Man made climate change.
Some days I buy it, some days i don't. Depends on what newspaper I have read that day.
However, once I read about the rate at which China and India are growing, the rate that China is building new power stations, the huge underground fires, the deforestation in Indonesia etc, I am utterly and completely persuaded that there is nothing, absolutely nothing that we can do about it.
Me changing to more efficient lightbulbs and planting the odd tree is going to make absolutely naff all difference. Everyone in this country all doing the same, all at once, is going to make naff all difference.
If this is a man made problem, then the solution will require all the countries of the world to work together and to set aside narrow national interests. It just won't happen.
We are all doomed!
I am not posting this to provoke, it is what I genuinely believe.
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Man made climate change. Some days I buy it, some days i don't. Depends on what newspaper I have read that day.
well made point.......there's nothing stopping us trying to be more responsible.......but the places that can make the real difference are not us in the UK or the rest of Europe mostly.
If we being (supposedly) educated and affluent have to subsidise those that aren't, then maybe that's an option
but the rainforest being burnt down etc causes far more problem than any 4x4 in this place
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Well said The Lawman.
At present we have a fairly prosperous economy with fairly high labour rates compared to the Far East tiger economies. They have cost advantages, not just in the labour market, but also land costs, ease of industrial development, rates of taxation, and low environmental protection costs. If we go alone in reducing our emissions, without the tiger economies matching us, we shall face an extra barrier for businesses to meet, in addition to all the aditional costs listed above. What will happen to our economy - we shall fall further down the world league of nations.
Yes I shall try to curtail my use of the earth's scarce resources, but I do not think any of the measures proposed will make the slightest difference to the temperature of the world. The largest factor outside our control is our sun. Remember all our warmth comes from the sun. For the past few years the sun has been having the largest solar flares on record, but these are continually omitted from environmental studies into "global warming". Also there is recorded evidence of of the Middle Ages being warmer than temperatures today, this was definitely omitted from the Stern Report. Only 30 years ago the talk was of global cooling - what has changed so rapidly to reverse this view. My own personal concern would be if the Gulf Stream ceased to warm Western Europe, at present it raises our temperature by 9 degrees centigrade. If this happened we would talk of how Europe was cooling rapidly.
We should give praise to our weather forecasters in predicting our weather over a number of days, but this does not extend to predicting global temperatures over the period of a century. If you ask a weather forecaster what the weather will be like on say 7 May, they cannot say. They still cannot predict whether we are going to have a warm and dry summer, rather than a cool and wet one. These are predictions for only a few months, yet some experts are predicting how the global temperatue will continually rise forever and how the land mass will change. The earth has never been without change, the main plates continue to move causing earthquakes and the molten magnum continues to rise from volcanoes, yet we call the earth stable. For most of the developed world we do not have any direct contact with these forces and but can see what happens on the television news.
As they say in the world of financial investment, the price of shares can rise in value and also fall. I believe the same can be said for global temperatures. The only reason the Earth has any warmth is because of it's atmosphere, by comparison the moon is a very cold place, especially out of the warm rays from the sun. A few years ago we regularly heard about how the hole in the ozone layer was growing, yet nowdays it is never mentioned. Man has made changes to the world through all our activities and has probably slightly changed the content of the atmosphere, but not to a critical level.
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Roger
I read frequently, but only post when I have something useful to say.
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The consequences of scientists prostituting their credibility for personal gain does nobody any favours and will inevitably lead to them joining politicians and estate agents at the bottom of the "believability" listings.. "Environmental scientist;" now there's a cushy little number if ever I heard one. Bet it pays better than working.
Very poor comment, particularly that first sentence. I don't know any environmental scientists, but I'll bet they earn very modest incomes (in the UK at least) and I'm sure 99% are playing it as straight as they can.
Unfortunately the UK has become downright 'anti-intellectual' in the last 20 years.
No one can say for 100% whether climate change is happening right now - we have to work on the balance of probabilities. I for one believe it is happening and happening very quickly.
