Global Warming Fraud?

[Zeno Swijtink]

Hey Zeno....

According to this PD Editorial from today, Sonoma County Supervisor Paul Kelley is off to attend the global warming conference in Bali.

I wish Kelley would stay there - permanently...He's an a-hole of a typical politician...

One wouldn't wish this on the good people of Bali.

[Braggi]

Quote:

Willie Lumplump wrote:
I echo SonomaMark in wondering how many of these 37 are either direct hirelings of the petroleum industry or grant recipients who have made their careers dependent on that industry.

If you come across info that this is the case for these scientists, please share them here. Thanks.

This has been a pattern ever since global warming appeared on the public's radar. Read up d-cat. You've been had.

Here's the latest from that liberal bastion, CNN Money: https://money.cnn.com/2007/02/02/new...exxon_science/

-Jeff

["Mad" Miles]

We need a new term for this kind of awfulness, something like 'traitor to the planet' but expressed in a single word.

We English speakers don't, but Spanish speakers do, and it's a word that has migrated to political Left English.

"Comprador" i.e. someone bought and paid for by the powers that be to be their agent and mouthpiece, while lording it over the rest of us.

Literally "bought off".

And there's always Red Forman's, from "That Seventies Show", favorite.

"DUMBASS!"

Or quisling, hack, liar, tool, etc., etc., etc.,

"Mad" Miles

[Willie Lumplump]

We English speakers don't, but Spanish speakers do, and it's a word that has migrated to political Left English."Comprador" i.e. someone bought and paid for by the powers that be to be their agent and mouthpiece, while lording it over the rest of us.

I've learned a new word today, and I'll add it to my working vocabulary.

[Willie Lumplump]

And when the h*ll haven't 'low-lying' areas been 'severely' impacted by rising oceans

Because so far sea level is rising slowly, at the rate of about .07 inches per year. The reason for this slow rate is that most of the ice that's been melting has been floating in the Arctic Ocean, and when floating ice melts, it doesn't cause a rise in sea level.

So, I'm wondering...When the h*ll HASN'T the climate changed on this planet??...

The fact that climate has changed naturally in the past can't be taken as evidence that man is not the cause of the present change, and that's a matter of logic, not empirically determined fact.

[saysni]

Isn't this all just a lot of sound and fury signifying...nothing? Aren't humans a part of this earth? In some admittedly deterministic way aren't we as a species acting out our own fate as prescribed from the moment we alighted here? Isn't this just our collective karma to be facing the knowledge that we have the power to anihilate the planet's environment for most living things in the relative blink of an eye? I do know this: From dust we came and to dust we do surely return. And, some say, all of this (earth) came from space dust. So that means we are all of "us" from somewhere else. We are intergalactic interlopers checked in but for a short time here at the Milky Way Hotel.
In this our "modern" culture all seems all about money: If it don't make a buck it won't fly. We manipulate the environment for better or worse, usually for worse, and deserve what we create. Skeptics, keep on being skeptical and call out the dominant paradigm. Believers, keep on believing and share with us your knowledge. The world will keep on turning, but who knows for how long? It could be only for 4 more minutes or the 4 billion years astronomy suggests.
No, nothing is certain, nothing is written. Except for the fact(?) that all roads lead to the death - as far as i can see - of these our bodies here on this physical plane, beyond that...? Perhaps we may one day "know".
Meanwhile, down here on the ground...Live and love as best you can. Take care of one another. Take care of yourself. Nothing really matters and what if it did?
Take it easy. And if you can't take it easy, take it as easy as you can.
[with apologies and thanks to Stevie Wonder, T.E. Lawrence, John Cougar, and a - name forgotten - KPFA radio host]
-s

[Zeno Swijtink]

Isn't this all just a lot of sound and fury signifying...nothing? (...) In some admittedly deterministic way aren't we as a species acting out our own fate as prescribed from the moment we alighted here?

Maybe. But then, you writing your message and hitting the "Submit Reply" button: tell me, in doing so don't you express some hope on making a difference?

And doesn't that hope mean you're not completely sold on determinism?

[Willie Lumplump]

Isn't this all just a lot of sound and fury signifying...nothing? Aren't humans a part of this earth? In some admittedly deterministic way aren't we as a species acting out our own fate as prescribed from the moment we alighted here?

