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UK Releases Global Warming Report
ben_ writes "The UK Government's Foresight Project, tasked with visualizing the future, has published a hard-hitting report on the flooding consequences of global warming. The story's also on the BBC."
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So the ice is going to melt...it'll make for some nice beachfront property in Wisconsin!
Who would imagine there would be flooding during global warming?
Go figure.
Water World here we come.
Fuck the next generation, I'm cold now!
*DrugCheese rants*
here are some articles that disagree. Articles
This site provides links to resources skeptical of those sort of doomsday scenarios.
Surfs up? Or how about we take a chapter from Futurama and hope that nuclear winter cancels out global warming?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I'll have to be a global warming agnostic. I've seen credible viewpoints that indicate that in the next decades we will either be swimming like "Water World" or freezing in a new ice age.
I just get the feeling that our science into yet up to the task of interpreting our climate.
EOM
We've known the earth has been getting warmer for years. My question is, when will we have the balls to do anything about it?
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
The funny thing about global warming is the lack of trend data over a long period of time. For example: ice ages happend and as far as we know they were natural trends in earth climate. Chances are we might speed up a radical climate change but I doubt we're the single reason for it. In any case we won't be able to have fully clean power for quite some time.
:(){
Just what was needed. This report may well be the proverbial slap-in-the-face-with-a-wet-haddock some companies needed to kick-start their conservation projects. I don't want my gulf stream to go away!
HAH! I just wasted a second of your life making you read this, but I wasted a minute of mine thinking it up. DAMN.
Since so much of ice sits underwater, and water expands when frozen, wouldn't it make sense that melting icebergs would actually shrink the oceans, or at least keep them the same size? I know there's a lot of ice on top of land masses melting as well, but what about all the ice in the water?
Am I an idiot for thinking this way?
My sig is blank, I typed this by hand.
The loss of land by rising global sea levels will be offset by the now ubiquitous flying car. And who needs to go outside when you could be playing Duke Nukem: Forever.
Is there really any way the modern world will slow down to accomodate the environment? Personally I think most leaders have already thrown in the towel. Our best bet is to fund family planning to prevent the 6 kids per family that we see in some countries. The planet just can't sustain 11 billion people.
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
http://houndwire.com
Are they going to release a hard-hitting report on the Slashdot effect on an un-suspecting web site?
*ducks*
(2 comments and already slashdotted... sheesh...)
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
They sound like a good team, but it seems they didn't foresee the consequences of Slashdot.
Too bad they couldn't foresee the Slashdotting.
Outlook Bad.
Fixing Current Problem still too costly.
Other countries are mostly to blame.
I think the world should go HyWire and that the government should provide free fuel stations in polluted areas to entice people to convert.
I'm usually one to jump on the Stop Global Warming bandwagon, but the pretty picture in the BBC article sure does seem to indicate a large range of probablities between the "best case" and "worst case" scenarios.
In the "worst case", the entirity of the British Isles are inundated.
In the "best case", everything but the coastline becomes a desert.
While this looks like very good science, it's not going to be very useful as a basis for public policy. Science is all about showing all possible outcomes, in hopes of divining the truth. Public policy tends towards simple, overly general statements like "Global Warming will flood London" or "There is no threat from Global Warming". To the frustration of many, I'm sure, this report seems to support both positions.
On a technical note, when I hit the Executive Summary page before the Slashdot story went live, around 11am CDT, it said "This document has been accessed 361 times." A refresh a few minutes later bumped it up to 369, so it's a real-time counter. It'll be interesting to see how the Slashdot effect changes that number, and whether the counter survives the Local Warming of their web server.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
According to an audit performed on the premier data on global warming (MBH98), the 20th century is actually cooler than it was in the 1400s. Remember, these predictions are based on the theory that the earth is warming at an alarming rate and that the Earth is hotter than it ever was. However, this is simply not true based on the data available.
l
Check out the audit here:
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/trc.htm
Check out the many articles concerning global warming here:
http://www.globalwarming.org/science.php
I am defenseless. Use your button. Mod me down with all of your hatred.
which will cause bigger problems first: global warming or magnetic reversal??
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
lookout bullow.
just in case (we don't blow up), we should still be extremely conservative with whatever resources we have left?
consult with/trust in yOUR creators.... yOUR climate will favor you?
Global warming? When did this happen? Oh wait... This isn't new. I just forgot the speed at which the gov't reacts. Silly me, what was I thinking? Seriously though, it'd be nice for more and more nations to pick up on this "trend" of reducing global warming. It'll be rough when the ocean rises a single cm and destroys coast line businesses. Perhaps then it'll become a bigger issue?
Unless you can explain how people will be impacted by global warming... they won't care. This study is really on the right track, it gives
global warming an economic cost (and making it clear that hundreds of thousands of homes could be under water regularly).
Now we need a similar study for US Costal areas. Will New York go under water?
in third grade I had to make a box that attracted the sun's light and could heat up the inside enough to melt cheese on nachos. my cheese didn't melt... they didn't taste very good... If we want the next generation's cheese to melt, we mustn't do anything about this "global warming" issue.
Worse, the Chinese have even less concern about the environment than they have about human rights. The Mandarin translation for "ocean" is "giant garbage can".
Prepare to drown in water or die of toxins in our food.
*nevermore tuna*
I think this was just sponsored by the upcoming release of "The Day After Tomorrow." We all know that global warming is happening, it's just extra convenient that this comes out right when a movie with a similar plot is about to come out.
stuff |
For pessimists having doubts 'is global warming a reality', please look around you. Ask yourself this question...are summers hotter than 10 years back?
While biking to work today morning in Cupertino, California, I wore a cotton shirt. Six years back in April I needed warm clothes. My mother complains summers are much more hotter in Kerala, India than in the 1960's. This year they might buy an airconditioner and that extra energy utilization probably adds to global warming in an indirect way.