As one of the few on here who has been out to China and looked around some of their industry I can tell you that there is a growing concern in China about the environmental impact of their growth. They are actually building some 'environment cities' and the Chinese government is starting to invest heavily in envronmental engineering projects - its a slow turnaround, but it is happening.
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>>I don't know any environmental scientists, but I'll bet they earn very modest incomes (in the UK at least) and I'm sure 99% are playing it as straight as they can.
I do [2]. They certainly earn modest incomes but they get paid a lot more than that. About as straight as a 9 bob note.
I have no idea whether they are representative or not, but it wouldn't surprise me.
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>>who paid each one to do his/her research/attend this conference?
Most will be government funded, although some will be funded by organisations (I'm thinking more on the lines of BP than Greenpeace).
If you want to make money for yourself, you don't go into scientific research! - a company will pay you much more for much less effort. However, if you were going to do "bent" climate research, I'm sure the oil companies will pay you more to say "everything's OK, keep buying those V8s", rather than Greenpeace paying scientists to be doom mongers.
The point of "good" science is that there is very little that has to be "believed" - good science is transparent and provides enough information about the methods, techniques and equipment used to enable the study to be replicated, there isn't a faith element to it. In the 60's a clever fellow working in the area of physics where I currently dabble produced some amazing results, but, when other research groups tried to replicate them, they couldn't, and hence the "amazing results" aren't trusted, or used as the basis for further work. Of course, as time goes on, new methods and techniques are discovered, better materials and equipment becomes available, and so the view of scientists does change - a "good" scientist likes nothing better than to be proved wrong about his/her pet theory, because this is where they learn the most about the phenomenon that they have devoted their working lives to understanding.
>>"Environmental scientist;" now there's a cushy little number if ever I heard one. Bet it pays better than working.
Probably true! (but not by a large margin) However, most of the money goes on the experimental facilities and the experiments themselves, rather than the experimenter (unfortunately!)
>>These paid dummies can spout whatever they're paid to.
AFAIK, you can't really pay your way into a peer reviewed journal - you have to convince other experts in your field that the research is worthy of publication. Of course, your reputation might help in getting your paper published. In a way, for matters automotive, this forum works a little like peer review, posts are read, dissected, and any nonsense tends to pointed out (sometimes in a brusque and entertaining manner!)
Number_Cruncher
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These 2500 "experts" - who paid each one to do his/her research/attend this conference? [After all; every engineer knows that X is an unknown quantity and a spurt is a drip under pressure...]
Science just does not work like that. Most of these scientists will be funded by grant awarding bodies and universities. These bodies are allocated money by governments, and they decide who to award money to on the basis of peer review of proposals i.e. independent of government. In other words money is awarded on the basis of merit and the quality of the research, regardless of the conclusions, is what counts. But the conclusions must be supported by the research. You cannot fabricate. In fact any scientist who was not honest, and instead biased his/her research in favour of an organisation would be in disgrace were it found out.
I worked in academic research (physics) for 8 years. It is not a cushy number. Pay is much lower than in the private sector, and prestige is low. Go to a party and say that you are a scientist, and people tend to move away from you as if you had bird flu. And these days security is not there. Science departments are being closed all over the place. I have no idea why anyone would be daft enough to pursue an academic 'career'. I now work in the private sector and literally earn twice the salary I could in a university.
The idea that scientists are as untrustworthy as politicians and estate agents is preposterous.
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NC and Leif
Thanks for the clear and reasoned responses. My point is still that - while I do agree that with good science, belief should be unnecessary - the facts about the "greenhouse effect" are not getting any clearer.
I'm sure we would all like to see a clearly laid out resume of all the claimed evidence with each piece given a universally agreed review and weighting. After all; there are far too many politicians jumping on this particular bandwagon for the truth to survive for very long. As to peer review, since when did Greenpeace's utterances undergo anything, even remotely, approaching that?
