Wednesday 16 December 2009 - the plan so far
Here is what we are lining up for tonight's programme:
Our Ethical Man Justin Rowlatt returns tonight with an experiment to see if co2 really does heat up the atmosphere.
Our Science Editor Susan Watts will have more from the UN climate summit in Copenhagen where she will be talking to protesters.
We will also consider the ruling by the Supreme Court that the admissions policy at the Jewish faith school JFS discriminates on the grounds of ethnicity.
Comment number 1.
At 16th Dec 2009, brossen99 wrote:post #4
/blogs/newsnight/fromthewebteam/2009/12/friday_11_december_2009_in_mor.html
Perhaps if Justin feels the need to do anymore Corporate Nazi quasi-religious junk science propaganda exercises he should stick to his new job on the brain dead ten bob fat cat One Show ?
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Comment number 2.
At 16th Dec 2009, jauntycyclist wrote:'Lady Hale reiterated the point that racism, in the malicious sense, played no part in the affair.
She added: 'No-one in this case is accusing JFS or the office of the chief rabbi of discrimination on grounds of race as such.
"Any suggestion or implication that they are racist in the popular sense of that term can be dismissed.'
she is entitled to her opinion. even if the case is exactly about discrimination based on race. if refusing someone something because they are not jewish is not racial discrimination what is it?
for once Trevor has a point?
..Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said after the ruling: 鈥淭his is an important verdict.
鈥淭he decision of the court achieves that end; and it confirms that no school will be allowed to discriminate based on the ethnic origin of an individual.鈥
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Comment number 3.
At 16th Dec 2009, jauntycyclist wrote:Copenhagen: clashes inside and outside climate summit
hoho.
the fight over money er i mean climate change science gets nasty.
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Comment number 4.
At 16th Dec 2009, jauntycyclist wrote:iraq inquiry
yesterday greenstock said even the UN did not think they had the capability to administer a post conflict iraq.
he says there was fury in the UN that it had been bypassed by the usa/uk.
and anger at Tony's 'nation building' model of invade and let the UN pick up the pieces which they saw as a wanton destruction of a country's ability to look after itself when the UN should be doing other things. the uk assumption was the reason why they had no plan themselves even thought the USA said they would limit the role of anyone else. which is an unrealistic mismatch the uk did not observe.
he said he got warnings from Egypt that the uk will be shocked to the core by the civil violence they will unleash in Iraq when saddam was gone. which comments he said he reported back to London.
after the invasion and the wheels had come off the wagon Tony gave orders in sept that a police force should ideally be up and running by xmas. which was regarded as unrealistic.
given the several bombshells it seems a bit odd NN isn't giving a daily summary on the inquiry?
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Comment number 5.
At 16th Dec 2009, kashibeyaz wrote:Out of the mouths of Blair and underlings
We have heard from Blair himself that he would have gone to war in Iraq anyway, albeit a different pretext would have necessitated different excuses to fight.
Is this not sufficient to cart him off to the Hague?
So why the need for the Iraq Inquiry? And how much will it cost?
I had to laugh when Zippi Livni cancelled her trip to UK in case she was arrested for war crimes. How does it go again? "If you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to fear."
Judaism is a religion, not an ethnicity, just like Christianity, Islam and Buddhism so I don't quite understand the hysteria.
NN getting like the 6 o'clock news; if Gavin waves his arms around much more he'll get a job on the weather forecast - "cold air moving in from the east."
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Comment number 6.
At 16th Dec 2009, barriesingleton wrote:THE NUB (#5)
Thanks Kashi. Another post that saves me bothering!
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Comment number 7.
At 16th Dec 2009, jauntycyclist wrote:iraq inquiry
after the break we learn
the UN resolution 1482 gave the usa and uk legal responsibility EQUALLY for the WHOLE of Iraq. -[and you thought the blank cheque to the bankers was bad! it would be interesting to see if uk courts would be obliged to support iraq suing the uk for every penny its got for breach of duty of care for not establishing security or essential services. it makes, in law, the uk equally responsible for things under USA control-like abu gharaib?]
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Comment number 8.
At 16th Dec 2009, jauntycyclist wrote:..Judaism is a religion, not an ethnicity..
the criteria is who your parents are not if you are religious or not?
religion is based on actions not birth?
which is why the c of e schools won't be affected.
