The programme revealed some strange bed fellows in the political arena over the past 20 years.

On the one side there are the anti capitalist types, who following the fall of the Iron Curtain and the demise of Communism, lost their roll model and had to find another way to attack the international conglomerates and the march toward a global capitalist market place. They are doing this by claiming that companies such as Shell, BP, GM, McDonalds etc are causing global warming by bad industrial practices and the pumping of hundreds of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.

On the other side of the political spectrum, Maggie Thatcher used the argument to undermine (No Pun) the miners, saying that the burning of coal was doing damage to the planet, and that we should be moving to renewable forms of energy production, in her case Nuclear. One scientist interviewed actually said that if he wanted funds to study the nut eating habits of squirrels, in his submission for a grant he only had to mention the effects of squirrels eat nuts on the environment and the money was there for him.

I thought it would be interesting to post some of the arguments from the programme here, for those who haven’t seen the programme to consider.

In more recent history there has been: a mini ice age in the seventeenth century when the Thames froze so solidly that fairs could regularly be held on the ice; a Medieval Warm Period, even balmier than today; and sunnier still was the so-called Holocene Maximum, which was the warmest period in the last 10,000 years.

Those who think global warming is a natural process point to the fact that in the last 10,000 years, the warmest periods have happened well before humans started to produce large amounts of carbon dioxide.

A detailed look at recent climate change reveals that the temperature rose prior to 1940 but unexpectedly dropped in the post-war economic boom, when carbon dioxide emissions rose dramatically.

There is some evidence to suggest that the rise in carbon dioxide lags behind the temperature rise by 800 years and therefore can’t be the cause of it.
In the greenhouse model of global warming, heat from the sun’s rays is trapped by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. If it weren’t for these gases, Earth would be too cold for life.

Greenhouse gases trap heat from the sun within the earth’s atmosphere. This is the greenhouse effect. Traditional models predict that increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases lead to runaway heating.

If greenhouse warming were happening, then scientists predict that the troposphere (the layer of the earth’s atmosphere roughly 10-15km above us) should heat up faster than the surface of the planet, but data collected from satellites and weather balloons doesn’t seem to support this
Those who think global warming is a natural process say that the troposphere is not heating up because man-made greenhouse gases are not causing the planet to heat up.

For some people, the final nail in the coffin of human-produced greenhouse gas theories is the fact that carbon dioxide is produced in far larger quantities by many natural means: human emissions are miniscule in comparison. Volcanic emissions and carbon dioxide from animals, bacteria, decaying vegetation and the ocean outweigh our own production several times over.

Others would argue that carbon dioxide isn’t the only greenhouse gas and that human emissions could tip up a finely balanced system.
New evidence shows that that as the radiation coming from the sun varies (and sun-spot activity is one way of monitoring this) the earth seems to heat up or cool down. Solar activity very precisely matches the plot of temperature change over the last 100 years. It correlates well with the anomalous post-war temperature dip, when global carbon dioxide levels were rising.

In fact, what is known of solar activity over the last several hundred years correlates very well with temperature. This is what some scientists are beginning to believe causes climate change. Others feel that solar activity only explains the fine details of temperature change.

So how does the sun affect the earth’s temperature? The process scientists suggest is that as earth moves through space, the atmosphere is constantly bombarded by ever-present cosmic rays. As these particles hit water vapour evaporating from the oceans, clouds form in the atmosphere. Clouds shield Earth from some of the sun’s radiation and have a cooling effect.

When solar activity is high, there is an increase in solar wind and this has the effect of reducing the amount of cosmic radiation which reaches Earth.
When less cosmic radiation reaches Earth, fewer clouds form and the full effects of the sun’s radiation heats the planet.

But is the effect of solar activity really enough to explain away global warming caused by the greenhouse effect? This is still a moot point

Personally I’m somewhat sceptical of all the claims, and this programme went someway to confirm what I had suspected, politicians have jumped on the band wagon to :-
a) improve their electable credentials, and
b) use the cause to slap more taxation on the masses, under a green banner.

For the best results, I find 1/90 or even 1/45 to be the best shutter speeds, trying using the TV mode rather than the dedicated programme modes.