This view is characteristic of some Eastern civilizations, and civilizations that hold this view are dangerous to the planet. The Japanese figure that since they are a part of nature, anything they do (like hunt whales to extinction) is natural, and nobody should complain about it. The Western view (setting aside for a moment the gross distortions of capitalism), is that nature belongs to man and therefore man is the steward of nature.

From dust we came and to dust we do surely return.

Yes, in the long run we are all dead. And in any case, in another 500 million years the sun will begin to feel a shortage of its hydrogen fuel and become hot enough to make Earth uninhabitable. This is the dilemma of existentialism. The universe provides no meaning. If there is to be meaning, we ourselves must provide it.

"Take it easy. And if you can't take it easy, take it as easy as you can." [a - name forgotten - KPFA radio host]

Jennifer Stone, in "A Stone's Throw."

[Zeno Swijtink]

This view is characteristic of some Eastern civilizations, and civilizations that hold this view are dangerous to the planet. The Japanese figure that since they are a part of nature, anything they do (like hunt whales to extinction) is natural, and nobody should complain about it. The Western view (setting aside for a moment the gross distortions of capitalism), is that nature belongs to man and therefore man is the steward of nature.

This is a rather quick and dirty gloss of cultural differences. The Japanese Edo perios is sometimes held up as an example of sustainable living. Whereas capitalism is a Western invention, isn't it?

https://www.energybulletin.net/5140.html

While stewardship has been open to many takes: "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it."

The post by Willie and saysni both make the mistake of identifying Indian, Chinese and Japanese philosophies as inherently irrational.

A book by Frits Staal, Exploring Mysticism: A Methodological Essay (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975) that I had translated into Dutch when I was an undergraduate in philosophy at the University of Amsterdam in the 1970s shows how wrong that is. A precis of the ideas is at

https://home.wxs.nl/~brouw724/FritsStaal.html

[MsTerry]

Zeno,

the depth and breath of your life continues to astonish me.
many people become cynic or skeptic but most of all myopic,with all your knowledge but you remain youthful and inspiring!

This is a rather quick and dirty gloss of cultural differences. The Japanese Edo perios is sometimes held up as an example of sustainable living. Whereas capitalism is a Western invention, isn't it?

https://www.energybulletin.net/5140.html

While stewardship has been open to many takes: "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it."

The post by Willie and saysni both make the mistake of identifying Indian, Chinese and Japanese philosophies as inherently irrational.

A book by Frits Staal, Exploring Mysticism: A Methodological Essay (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975) that I had translated into Dutch when I was an undergraduate in philosophy at the University of Amsterdam in the 1970s shows how wrong that is. A precis of the ideas is at

https://home.wxs.nl/~brouw724/FritsStaal.html

[lynn]

Willie...
The fact that climate has changed naturally in the past can't be taken as evidence that man is not the cause of the present change, and that's a matter of logic, not empirically determined fact.

And I find the current 'logic' that humans can actually try and 'protect' climate from changing...rather insane...The climate - mother nature, is going to do her thing whether we like it or not...

As humans we can't even provide housing for the homeless, and give decent living conditions for 1 billion people on the planet...It's rather nutty that people have recently started to think they can stop the globe from 'warming' or 'cooling'...

Shooot...We are barely going to get cars that get 35 miles to the gallon here in the states...

And I bet in the Mid West right now, they wish there was a whole heck of a lot more 'warming' going on...

[Willie Lumplump]

Willie...
The fact that climate has changed naturally in the past can't be taken as evidence that man is not the cause of the present change, and that's a matter of logic, not empirically determined fact.

And I find the current 'logic' that humans can actually try and 'protect' climate from changing...rather insane...The climate - mother nature, is going to do her thing whether we like it or not...

The complex motions of the earth that are responsible for long-term climatic cycles are going to continue, so the cycles themselves will probably continue (although not even that point is assured). However, the current climate change is not due to motions of the earth, it is due to man's pollution of the atmosphere. What is insane about believing that man can reduce his pollution? Should we take our failure to provide housing for the homeless as a sign that we should give up all attempts to avoid global disaster? If we don't avoid this disaster, the number of homeless people will grow by hundreds of millions.

