Jon Steward said:

There is plenty of information

It's not about the volume of information, it's about the quality of the information.

Being sceptical is about considering the quality of all information you are presented with. You may want to be careful about using the spelling "skeptical" as that seems to have acquired quite a different meaning - ironically the exact opposite of "sceptical". I find this quite interesting, "skepticism" seems to be to hold a quasi-religious belief that something you want to be true is true based on selected evidence that appears to be esoteric. ("The published papers don't say this secret hidden information known only to my gang!" "No, they don't say that information, but that's because it's not backed up by evidence.") Which of course plays into the hands of those who see the benefit of people taking this approach. And then (this gets more interesting) to claim that those who hold other views think about their views in the same way - so the "skeptics" claim that those that accept climate change consensus are basing their views on faith rather than data. And at that point the debate, as in most of these threads on this forum, becomes pointless - both sides claiming to be scientifically based with the other being belief based.

My experience has been that the scientific community is based on genuine scepticism - the whole principle of the current scientific method is to try to disprove hypotheses and only accept them if you can't disprove them. I can see why being part of the "skeptical" movement is reassuring, but it's worth considering whether that reassurance is real. 

The funeral last weekend made me look up how George V and George VI died. Both died of smoking related illnesses. For years the (what would now be called) "skeptical" community refused to accept the link between smoking and ill health, and successfully slowed down health promoting legislation, having been fed lots of information by the very same agencies who are now promoting climate change denial. Then those agencies were working for the tobacco industries, now they work for petrochemical interests. This is what makes some of us really quite angry, we are seeing exactly the same happening with climate change. Long term deaths for short term profit.

Or to put it another way, and repeat a neat Twitter meme: Plot idea: 97% of the world's scientists contrive an environmental crisis, but are exposed by a plucky band of billionaires & oil companies.

But genuine informed scepticism based on credible information is good.

Your looking too deeply.

It's just an American spelling I like to use as alot of what I read comes from the USA.

I can assure you I'm not religious in the slightest.

97% believe the climate is changing.

Quite rightly so.

As been discussed before they don't all agree on the man made bit.

There are many structural problems that the UK and other countries need to deal with that are probably more complex than the technical ones.

Energy Market: What is a sensible price for energy? How can it be related to the actual cost of production? What is the value of dispatchable energy over intermittent energy?

Housing: Are the current building regulations fit for purpose? Can people be persuaded or encouraged to live in more efficient apartment blocks rather than individual dwellings?

Public Transport: How can the public transport system be integrated with connecting timetables and consistently priced through ticketing?

The World Scientists document is another piece of fairly worthless virtue signalling. Surely 11 000 scientists can come up with some solutions not just demands?

In Cosmos (~1980) Carl Sagan gives a good description of science:

Science has two rules.

First: there are no sacred truths; all assumptions must be critically examined; arguments from authority are worthless.

Second: whatever is inconsistent with the facts must be discarded or revised.

Unfortunately current climate science breaks both of these rules.

Global temperatures have been rising since the end of the Little Ice Age. Before that during the Middle Ages Warm Period temperatures may well have been warmer than today. There is much documentary evidence to support this which suggests that the temperature changes must have been at least 1°C. from the average. This is ignored/deleted from current climate science as it is not supported by the current models. Is this a reversed use of rule 2? Surely the models should be revised to match reality?

Are the assumptions of climate science critically examined? Why have none of the past predictions happened? There is still snowfall and skiing. There is still Arctic ice in the summer. Why is the current global temperature always at the bottom end of the predictions?

Why does climate science keep needing to use arguments from authority? 97% of scientists said.. 11 000 scientists (out of how many?) signed this ..

Just to repeat my position: I accept that the climate has changed, is changing and will continue to change. Mankind needs to reduce it’s impact on the planet, minimise the use of finite resources and reduce pollution.

This will be my last post on this thread as the tree structure has now become too obscure for me.

Andy Millar said:

And at that point the debate, as in most of these threads on this forum, becomes pointless - both sides claiming to be scientifically based with the other being belief based.

i am alarmed at the amount of threads regarding this on here that seem to go around in circles. 

Baffles me, we're supposed to be the brightest minds out there, and we spend more time trying to disprove source after source rather than coming together and improving the state of the climate. 

I have been looking on the IET website for around a week now, and I'm genuinely struggling to find any kind of area or community that's actually engaging with either the public, the govt, industry bodies, companies etc. to actually provide evidence based science in support of greener working practices in an attempt to get us to do something over nothing. 

I'm quite literally here with a call to action for members here, and we can take this into another thread, liase with working groups, whatever it might be, to actually progress, but there's little to no movement or anyone willing to put their heads above the parapit. :/ 

As has been said before the IET is an engineering community and not a place for political venting of a certain position regarding climate change. You will find differing views.

Along with Roger I'm done with this thread.

They go round in circles only because we engage with the climate deniers - the best policy is to ignore them and get on with practical actions that will save us (and them) in the long run.  The climate deniers won't listen to logic nor evidence it really isn't worth the energy arguing with them.

Remember their aim is to distract, deny and delay taking the actions required

Agreed. 

I suppose I'm just conscious that I'm not seeing a great deal of movement in anything at the minute, and it concerns me. 

There's so much activism going on but there's rarely a professional body that steps forward and says, here's what WE can do to help. 

Shouldn't we be doing that?

It might be more professional to decide what the actual problems are and to agree exactly what the range of suitable solutions to those problems are, before offering to 'help' .

Declaring an Emergency is about as much use as Corporal Jones in Dad's army running about shouting "don't panic". There are enough people who should know better doing that already. We should not join them, until we actually have something positive to say.

Mike

What about the soon to be mandated parasitic AFDD? Or rather, some 28 million homes worth of them sitting there sucking juice off the grid 24/7? And that is before we look at the installations with multiple dist boards and consumer units.

At a time when energy is at a premium and in short supply, is the mandating of parasitic devices such as AFDDs really 'green'?

What were the IET thinking of?