WWF: Major Asian cities face climate disaster

"Energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions must be curtailed in "mega-cities" where global warming will affect everything from national security to water availability, the influential campaign group said."

WILL AFFECT EVERYTHING?????
How much longer will reasonable people all over the world put up with these nonsensical alarmist claims???
In one staggeringly brief moment we have gone from Co2 causing global warming to Co2 causing EVERYTHING!!! From dandruff to brain damage from which Kim Carstensen seems to be suffering!!
Right now New York should be under water and so should London and Eskimos should be running around in bikinis according to the alarmists.
Meanwhile so called "respected climate scientists" claims are being proven WRONG almost everyday.
The REAL problem these nations have is, to quote the article:

"Including their suburbs, Dhaka, Manila and Jakarta now have a combined population of about 49-million, according to WWF."

And what credentials do these World Wild Life bunny huggers have?? Or is because they consider these Asian people to be animals??
Oh well I am sure Al Gore's new company which trades carbon credits wi;ll continue to make millions while children around the world starve.

It is encouraging to note the increasing awareness regarding global warming and the profound dangers it poses for many coastal cities around the world. Global warming due to green house gasses and co2 emissions is everybody's problems. So solutions must be found to reduce emissions to acceptable levels.

Les Will wrote: "Global warming due to green house gasses and co2 emissions is everybody's problems."

You are quite wrong Les - there is absolutely NO PROOF that Co2 in any way affects the weather, let alone global warming."
The UN and the IPCC have spent billions OF DOLLARS trying to find a link without success.
More and more main stream scientists are distancing themselves from the Co2 claim as alarmist "scientists" make even more ridiculous predictions and claims!!
Meanwhile thousands of "global warming alarmists" travel the world first class to attend an ever-increasing number of "conferences" - staying in 5 star hotels - all at the expense of the poor.
Millions of dollars are spent one these leeches "expenses".
Do you really condone such behaviour??? Or do you prefer to ignore it??
All on a theory which remains far from proven - all the IPCC have are some very dodgy computer models - and we all know how realiable computer models are, don't we!!

if the ice caps melt, water levels will fall: the nothern ice is IN the water already, all of it, and in the south, most of it is - so if it all melts, then as water takes less volume than ice water levels fall.
now, if that is correct - and it is - and that's the simple stuff, should i fall for the claims based on the more complex stuff?

dennis holmes = dave harris

Dennis Hoines. Can you prove that co2 does not in any way have an affect on global warming and contribute to the rise of greenhouse gasses. Your delusional and denialist approach does not make the problem go away.

Bear in mind that a bunch of people conducting an opinion poll and producing some obscure denial statistics does not constitute proof.

What specific 'dodgy computer models' are you referring to? You are making some broad stereotyping and generalizations in your postings.

If you would like the website - complete with graphs to back up the claims I will happily provide Les.

Dennis returns with the same old conspiracy theory crock and the same list of fringe scientists with the same old played out pseudoscience.

What's striking is the method employed by all of the players in the denial campaign - the whole approach consists of trawling through the MOUNTAINS of evidence and scientific data confirming the AGW consensus position until they find something that MIGHT be a little confusing - then they seize on that and profess that because of this one tiny issue that (to them) doesn't seem right the entire canon of scientific work on climate change needs to be thrown out. It's a smear campaign, plain and simple.

The 'hockey stick' is a perfect example of this approach. There are numerous other temperature records to look at besides the data used to generate the infamous hockey stick graph, and guess what - they all show the same general trend and they all confirm the consensus position. So even if the hockey stick is 'broken' (and the debate around that is far more complex than the cute summary above says) there are other datasets that confirm the same results (link below showing 10 different temp records for the past 2000 years from tree rings, corals, stalagmites, borehole measurements etc etc with links to peer-reviewed papers), and they all demonstrate the same striking pattern of temperature change in the recent past.