And I bet in the Mid West right now, they wish there was a whole heck of a lot more 'warming' going on...

The term "global warming" is a short, convenient phrase, but it is misleading if taken literally. What's going on is that more energy is being added to a hugely complex system of energy exchanges involving land, sea, and atmosphere. Some of these energy exchanges will result in local increases in temperature while others will result in local decreases in temperature. One fear is that melting ice in the Arctic Ocean will shut down the North Atlantic thermo-haline exchange belt that allows Europe to be warmed by the Gulf Stream. If that happens, Europe will be plunged into an ice age. And that ice age will be caused by what we refer to casually as "global warming."

[Willie Lumplump]

This is a rather quick and dirty gloss of cultural differences. The Japanese Edo perios is sometimes held up as an example of sustainable living. Whereas capitalism is a Western invention, isn't it?

Evidently I need to go slower and cleaner. Thanks.

[Willie Lumplump]

If you actually believed that, you'd have no need for a chimney for your fireplace.

Another jewel from the pen of Clancy.

[Zeno Swijtink]

And I find the current 'logic' that humans can actually try and 'protect' climate from changing...rather insane...The climate - mother nature, is going to do her thing whether we like it or not...

As humans we can't even provide housing for the homeless, and give decent living conditions for 1 billion people on the planet...It's rather nutty that people have recently started to think they can stop the globe from 'warming' or 'cooling'...

Shooot...We are barely going to get cars that get 35 miles to the gallon here in the states...

I agree the issue is overwhelming. It touches everything - we are in "carbon lock-in" -, and it can only, if at all, be dealt with by the world working together.

Now, how likely is that? This is certainly a situation of Gramski's "Pessimism of the intellect, but Optimism of the will."

We don't want to fail for lack of trying to reduce our GHG emissions. It's just to right thing to do, and many paths towards solutions are there already.

My off-the-shelf car goes 60+ m/G. But that's just one tiny example. Look at these reports for the Sonoma County Water Agency that show how to save on both energy and water, the work of Ned Orrett and Peter Gleick referred to at

https://climateprotectioncampaign.jo...orativeEconomy




****
Total global human GHG Emissions 2004: 49.0 gigatons equivalent CO2 (CO2e, includes CO2, methane, N2O and HFC/PFC/SF6)

Sectoral Share of Total GHG

Transport = 13.1%
Agriculture = 13.5%
Forestry = 17.4% (includes deforestation)
Energy Supply, Industry, Buildings, Water/Wastewater = 59%

Direct Emissions Sources

56% of this is CO2 from fossil fuel use
17.3% is CO2 from deforestation/biomass decay
14.3% is methane (from agriculture/enteric fermentation/manure and fossil fuel use)
7.9% is N2O (mostly from agriculture/crop cultivation)
3.9% is F-gases and other CO2

From The IPCC in the AR4 Synthesis Summary for Policymakers
https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-r...r4_syr_spm.pdf

[lynn]

Willie...I asked a science teacher how he would respond to this statement you had written earlier..."The fact that climate has changed naturally in the past can't be taken as evidence that man is not the cause of the present change, and that's a matter of logic, not empirically determined fact."

He wrote back...

"perhaps the statement should read...The fact that climate has changed naturally in the past can be taken as evidence that man is not the cause of the present change, and that's a matter of empirically determined fact, and not a matter of logic."

-------------------------

Clancy wrote...If you actually believed that, you'd have no need for a chimney for your fireplace.

I don't find that particular example convincing - in regards that as humans we can now dramatically change climate patterns on a global scale...

[Zeno Swijtink]

Willie...I asked a science teacher how he would respond to this statement you had written earlier..."The fact that climate has changed naturally in the past can't be taken as evidence that man is not the cause of the present change, and that's a matter of logic, not empirically determined fact."

He wrote back...

"perhaps the statement should read...The fact that climate has changed naturally in the past can be taken as evidence that man is not the cause of the present change, and that's a matter of empirically determined fact, and not a matter of logic."

I can agree to some extend with this science teacher: If in the past some phenomenon has been caused by X it's prima facie evidence that when it happens again it's caused by X.

