> > 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

> The graph on this page only shows (as far as five-year averages are
> concerned) global temperatures reducing in the 1940s. This looks to be
> based on the same data used in the Wikpedia pages I mentioned. You
> gave the dates 1943-74, which certainly doesn't tally with this graph,
> and I remember talk of an ice age when I was growing up (and I was
> only born in 1966).

> It's easy to dismiss "The Great Global Warming Swindle" as propaganda
> from "kooks", right-wingers pretending to be Marxists (the LM crowd)
> and people in the pay of the power companies, but the person most
> featured on that programme was a former editor of New Scientist - the
> foremost science publication in the UK.

> That programme showed a graph with decreasing temperatures for the
> sort of period you gave (1943-74) - completely different from those
> clearly made-up graphs.

> I spotted the following letter in the Guardian (the #65279 is on the
> web pagehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/04/climatechange.fossi...
> I don't know what character it is supposed to be) from Professor John
> France, Swansea:

> I am becoming fed up with these doomsayers. In the 1970s we were told
> the world would get dramatically colder. In the 1990s much the same
> people were telling us that doom awaited us,...#65279; imminently,
> thanks to the hole in the ozone layer, which now seems to have gone
> curiously out of fashion.

> As an academic I cannot help noting that both the writer of your
> article, Andrew Simms, and the researcher on whose work he relied,
> work for a foundation whose very existence depends on the notion that
> there is such a thing as dramatic climate change.

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

> I've checked those out, but I don't know what specific points they
> made that you find particularly persuasive. Would you like to
> elaborate?

> > > 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.

> I did say "quite a lot" rather than "a lot", so I haven't heard all
> the arguments. I'm personally a scientist (with a PhD in computer
> science) and am perfectly capable of being convinced if the evidence
> for your point of view is good enough!

> > 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.

> I had to search for "etiology", not knowing what it meant. [Please
> explain "TSI" which you used later in the message; it's a bit annoying
> when words/acronyms are used that I don't understand; use of such
> terms must be even more confusing for people for which English is not
> their first language.] According to Wikpedia, etiology is the study of
> causation. "The Great Global Warming Swindle" suggests that global
> warming causes carbon dioxide rather than the other way round; other
> sceptics say that people do cause global warming via greenhouse gases
> but other factors such as solar flares are more significant. I don't
> know enough physics to be able to judge which of these views is most
> persuasive.

> According to NASA statistics for the northern hemisphere, 1998 was the
> hottest year to date until 2005.