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Comment number 9.
At 16th Dec 2009, jayfurneaux wrote:鈥渜uasi-religious junk science鈥
Thinking like that expressed by comment one would lead us straight back into the dark ages.
Greenhouse gasses do exist, do absorb outgoing energy (infrared, which is heat) and do contribute to the warmth of the atmosphere that keeps earth habitable.
They may only form a tiny proportion of the atmosphere but they are extremely potent. Denying that is denying 200 years of physics and chemistry.
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Dark Ages: 鈥楢 term first used in the 17th and 18th centuries to indicate the intellectual darkness which was believed to have descended on Europe with the ending of the Roman empire until new light was provided by the Renaissance.鈥
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Comment number 10.
At 16th Dec 2009, barriesingleton wrote:PREPARE YE THE WAY OF THE LORD JEAN
Do you sense the need for JJ to settle a few matters here? (:o)
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Comment number 11.
At 16th Dec 2009, barriesingleton wrote:NEWSFLASH - NEWSNIGHT WILL CHANGE CO2 DEMO TO H2O DEMO - RE WARMING (#9 link)
We SEEM to ('SEEM', because we have no 'control' planet) have raised atmospheric CO2 by a substantial fraction. What of the variability of H2O in the atmosphere? Are we getting the whole story (hello Susan)?
Additional to heading: 'Not'.
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Comment number 12.
At 16th Dec 2009, SheffTim wrote:#2. 鈥榃hat of the variability of H2O in the atmosphere?鈥
The overall amount of water vapour (H2O) in the atmosphere is dependent on atmospheric temperature (Laws of thermodynamics).
The amount in the atmosphere varies (according to regional air temperatures) from virtually nil in places (see below) to 4%.
The absolute (not relative) humidity of the atmosphere varies by place, time & altitude, but it鈥檚 a stable balance.
Add more water vapour, it won鈥檛 stay there, it quickly falls as rain/snow; no effect on temperature. But add CO2, CH4 etc and these warm the atmosphere. The air鈥檚 capacity to hold vapour (absolute humidity) is limited but increases as the air warms, roughly doubling for each temperature increase of 10掳C.
Warmer air can hold more water vapour than colder air because colder air is denser. Heat causes molecules to agitate faster; these cause a parcel of air molecules to expand and so it can hold more vapour.
The principles of the Hydrological cycle are understood pretty well:
You can click through the pages > lower right hand
Water vapour has a short atmospheric lifetime, around 10-12 days between evaporation and it condensing and falling as precipitation.
The amount of water vapour (WV) the atmosphere can hold is determined by the atmosphere鈥檚 temperature, this is known as absolute humidity. (Some of the driest places on earth are high deserts in the middle of Antarctica because of this; the air above it is too cold to hold any water vapour.)
The First Law of Thermodynamics states that you cannot create or destroy energy. Energy can change from one form to another, like electricity converting into heat, or heat converting into light, or water converting into vapour.
Heat is energy. If you increase the temperature of water on earth鈥檚 surface, you are increasing the average energy of the particles present. That means that more of them are likely to have enough energy to escape (evaporate) from liquid H2O on earth鈥檚 surface.
An increase in temperature = increase in available energy. The stronger the forces that are keeping the molecules together in a liquid or solid state, the more energy that must be input to evaporate them. (It takes about 600 calories of heat energy to change 1 gram of liquid water into vapour form.)
Since water vapour [WV] is a greenhouse gas, it should increase warming (as a feedback) as the atmosphere warms; as a warmer atmosphere can support more water vapour.
Therefore water vapour can only be a feedback, not the cause (forcing) of global warming, nor could it ever be.
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Comment number 13.
At 16th Dec 2009, Roger Thomas wrote:#9 jayfurneaux
Already here
/blogs/newsnight/fromthewebteam/2009/12/friday_11_december_2009_in_mor.html
The problem is how the climate models are set up. I did stand up at the meeting and say when we set the new generation of UK models up that there were better ways of modelling. Not one other scientist openly disagreed with me.
The models were set up how DEFRA the funders wanted them set up, in my opinion not the best way to be used as a practical tool.
They are beautiful and a tremendous amount of work has gone into them. Just like a Lamborghini or an Aston Martin. But not necessarily the best tool if you want to drive across a field or up a mountain.
