego massaging waste- athon ( teleconferencing?)
- the fact that science is perfectly good at compensating for all sorts of changes and could be left to deal with this one as it happens. Look at the advances in low energy lighting since the first useless 'dark' replacement bulbs

I am a post war baby and live a waste free life and always have. I do not like to be dictated to by others who lecture me about being green but wouldn't know how to cut their consumption to save their life. I am fed up with it costing me money and resulting in the diminution of services ( useless lights, irons, Hoovers and so on). I was born in an age of advanced technology and these clowns want us back in the dark ages ( with themselves in charges of course, which is the whole point).

Well said Teacher11. I wish there was a "like" button on here.

If you lived in Cumbria and could see the devastation caused by recent flooding you would worry about climate change, we all should worry. Climatic change potentially threatens us all. Yes, it does keep me awake at night.

Well everyone is entitled to their rant opinion teacher even if it is a 'don't tell me, me, me, what I can do' one.

Nah. Fusion's on the way. Carbon-free energy and plenty for all.

No.

Nah. No one would want that in their back yards Bags

They can put it in my back yard, anya. I'm not i portant but I'm not no-one either .

Do not confuse nuclear fusion with nuclear fission.

As living in Cumbria and whilst have escaped the terrible flooding of recent days the devastation is all around. There are many bridges that are closed with no date for opening. A nearby village has a 70 mile detour to get from one side to the other. The main tourist route through the lakes has landslides, and half the road has fallen into the river.

Climate change is not something in the future - it is now.

Whatever man does about climate change, will make very little difference. Unless he can control the, approximately 400 volcanoes worldwide, that are belching fumes, into the atmosphere, everyday.

Besides which, big business and governments, are only interested, in money and power.

Teacher I think you nailed it. I am cynical of all the hyperbole going on and feel it is all an exercise in control. I have the greatest sympathy with everyone suffering the effects of flooding but us mere mortals can only do our best to withstand the force of nature. If you look back far enough you find there is nothing new under the sun and this big old world keeps turning.

Well most of us don't need to worry do we, because sea level rises won't have much impact in our lifetimes. So why should we worry?
But there is no doubt in the minds of the vast majority (99+%) of scientists that global warming has happened already and will continue to happen, due to all the fossil fuels we have already burned. Even if we stopped buying them tomorrow, the extra carbon would continue to cause global warming.
Many believe it is having an impact already - e.g. our current weather pattern. The 24 hours rain we had last week in the northern parts of the Uk was exceptional. But not unexpected. If you put more energy into the system you get more energy out. So in this, the warmest year on record, we would expect more rain and wind. (The energy comes back out of the world's weather system in the form of wind, evaporation of water from the oceans and hence gales and heavy rain.)
The Pacific Ocean is exceptionally warm this year and that will inevitably effect weather around the world.
So those families who are flooded out in Cumbria, with floods reaching unexpected highs (according to when the flood defences were designed) may well be suffering from the expected effects of our warmed world.
Maybe some of you should start worrying after all.

I wish there were another name for nuclear FUSION so that it was differentiated from nuclear FISSION. It is a completely different process but sounds almost the same.

Fission=split, which causes the dreadful nuclear explosion if the split atom tries to recombine. Fusion doesn't split the atom. I foresee a lot of opposition to the new power station while the old image is so prominent in everyone's mind.

Unlike nuclear fission, which powers today's nuclear power plants, nuclear fusion . . . doesn't produce any radioactive waste, and is a whole lot safer It will be an achievement when our power is gained without fission.

www.sciencealert.com/german-has-just-successfully-fired-up-a-revolutionary-nuclear-fusion-machine Repeating the news about the Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) machine that thatbags put on another thread.

It is an that CO2 levels have increased rapidly since the industial revolution.
bgco2concen.gif

figure 2. Atmospheric CO2 since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

This picture might not work.

it just about works if you enlarge it.

I do know the difference between the two. The problem with fusion is the extreme heat generated hence the 'little bit of the sun' ...that's why I wouldn't want it in my back yard.

The theiry has been around for decades and I believe it would give us a clean source of energy, but still not convinced they've managed to dissipate or contain the extreme temperatures efficiently or, indeed, safely.