Tat Tvam Asi
Guess what will happens if we add up HUGE (3.6 billion people) growing 10% a year economies of CHINA and INDIA. Offshore outsourcing and following knowledge transfer are the reasons for this exponential grows. Just imagine of the future impact of these economies when 3.6B people will start driving cars and use A/C. Don't forget that these nations don't really have environmental regulations.
Global Warming may not exist. What should we do? We have two possibilities: Take measures to curb CO2 emissions, or go on like we always have. If we go on like we always have and global warming does exist, we're screwed. If we go on like we always have and global warming doesn't exist, we'll be fine. If we take measures and global warming does exist, we save ourselves. If we take measures and global warming does not exist, we lose some money.
Clearly, the cost/benefit/risk assesment points to taking measures now, because the possible cost of not taking measures (end of civilzation) is far too great.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
I've seen some responses already that doubt global warming, which is good, and they're more articulate than usual.
Yes, global warming is real. Do we have anything to do with it? Probably not. Claims that our production of carbon dioxide will destroy life as we know it demonstrate ignorance of how the entire carbon cycle works. Plankton and plants absolutely THRIVE on carbon dioxide, and produce oxygen as waste. This is elementary school biology, folks.
The Earth will not bake us to oblivion, and we will not cause some horrific ice age. Things we DO need to be concerned about are ozone depletion and deforestation, because these directly affect the chemical cycle of this planet. The fact is, we simply don't know enough about the long-term trends of terrestrial climate to make credible doomsday scenarios. As it is, we are recovering from the "Little Ice Age," which means we're going to warm up. The planet has its own way of keeping the climate stable and self-sustaining. Thinking humans can make or break it is arrogant and egotistical, to say the least.
I am not a climatologist, but I wish people would avoid jumping onto bandwagons whose positions they have not examined with any depth.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
I don't really think we have anything to worry about. If things get too messy on the surface, we'll just go live under the sea. When the robots get smart enough the clean up the mess, they can thaw us out and wake us up.
I mean, what have they ever done for us?
. . . they'd be called F.U.D.
Follow the money, and ask yourself:
Who is more likely to be venal, deceptive, and prone to manipulate data:
Flacks for fossil fuel industries and pro-business think tanks, or atmospheric scientists and climatologists?
Someone needs to tell these dooms day wacko's that historically the climates have changed and fluctuated - that's what planets do! Besides global warming the planet has had global freezing (ice ages). I even heard at one point that there wasn't oxygen on the planet until it got polluted by those damn plants and vegetation! - that's what I heard..... I've read that in the last hundred years the planets average temperature has raised one degree (don't ask for the source, I'm not going to look for it). I don't know about you, but when I hear it has only changed one degree, I tend to believe that is pretty damn constant - considering I cant keep my house the same temperature for an hour let alone a hundred years....
There are 10 types of people in the world: Those that know Binary and those who don't.
How dare you question eugenics, TROLL!
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
Wow... the British have a "foresight project"?? They're actually recognizing that the reactive nature of democracy might be a disaster when it comes to environmental issues?? They're spending taxpayer money on problems that haven't occurred yet?? Amazing.
It occurs to me that over on my side of the Atlantic, we have an administration almost universally described as "the worst administration in modern history in terms of manipulating science to suit its politics."
I guess, given our political climate, we could try to start up a "nosight project"... "Project See No Evil", maybe? Obviously it would have to be an offshoot of the Department of Homeland Security, and its focus would be determinining how terrorists are actually responsible for global warming.
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
A hell of a lot of people are affected by irresponsible idiots breeding like rabbits.
Offends me as a non-native Canadian and is blatantly racist. Eg. "spew" "fetid" "lot"
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
This isn't a global warming problem though it is another effect of the root problem. The root problem in the Western world is our short sightedness. If buildings were built to last a few hundred years instead of a few decades, they would probably think more seriously about building in a 500 or 1000 year flood plain.
In any case, 20 billion pounds a year is meaningless in relation to the infrastructure cost of avoiding global warming without changing lifestyles (good luck if you think you can change lifestyles in any direction other than towards increased decadence). So, this study, even if taken seriously, still does not demonstrate the cost effectiveness of avoiding global warming. Until a solution to global warming is identified that is provably cheaper in the short term than our short term economic losses demonstrably caused by global warming, it won't fly. Jumping up and down and screaming about fears for the possible future won't change that fact, especially since there are at least a dozen ways we're likely to wipe ourselves out before that future.
...is another man's real-estate opportunity.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Really this should be viewed as really old news. I learned about global warming, CFC's destroying ozones, pollution... etc. like 12 years ago, thats why we (in Canada) are recycling alot of stuff, like papers, aluminium, plastics...
I knew THEN, that if we didn't do nothing, il would create disasters, floods, tornadoes, animals would die, people would get cancer.
But we where young and couldn't do sh*t about it. Now I'm way older and can do sh*t about it.
There are theories that says,its already happening and others that says we can still change things from being disastrous.
Whom to believe, what should we as a person do?
I'm doing my best, recycle every week, buy recycled stuff or with less paper or plastic.
People knew then, people know now, or are learning it right now. Only a few will try to change things. And thats how the world works...
It's funny how I make sense to others and not myself...
Look at america, the average family is 2.5, and dropping. Europe is under that. Do you know why. Freedom. So you give countrys freedom and they will prosper. Prosperous countrys generally have low birth rates. Its a proven fact, look at the birth rates for industrialized countrys. Sociology 101 man!
Guipo
Theonlyuse of monkeys is to testthings onthem.Some peoplemay say"Hey That'scruel!"and myresponse is"I don't like monkeys
I have seen numerous theories on the climate subject.
The following viewpoints have been presented over the past 30 years:
- Global Cooling. We will freeze to death shortly.
- Global Warming. We will warm up the earth and either melt or be drowned.
- Climate Change. The earth will have rapidly chaging temperatures resulting in the destruction of humankind.