With the current obsession with finding excuses for ever more "green" taxes; government sponsored research should be the last thing to be accepted at face value. The laughable Stern Report being a case in point. As Nigel Lawson so tellingly put it when facing the Select Committee: "Multiply the uncertainties of weather forecasting by those of economic forecasting and then again by demographic forecasting and you've got.... nothing."
Greenpeace can't be trusted. Period.
Governments certainly can't be trusted. Ever.
Big companies can only be trusted to act in their own interest.
Scientists will now say what they're paid to, so can't be trusted in either view.
Result: total confusion and a whole generation being terrified by in-school brainwashing about a possibly non-existant effect.
Where is the unbiased voice speaking the truth?
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I think the Government's wars abroad must cause far more pollution than me living my modest life. In both the use of energy and resources, wastage of infrastructure destroyed, and catastrophes such as the thousands of genetically mutated babies being born because of the use of shells containing Uranium. I think any single war is far worse than all of the 4x4s amd kettles with too much water in them put together.
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I don't want to see the rain forest disappear and I am happy to recycle the odd item or two! However, I find that I am charged large sums to recycle by my local council, the never ending taxation on motoring is now positively suffocating, the attacks on air travel etc etc. All of these are easy ways to screw the populous for ever more tax. Does this money go into producing hydrogen powered cars or renewable (but effective-so that rules out wind power) energy. Of course not. It disappears into Browns big black hole.
It stinks, it makes me very angry and it's time these 'climate scientists' shouted that cars and airplanes only make a tiny contribution to CO2. They then might get a little more respect from me!
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>>Greenpeace can't be trusted. Period.
OK, as they are a pressure group, they are obviously going to present information which supports their view. I can't imagine many people think Greenpeace are impartial.
>>Governments certainly can't be trusted. Ever.
OK, they have to do politics, and present events in the best light to them. Again, I don't think many would listen to the word of government alone, without further backing or evidence, and think it impartial.
Big companies can only be trusted to act in their own interest.
OK, it would be a strange company that went out of its way to ruin itself by publishing data which didn't support their cause - again, I don't think many are confused that companies are somehow impartial, and acting for our best interests.
Scientists will now say what they're paid to, so can't be trusted in either view.
I tend to disagree. I suppose scientists directly in the pay of a company or government are not impartial, but the vast majority of science proceeds in an impartial manner like Leif has suggested - among the many problems are that this is exactly the science that the majority of the public never ever sees or reads, i.e., that published in peer reviewed journals. Most science that the public is "fed" has first to be interpreted for them, and presented in an easily digestible form. In this presentation stage, it's all too easy for errors and spin to creep in even if you are trying to be impartial, so imagine how easy it is to distort things when you set out to do so.
Number_Cruncher
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>>I suppose scientists directly in the pay of a company or government are not impartial, but the vast majority of science proceeds in an impartial manner like Leif has suggested - among the many problems are that this is exactly the science that the majority of the public never ever sees or reads, i.e., that published in peer reviewed journals. Most science that the public is "fed" has first to be interpreted for them, and presented in an easily digestible form. In this presentation stage, it's all too easy for errors and spin to creep in even if you are trying to be impartial, so imagine how easy it is to distort things when you set out to do so.
Impartiality can easily creap in. If there is one professor that has a strong view on a subject and can sway some of his colleagues to fund research. He will work, and probably employ people as well, to directly to prove his theory. If the subject appears to of scientific interest, then further studies will be funded, and so it goes on for a number of years or decades. The more that is published with give authority to previous work, even if there was a fundemental flaw in the original work that was never spotted. As Goebbels said if you repeat a lie often enough people will begin to believe it, or in other words mud sticks. What research has been done to disprove the global warming theorists? I have not heard of any.
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Roger
I read frequently, but only post when I have something useful to say.
