climate change

That is so utterly wrong.
When someone says the cladding on a building could catch fire you would discount it and take no action.

The one in bumburghs head.

Youd still get a load of if's.
At some point you have to take the evidence and decide on the risk.

That would be because they didn't have an answer; you don't have an answer.

I'd ask the question(s) again, just so I knew whoever was making claims had a clue what they were talking about.

Unless it was obvious, I would ask them for reasons why they thought that.

There is plenty of evidence that the Earth is warming. There has been a measurable rise in sea level indicative of melting ice. Almost everywhere glaciers and ice sheets are receding. Places all around the world, including here, see record breaking heatwaves fairly frequently. Average temperatures have been measured as the decades have gone by and the average global temperature is now almost 1.5C warmer when compared with preindustrial times.

Most of those who feel temperamentally or ideologically compelled to reject the notion that we are causing climate change (because to accept that fact implies having to do a whole heap of stuff that is anathema to them ideologically)have had to accept that warming is taking place and have had to fall back on the idea that this is natural and nothing to do with us. But this is just wishful thinking because the evidence is stacking up against them.

Scientists have long been aware that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. This is because whilst it is transparent to visible light it is opaque to infra red. These are proven and well established properties of some gases, including CO2. What this means in practice is that any CO2 or any other greenhouse gas in the atmosphere would tend to let in light but as it hits the ground and converts into heat (infrared) it tends to block it from being reflected back out. In other words it tends to trap heat in, making the average temperature warmer than it would otherwise be. It also follows that the more greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, the greater its ability to trap heat and thus warm the planet. And we have measured CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere for some time now, and they have been rising in correlation with average rises in temperature which is consistent with the science.

Which leaves the question as to where all this CO2 is coming from. We know car exhausts, jet engines, coal burning, etc pump CO2 into the atmosphere. Which itself gives the obvious answer as to where it is coming from. To reject this requires explaining why man made CO2 is not increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere whilst some other natural mechanism for which there is much less evidence is.

And to ignore CO2 completely and blame it all on supposed changes in the output of the sun is to bury your head in the sand by ignoring the fact that CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas which process is widely understood and to ignore the fact that CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have greatly increased. Changes in output from the sun could increase or diminish the effect but that effect cannot be ignored if you want to be taken seriously.


You only have to join the dots to see that man made global warming is surely becoming a scientifically indisputable fact. Only those blinkered by their own ideological assumptions seem incapable of doing this. Most of them will continue to reject the facts until the day they die, no matter how overwhelming the evidence. Because they lack the intellectual integrity to acknowledge even to themselves that a lifetime of ideological assumptions are no longer fit for purpose.