- "Run out of oxygen" theory. We'll ruin the atmosphere to the point we can't breathe it.
- Nothing. All of the above are bunk.
Which is true? All these viewpoints have been presented at one time or another, and, up to now, none of them (including the last one) have been true.
Is this just another Waaahhhhhmbulance to ignore, or does this article have revolutionary proof that is worth my effort to read?
I'm willing to understand that science changes over time. But to have various scientists publicizing all possible viewpoints as the truth over the past 30 years is too much for me to handle.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Michael Crichton's outstanding speech not only about these 'hard-hitting' reviews but on the status of scientific policy-making today... People seem to constantly put themselves outside nature, and on a pedestal. We are nature, we are doing what it wants us to do.
It's a great time to be a Dutch dam engineer. I, for one, welcome our new herring and cheese eating overlords.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
A hell of a lot of people are affected by irresponsible idiots breeding like rabbits.
Really? Who? In every developed country, there's more than enough food for everyone. Anything that can't be grown locally (due to a variety of problems) can be easily imported. The only ones I see without food are underdeveloped countries where they can't or won't develop a strong enough economy to meet the needs of the people.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Anyway, call me a psycho, but I'm eagerly waiting for it. A good big old climate change would just be the necessary step to understand that, definitely, mankind is not eternal.
God of climate, of the raging seas, of the crushing sky, you 0wn us. Even if I am to die, give us the chance to realize that now is the time to act !
Regards,
jdif
Let's overcome our weakness.
when a .gov.uk gets slashdotted. Must have cut back on funding to do the study.
Now to build myself a boat I can get my toolbox in.
Karma: Negative (Mostly affected by dorm trolling)
It could well be that their real-time dynamic counter took them down. How ironic.
So according to your ideology, Europeans are more prosperous and free than Americans? Somehow I doubt that.
Yes really, and by the way nice Troll.
No one is saying that the "Earth is hotter than it ever was" but you and the rest of the Anti-Warming FUD Trolls. What we are saying is that the Earth is warming, and a lot of our civilization is in danger of sever flooding. You mention it was warmer in the past, very true, and also one of the reasons why many Roman and Greek ports are now inland, the oceans in that area have receeded to some degree. Now imagine as warming kicks in (and the recent warming trend has been shown to be highly positively coorelated to the start of the industrial revolution, and continues to be postively coorelated with global pollution levels). Some of those ancient ports will be on the water again, the result? Many of our coastal cities are swimming.
Like it or not global warming is occuring, it's not the hottest it's ever been, but that doesn't matter, all that matters is that when it gets hotter, we're in trouble.
Everything grinds to a halt, buried in bureaucratic largesse and seventeen pounds of paperwork just to buy a car.
The global warming doomsday crowd has pretty well demonstrated that they will never be satisfied. Why do we even bother paying attention to them? It only encourages them.
Just because something is phrased in an inflamatory manner, doesn't make it wrong. The thing is that its not just natives, there's plenty of white trash with 9 or 10 kids and sitting around collecting welfare. I don't understand why you like paying for other people who decided "making babies" was a career. Other people's right to be fuckwads has to end where it starts impacting everyone else.
- evidence of aliens creating Atlantis is found
- Christ came back the second time in 1948
- little green men found on Mars
- SCO funds humanitarian expeditions to Iraq
- Bush quits politics and goes into biotech
- New miracle cure for obeisity
- Increase your penis size by inches!!!
- p1n1s Rocket 2000 TM!
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
>A hell of a lot of people are affected by irresponsible idiots breeding like rabbits.
Alot of people are affected by irresponsible idiots. What does breeding have to do with it?
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
What then? The companies can produce twice as much, at no real extra cost, precicely because they are more efficient.
The corporate doomsday scenario (companies going bust, trying to curb emissions) is only valid if you assume greater efficiency is impossible and that companies are doomed to produce unusable, useless pollutants in vast quantities.
There is no reason to believe this scenario. Indeed, it is a lot LESS likely than global warming! All you need to boost efficiency is a better method of production. Get more out, for a given amount in. There's a limit to how efficient you can get, but we're nowhere near that level, yet.
Added to all this - research costs money. Spending money improves the circulation and therefore the economy. Hoarding all the cash in the pockets of a hundred or so individuals does nothing for industry or the economy as a whole.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
He'll be burning fossil fuels until the oceans are lapping at his ankles.
The Erogenous Zone
I mean if all teh ice melts and the majority of the ice is underwater like in icebergs, then wouldn't there be a vacume created that would be filled by the surounding water thus lowering the overall water level making all the beach front property worthless as it would then be far away from the beach? OR is there really enough snow and ice above the water line and ontop of the land mass in antartica, and other snow covered regions of the world to create the flooding?
Like it or not global warming is occuring, it's not the hottest it's ever been, but that doesn't matter, all that matters is that when it gets hotter, we're in trouble.
This is really the point of the issue: climates are always in a state of flux, and to say that the oceans will rise because of global warming is fallacious because global warming is not occurring. To say that the 20th century is much hotter than it should be is to be ignorant of natural changes in the environment. It's not hotter than it was in the 1400s, but there were no massive problems with the warming associated in that time period? Give me a break.
Parent is a troll spreading FUD, mod down please.
They can't even accurately predict the temperature or weather for tomorrow, and we're supposed to believe their predictions for hundreds of years down the road?
Of course that's what you've been taught. Every major religion preaches that god wants high birth rates in order to increase their market share. If they didn't do so, they wouldn't be a major religion for very long.
Are you being obtuse or purpose, or are you really that dense?
There weren't potential problems back in the 1400's due to the mideval warming period, because there were less people in total, and less people along the coasts. Furthermore, civilizations were much more mobile with regards to their homes than they are now.
Furthermore, we have evidence of the rate of change from that period using ice cores. We have evidence of the rate of change now.
Our current rate of change is higher than ever before, and we can directly correlate it with the industrial revolution. Learn to read a post before posting your ignorant opinions, and look up the statistical definition of coorelation while you're at it.