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There was a time when government at all levels was trusted in the UK, that's long gone. Blair was regarded as a shining knight by many in 1997. He is now swimming in a sea of incompetence and trying to keep his head up in a miasmic atmosphere thick with the stench of corruption. That's quite enough politics thank you.
As Jedi is not a political option at the moment, why not for my None-of-the-above party?
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I am amazed at the range of lame excuses and reasons why it's "not our fault" and "why should I change anything".
It is also obvious from some of the replies on this thread that there is also a lot of false information floating around.
You can accept what is happening and make a difference. I believe that to a certain extent we can have our cake and eat it. If you want to own a a big Jag, then fine. Just balance it out by maybe not using it quite as much. For your main driver buy an economical car. Get the train or bus sometimes, maybe even walk. Turn the heating down a notch and turn a few lights off.
All of the little things add up and we can make a difference. Do you remember the hole in the ozone layer? Well we took action and made a difference, to me that's proof that we can make changes to our environment on a global scale.
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NC and Leif Thanks for the clear and reasoned responses. My point is still that - while I do agree that with good science, belief should be unnecessary - the facts about the "greenhouse effect" are not getting any clearer. I'm sure we would all like to see a clearly laid out resume of all the claimed evidence with each piece given a universally agreed review and weighting. After all; there are far too many politicians jumping on this particular bandwagon for the truth to survive for very long. As to peer review, since when did Greenpeace's utterances undergo anything, even remotely, approaching that?
What do you mean by 'universally agreed'. A recent report by a huge number of the most respected climate scientists concluded that GW was most probably real and due to human influence.
Greenpeace is a pressure group, and they do not undergo peer review. I would not take what they say at face value.
With the current obsession with finding excuses for ever more "green" taxes; government sponsored research should be the last thing to be accepted at face value. The laughable Stern Report being a case in point. As Nigel Lawson so tellingly put it when facing the Select Committee: "Multiply the uncertainties of weather forecasting by those of economic forecasting and then again by demographic forecasting and you've got.... nothing."
What do you mean by "government sponsored research should be the last thing to be accepted at face value. "? I will explain again.
UK science is funded by government money given to independent funding councils that are run by scientists. The scientists make independent decisions as to where the money goes. These decisions are based on proposals from scientists and are judged on merit. So why can that not be trusted? The people who cannot be trusted are the 'scientists' funded by oil companies.
There is absolutely NO government interference, apart from the fact that the government decides how much money goes to each funding council. The body for science used to be the Sceience and Engineering Research Council.
Greenpeace can't be trusted. Period. Governments certainly can't be trusted. Ever. Big companies can only be trusted to act in their own interest. Scientists will now say what they're paid to, so can't be trusted in either view.
Sorry but that is complete and utter nonsense. Work done by scientists in universities and goverment research establishments (apart from secret ones such as Porton Down) have their work judged by other scientists across the entire world, not by the government. They write papers, and the papers are reviewed, and only published if the work is rigorous, and novel. So why should a scientist in America who reviews a paper by a scientist in the UK care what the UK government thinks? It just does not make sense.
Any climate scientist who found convincing evidence that GW is not real would be applauded by other scientists.
In fact most research is very mundane. They might for example measure Antarctic ice thickness over a period of 10 years. So what are you saying? That they fabricate the measurements? Such work is done by scientists from all over the world: Russian, American, British and so on. Do they all fabricate evidence? Is there a conspiracy. For goodness sake let's get real.
Result: total confusion and a whole generation being terrified by in-school brainwashing about a possibly non-existant effect. Where is the unbiased voice speaking the truth?
I suspect that the problem is a loss of trust in authority, and I would say that is in part due to the current governments use of media and spin to manipulate and con the public, and only later do we find out that the truth is somewhat different from what they were saying. Of course the Tories had their own scandals, BSE being the most obvious. But I think it was a government department that was making false claims about BSE, not scientists. After all it was the scientists who discovered how dangerous BSE is.
