I have personally observed the steady change of climate, here in Scotland, with the slow loss of skiing conditions. I only just got my first mountain skiing last week, which is rather late! The climate had also been very slowly warming up before that. There have been aberration periods (e.g. ~1936). Elsewhere one can get photographs from the Victorian era showing where various glaciers used to be, photos' from circa '50s, and then see where the glacier, or it's remnant, is now. These are small indicators like a canary in the mine.


It is quite reasonable to say that one swallow doesn't make a spring (old saying), but a large accumulation of swallows, along with the daffodils, trees in bud, etc, become a much stronger indicator of the oncoming change. We are like miners in a mine who now can't get out we (only one have world and all that), so paying more attention to the canary's song is worthwhile.


The politics of "climate science" is not the same as the science of climate. I do remember many years ago a lecture on one of the early climate conferences where the relevant respectable person (white scientist/engineer of social standing, etc. etc.) had taken on the role, expecting it to be a short study report, and had done the quick sums, only to find all the different politicians wanted their own spin on their special conditions and locations. This mean repeating the work many times across all the contributor nations with lots of wobbly graphs and peculiar expectations, only to find that the aggregate graph (average) was the same as the original. Though now, maybe they did have an idea about possible error bars (from politically driven considerations).


Since then, more an more folk have piled in, each with their own special considerations, and selective science, along with elephants in the room  concerns. I compare some of the CO2 issues to saving for a pension - the early contributions have a much bigger effect than one realises, so most people kick the can down the road in the hope that it will be solved by someone else later and instead focusing on 5 year plans, quarterly progress and weekly bills.


We do need to clean up our own back yard a bit, with the hope that what we learn can be exploited. The planet isn't going anywhere, but it may become uninhabitable for the majority of us if we don't learn how to keep it habitable.

I have personally observed the steady change of climate, here in Scotland, with the slow loss of skiing conditions. I only just got my first mountain skiing last week, which is rather late! The climate had also been very slowly warming up before that. There have been aberration periods (e.g. ~1936). Elsewhere one can get photographs from the Victorian era showing where various glaciers used to be, photos' from circa '50s, and then see where the glacier, or it's remnant, is now. These are small indicators like a canary in the mine.


It is quite reasonable to say that one swallow doesn't make a spring (old saying), but a large accumulation of swallows, along with the daffodils, trees in bud, etc, become a much stronger indicator of the oncoming change. We are like miners in a mine who now can't get out we (only one have world and all that), so paying more attention to the canary's song is worthwhile.


The politics of "climate science" is not the same as the science of climate. I do remember many years ago a lecture on one of the early climate conferences where the relevant respectable person (white scientist/engineer of social standing, etc. etc.) had taken on the role, expecting it to be a short study report, and had done the quick sums, only to find all the different politicians wanted their own spin on their special conditions and locations. This mean repeating the work many times across all the contributor nations with lots of wobbly graphs and peculiar expectations, only to find that the aggregate graph (average) was the same as the original. Though now, maybe they did have an idea about possible error bars (from politically driven considerations).


Since then, more an more folk have piled in, each with their own special considerations, and selective science, along with elephants in the room  concerns. I compare some of the CO2 issues to saving for a pension - the early contributions have a much bigger effect than one realises, so most people kick the can down the road in the hope that it will be solved by someone else later and instead focusing on 5 year plans, quarterly progress and weekly bills.


We do need to clean up our own back yard a bit, with the hope that what we learn can be exploited. The planet isn't going anywhere, but it may become uninhabitable for the majority of us if we don't learn how to keep it habitable.