It's a matter of logic though, broadly so, it's a logical principle, and there I depart from your science teacher. (Although it's a matter of empirically determined fact that the climate has gone thru many "natural" changes before there were humans.)

But it's not conclusive evidence, and the effect of total evidence can be turned around by other evidence. That's what is the case according to studies published in peer reviewed journals by climate scientists.

FWIW, I have a PhD in the foundations of statistical reasoning from Stanford University (1982). Please put him online if he wishes to discuss this further with us!

["Mad" Miles]

Zeno,

Great stats, but a spelling correction. It's Gramsci, not,

Gramski's "Pessimism of the intellect, but Optimism of the will."

I also like F.H. Bradley's, "Where everything is bad, it must be good to know the worst."

(As quoted by Theodor Adorno in Minima Moralia. I have it on my personal card. Note the irony of the most articulate articulator of Negative Dialectics, quoting the Father of English Positivism.)

I also like, "No matter where you go, there you are!"

All is Flux - Heraclitus (Can one get that on a vanity plate?)

Cheers All, Happy Holly Daze,

"Mad" Miles



P.S. See "Atonement"! You'll thank me!

[Zeno Swijtink]

Clancy wrote...If you actually believed that, you'd have no need for a chimney for your fireplace.

I don't find that particular example convincing - in regards that as humans we can now dramatically change climate patterns on a global scale...

I agree it requires a shift in vision. We feel so small and insignificant in the face of a tornado, or swept away by floodwater. How can humans affect the climate?

It's a matter of cumulative impacts. The drops of water that can erode the hardest rock, given enough time and enough drops.

Subscribe to NASA Earth Observatory. "Once a week you will receive a short notice from the Earth Observatory telling you about the latest stories, data, and other points of interest that have been added to the site."

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/subscribe.php3

They published regularly pictures from space showing the evidence of human impact on the atmosphere!

[Zeno Swijtink]

Zeno,

Great stats, but a spelling correction. It's Gramsci, not,

Gramski's "Pessimism of the intellect, but Optimism of the will."

I also like F.H. Bradley's, "Where everything is bad, it must be good to know the worst."

(As quoted by Theodor Adorno in Minima Moralia. I have it on my personal card. Note the irony of the most articulate articulator of Negative Dialectics, quoting the Father of English Positivism.)

I also like, "No matter where you go, there you are!"

All is Flux - Heraclitus (Can one get that on a vanity plate?)

Cheers All, Happy Holly Daze,

"Mad" Miles



P.S. See "Atonement"! You'll thank me!

You are right about Gramsci. I made him sound Russian. People sometimes misspell my name as Switnik, making me sound Polish.

I need to take exception however with you making Bradley the "Father of English Positivism". Bradley was an idealist metaphysician, a British Hegelian.

ALLSFLX is still available!!!! https://vrir.dmv.ca.gov/ipp/ippMain.jsp

[lynn]

Zeno..."I can agree to some extend with this science teacher: If in the past some phenomenon has been caused by X it's prima facie evidence that when it happens again it's caused by X.".....FWIW, I have a PhD in the foundations of statistical reasoning from Stanford University (1982). Please put him online if he wishes to discuss this further with us!"

Thanks Zeno for responding...I passed it along...I only 'know' the guy from another board...I don't know if he'll want to come on this one and 'debate'...we'll see...

FWIW, I have a PhD in the foundations of statistical reasoning from Stanford University (1982). Please put him online if he wishes to discuss this further with us!"

[lynn]

Zeno...It's a matter of cumulative impacts. The drops of water that can erode the hardest rock, given enough time and enough drops.
Subscribe to NASA Earth Observatory. "Once a week you will receive a short notice from the Earth Observatory telling you about the latest stories, data, and other points of interest that have been added to the site."
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/subscribe.php3
They published regularly pictures from space showing the evidence of human impact on the atmosphere!

Yes, Zeno...I understand that humans have quite an impact on lots of things...Obviously...But, I'm not convinced that we can do that much about climate change....

If we need to do something about pollution, overpopulation, overconsumption, deforestation, garbage, plastic pollution in the oceans...etc. etc...In other words...improving quality of life for humans and the rest of the natural world...Then let's do it...

Once we do those things...THEN we might see if that will have an affect on climate...