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Thankyou, Leif. At least there's one voice of sanity here. Afraid I couldn't really summon up the enthusiasm to tackle the usual dreary nonsense about solar flares, government conspiracies, 1970s ice age predictions etc, yet again.
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Several years ago, Greenpeace told us that Brent Spar (sp?) contained several hundred tons of toxic waste. The EVIL oil company said it contained a couple of hundred pounds of toxic material at most. Funds flooded into Greenpeace to help them stop it happening. Greenpeace organised a Europe-wide boycott of Shell on the back of it. At huge expense (and probably a bundle of CO2 emissions), Shell had it disposed of by dismantling it rather than sinking it.
Afterwards, Greenpeace recanted, and very, very quietly admitted that Shell were telling the truth. They didn't give it quite the publicity they gave to their initial claims. They kept the money they had raised.
Now, I'm not saying that this is proof of anything to do with global warming, just that the pressure groups can sometimes do better out of scaremongering than telling the truth. In order to stay in existence, they simply HAVE to keep themselves in the news. This means that there's an inherent bias towards the sensational.
I'm NOT saying other scientists aren't biased, just that the scientists on both sides of the debate are under pressure. It seems odd to me that anyone who decries Global Warming is seen as in the pocket of somebody, whereas anyone supporting it is in some way carrying out a "whiter than white" form of science. They are all under different pressures.
Apologies if this seems biased towards debunking of GW - it's not my aim; I'm just trying to point out that there is bias on both sides. I truly wish there wasn't, and that we could get a disinterested view.
V
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">Afraid I couldn't really summon up the enthusiasm to tackle the usual dreary nonsense about ............ 1970s ice age predictions <"
Oh go on, at least try. It's simple, did scientists in the 1970s get it right or wrong? Global warming in the Middle Ages anyone?
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I tend to come at this issue from a slightly differing viewpoint. I work in medical research in a university environment, and I certainly don't buy in to this idea of unbiased, pure and egalitarian research. Research, is driven by the desperate need for grant money, the often horrible egos of professors, and the need to publish. Peer review does not prevent massaging of data, and to fight against an almighty consensus in the field of climate research must be very difficult. However, 99.9 percent of the time the consensus is the consensus because it is correct. IMHO climate change is probably happening.
Most people are relatively happy to modify their behaviour to a reasonable extent. I have a long commute so I try to stay over near work once or twice a week, and I have turned the heating down etc. What annoys me though is the lack of action from governments. What have the government actually done to cut CO2 production. They seem to only see climate change as another source of income to bolster the public finances. A recent interview with the transport minister went something like this
Interviewer- Do you have any plans to increase the percentage of biofuel usage in the uk?
Transport Minister- Going above 5% concentration might give problems to fuel lines etc
Interviewer- Did he have any plans to legislate to make fuel systems in new cars compatible with biofuel?
Transport Minister- er no
With foresight like this what chance do we have?
I think we need to hope fusion comes through or our descendents are going to have problems. I have kids; therefore I worry about such things.
Sigma
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Thankyou, Leif. At least there's one voice of sanity here. Afraid I couldn't really summon up the enthusiasm to tackle the usual dreary nonsense about solar flares, government conspiracies, 1970s ice age predictions etc, yet again.
So is it the case, then, that solar flares have nothing to do with it? I remember reading a few years back that increased solar activity plays old Harry with communications satellites, as large amounts of electromagnetic radiation is emitted - is that the sole effect of such things? Do we know for certain whether or not the sun burns hotter at some times than at others? I have not (yet) seen a definitive answer, just two opposing views with proponents of each saying that proponents of the other are talking piffle.
As regards government conspiracies, it's not so much a conspiracy as an extremely cynical attempt to make it look like they give a stuff about carbon emissions (or NOx, depending on which theory you follow) and thereby win votes and make money by imposing taxes against which they consider (and with some justification) there can be no moral argument.