Seriously, I wonder if population projections are part of these studies, and the possibility that we will be taking more water out of the system? What kind of population numbers are necessary to affect the water balance between artificial systems and the oceans?
Parent is a troll, please mod down.
I've been curious if there are any studies about the impact of waste heat vs. CO2 emissions. It seems to me that with the billions of machines of all types in the world, virtually all of which produce heat as a byproduct of their operation, that waste heat could be a factor, especially without other factors to moderate it (like plants, which flourish with more CO2 and help keep it under control).
Read my keyboard review.
I am not denying the Global Warming or anything... I just wish the story was picked up by some reliable news organizations. Anyone has a link to something other than BBC?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
'nuff said
Or pull it out of your ass. Pretending there is not a problem will not make it so. You are not a cool rebel because you disagree with the "authorities". Ditch the grade school mentality and start reading.
The predictions are *not* based on the theory that the earth is hotter now than it ever was. Its based on the fact that its hotter now than it should be. Given where we currently are in both the large and small warming/cooling trends, its much hotter than it should be. This problem will be made much worse as we move into another warm "peak" in the trend. Imagine how bad the 1400s would have been with millions of tons of extra greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, and a giant fucking hole in the ozone layer.
If you don't think the data is correct, feel free to argue against it and provide your facts. But pretending there is no problem based on you not having the faintest clue what the research is about isn't helping anyone. Its easy to argue against something you made up, but wait a couple days till the site is back, and then actually read the report and try again, only this time argue against what they are actually saying.
Combined with the "Club of Rome" warning (we'll all starve to death by 2000) and the "Nuclear Winter" warning (we'll all freeze to death by 2000) this "Green House Warming" warning (we'll all drown real soon now) give the Radical Left a third leg for the stool they've been using as a soap box to stand on.
Wait.... this report is the third stool, not the leg of a stool.... Now I understand why it smells so much...
How does this have anything to do with capitalism? The US has a nearly flat population curve, as does that Socialist State known as Europe. The places where people still breed like rats are the ones FURTHEST from capitalism.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Can you please point to the scripture which grants this right, or even indicates that having large number of children is desirable?
When you lose something irreplaceable, you don't mourn for the thing you lost, you mourn for yourself. - Harpo Marx
Has nothing to do with the fact that it's Earth Day today...
There is only one way to halt human impact on the planet, and that would be to remove the human element. Otherwise we have the horrible motives and thoughts on both sides of the spectrum.
One camp says "Global warming is a farce" the other says "Humans are destroying M.Earth." Enviro-friendly doesn't mean 0 impact, it means less impact than if we didn't exist. Completely ignoring the fact that yes, we may be intelligent creatures, but we affect the environment on a proportion to our population on the planet.
It makes you wonder if a beaver really cares about his affect on the local environment around him... and if he does, does he try and fix it later?
Not that we're on the same level as a beaver, but we have clear cut forests and then done nothing to help the growth along... and now 50-70 years later those forests are regrowing but in a much tighter configuration than before. The risk of fire is far increased as well as the sanctions the EPA has put in place to prevent controlled burns to get rid of the undergrowth in a method nature has been using for millenia. So the undergrowth builds up until it is nearly impossible to have a burn that will stay controlled for very long.
We as a mass of intelligent creatures are playing a dangerous game, attempting to keep an unchanging environment that by OUR very nature is nigh impossible. If we are to prevent ourselves from damaging the environment irreperably then we need to enter domes, otherwise our very presence and natural existance affects the environment in the same way a beaver dam affects the creatures downriver.
So, the only solution that eco-nuts have that makes any sense is lets all live in domes, and the only solution the ignorant are pushing towards is a destruction of our atmosphere and environment that will lead us to live in domes.
I dunno about ya'll but I'll be buying my Oxygen compressor soon, since the moderate voice is always drowned out to the extremists.
I just read the BBC article and they're talking about the floods a couple/few years back. The main cause of flooding in recent years has been down to heavy rainfall on already saturated ground. I really can't see why this has anything to do with Global Warming.
:o) with the first recorded major flooding in the 1800s.
Here is a link about flooding in the Tonbridge region. The river Medway (which starts off as the Eden in my home-town) has been flooding for a long long time, as I learnt in Geography lessons
Can anyone who's read the report (slashdotted now) shed any light on why this is being attributed to GW?
"I expect to see a lot of mod bouncing on this post."
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
Hasn't lived in Winnipeg Canada. ;)
Stories like this should be flagged -1, Flamebait before they are posted. What more can you say about this pseudoscientific crap? The idea that you can manipulate climate to some unspecified favorable end by manipulating the CO2 emissions of wealthy nations is absurd. Repetition of the same tired arguments does not make them anymore true. I can understand that increasing global temperature will cause sea-level to rise, but what is the cause and effect with flooding? There is none. Another thing, what is worse than global warming? Global cooling! I for one like an early spring. Happy earthday everyone.
an ill wind that blows no good
Since both sides in the whole Mann/McKitrick thing are only dealing with pointless mathematical masturbation, the whole issue is extrodinarially irrelevant. Whether or not Mann's analysis is worth anything, the fact remains that it fits the sparse historical records and McKitrick's doesn't.
We have winemaking records from the 1400s that show how winemaking moved south from England to France after the warmer 1000-1200s fell off to the colder 1300s-1400s, while McKitrick's graph indicates France would've been too hot for grapes and Norway would've been the big wine producer in the 1400s. Since that's wrong, McKitrick is wrong. Now, Mann might be equally wrong if McKitrick is auditing his data correctly, but that just means the data is incredibly wrong, not that McKitrick knows how hot it was in the 1400s.