[lynn]

Clancy...If you agree that we can dramatically change climate patterns then obviously we can choose not to do the things that are making the changes.
------

No, at this point in time...I do not agree that humans can dramatically change climate patterns...

["Mad" Miles]

"I need to take exception however with you making Bradley the "Father of English Positivism". Bradley was an idealist metaphysician, a British Hegelian."

I sit corrected. The "Father of English Positivism" is Adorno's reference. Too bad you can't argue the point with him, but he's dead.

"ALLSFLX is still available!!!! https://vrir.dmv.ca.gov/ipp/ippMain.jsp"

Good to know, thanks for the info. (per usual)

My brush with Positivism was as an undergraduate UCI Philosophy (and History) major. I could'nt reconcile to myself to a world composed solely of "facts".

It's been quite a while, so my recall is fuzzy.

I drifted into the swamps of Critical Theory/Frankfurt School and Post-Structuralism/Deconstruction. Crawled out in '87 when the repetition of the debates was no longer interesting to me, and no one was going to pay me to engage in them without a Ph.D.

Wisps of memory come drifting back...

I had to check the spine of my copy of Prison Notebooks to verify the spelling for Gramsci, but I knew yours wasn't correct.

Do you think while he was writing in prison that three or four generations later his legacy would be reduced to an aphorism? Albeit a great and useful one.

"To sleep, perchance to dream,"

"M"M

[Willie Lumplump]

I can agree to some extend with this science teacher: If in the past some phenomenon has been caused by X it's prima facie evidence that when it happens again it's caused by X.

Suppose that I step out in front of a car while crossing the street against a red light. Bam! I spend a month in the hospital. After leaving the hospital, I again cross a street against a red light. Bam! Another month in the hospital. The second time I leave the hospital, I'm careful to respect the signal lights. Bam! A car hits me and puts me back in the hospital for another month. I had three accidents. The cause of the first two was X (crossing a street against a red light). Therefore, according to the rules of inductive logic, the cause of my third accident was also X, and I can conclude that I am color blind and can't tell the difference between red and green. What's wrong here?

Your logic (prima facie evidence and so on) holds only so long as no new information becomes available that might change your conclusion. A vast amount of evidence points to man as the cause of the present global warming. Therefore it isn't reasonable to conclude that the natural factors that caused past global warmings are causing the present one, and the fact that there might have been a thousand previous natural warmings is irrelevant.

[Willie Lumplump]

He wrote back...

"perhaps the statement should read...The fact that climate has changed naturally in the past can be taken as evidence that man is not the cause of the present change, and that's a matter of empirically determined fact, and not a matter of logic."

Funny guy.

[Willie Lumplump]

I'm not convinced that we can do that much about climate change. Once we do those things [take care of overpopulation, overconsumption, etc.] THEN we might see if that will have an affect on climate

A new study is underway to determine the feasibility of reducing atmospheric CO2 by fertilizing the oceans with iron. Iron is typically the factor limiting populations of planktonic organisms. Provide the iron and the plankton will bloom, absorbing vast amounts of CO2. After they deplete the iron supplies, they will die and sink to the bottom of the ocean, carrying with them the CO2 that they have incorporated into their bodies. Once on the ocean bottom, the CO2 will take hundreds of years to make its way back into the part of the carbon cycle that affects us. We might do a lot of things if we try, and the worse the crisis gets, the more incentive there will be to try. It would be nice if citizens would support those who try.

[Zeno Swijtink]

Suppose that I step out in front of a car while crossing the street against a red light. Bam! I spend a month in the hospital. After leaving the hospital, I again cross a street against a red light. Bam! Another month in the hospital. The second time I leave the hospital, I'm careful to respect the signal lights. Bam! A car hits me and puts me back in the hospital for another month. I had three accidents. The cause of the first two was X (crossing a street against a red light). Therefore, according to the rules of inductive logic, the cause of my third accident was also X, and I can conclude that I am color blind and can't tell the difference between red and green. What's wrong here?

Your logic (prima facie evidence and so on) holds only so long as no new information becomes available that might change your conclusion. A vast amount of evidence points to man as the cause of the present global warming. Therefore it isn't reasonable to conclude that the natural factors that caused past global warmings are causing the present one, and the fact that there might have been a thousand previous natural warmings is irrelevant.

