The Greta Thunberg Debate

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It is true that the Arctic's temperatures are rising at an accelerated rate as compared with non-Arctic regions.

And that there has been considerable melting of glaciers in that region.

It is said that Trump wanted to buy Greenland because he thought the ice cap there would thin out rapidly, and thereby allow its natural resources to be exploited.

Tokatekika, the following comments are in response to your comments. I would have quoted your comments but I have received around 20 CAPTCHA rejections in a row. So rather than quote your comments, this is your comments:

I have read the points and agree with some and don't agree with others, however for a start we cannot go off just one webpage for information as they may have bias or wrong information, instead it must be compared to other research to heed its accuracy.

Lands may be getting greener and more crops growing (in certain areas, due to heat rise of course) however, if the heat rises too much and rain ceases, instead of flourishing, there will be famine and burnt crops which are not of use..it may seem good now, but would be it in the future?

Forest fires may not have changed in the US, but this is not the only place forest fires are happening. In counties that were already hot, such as Australia, forest fires have been increasingly bad and on that note, heat rise in countries that are cooler such as England, its not such a problem, but when heat rises in countries that are already struggling and suffering such as Africa, problems are posed, also certain times of year in Africa there are rains that make lakes that supply water at important times for animals that will be there at this time such as flamingo flocks... However rising temperatures means this is less likely to happen and water dries up faster... Which puts species at risk

Again other animals such as polar bears have been in decline and are endangered along with penguins and other antarctic animals... The ice, you are right. We cannot stop it melting, however we can slow the process if we don't allow temperatures to keep rising at the rate they are and keep the climate stable

Other sites claim, sea. Level has risen 5 to 8 inches since 1900 when it had pretty much not changed at all since 2000 years before

Co2 is needed of course, however with forest fires and deforestation, there is more than the atmosphere can handle as it is not all going into photosynthesis and plants, it's going into the atmosphere, luckily with works done so far the o zone layer has been steadily decreasing, but more needs to. Be done so that it doesn't increase again and so that we don't get locked in

I wouldn't say there was an existential threat, right at this moment, perhaps the numbers are off.. However it will be a threat in the future and it is best to ensure we take care of the planet before it becomes even more difficult than it is now, as we don't know if we can control it, essentially, as it will be in the future if we do nothing. We know that the earth and climate works at the temperature it is/was not too long ago and its safer to try and preserve it than try and change with it if that can even be done

So, you have some valid points but this is just a few statements that would disagree with them.

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Since you are from the U.K. and the U.K. has a well documented historical data concerning climate, I thought it might be interesting to frame the discussion from a U.K. perspective. The following analysis is from Paul Homewood. This is a summary.

Using the recently published UK Met Office “State of the UK Climate 2018”, along with other Met Office data, this paper examines UK climatic trends and assesses the truth of climate emergency claims.

The analysis finds that:

* There was a step up in temperatures between the 1980s and early 2000s, since when temperatures have stabilised. This increase is closely associated with a rise in sea surface temperatures around the same time, itself connected to the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, a natural cycle, which is currently in its warm phase.

* The temperature data provides no evidence that temperatures will resume their upward trend in the foreseeable future.

* Seasonal temperatures follow a similar pattern.

* In particular, summer temperatures have still not exceeded those of 1976, despite last year's long heatwave.

* Based on the Central England Temperature series (CET) daily temperatures, the heatwaves of 1975 and 1976 were much more intense than anything since, including last summer, with daily temperatures peaking at higher levels and for longer. For instance, in 1975 and 1976, there were four and nine days respectively with temperatures over 30C. By contrast, last summer there was only one.

* Whilst daily temperature extremes are not rising at the top end of the scale, extremely cold days have become much less common. In short, UK temperatures have become less extreme, contrary to common belief.

* Although the UK Met Office claimed that last summer in the UK tied with 1976 as the hottest on record, the well respected CET tells a different story. In fact, it shows the summer of 2018 as only 5th warmest, not even as hot as 1826. This casts doubt on the Met Office's UK gridded temperature network, which provides its official climate data, but which relies on many UHI affected sites, such as Heathrow.

* Although there has been a clearly increasing trend in UK precipitation since the 1970s, this is largely due to increasing totals in Scotland. In the rest of the UK, there appear to be little in the way of long term changes.

* The long running England & Wales Precipitation series (EWP), which begins in 1766, offers a longer perspective, and shows that the higher levels of rainfall experienced in the last two decades are not unprecedented.

* Seasonal analysis of the EWP shows little trends in winter or summer rainfall since 1900, nor for that matter spring or autumn. This runs counter to regular claims of “wetter winters” and “drier summers”.

* Analysis of EWP also provides no evidence that rainfall is becoming more extreme, whether on a decadal, monthly or daily basis. There is, however, evidence that extremely dry years have become less common.

* Sea levels have been rising at around 1.4mm a year, after correcting for vertical land movement. Recent rates of sea level rise are similar to those in the first half of the 20thC. There is no evidence that sea level has been accelerating.

* There is little long term data for storms, but limited data from the UK Met Office indicates that storms have not become more frequent or stronger in the last five decades.

In short, although it is slightly warmer than it used to be, the UK climate has actually changed very little. In particular, there is no evidence that weather has become more extreme.