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/File:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison_png

And Les, I'll save you the trouble of Dennis having to provide you a link to his 'source' - at least half of everything he posts on the M&G site is copy-pasted from wattsupwiththat.com, a blog run by an ex-weatherman for a FOX news channel. There's a good summary of his antics here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_0-gX7aUKk&feature=player_embedded

@ James Unit
Help me here;
I fill a glass with water and ice. I warm up the glass until the ice melts. The water level drops beacuse ice takes up more space than water.
The northern ice-pole is all in the water, the southern ice-pole is mostly in the water, the ice sheet; all in the water.
In simple terms - your own words - tell me, how does warming make water levels rise? No graphs - keep it simple...

James detracting arguable conspiracy theories aside, we really need to respect this gem of a planet we have been given. Thank the Gods for conspiracy theorists as there is sometimes rich veins of truth in amongst the overzealous articles. I personally know the scientist's from CSIR Cape Town out at the Cape Point Lab who do Ozone, upper atmosphere, meteorological readings and the global warming analysis. These guys are the furthest from conspiracy theorists, and they assure me that Global Warming is an issue.

I think you've flipped my whole post around Dylan - my point was that the conspiracy theories exist on the global warming denial side. Dennis (who posts regularly on this side) repeatedly suggests that there is a global cover-up by all the worlds scientists, the UN, Al Gore, third world dictators etc etc to suppress the truth about global warming, and that it really isn't happening.

My point is you don't NEED a conspiracy theory to support the global warming issue - there is so much evidence and science out there that shows that us humans are radically altering the climate that it's simply a matter of following the data. It's the guys who question global warming that need to resort to crackpot conspiracies to try and get their message heard.

Phil - the easiest way to explain it is with a simple experiment. Take two glasses; put a solid object like a plastic container in the first glass - this acts like an island. Half fill each glass with water and put an ice cube on top of the island in the first glass and an ice cube in the water in the second glass. Mark the water level and wait till the ice melts.

What happens? The water level in the first glass goes up, but the level in the second glass doesn't. The reason - the ice cube in the second glass has already displaced the water in the glass, whereas the ice cube in the first glass hasn't. As it melts it drips into the water and raises the level.

The idea is that only the melting of land-based ice and snow (eg. Antarctica) will cause the sea level to rise, whereas the North Pole (which is floating ice) won't. Of course, as water heats up it expands, so there will also be some sea level rise occurring from thermal expansion.

James unit wrote: "there is so much evidence and science out there that shows that us humans are radically altering the climate that it's simply a matter of following the data"

Lots of "evidence" contrived to fit the alarmist picture James - but no PROOF that Co2 can cause global warming !!
It is always amusing how the alarmists attack EVERY scientist , climatologist, weatherman and those who even DARE to query their silly unproven theory based on computer models.
Even South Africa's Prof Alexander at Pretoria University has been vilified.
And James, I thought that trawling through data was what scientists are supposed to do.
The hockey , for a long time, the very mainstay of the alarmists theory.
What is important about the "hockey stick" is the way in which it was fraudulently MANIPULATED!
How do you account for that??
Is that ethical???
Or is it just pseudo consensus science??
I am also not sure where you get the idea that I or anyone else think there is a "conspiracy".
There is no more a "conspiracy" than there was amongst those who thought that Y2K was going to be a disaster.
It takes brains to organise a conspiracy - something which your hero Al Gore is completely incapable of.
In fact, the so-called "peer review" which you appear to rather naively believe is some sort of proof, is just a conspiracy under another name.
Unless a scientific paper meets the approval of the alarmist gang then it is discarded.
So much for open debate in science.
Furthermore - the question of the miniscule rise in temperatures, is not questioned by many main stream scientists - it is whether this is the result of Co2.
Evidently you do not bother to read the thousands of postings in any depth.
Instead you seem to blindly parrot the same old canard - if anyone says anything about Co2 and global warming then it must be true!!!
Really old chap - do you seriously believe that the silly, bunny-hugging woman in the article, Kim Carstensen of the WWF, will be taken seriously by anyone??
Nonsense alarmist postings like this and those that advise people to give up meat, to eat their dogs and put a large hosepipe into the upper atmosphere make your alarmist cause look quite idiotic.
To the point that research in the USA and the UK shows that the general population's concern with this pseudo science has fallen by almost half.
The Co2 story is just not sustainable without PROOF.
The predictions by Hansen and many bother alarmist scientists have not happened.
They belong in the same fair ground tent with Al Gore trying to sell the "snake oil elixer" of Co2 and global warming.
Meanwhile the billions of dollars which could go to the world's starving children is being wasted on hundreds of "conferences" around the world for these alarmist leeches.
For anyone with a mind of their own the whole thing is quite disgusting.

