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Planet Earth Under Threat

PEuT Episode 6 on Today

  • Julian Hector
  • 20 Feb 07, 09:51 AM

In this programme we hear about the natural climatic cycles of the Earth and where the human footprint fits into that ecology. Listen to the show on air at 11.02 GMT (LW or FM) - or hear it streamed live , or on demand any time later.

Listen out for Mike Benton of Bristol University who really explains that it's not so much global warming on its own that matters, but the effects of warming in conjunction with the other non-related impacts we have on the natural systems of the earth.

Update:

Listen again to programme 6: The Planets and the Irascible Ape

Comments  Post your comment

  • 1.
  • At 02:54 PM on 20 Feb 2007,
  • wrote:

I like PEuT

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  • 2.
  • At 01:31 PM on 21 Feb 2007,
  • Jon wrote:

For goodness sake, present the evidence for man-made global warming or shut up. All i hear is cicumstantial evidence, inuendo and "gut-feelings" leading to sci-fi scenarios.

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  • 3.
  • At 09:55 PM on 21 Feb 2007,
  • Batman wrote:

The "evidence" for man made global warming are quite obvious to a semi-intelligent listener... But other factors that may as well contribute to global warming (not necesserily to the present one) were nicely described. Moreover, PEuT provides a listener with yet another point of view on this problem.

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  • 4.
  • At 10:00 PM on 21 Feb 2007,
  • wrote:

Like Jon, I'm absolutely brassed off with all the fundamentalists sounding off about man-made global warming but found that certain parts of this programme talked in a refreshing way about the complexity of the topic and seemed ready to discuss other points of view alongside the usual pseudo-science.

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  • 5.
  • At 10:13 PM on 21 Feb 2007,
  • wrote:

Like Jon, I'm brassed off with all the fundamentalists sounding off about man-made global warming but found that certain parts of this programme talked in a refreshing way about the complexity of the topic and seemed ready to discuss other points of view alongside the usual pseudo-science.

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  • 6.
  • At 10:01 AM on 22 Feb 2007,
  • Jon wrote:

Batman - if the "evidence" is so obvious, would you let the rest of us into the secret. It seems to be taken as an axiom and never explicitly debated. Perhaps, being so intelligent, you could summarise the "evidenc" on a sheet of A4?

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  • 7.
  • At 01:18 PM on 22 Feb 2007,
  • wrote:

Jon & James,
The evidence is contained in the Summary for Policy Makers at

and considerable informed discussion at Real Climate:


ed
22/02/2007 at 13:22:46 GMT

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  • 8.
  • At 02:04 PM on 22 Feb 2007,
  • Jon wrote:

Rather proves my point Ed. The latest IPCC report is a discredited piece of work scrabbled together by a huge bunch of beaurocrats with an axe to grind. Deeper look at the gasses/temperature show little correlation and satellite sea-level facts do not fit the theory either.
As for the Stern report, it borders on "airport fiction".

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  • 9.
  • At 02:14 PM on 22 Feb 2007,
  • Jon wrote:

Oh and 主播大秀 - please do not show us anymore dripping icicles and polar bears enjoying a swim. It just trivialises the debate.

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  • 10.
  • At 03:00 PM on 22 Feb 2007,
  • Jon wrote:

Has my reply to Ed been censored?

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  • 11.
  • At 09:28 PM on 22 Feb 2007,
  • john cooknell wrote:

I find this whole thing fascinating. Human Nature revealed in all its glory.

We see satellite pictures of Mars that show for Mars year on Mars year the polar ice caps disappearing and the clever scientists say "how interesting I wonder what is causing that."

We see satellite pictures of Earth, that show the polar ice caps disappearing, and the clever scientists say, with near certainty, that it us, human beings, causing this melting. Even though they know that this climate change has happened many times before and they don't have a clue why, but this time they are certain.

I suspect I know the reason behind the cause of all of this, the climate of Mars is totally different to that of Earth, after all there is not so much Hot Air.

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  • 12.
  • At 10:15 PM on 22 Feb 2007,
  • wrote:

As a 'semi-intelligent listener' I would be pleased to be educated by someone of Batman's undoubted intellect.
Rigorous analysis of the subject will, no doubt, have revealed many facts to support the new religion of Man-Made Climate Change and it would be most helpful if just one of these could be detailed.
Tip : a proven scientific fact ideally does not contain " may be", "should be", "could be ", " in the range of", etc., etc.
I guess all I'm really asking is that the fundamentalists recognize that this is a most complex subject and shouldn't we avoid simplistic 'carbon footprint' solutions ( Brown hardly needs encouragement to whack taxes on every aspect of life )until we've established what actions will really make a difference to climate change and how we can adapt to( and make the most of) the changes we face.

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  • 13.
  • At 01:47 PM on 23 Feb 2007,
  • wrote:

Jon,

1. Just who has 'discredited' the report?
2. Would you care to reference exactly where/how "the gasses/temperature show little correlation and satellite sea-level facts do not fit the theory either." Page references, please, and an explanation of your thinking would be better than your statements.

ed
23/02/2007 at 13:49:07 GMT

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  • 14.
  • At 12:44 AM on 13 Mar 2007,
  • wrote:

Compare and Contrast ( or ' Spot the Odd One Out ') ....

Over the last fifteen years or so, various researchers and interest groups have produced analysis of HV power lines and ' leukaemia clusters' seeking to demonstrate a link only to be met with a huge chorus of 'scientific' opinion declaring that such simplistic , unscientific rationale is beyond the pale - things are far more complex than that and such simplistic conclusions simply will not do.