Heatwaves have not become more severe, nor droughts. Rainfall data offers no evidence that floods have become worse either.

Neither is there any evidence from past trends that the climate will become significantly hotter, wetter or drier. Nor that sea level rise will accelerate.

Source: The UK climate in 2018

I feel like some people dont realize how impactful just a couple degrees can be. It only took 4-degrees celsius to tip us into the last "ice age"

she's 16 and living in 2019, probably having had access to the Internet since she was 6. She is eloquent and shows intelligence in her conversations and I simply think she's a smart kid who has been deeply affected by what is happening in our world and because she has a "black and white" way of looking at things she is able to tell everyone that their "counter arguments" are BS because climate change IS a black and white issue. You either believe it's an existential threat or you don't. And if you do and you care, you should do something about it. simple, really.

exactly! and as far as I know changes over the course of earth geological history have always been more gradual without outside interference

he clearly believe in climate change then - even if just in terms of profit. he's truly a lunatic!

Since as probably was inevitable the conversation has ended up as a debate about the "climate emergency". The following is a post I made to a regional weather forum. Discussion in that forum usually sticks to the local weather and stays away from climate and politics but the other day in response to unseasonable warmth for several consecutive years at this time of the year in our region the topic came up.

The warming is not an illusion. We have enough readings to say that.

The scientific consensus of human produced CO2 is going to cause the end of the world as we know it COULD be wrong. The climatologists are relying on limited and questionable data of 150 years or so. Weather stations showing warming trends are affected by urbanization among other issues. The climatologists are relying too much on models. All the time on here we go nuts with the changing and often wrong short term models. There seems to be too many factors and not known factors involved for reliability. There are many many more factors that going into climate models. It is oft said that weather is not climate. That is partially misleading. Climate is weather in many locations over a lengthy period of time. So why not be skeptical of science that at least is partially relying on models?

Another thing that raises red flags is the emotional hysteria surrounding the issue. It is gotten to a point where an earnest caring teenager is being elevated to sainthood for saying what teenagers often say, our parents generations screwed us and we are different. Emotion usually makes for bad decisions.

A big mistake skeptics/deniers of the scientific consensus make is advocating for doing nothing. By doing that they have made it easy for scientific consensus supporters to say skeptics are on the payroll or sheepie to people on the payroll of big oil.

Swallow our American exceptional pride and send our best people over to Holland to see what they are doing right. We can stop subsidizing people to go back to oceanfront property after it has been destroyed by storm surge. Raising your house is fine and dandy until you become disabled for some reason. Stop building glass towers that will turn into death traps in strong enough hurricanes and tornadoes.

All the time, money and research and emotion that is going into the “settled” human CO2 theory takes away from looking into other areas. That includes other human caused warming such as the heat island effect.

You mean like urban heat islands? Cities are always warmer than rural areas. But the Urban Heat Effect has no significant influence on the record of global temperature trends. Plus scientists have already accounted for it in their measurements.
But you are right that more people should know and look into them. There are several negative effects. Did you know the UN predicts that by 2030 2/3 of the worlds population will be living in urban areas? Cities are only continuing to grow and expand. So we should definitely be making efforts to make them safer and healthier areas.

Jimmy, are you seriously going to put more weight on a report by one author (not a climate scientist but an accountant) over that of the UK Met Office? Seriously?

Seems to me that the guy is confusing UK weather with global climate. He's looking at short-term regional weather patterns (UK weather over the last few decades), whereas the broader climate change issue is about large-scale and longer term patterns. When you consider natural and regional variation, nobody would expect short-term regional weather trends to perfectly match global climate change predictions.

Signs of climate change in regional weather patterns are only going to be seen by looking at long-term trends. And instead he's comparing which heatwave was the worst out of 1975 and 2019 and concluding that global warming can't be a 'thing' because 1975 was worse.

If you look at long-term trends, you look at data like this (from the Met Office):
The ten hottest years in the UK since 1884 have all happened in the last 17 years, and the five hottest years have all occurred since 2006.

Do you seriously think the Met Office have got their data wrong?

As posted earlier in this thread, there was a 13 year old living in 1992 who basically gave the same speech. According to her back then, we should already be where Greta says we are going to be 10 years from now.

I predict that eventually the public will forget 16 y/o Greta Thunberg the way they they have forgotten 13 y/o Severn Suzuki. And when Greta is in her 40's like Severn is now, there will be some new teenager giving basically the same speech of "you old people are robbing us of our future, the world will end before I'm 25".

Yeah, probably.
But I think Greta has got more traction because there's a lot of frustration with the way many governments are handling climate change (or not).

Ezra is a monster, she is the messiah and how dare the non-believer ezra speak ill of our false idol.

A PR company write her scripts, cheer that if you want but I just won't, and neither will Ezra.

Until recently I didn't really know anything about Greta pro or con and never saw a video of her. But when I finally did, it did not seem entirely realistic to me. It seemed scripted and acted tbh. When I later read that her parents are actors it made me laugh.

We failed.

But by manipulating our daughter and stealing her childhood we may live again.

I'm not so sure. Greta seems pretty passionate in her own right. Apparently she persuaded her parents towards veganism and not the other way round.

But be cynical about it, if it makes you happy.