Global Economic Surplus may not exist. What should we do? We have two possibilities: Take measures to curb excess money circulating in the economy, or go on like we always have. If we go on like we always have and global economic surplus does exist, we're screwed. If we go on like we always have and global economic surplus doesn't exist, we'll be fine. If we take measures and global economic surplus does exist, we save ourselves. If we take measures and global economic surplus does not exist, we lose some money.
Clearly, the cost/benefit/risk assesment points to taking measures now, because the possible cost of not taking measures (end of civilzation) is far too great.
My proposed solution is to give me all your excess money. After all, do you really want to run the risk that global economic surplus might occur and bankrupt the world? Send me your money today and I'll help to save the world.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
yeah... frosty pist on line one!
Really? Who? In every developed country, there's more than enough food for everyone. Anything that can't be grown locally (due to a variety of problems) can be easily imported. The only ones I see without food are underdeveloped countries where they can't or won't develop a strong enough economy to meet the needs of the people.
You *do* realize there is more to life than just eating...right?
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
When not a single weather person (meteorologist or whatever they are) cannnot tell me if it is going to rain 24 hours from now, in my local area, using the most advanced models available, why should I expect some group of scientists to tell me that the globe is warming over the next 20 years? I've seen alot of data from those weather baloons, etc... Depending on the way you interpret the data, it appears we could be increasing by a couple of degrees over the next 10 years or DECREASING over that same time. The margin of error is enough that it could go either way. All this doomsday "save the planet from evil humans!" BS is just that, a bunch of scare tactic BS. There is no solid evidence, and it doesn't look like there will be anytime soon. We just can't handle something as complex as the weather, yet.
- I love animals. I try to eat at least one a day.
The Thinning Of The Herd.
Technical solutions won't help us out.
on a geologic timescale. Heck, anything under 1,000 years is pretty much meaningless. I don't really care if you prove to me that temps have gone up over the last few decades. We are talking about the lifespan of the Earth here, not a human's lifespan.
Now, show me that over the last 10,000 years it has been getting warmer and warmer and that we are breaking new records every century and you have an argument.
"Trying is only the first step towards failure." - Homer
What global warming? *TV In the background* "Did somebody say McDonalds?"
The bigger threat is agenda based junk science.
www.junkscience.com
The issue is very controversial. Some people argue that the water level will rise because of: not as a direct effect of the rise in temperature, instead, rising the temperaure of the water inceases the volume of it; some other instead argue that it's due to the ice-melting. Either case, the question is not as simple as that. We can't generalize for the whole planet. In some places the world will be warmr, in some other cooler. UK, for instance, will suffer because if the ices of the north pole and Greenland melt, cold water coming down from the river to the sea will stop the hot Gulf current, causing a decrease in the temperature of the water, which will affect the whole ecosystem. A piece of mind. Pain
Original, many of those in high places believed "hey.. cool.. with global warming we will have more than the current 6 weeks of sun a year in London. How great for our economy."
By now it seems that what is more likely to happen is a shutting down of the gulf stream" giving London the weather currently experienced in SIBERIA.
Like everything else (including the current US and Australian -- yes... I am Australian -- administrations' denials that that global warming is real), it only becomes an issue when it affects You personally.
Note. I believe that global warming is a real effect. I don't believe that some of the more "Everybody is going to die" scenarios are real, but I am more than willing to say "hey look, we just don't know... so lets just back off a little on our current pumping of crap into the environment so if the doomsdayists turn out to be right, we don't have so much damage to undo, and in the meantime we get cleaner air to breathe".
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
And there would be vastly more food if we Americans would quit feeding all the grain to cows. We feed something like 80% of all of our grain to cows, which only convert it to food-mass at a very low ratio.
They also require a huge amount of water and other resources.
OTOH, cattle waste products (everything not eaten by us), such as bone, blood, entrails, etc, are used in a HUGE number of industries which would have to find substitues if we stopped producing all those cows.
Sea level rise is not entirely about melting ice. It's primarily about expanding water.
Water is most dense at +4'c, when it is also most heavy - any warmer or colder than that and it expands and gets lighter. This is why cold water resides at the bottom of lakes and seas and why these bodies of water don't freeze fully during winter.
Now imagine what happens when you warm the water? It expands. When you warm up a bathtube full of cold water, you can see the level rise ever so lightly. When you warm up a sea... imagine the rest. This is why even slight change of global temperature affect the sea levels so strongly. People tend to misunderstand the temprature rise - it's not about tens of degrees. It's just about 2-5 degrees.
The melting ice affects sea levels also, but adversely at first. When you introduce cold water to lakes in the spring it tends to decrease the temperature.
Don't you mean the massive battle between the scientists and oil companies?
Only about 3 out of every 1000 scientists is an "environmental skeptic."
Do you also wonder about the massive battle between scientists about whether cigarettes cause cancer?
Are you saying that junkscience.com is an example of "agenda based junk science"? 'Coz that's quite evident from the website.
Now if you're saying that Steven "I'm not really a scientist but I play one on Fox News" Milloy is combating "agenda based junk science", then there is no hope for you. Go into management.
What's all the fuss about global warming? I own property on an ancient sea shore in Florida (about 170' MSL). If the ocean rises, eventually, I'll have beachfront property, again.
Not to be a spelling-nazi, but that's correlation. And repeat after me: correlation does not imply causation.
Except for the people in the Mediterranean coastal cities, like Venice. And it should be trivial to show where the old coastlines were if the ocean levels were higher when it was warmer than it is now. Unless it's only modern warming that's causing sea level increases.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
Well I'm neither a dad nor a christian, but I think "Be fruitful and multiply" fulfils that - unless it's referring to tasty mathematicians?
"Studies have shown that people who eat peanuts live longer than those who do not eat."
You *do* realize there is more to life than just eating...right?
