> > On Aug 11, 12:24 am, Steve Wallis

> > <revolutionarysocialistst...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> > > I've been involved in a long debate about solar power (particularly
> > > concentrating solar power/solar thermal energy) versus nuclear power,
> > > mainly with the pro-nuclear socialist David Walters, but another pro-
> > > nuclear socialist called Fran has recently joined in, on
> > > alt.politics.socialism.trotsky in the thread "Guardian: Solar power
> > > from Sahara could provide Europe's electricity, says EU".

> > > Others, including David, thought that crossposting on these issues
> > > may
> > > be OK, so I'm also sending this to a few other newsgroups. I'm also
> > > posting my messages on this subject to my Revolutionary Platform
> > > Network Forum (including to the Global Warming board there athttp://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/forum/index.php?board=107);
> > > please state if you object to me posting replies to your comments
> > > there.

> > > On 10 Aug, 13:19, Fran <Fran.B...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > > > On Aug 10, 4:11 am, Steve Wallis <revolutionarysocialistst...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> > > > > I've had some doubts about my position on global warming, but finding
> > > > > out that the weather got colder during the post-war boom (despite the
> > > > > increasing levels of carbon dioxide due to industrialisation)

> > > > Google "global dimming" for the effect of SO2 on global temperatures
> > > > from 1943-74 ...

> > > I did find out about the sulphur claim (I wasn't sure it was SO2 and
> > > thought I'd wait for somebody else to mention it), when doing earlier
> > > browsing. I was sceptical then and still am now of this explanation.
> > > Isn't it amazing that you get all this talk of global warming and yet
> > > very little mention of the fact that temperatures did increase after
> > > the second world war. Obviously, those who agree with global warming
> > > need some sort of explanation when pushed to justify their theory, but
> > > they generally don't want to mention global dimming and SO2 (and I
> > > didn't find out about the SO2 explanation until I read a critique of
> > > "The Great Global Warming Swindle").

> > > > > and
> > > > > another ice age was predicted by scientists reinforced my view.

> > > > Another meme put about by deniers. Even at the "height" (if that is
> > > > the right word)  of the speculation in the early 1970s, more
> > > > scientists hypothesised about global warming than a new ice age. Even
> > > > the article generally credited with circualting this idea foreshadowed
> > > > the opposite as a distinct possibility. There was never peer-reviewed
> > > > science behind the claim, and certainly nothing like the process that
> > > > has informed the IPCC assessment reports.

> > > I did Google "global dimming" as you suggested and came across the
> > > Wikipedia pagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming. The graph
> > > on that page, which takes data fromhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_temperature_record,
> > > does not show dimming for anything like the period 1943-74 - in fact
> > > it's only in the 1940s according to those graphs.

> > > Critics of "The Great Global Warming Swindle" such as George Monbiot
> > > didn't claim that the post-war dimming was incorrect, and it must have
> > > been in the late 70s or early 80s when I heard of the ice age
> > > prediction, which certainly doesn't tally with dimming just in the
> > > 1940s.

> > Here's somerthing pertinent for you in which a discussion on aerosols
> > takes place

> >http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/11/4/14560/6189

> > You might also want to look atwww.realclimate.orgorlook at the work
> > of Joseph Romm

> > > > > [I
> > > > > remember this at the time but I'd forgotten about it until reminded by
> > > > > the Channel 4 TV programme "The Great Global Warming Swindle"

> > > > This was put about by a self-styled swindler of the Thatcher and Hayek-
> > > > loving "Living Marxism" crowd.

> > > I did discover that the person responsible for that programme is
> > > linked to LM, and found a page with an interview the day after the
> > > programme went out on their current Spiked project website, but he and
> > > they claim that he is not a member of the ex-RCP.

> > > I disagree with a lot of the ideas that that organisation/ex-
> > > organisation puts out, but that doesn't mean that valid points they
> > > make about global warming can be discounted.

> > > > You need to stop believing the first thing you read on the internet.

> > > > Fran

> > > I don't. I've researched global warming theory quite a lot and found
> > > arguments against global warming more convincing than those in support
> > > of it.

> > I find that implusible. If you had researched it quite a lot, you'd be
> > very familiar with the arguments on both sides and the response above
> > shows that you aren't.

> > There are no sound arguments 'against global warming'. The bulk of
> > those listed in the 'sceptics' category accept that it is occurring
> > but dispute only the magnitude of future climate change and the speed,
> > or the etiology. What you miss is that all the principal non-
> > anthropogenic factor (orbital forcing) recommends cooling and yet we
> > are warming. That the Earth's temperature more or less plateaued
> > during the 1943-74 period despite SO2 and other aerosols cutting
> > insolation underscores the strength of the other anthropogenic drivers
> > of warming, since when scrubbing of flues andf the short residence
> > time of SO2 combined, temperatures started rising almost immediately
> > despite an absence of any rise in TSI.

> > TSI-based claims also can't account for stratospheric cooling with
> > lower tropospheric warming.

> > > When you tell people that China had the coldest winter for 50
> > > years (according to TV news in the UK) or that Scotland had the
> > > coldest Easter for 46 years,

> > <sigh> regional weather is not climate. Climate is, by definition, a
> > sustained and predictable patern of weather over a period long enough
> > to reduce to noise regional weather anomalies. The globe (as in
> > *global* warming) amounts to more than Scotland or China. It's the
> > overall and long established trend line that is of significance
> > here.

> > > or that the UK sea level is only rising
> > > 3.1mm a year, then people do tend to get very sceptical about the cosy
> > > consensus of environmentalists, most of the media and virtually all
> > > politicians that global warming is caused by mankind and heading for a
> > > catastrophe.

> > So much hangs on one word here : "cosy" and you don't support it. The
> > implication here is of some sort of skullduggery but if you are to
> > make that claims and impugn the integrity of  the vast majority of the
> > world's scientists, who, unlike you, have to make specific testable
> > claims and risk public and career ending humiliation, you will need
> > more than one snide observation.

> > Who are these "people" who "tend to get very sceptical"? Vague appeals
> > to populist angst are not an argument, especially when the bulk of the
> > populace would be hard pressed to describe the pattern of water
> > transports in the major water currents, explain what a cline was in
> > this context, specify the differences between the various measurement
> > methodologies, or the difference between the morphology of the ice
> > mass in the various parts of the world. Before opening the front of
> > your trousers to relieve yourself in public, it's best practice to
> > test which way the wind is blowing.

> > Fran

> Fran, my only caveat to all this Romm being totally taken apart
> because of his anti-nuclear attitude and his playing with numbers. see
> the commentary under some of his latest posts.http://climateprogress.org/2008/08/08/aep-demands-45-rate-increase-fo...