I use the word 'conspiracy' because your whole point of view relies on it - you can only continue to think like you do by disregarding the huge overwhelming scientific consensus in favour of man-induced climate change. How do you do that? With crackpot statements like

'Lots of "evidence" contrived to fit the alarmist picture' and
"peer review" is just a conspiracy under another name' and
'Unless a scientific paper meets the approval of the alarmist gang then it is discarded'

It's an enviable position actually - the only thing that could convince you to open your mind on this issue is science, but you've already chosen to write off all the scientific data with statements like the ones above. As a result you're impregnable to reason.

So while that intellectual stance is amusing for awhile, it makes debating with you impossible. There's a cute little internet saying that's pretty relevant here: arguing on the internet is like running in the special Olympics; even if you win you're still retarded. I think we can both sympathise with that...

James old chap, it is sad indeed to once again observe that you have descended into the realm of most alarmists, and that is to insult, disparage and vilify anyone who DARES to question the unproven theory of Co2 and its connection to so called global warming.
This is even more sad, as you are evidently a man of high intelligence who has somehow succumbed to the highly questionable process of the pseudo science of "consensus".
The fact is that the world view is changing everyday.
Reasonable men, and I include many scientists, are distancing themselves from the narrow and unproven theory that Co2 alone is responsible for the very small, and in many instances, questionable changes in world temperatures.
I had hoped that you would have adopted a broader view in the interests of greater understanding.
Yet you seem transfixed with Co2.
And to this end are willing to see the economies of many nations destroyed on the alter of this false belief.
As I have posted before on other forums, if there is indeed the prospect of the world becoming warmer, then this issue needs to be addressed across a much broader front than just Co2.
More particularly, those scientists at the forefront, need to realise that by their continuous and irresponsible actions and claims, they are creating a panic situation, world-wide, that will have far reaching affects on generations yet unborn.
These are, inter alia, more economic than ecological.
The hype that has been created around global warming is hardly edifying to the scientific community.
They have largely prostituted themselves in the interests of ever increasing grants and allowed politicians to use their many, varied and decidedly questionable research methods, in order to rob the naive tax paying public of their hard-earned income, merely to meet certain government's ever-increasing gravy trains.
It is not something that any scientist should be proud of.
For starters - gentlemen like yourself should disown Al Gore and kick him into touch.
The IPCC should be required to be impartial in their views and allow all scientists free and unfettered inspection of their procedures.
The 3rd world should be reigned-in from their yapping and baying for reparations for an event that has yet to happen.
Consensus science should be abandoned and a system of proof put in place.
Like many others who question the Co2 approach - I have no hidden agenda.
I am not in the employ of an oil company or any other interested party.
I am not a believer in conspiracy theories and I am as concerned about planet earth as you appear to be.
Moreover, I am not here for the debate - amusing as you may find it.
And I find your uncalled for reference to the Special Olympics to be elitist and horribly hurtful.
Notwithstanding all that, James, in the unlikely event of co2 being PROVEN to be the sole cause of any "global warming", I would be more than happy to uncork a bottle of vintage Krug in your company, and drink a toast to the final understanding of one of mankind's most perplexing questions.
In the meantime, please continue your unsubstantiated claims for Co2 and global warming.
It provides an ongoing platform to rebut the unsustainability of consensus science whilst at the same time allowing those that may be interested a perspective of both viewpoints.