The reason I suspect that they don't really give a stuff is that if they did, all these cheap flights here there and everywhere would be taxed out of existence, and investment in non- or low-polluting forms of public transport (what happened to those hydrogen-powered buses they were testing in London?), and environmentally-sound methods of generating electricity, would be strongly encouraged by means of tax breaks, subsidies etc etc.
But this doesn't happen, and instead, road transport gets another soaking in the name of "combatting climate change", safe in the knowledge that people are jolly well going to have to cough up because the alternative means of getting about are for the most part impractical, if not downright impossible. And the money raised will not be spent on the things I outlined above - it never is (and how I wish it would be); it just disappears into the general murk of government spending. This is short-term thinking of the worst sort, and no wonder people get tired of it.
As for the matter of ice-age predictions 30 years ago, from what I can gather (and correct me if I'm wrong) this was being put forward with a similar degree of certainty as is now being applied to global warming. To the majority of us who are not experts in such matters, the fact that we are now being told the precise opposite of what was thought to be the case 30 years ago inclines many to scepticism along the lines of "they got it wrong last time, who's to say they are right this time?" When you add to this the fact that some research in this area is being conducted to satisfy the agendas of various vested interests (e.g. oil companies), and exploitation of the issue by governments for political and financial gain, you have to concede that this scepticism is understandable, whatever else you may think about it.
My personal view, for what little it is worth, is that for whatever reason the planet's climate is changing. We can't ignore it and we clearly need to adapt. Any behaviour that causes less pollution and depletion of the planet's resources at a slower rate should be encouraged as strongly as possible - and that is true irrespective of any form of climate change.
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The loss of trust in authority in the UK probably followed World War 1 "building a land fit for heroes" etc. WW2 was seen by many who fought as a necessary evil to destroy a greater evil, the time for change in the UK was the 1945 election, the media of the time were fully in support of Churchill so there was some surprise at the result.
Why should I trust climate change scientists when climate change scientists got it so wrong in the 1970s? But if we are really serious about reducing CO2 emissions in the UK then stop jet flight. Tomorrow. Look at the energy consumption and CO2 emissions of listed gov buildings, demolish if necessary. Ditto commercial. Stop the planned build of the new nPower CCGT station, invest heavily in a series of twin reactor PWR stations at existing nuclear sites. Invest heavily in AGR development. Invest heavily in accelerated fusion power.
It won't happen. We will be Newnewfoundland before the politicos take serious action, and most people believe it's "green" to drive to the tip with a couple of glass bottles.
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The loss of trust in authority in the UK probably followed World War 1 "building a land fit for heroes" etc. WW2 was seen by many who fought as a necessary evil to destroy a greater evil, the time for change in the UK was the 1945 election, the media of the time were fully in support of Churchill so there was some surprise at the result. Why should I trust climate change scientists when climate change scientists got it so wrong in the 1970s?
That is a distortion of the truth. There was indeed speculation from SOME scientists that global cooling could be occurring. There was also speculation that CO2 was increasing leading to a greenhouse effect. Since then considerable research has been done, such that we have a much better understanding of the climate, and the concensus is that man made warming is the most likely explanation for the observations.
The problem is that science is hard to understand from the outside. And scientists are often not concerned with communicating to the general public. Their aim is to puruse research and discover the truth. For many the media is something to avoid, and often with good reason, as the press tends to sensationalise and distort. After all, well reasoned arguments do not sell newspapers.
But if we are really serious about reducing CO2 emissions in the UK then stop jet flight. Tomorrow. Look at the energy consumption and CO2 emissions of listed gov buildings, demolish if necessary. Ditto commercial. Stop the planned build of the new nPower CCGT station, invest heavily in a series of twin reactor PWR stations at existing nuclear sites. Invest heavily in AGR development. Invest heavily in accelerated fusion power.
Nuclear power is not as green as you think as it takes energy to mine and extract uranium from rock.
It won't happen. We will be Newnewfoundland before the politicos take serious action, and most people believe it's "green" to drive to the tip with a couple of glass bottles.
You might be right.
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