Sure. And I'm all ears on how having 6 kids tramples other people's rights. Or was that an attempt to distract from the issue?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
it's real, and it's both naturally occurring cyclical, and also man made. Both, not one or the other or not happening at all. Plenty of science behind both ideas. No one disputes naturally occuring cycles, and frankly it strains credulity to think putting millions of tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere year after year after year, plus the extra heat of buring "stuff" all over the planet, that wouldn't normally be there has "no effect". Of course it has effects, and they are large. Some substances are burnt on purpose to provide all the goods and services we require, releasing the gasses and heat, and some is accidental, such as huge forest fires that have been set by humans. It ads up. We can't take the chance on ignoring it. We need a transition plan, a backup plan, or we are risking our human "data" we all care about. If we can care enough about relatively trivial things like some bean counters figures to have backup plans and pre-catastrophe planning and remediation, we can do it with other systems as well, like OUR LIVES.
All that is irrelevant of course, we need alternatives to fossil fuels because they are a FINITE resource, and we need to use what finite resources we have to build the infrastructure leading to some sort of sustainable energy products. We have to use what we have, we can't keep holding out for some pie in the sky magical backyard fusion reactor that isn't here and has a slim chance of arriving anytime soon. Unless one cares not a whit for suceeding generations of course, then it wouldn't matter as long as "they got their's so screw everyone else". I have heard that numerous times, and it appears to be a large part of the anti science luddites rationale, that somehow magicvally "the future will take care of itself". We have actual verifiable science that extreme and long lasting weather changes can happen in very short time periods. Numerous examples of ice age maalls fouind intact, never rotted much, with summer grasses and flowers in their mouths and stomachs. that's an example of an immediate and long last cold snap, it can NOT be anything else. Not over "millenia" or "hundreds of years" but like in one day, something just changed, and changed dramatically, and lasted thousands of years. Cold (literally) hard anecdotal evidence. And we don't know when it would hit a tipping over point, all we can do is guess at it. No one's science is that good, but the evidence that it has happened is right there to stare at.
I just checked on google, lotsa linkages to places that can show how the ice has melted more, you can get anecdotal from people who actually have LIVED in the arctic regions for all their lives (unlike rush limbeau and similar) and have first hand accounts, etc..they all say it's melting when it shouldn't be. that's a short time historically, it's not millenia or hundreds of years or anything, just one persons lifespan. That's the bottom line data.
And the weird thing is, as it melts, it exposes open terrain which is darker than ultra white snow and ice, which in turn means more heat is absorbed instead of being reflected (albedo effect it's called), which further accelerates the process. And then you can get into the gulf stream elevator effect with too much freshwater mixing into the salt, which would lead to a slowing of the gulf stream, which would REALLY suck worse than just over all average temp drop or a scosh of a few feet of flooding, because most of north america and europe rely on the gulf stream and japanese currents to moderate the weather, to moderate the cold in other words. Less ocean currents moving, less "warm" gets transformed northward, then it gets bad. Not just a little coastal flooding, but sucky OMG cold bad and THEN where does the energy come from? We, as a society are supposed to WAIT until something like that happens, or should we take what we know now and deal with it?
We don't have much of any control over the macro weather systems (we have some they admit to and some they don't admit to because of treaties, etc), but
If indeed it is warming (it is - though not for the reasons they're claiming), then there are bigger and more immediate concerns. Namely, the effect it will have on the food baskets of the world: the United States Midwest, namely. I don't know which other 'food baskets' there are (Canada? the Mediterranean? Central Europe? Japan?) as I'm just a US-centric American, but if the Midwestern US were to have drastic climate changes, then the world is in for some general starvation, as the US produces the most food of any nation, followed by Canada, I believe (and then Europe and Japan?).
:P)
Over the last couple years, I've personally noticed the weather having changed. The winters are warmer, the summers are cooler, and there is significantly less precipitation (particularly in the winter, when it's most needed). Farmers are always bitching about there not being enough snow in the winter around here, and I can only imagine it's getting worse. There was a crisis two summers ago (in South Dakota) where the resivoirs were nearly depleted and ranchers were not able to water their herds in the western part of the state.
So basically, this might prove to be a fairly immediate problem. However, I'd say the fact that all food production currently depends heavily (ie, entirely) on fossil fuels is more of a cripling factor, if indeed fossil fuels are as in short supply as everyone is claiming (something else I don't believe, as it's in the best interests of those that are claiming this as fact to do so - inflating prices and increasing demand. But that's another topic for another day.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Okay, the impending Ice Age caused by global warming will create huge glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere, mostly Europe, but global warming is causing all the glaciers currently in Europe to melt.
So, are we both saved and doomed, by the huge glaciers being formed as they simultaneously melt?
Boy, this global warming is tricky stuff!
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
"There are currently around 200bn worth of assets and 1.7 million properties in flood risk areas in England and Wales,"
What's the big deal? American taxpayers have spent at least that much in Iraq, and we're *just getting started* destroying stuff over there, let alone rebuilding it. OTOH, maybe we should have spent the money buying up the British coastline, as a defense against those French WMDs, just 45 minutes from deployment across the Channel.
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We wouldn't even have to stop feeding the beef. The US currently produces *way* to much grain. As a result, the number of farms is continuing to shrink. If food became a serious issue, we'd see a revitalization in farming.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Has the average temperature on Earth been going up recently? Yes. Is it due to human activity? Maybe. Can we do anything to stop it? Perhaps. Is the planet likely to go to hell within any of our lifetimes? Probably not.
But I don't care about that. I'm in favor of efforts to reduce noxious emissions for an entirely different reason - my health. Sure, the EPA has some restrictions on what kind of crap you can spew into the air, but the air in and around most US cities is nasty! It's easy not to notice if you spend all of your time in the city, but whenever I go for a long bike ride, where I need to get a lot of oxygen into my lungs, I can really tell that the air near big cities is harder to breathe. And believe me, it's no fun to be finishing a hard bike ride, taking in deep lungs-full of air, and finding yourself stuck behind a bus spewing out black soot.
I've seen plenty of posts already arguing that we shouldn't bear the burden of reducing emisisons for a dubious long-term gain. But I don't think anyone would disagree that doing so would clean up the air around us in the short-term, and that alone, to me, is worth the cost.