Margaret Beckett, when confronted with the published results of some German or Austrian ( I forget which ) researchers who had encased a section of forest , closely analysed the 'output' of the trees and then declared that the measured methane emissions considerably exceeded the oxygen emissions put on her finest condescending voice and declares " Oh no... I don't think we can take this isolated example very seriously "


Meanwhile..... some bright spark manages to work out that the world climate is changing ( whatever next ? ) and some other bright spark says " look what I've found over here ... Co2 levels are rising ! "
Bingo .... we've got ourselves a full blown , copper-bottomed , cast-iron 'proven' scientific fact and we're going to call it ' Man Made Climate Change '... " all aboard the gravy train ! "

And then Gordon Brown has to pinch himself ... " I can't believe this is happening - I really thought there was nothing else I could tax ! ! "

and guess what ?

... whilst all this is going on, Shell , Ellesmere Port ( one of the richest companies on the planet) pumps yellow, green and black filth into the atmosphere day and (particularly) night without the slightest challenge.

Please tell me I'm dreaming and I'll wake up soon.

James

PS Even all the self - appointed 'Climate Change Experts ' admit ( when pushed ) that world climate is a very, very complex subject and that we certainly don't understand everything about it yet.

But hey, .... it's a gravy train like we ain't seen for years ... get that research grant application in ( and make sure you get ' Man Made Climate Change ' in every other paragraph ! ! )

Yee haa ! !

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  • 15.
  • At 02:13 PM on 22 Mar 2007,
  • Mike R wrote:

The link to the replay of programme 6 is incorrect. The http at the start of the address is missing the ht. To access the link as it is, right click the link, select properties and copy the address. Paste the address into a new browser window, then manually insert the missing ht at the start of the address, then hit enter.

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  • 16.
  • At 10:33 AM on 02 Apr 2007,
  • wrote:

someone comment on possible effect of global warming (for ex., via Greenland ice disolving?) on WAIS (west antarctic icesheet) instability, and the effect of this (1/2 of Australia size) if it completely destablizes. 20-50 ft in sea level increase?

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  • 17.
  • At 01:40 AM on 08 Apr 2007,
  • JohnEDPMalin wrote:

I have been reading academic treatises on Ecology for thirty-five years or more.

Furthermore, I have paid attention to Planetary Science as it has developed from all the data collected from our sister planets and their moons.

In addition, I have astutely zoned in on scientific equipment used to collect data on our planet and other planets.

The observational evidence produced by these engineering tools for a lucid grasp of our climatic weather conditions for the last 400,000 years and anecdotal evidence for the last 200 million years on this Planet Earth can only be described as the supreme triumph of humankind.

As with any great paradigm shift in mental culture, it requires decades, if not centuries, for these concepts to filter down into the consciousness of the vast majority of ignorant, superstitious minds.

It should never be forgotten how rudimentary most human primate brains really are. As Sir James Frazer asserted in the early part of the last century, mankind's mental culture evolved from magic to religion, and from religion to science [based on observing, measuring & understanding, which in turn is based on the simple intuition of causality].

This whole debate of ecological climate shifting must factor in human de-population. Our modern religious systems have forgotten the ancient, most sacred duty of all religious systems---killing of the young to ensure survivability of the tribe within their natural resource systems.

It was the Cassite Babylonian astronomical-mathematical priesthood between 1600 BCE to 1100 BCE who figured out the relationship between the population density of the urban city states, their rural countryside and its natural resources for on-going sustainability of its culture and civilization. This was the chief responsibility of the great Babylonian god Marduk.

When Babylon fell to Parthia in 125 BCE, all hard scientific knowledge came to an end. The female savant Hypatia was writing commentaries on Babylonian mathematical-astronomical learning when the misogynist St. Ambrose had her body butchered by a mob.

It was these commentaries in a Syriac translation from the Greek, that Sir Edmund Halley translated into neo-Latin, which Sir Isaac Newton read when Cambridge University was closed because of a plague, that gave us Calculus or his Theory of Fluxions.

I mention this trivial historical detail to remind this audience that it took Europe 1700 years to start where Hypatia had stopped. I hope our present brilliant scientific ecological savants do not incur the same fate as Hypatia.


Respectfully,


John E.D.P. Malin, Esq. M.A.
Cecilia, Louisiana, U.S.A.

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  • 18.
  • At 04:12 AM on 08 Apr 2007,
  • JohnEDPMalin wrote:

Addendum:

My apology to my fellow contributors. I falsely attributed Hypatia's murder to the wrong Church Father.

It was not St. Ambrose, it was the Church Father, the Patriarch St. Cyril of Alexandria.

This famour woman savant, daughter of the great scholar Theon was murdered in the month of March during Lent in the fourth year of St. Cyril's episcopate, under the tenth consulate of Honorius and the sixth of Theodosius in A.D. 415.

It was her commentaries on Diophantus "Arithmetica" and Apollonius "Conics" which stimulated Seventeenth Century French mathematics and Sir Isaac Newton's mathematical scholarship.


Respectfully,


John E.D.P. Malin, Esq. M.A.
Cecilia, Louisiana, U.S.A.

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  • 19.
  • At 05:18 AM on 20 Apr 2007,
  • JohnEDPMalin wrote:

To the Group:

I observed when I was arranging an order of books from the Spring Sale of Oxford University Press, that there is a new edition of the extant Letters of St. Cyril of Alexandria published by Oxford University Press under their Early Christian Texts.

It was, of course, his fanatical monks who actually did the barbarous atrocity against the person of Hypatia. Naturally, I hold responsible the one who inflamed the passions of the ignorant Christian mob, not the fools who executed the criminal act.


Respectfully,


John E.D.P. Malin, Esq., M.A.
Cecilia, Louisiana, U.S.A.

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