Not having that many airshows locally, I spent several afternoons at the local airport just photographing anything that moved to get the hang of it, with mixed results. You will find the lower the shutter speed the more bum shots you’ll get, but also the good shots will be worth the hassle.

Not great shots, but an example of what can be gained by playing around.

I think it’s great having the Utterly Team Butterly Guinot’s at Legends, several vintage aircraft, adorned with a nice colour scheme and with the added attraction of several good looking girls gyrating on the top wing. What red blooded male wouldn’t relish the thought of seeing this act?

It will also be a good time to get a burger or visit the loo.

But try driving a car with “Arsenal Sucks” or Man U, or Liverpool….past the team’s football field just before a match….I’m sure you get something thrown at you…:D

Ah, so who’s doing the stereotype’s now then 😉

I haven’t seen the story yet so I’ll reserve judgement…but it’s easy to have a laugh at someone elses expense. It sounds like the program was filled with stereotypes….I’ll bet they played the banjo music from “Deliverance”.

Funnily enough JB, a banjo was one thing that was lacking, but I would admit painting the cars with Democratic slogans on one, a love of homosexuality on another, and anti Nascar and Country music slogans on the third, was probably not the brightest thing to do, especially when driving into a Hick town. Before you jump on me for the HICK thing, that was the exact words the woman used in the Petrol Station, before she ran inside to call the “BOYS”.

A broad anology..its as if an American car magazine visited some Yorkshire farmer and looked at his series one Land Rover or barely MOT-legal 70s Ford and tried to pass him off as the typical British citizen or driver.

Lets face it, this is how your average American does view your average Brit, not only your average Brit, it’s how your average American views anyone who doesn’t live within the US boarders. Backward and technically backward, and this from a country where the height of automotive engineering is the leaf spring rear suspension.

I’ve read many UK car magazine stories where they “go see the ‘real’ America” and inevitably visit Elvis at Graceland, hunt out Camaro driving rednecks in the South (of which there are many) and find a “Bates Motel” (out of “Psycho”) look alike along Route 66. Do they exist, sure. Are they typical of America..no.

We all know Elvis is no where near Gracelands, he’s working as a holiday rep in Benidorm. Last night it was the Brits driving the Camaro and the Rednecks were in a modern day Dodge Ram, and you don’t have to travel Route 66 for the motel, I stayed in one near Polk City Florida.

What they don’t find are well educated/serious car buffs.

They don’t visit a Porsche Club of America wine and cheese meetings that would make even the most snobby Brit feel at home, or lawns of Pebble Beach where only the richest car people can display their toys.

Your average Porsche loving Brit would feel very awkward at a wine and cheese party, that is if he drives the car as it’s meant to be, and not as a status symbol

How about going to a Sports Car Club of America event where members know as much about proper British sports cars and anyone in the Home Counties.

“Sports Car Club of America” bit of an oxymoron isn’t it 🙂 Proper British Sports Cars, what would one of those be now a’ days then? TVR is/was Russian, Lotus is owned by a company from a country that eats dogs, Aston Martin is one of Henry’s, Jaguar the same and MG is now communist though that is only returning back to the 1970’s. That leaves Morgan which is not exactly at the forefront of sports car technology.

And certainly they don’t go to a local chapter of the Model A Ford (or Chevy, Studebaker, Mustang) Club where regular guys (with regular incomes and jobs) help each other out with problems and parts.

Oh come on JB, we’re talking about cars here, not the excuses that the average American automobile manufacturer turns our. Barges aground 🙂

Or even a local British Car Club, where otherwise sane people spend their weekings trying to keep MGs and Triumphs running…despite the best efforts of Lucas electronics to fail.

But they came to see America, if they wanted to see MG’s Triumphs etc being worked on, they could do that by visiting any average council estate in Saltford.

In other words, the producers sought out what they wanted to find. Normal people driving normal cars doesn’t make good TV.

Normal people, driving normal cars would be very boring, I grant you that, but there again we are talking America here 😀

“P-51, CADILLAC OF THE SKY!”

Ah, memories of a great Flying Legends a couple of years ago 🙂