On stereophonic equipment, the monaural sound obtained through multiple channels will enhance your listening pleasure.
I don't trust criticism of science on typos from a user named after body-numbing drugs.
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Heres something way more important, Life after the Oil Crash
"...a generation of kids has grown up thinking Trance is the shittiest music since country and western." - Paul van Dyk
People talk back and forth about whether global warming is our fault or if it's natural, what should we do, blah blah blah. Our civilization is accustomed to the climate we are currently in. It is the climate in which we succeed. If global warming is or is not our fault, if it could get colder or warmer or what not, who gives a shit whose fault it is. We are an engineering species who change our environment to suit our needs. If the Earth is going to warm up or cool down we should devise ways to control that without concern that it is our fault or a natural occurence. The Earth will be fine, it used to be a giant ball of molten rock, it's we who will have our way of life interrupted unless we get this planet under control.
No, it isn't. You're reading that into it. No one in the right mind who knows something about past Earth climate history claims that the Earth is hotter now than it ever was. It is the first part of this statement, that the Earth is warming at an alarming rate, that is the concern.
For example, some millions of years in the past, Earth's average temperature was an astounding 10 degrees celsius higher than today. Nearly the entire land surface of the planet was rain forest. But the buildup to this apparent temperature extreme occurred over millions of years, giving life a chance to adapt.
What we are possibly seeing now is an increase in temperature on a much shorter timespan, which does not give life a chance to adapt. It is this which is the danger. Whatever temperature we manage to drive the Earth to, it will likely fall short of this past maximum, but it will be on such a short scale that it will wreak havoc with the ecology. You're not going to see rain forests popping up everywhere by a long shot.
Karma: Frotzed (mostly due to the Frobozz Magic Karma Company)
Remember the 3 monkeys carving?
one sees no evil
one hears no evil
one speaks no evil
Bush's effort should be called the 2 monkeys approach:
one sees no evil
one hears no evil
-Nivag
What has Osama Bin Laden got in common with Bill Gates?
They both want the American miltary to use Microsoft Operating Systems...
That "environmental upgrade by attrition" argument was sold by the US power generating industry under Bush Sr, who let their existing coal burning plants have such a loophole in the Clean Air Act. 10 years later, under Bush Jr, their deadlines hit as upgrades came up, and Junior let them off the hook entirely. Even worse is that the agreement to "phase out" was a concession *from* the power industry, which traded that as a chip to get other concessions *to* them, which of course they kept. So they leveraged their welched deal into double the pollution. These filth barons must be terminated immediately - waiting longer means *our* early termination.
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No, those antique animals populated in a balanced environment, including near-starving proto/humans, and vaster plant respiration to compensate. The modern balance, with greater (human generated) desertification, ocean deadzones, forest fires and industry (including cars) is skewed into the redzone of greenhouse. As evidenced by the pre/historical records of ice cores, which reflect not only our unprecedented Greenhouse composition, but our adaptation-busting rate of Greenhouse accumulation over the past few handfuls of generations.
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The earth will not reach a historic temperature high (historic here means in earth history) with the current predictions. Before last ice age, it was warmer than it is now.
What is insteresting is that of the last 250.000 years of climate data collected, the past 14.000 years since the last ice age has been unusually stable. This stabillity can well be shifted enough to trigger instabillity by the predicted changes.
There is very little reason to doubt that exactly the stabillity of climate has permited the rise of human civilisation. With this stabillity there were no longer need to live as nomads and civilisations could evolve.
One could interpreet the migration as a result of global warming, I wont, there are too many other factors. But it may become a problem - the earth population is exploding while the fertile land is decreasing.
In the search for fertile land people will migrate. This will cause problems such as civil wars or instability of civilized nations as they give in to the pressure - your continued consumption and security may be threatend.
The point here, really is that there are so many unpredictable scenarios that has a huge range of impacts. The only sane thing to do is to minimize our influence and hope the best.
The non-believers of GW usually deny it because it will cost money here and now to take counter messures, they don't think about the posible economic gain in the long run. Say eg the US depence on oil.
Evidently some day there will be no more. Discussions are on when. Meanwhile US insist not to do anything because it will affect profit in the next decade - even if the negative effect will be earned back in the long run.
Say you have a that runs 1 miles a galon, You can buy one that runs 10 but it costs 10.000$. With the current price of gas 1$/galon, you have to drive about 11000 miles to earn it back. This is done in one year. (numbers made up for easy calculation). And then you say, but it will take a whole year to earn it back - it's not worth it!
Insisting not to take positive countermessures is the same thing - uh no, it will just cost a lot of money here and now. Try look at the postive perspectives of improving efficiency.
Penn and Teller debunk global warming and other environmental myths in the last episode of season 1 of their Showtime show, _Bullshit!_.
Here's a link to their page on that episode: http://www.sho.com/site/ptbs/topics.do?topic=eh
At least mafia-owned pizzarias make excellent pizza. Compare to Bill Gates.
Call it "capitalism", but the Russians *do* produce a vast amount of oil, coal, and natural gas.
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If I have a glass of ice and I fill it with water until the glass is almost overflowing and then I wait for the ice to melt the water level goes down because the ice was comprised of a lot of air. What would make the melting of the polar ice any different? From what I understand the longer ice takes to form the more air is trapped, therefor polar ice should have much more air in it then the stuff I make in my fridge. Where is my logic flawed here?
ice
The skeptics are made of straw: just a dwindling, ragtag band of malcontents? Is 17,000 a "very, very small" number? Not that I give Internet polls much credence, but I think you're underestimating the unbelievers. Bjørn Lomborg's book wouldn't have created such a stir, if skepticism were as discredited as you contend.
The industrial output is in addition to the volcanic output. The earth's species (including us) evolved fit to the environment with the overall rate of volcanic output. But we're pushing past the tipping point by going beyond that - by your numbers, an additional 50% beyond the equilibrium.