Dennis, we've been through the 'proof' idea before and you know how nothing can ever be proved in science. Do you want to know how I've 'succumbed' to the consensus viewpoint? Firstly, I've read all the IPCC reports and read up a lot on the science behind them; and secondly, I just don't see how it's possible that every single national scientific organisation and every single peer-reviewed journal article can be wrong on this. As a part-educated layperson with only a keen interest and a vague understanding of how the incredibly complex climate works - how do you question that kind of consensus? I know you'll mention how there are a growing number of people that are moving against the consensus position, but the vast majority are laypeople like yourself who've been duped by some clever arguments. Try and find a single peer-reviewed article in a climatology journal in the last 15 years that says that the planet hasn't warmed significantly and that CO2 isn't the main (note: not only) cause - you won't. Once again, how do you question that kind of consensus?

Thirdly, there is a paper-trail a mile long of think-tanks and conservative lobby groups who have been paid to promote confusion and skepticism about climate change. This goes right back to the early 90's, and most of the people that you repeatedly quote can be directly linked to funding from corporations and parties with a vested interest in suppressing the truth about climate change. What started out as a selective disinformation campaign has exploded in the past few years, mainly through the internet.

There are some points however that we agree on - the media has definitely distorted and sensationalized the scare angle, particularly recently leading up to Copenhagen, and Al Gore is a politician who's motives may or may not be questionable. But that's journalism and politics, you can't hold the scientific community responsible for that. I mean, imagine a typical climatologists point of view. You spend the last 20 years totally dedicated to research that you know is contributing to saving the planet, you amass an enormous canon of scientific work that's so conclusive, and then you get guys like Phil above saying that your whole life's work is crap because 'duh an iceblock actually lowers the water level when it melts', or that you're just a money-sucking monster with no ethics...I mean, seriously?

So, I guess I can see why you choose to believe what you believe, and that's cool, that's your right. But I can't help feeling that you've been suckered here...hopefully I won't be proved right, because the last thing I want to be able to say is 'I told you so'.

James, I would be delighted if you were able to say, "I told you so " with proof of the Co2 theory.
And try as you might, "consensus" will never have scientific validity.
As reported in the London Times this morning - "the collective expertise of brilliant scientists could be wrong. The best minds in the world once held a geocentric theory of the solar system. Before the discovery of sub-atomic particles they believed that everything was made of earth, air, fire and water. Right up to the 19th century, serious scientists wrote recipe books for making animals."
It is this and other more recent examples that make consensus science unacceptable.
A social anthropologist, whose name escapes me for the moment, once postulated that ideas are like viruses and move through the population in the same manner.
It is an interesting theory and may one day provide the answer to the collective mindset of Co2.
Given the horrors predicted by the global warming brigade it seems quite unbelievable that the prevailing view is that "Co2 is the cause - we will therefore not look for any other answers - the door is closed and anyone who disagrees is an idiot or (here it would seem that alarmists are the ones believing in conspiracies!!) in the pay of big business, the oil companies etc.
What is also quite interesting is the huge amount of money being spent on ongoing research which seeks to reinforce the Co2 theory.
If the chaps are that convinced - why keep on researching to come up with the same conclusions?
After all, Einstein had his Bohr - so why shouldn't the alarmists have the skeptics??
Finally James, do not underestimate the "layman".
There are many examples of "laymen" in science and technology, creating the breakthroughs that scientists, blinkered by mainstream thinking were unable to break free of.
The internet, which you perceive to be negative, has on the contrary had a hugely positive affect on the world community.
Those that are interested are better informed on many subjects than in any other time in history.
Everyday, laymen like Supreme Court judges arrive at logical conclusions on conflicting evidence from experts and often this evidence is more obscure and esoteric than climatology.
Thus it is indeed possible, and probably desirable, that the final outcome of the Co2 theory be left in the hands of the non-scientific community.
Given the excesses of the past by the scientific community this could well be a blessing.