Anybody watching Newsnight on Wednesday night... if not, you missed something truely incredible. In fact something so incredible, that no scientist anywhere in the world has managed to do it to date... Newsnight presenter announced that he was going to prove that climate change was man made ! You're probably asking why would the BBC want to do something like this... well bizarrely for a national public service broadcaster, it was to 'persuade skeptics'. I didn't realize that was part of their remit, but you learn something new every day.
In any event, back to this astounding moment on Newsnight. Justin had invited 30 people 'from the Top Gear audience' [aka skeptics] along with two scientists around to his North London home for this momentus occasion. With 2 empty plastic water bottles, a bit of rubber piping, some sodium bicarbonate and a couple of lamps... the 'proof' got underway. The scientist drenched the sodium bicarbonate in vinegar so that the reaction would liberate CO2 [which it did by the way]. She then placed this in a glass bottle connected by a pipe to one of the sealed [air containing] empty water bottles. The other empty water bottle, also sealed and containing air was placed nearby. She then popped a pair of thermometers in each of the plastic bottles and proceeded to shine the lamps against the bottles.
You'll never guess what, the temperature of the bottle that had CO2 pumped into rose 4 degrees higher than the one without. That was it. Proof that man is responsible for global warming. Our Justin then went around the skeptics and not only were most of them convinced... they were passionately so !
I too was amazed. I had no idea at all that the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere and its temperature fluctuations bore no relation to weather, the seasons, the sun, the sea, anything else on earth... in fact anything other than man's production of CO2. It was certainly an education for me. I mean I can't believe that isn't true... can you ? I'm eagerly awaiting my next piece of brainwashing, sorry I mean persuasion, from the Beeb ! Isn't the licence fee such a great thing.
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