I don't disagree with you here as you can see by reading the details of my post. "Prima facie evidence" is a legal term imposing burden of proof, considering order in which evidence is considered, and such. See the reference I gave in the posting.

I added that detail to try to explain how differences of opinion between you and unnamed science teacher can be shown to be, at least partially, semantic.

[Zeno Swijtink]

If we need to do something about pollution, overpopulation, overconsumption, deforestation, garbage, plastic pollution in the oceans...etc. etc...In other words...improving quality of life for humans and the rest of the natural world...Then let's do it...

Once we do those things...THEN we might see if that will have an affect on climate...

That's good enough for me. All the issues you mention affect our influence on the atmosphere and working on these is, for me, working on reducing our GHG emissions.

I am wary of climate engineering ideas, such as the one mentioned by Willie, seeding the oceans with iron dust. These are not something to rush into. See cutting below.

********************
https://www.greenfutures.org.uk/feat...lt.asp?id=2075

Fast Forward to 2013
Call the emergency services!

Ian Christie casts a weather eye over the promises of the technical fix brigade. Can it really ride to the rescue for the Earth's climate? Is this the end of the beginning, or the beginning of the end? A year after the expiry of Kyoto I in 2012, there's still deadlock on a successor agreement on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Worse still, climate fatalism is setting in. The future that seems to be in store is so alarming that many people think it's now too late for changes in lifestyle, renewables and energy saving schemes to make any difference.

The time seems ripe for a big new idea - something to persuade us that we can actually achieve the kind of cuts in emissions that we so badly need. And, apparently seizing the time, along come the 'climate engineers', the technical fix brigade, the new breed of entrepreneurs and technologists who see great opportunities in the fact that we've let climate change grow from a threat to an emergency.

Which, to be blunt, is what the world did under Kyoto I. Cast your mind back over that initial agreement's 2008-2012 'commitment period'. That was the crunch time for the faltering first steps by signatories from the industrialised world to cut emissions, and for all of us to get wise to low-carbon technology, real energy efficiency, lifestyle changes and mechanisms like emission trading.

"Entrepreneurs and technologists see great opportunities in the fact that we've let climate change grow from a threat to an emergency."

There was some good news. Led by the UK and Germany, a core of EU countries took some determined, if patchy, action to show international leadership. And the latest figures show that half a dozen countries did actually meet their Kyoto obligations by the end of 2012. So take a bow, the British, the Germans, the Danes and other pioneers. But even in this select group no-one has yet dared to introduce annual carbon allowances for households - the very idea was shot down in flames in the EU - and the business lobbyists and populist media have strongly resisted both carbon taxes and tougher emissions trading schemes. Nor did all those industrialised countries who missed even their modest 2008-2012 Kyoto commitments set much of an example to inspire the rest of the world.

Not so splendid isolation Who could forget ex-prime minister Tony Blair, in that 2007 TV special on his 10 years in office, repeatedly coming back to his greatest regret - his key failure to persuade the then US President George W. Bush to make more than token gestures in tackling global warming? Six years on, there is still no sign of the US even joining the tortuous negotiations on a 'Son of Kyoto' treaty. True, many US cities and states have taken a lead and developed impressive climate policies of their own, regardless of the denial and indifference in Washington DC. But many more have yet to act seriously. The rise and rise of the fundamentalist 'religious Right' has focused political energies much more on cultural struggles than on the environment and energy, while yet more land in Alaska is opened up for drilling with each successive surge in world prices for oil and gas.

Finally, the big developing countries - crucial to the talks currently stagnating in Geneva - have become ever more energy-hungry and fossil fuel-intensive in the past decade. China, India, Brazil, Indonesia and the newly unified Republic of Korea are all still growing their economies as fast as they dare. Although renewable fuels, especially biomass, are increasingly important, these new industrial giants are just as badly carbon addicted as the West.

So it looks bad for Son of Kyoto. But surely, eventually, the mounting evidence of severe climate disruption must add a proper sense of urgency? We've had three sudden surges in the last decade in the increase of carbon dioxide parts per million in the atmosphere. We're now up to 397 ppm, and well on course for 450 by 2030: it's uncharted territory for civilisation and our environment. Hurricanes have devastated the Caribbean every year since 2004, the extreme thinning of Arctic ice is changing the polar ecosystem irreversibly, much of Bangladesh has been submerged - and so it goes on. It can't go on.