They had philosophical limitations in them right from the start.
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Comment number 14.
At 16th Dec 2009, Roger Thomas wrote:I keep needed to say this over and over again, but it is so obvious it keeps geting passed over.
In the history of the Earth over billions of years there have been variations in both CO2 concentrations and temperature.
There are years of programmes, acres of newspapers, gigabytes of information discussing the relationship between CO2 and global warming.
No one apart from myself is asking the question. So what brought temperatures DOWN in the past?
It wasn't carbon trading.
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Comment number 15.
At 16th Dec 2009, jauntycyclist wrote:9 鈥渜uasi-religious junk science鈥
because succinctly that is what it is.
look up maurice strong and see what you come up with. look at the leadership program on his retreat farm.
the solutions to this junk science is 'carbon trading'. those promoting it are on the exchanges so stand to make a packet. and who are the main users of it? China.
monetising carbon was the big idea before the credit crunch where the big idea was monetising mortgage backed securities.
who believes the market is the best arranger of a nation or world assets? the markets make monopolies that transfer wealth from the many to the few. they do not make not good outcomes.
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Comment number 16.
At 16th Dec 2009, barriesingleton wrote:GRAMMAR SCHOOL SCIENCE TAUGHT ME HOW THE RAINBOW IS GENERATED (#12)
A long time after I left, it was discovered that the explanation was wrong. Not the only thing.
Incidentally, this new telescope would appear to be 'seeing' what the 'Electric Universe' people have described for quite a while. No wonder orthodoxy is amazed.
I shall be alert. The world needs 'em.
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Comment number 17.
At 16th Dec 2009, nudebather wrote:Justin and his "global warming experiment in my kitchen"...
Is it really necessary to have this DIY save-the-planet tediousness on Newsnight? It's a daytime TV item, not news!
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Comment number 18.
At 16th Dec 2009, blackmr2gary wrote:goverments keep on saying that its us that is corseing globle warming . we all no that its another money making con. just be truefull and tell us all how much is man made and how much is natural . by a simple percentage.then we will all no . does any 1 no that a major cause of co2 is cows farting . they don,t make that common knowledge.
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Comment number 19.
At 16th Dec 2009, DancingMama wrote:When they stop putting Jets and such like up into the air then I might take global warming seriously until then I want nothing to do with it. It's always the same the GP have to do all the sacrificing and the governments do nothing. If they were really that worried they wouldn't keep traveling in private jets etc.
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Comment number 20.
At 16th Dec 2009, jemimaT wrote:as people asked in the ethical man bit- what can I do to help stop climate change...? answer pledge your support for the 10:10 campaign
it is simple to make a difference and save money at the same time.
For those who are still doubtfull over whether elevated CO2 is caused by man- please watch hot planet in the iplayer- in which both ice and soil dtaed back 1000's of years indicates a significant rise in CO2 at the same time the industrail revolution occured...still doubtful?
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Comment number 21.
At 17th Dec 2009, chaz wyman wrote:If you were watching Newsnight on 16/11/09 then
you have just witnessed the cheapest conjuring trick ever devised by
TV. Not even Derren Brown could have pulled off such a feat. ALL the
dopes on the set were bowled over.
Here is what happened---
Introduce a large amount of CO2 into an empty water bottle and watch
the temperature soar!!
But what you saw was quite simply a lie.
Not one serious sceptic denies that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the
argument is if it IS A SIGNIFICANT greenhouse gas. The mount of CO2
that was put into the bottle, which incidentally only increased the
temperature by 4 degrees, if extrapolated to the earth atmosphere
would require the burning 10 times the amount of coal and oil that now
exists on earth.
The simple fact is that there is only 0.038% of CO2 in the atmosphere
and has only increased by 0,01% in over 100 years. This is what is
called a TRACE amount. The amount used in the "experiment" was massive
by comparison.
In the "experiment" no one stood by to assess the amount of CO2 that
the nice science lady had spent time generating, but if you dump a
spoonful of bicarb into vinegar you could easily introduce a
significant percentage into a 5 litre empty bottle.
THis was a cheap trick and totally unworthy of the 成人快手 which seems to
have joined the faithful throng, by toeing the government line that is
being uses as yet another excuse to tax, tax and tax again.
What we really need to know is what is REALLY causing GW, not this patently nonsensical CO2
hypothesis.
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