But leading NGOs and climate scientists have been issuing the same warnings and drawing the same conclusions from weather disasters and computer models for a long time now. Familiarity has bred indifference, except when people are jolted by a new disaster or spell of 'weird weather'. Even the weirdness becomes more 'normal' each year! In the savagely competitive media market, getting attention for 'the environment' is harder than ever - except when exciting disasters hit, like last year's Great Storm which flattened forests all across northern Germany, or the annual battering of Florida by hurricanes (and ensuing patch-up operations, with generous funding from ex-governor President Jeb Bush).

Enter the new climate engineers. Last month they made headlines with their first global conference - also held in Geneva, as a pointed contrast with Kyoto II. The Climate Technology Coalition (CTC) had arrived in town, and media interest was huge.

Big Bucks for quick fixes So what's the sales pitch for the CTC? Simple: it is now too late for renewables, energy conservation and long-term shifts in values and lifestyles to allow us to stabilise the climate. And since we have a climate emergency on our hands, only urgent technical fixes can help us now. Luckily, these will generate enormous wealth and innovation all around the world and allow us all to live the affluent industrial lifestyle while stabilising the climate, buying time for longer-term solutions, and helping us cope with the effects of the warming that is inevitable.

"The climate engineers have a strong strapline: International Rescue - new technology for a safe climate."

And just what is being proposed? The CTC has a strong brand and strapline: 'International Rescue - new technology for a safe climate'. It's a broad church, full of corporations, business alliances and technologists who once thought they'd fallen foul of public opinion forever, or were too far-out to be taken seriously. The nuclear industry, for instance, began to rebrand itself and rehabilitate its image politically as long ago as 2004, presenting nuclear as a key part of any low-carbon energy strategy. Since then, the GM crops business has seen a similar opportunity for rebranding. And the so-called 'exotic technologies', such as orbital sunlight deflectors and 'virtual ice' reflectors, have grown in appeal for powerful lobbies who don't like global warming but don't want to see global business-as-usual have to make too many concessions to environmentalists.

Will the 'rescue technologies' prevail? Predictably, perhaps, the reaction from environmental NGOS and the sustainability world has been largely scathing.

Madness or marketing? The CTC has a rival, the Climate Action Now! (CAN) coalition, set up by Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and pro-renewables businesses to lobby for strong action post-2012. CAN argues that CTC is run by many of the very interests that have resisted early action on climate change, and who are now shamelessly pushing for technical fixes on the grounds that action has not been radical enough to avoid a climate emergency. "CTC is a bunch of corporate lobbies and wild-eyed R&D people from the US military-industrial complex," says Al Moore, the spokesman of the US's own CAN network. "We should know by now that every technical fix creates a whole load of unintended consequences. In this case the technical fixes could finally wreck the climate, not stabilise it."

But there is far from a united front against CTC, despite the scorn it has attracted for posing as a modern-day version of International Rescue, as in the old Thunderbirds TV show. While the idea of global climate engineering seems mad to many, there are plenty of committed environmentalists and sustainability advocates who share the diagnosis that climate change is now too serious and rapid for us to be able to rely on first-choice solutions like renewables, which are going to take decades to replace fossil fuels. They are beginning to wonder aloud if CTC might have some ideas worth taking seriously - as temporary answers that can buy us time while we build a truly sustainable infrastructure and economy.

This looks like the beginning of a cultural divide and political split among those who have been campaigning for decades for action on climate change. And while their ranks are at risk of being divided, the CTC is looking confident and united. "They only look green," warns Moore. "They just want business as usual, and the threat to the planet is, for them, just a new marketing opportunity." Maybe so; but the new climate engineers are on the march. Watch out for them - they sense that their time has come, and they think they hold the keys to the future.

Freelance sustainable developer Ian Christie, previously deputy director of the think-tank Demos and joint head of sustainability at Surrey County Council, now runs a zero-emission B&B and convenes the Greying Greens Network of environmentalists aged 55-plus.

[mykil]

How come you guyz aren’t out there cloud seeding???