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Aargh. Scientists are funded by government. In the US, both houses of congress and the executive branch are run by people, hmm, how to put this mildly, disinclined to regulating energy.
If climate researchers were purely concerned with funding, then American science would be contrary to the science of other countries with goernments more inclined to strong regulation. Fortunately for science, this isn't the case, and for the most part, US science is in the same ballpark as other countries'.
This particular dog has been hunting way too long by now. It's just incredibly irritating to see how it keeps getting sent out all the time.
If I knew where my bread was buttered I'd just shut up, frankly. That's bad enough.
What's worse is having to have such altruism as I can muster painted as opportunism. Bah! I may be wrong, but I'm not doing all this squawking for the money!
Of all the global-warming-is-bunk propaganda ploys out there, (and they're all getting wheeled out today, it seems) this is the one that most effectively and reliably makes me just furious. I can't believe people are still buying it. You can't imagine how obnoxious it is.
As usual, for the real scoop see the IPCC Scientific Working Group Report please and thank you.
mt
No, the polluters need cover to protect their crimes, committed only to profit. The scientists, committed to *facts*, and the industry that produces them, can study whatever they want, as long as their research is scientific. In the middle you'll find the pseudoscientists paid by the polluters to say whatever they want, as long as their research *looks* scientific. And gumming up the works are the deniers with other agendas, like protecting the liars who are their only source of information.
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I'm guessing that you're not in any critical path of decisions when you deride Gore's NYC Greenhouse speech because of a snowstorm here that winter day. And if you're looking for "conclusive" scientific data on chaotic climate change over the next century or so, you'll have to wait for the famous "Gigatyphoon Conference of 2120", to be held in a retrofitted space capsule in the Andes (just for laughs before handing out the cyanide capsules).
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Sure. And I'm all ears on how having 6 kids tramples other people's rights. Or was that an attempt to distract from the issue?
Not really. I was merely pointing out that while these 6 kids might not starve, they are a burden on the economy, especially if the parents are not making enough to care for these children without support from the rest of society. It might not be trampling other peoples rights, but that doesn't make that kind of behavior acceptable.
Personally, I think we're going to end up with a Ender's Game type scenario, where people are limited by *law* to 2 children. Would it be morally and ethically right? Probably not. Would it be necessary? Most likely, and probably pretty damn soon.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
At least you've moved to denying that reducing Greenhouse gas production will help. That's a worthwhile debate, and more akin to profitable engineering than noble science. Since we disagree on the conclusion, we can agree to research the premises. In the process, we'll produce methods that work. Care to bet on carbon sequestration?
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You know, I've been reading along through this story's comments and I've been getting more and more annoyed by the idiocy of the responses. Finally I reached yours, and guess what? You win the Must Respond prize!
:-(
Do you actually know anything about population issues? Food is not the problem, except inasmuch as we produce too goddamned much of it.
Producing that food, now that can be a problem - indirectly. Modern agricultural yields are based upon monoculture (environmental Bad Thing), petrochemical fertilizer (environmental Bad Thing, supply-limited), petrochemically driven planting and harvest (environmental Bad Thing, supply-limited), irrigation (often an environmental Bad Thing due to salinization and erosion), et cetera.
But even THAT is not the real issue. Increasing population means increasing demand for... everything. Not just food. And increasing demand for everything means increased industrialization, with attendant waste products - of which we already have too fucking much. It means increased land area cleared for agriculture and human habitation (take a look at China some time, where there is no land left for agricultural expansion and the cities are taking up agricultural land - meaning more people with less land to feed them). It means we continue to destabilize vast and crucial ecosystems by reducing biodiversity and eliminating key species.
As far as global climate change goes (and I know you specifically didn't talk about this, but there's an awful lot of ignorance being promulgated as "Insightful" around here), the news is fairly conclusive and bolstered every day. Global climate models have improved to the point of actual usefulness thanks to extensive baseline research. Climate change is real. More to the point, the best models available have been used to predict the effects of anthropogenic climate forcing. Guess what? The observed results are exactly in line with the predictions. There's a strong case for anthropogenic climate change; anyone who claims otherwise has, IMNSHO, a hidden agenda.
And for the record, I'm not a climatic scientist. My parents, however, are retired environmental scientists who initiated, conducted, or participated in seminal research in this and related areas. And (to reply to another poster) their funding never depended upon supporting climate change with their data. In my country, at least, funding largely depends on how much money the government and the universities have, not on a particular agenda.
Fuck. Next I'll see someone trying to claim there's no such thing as acid rain.
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
Many people in the UK feel the same way about our capital which is also due for improvement/flooding.
The trouble is that many other places low down are nice and actually make a contribution to human culture and happiness...
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
By taking down this poor, defensless website, did we just help Bush in some way? I feel so dirty.
We are performing a really really big experiment on the one and only planet to which we have access. In my opinion, it makes sense to think carefully about doing too much modifying without understanding the consequences. This is why the "skeptics" piss me off; their idea is "We are not scientifically absolutely certain that we're screwing it up, so let's keep grinding away on this grand experiment until it's too late".
Studies of homeostatic systems show that they tend to preserve the appearance of stability by increasingly expensive means until they cannot sustain it any longer; then they crash fast and hard. When the environment crashes, people get hungry and turn into raging assholes with lots of weapons. Who is volunteering to be the first one shot in the competition for reduced resources?
Correlation may not necessarily imply causation, but it can imply causation with enough additional evidence, which does currently exist. A large enough positive correlation, and two trends starting at the same time (increase in pollution and increase in temperature) offer strong evidence for causation.
So we're expected to believe these guys as to what the Earth will be like in 10 years -- but at the same time, your local weatherman can't even tell you what the weather will be like tomorrow? Seriously, the world climate is a lot more complicated than any simulation could ever hope to recreate.
I was merely pointing out that while these 6 kids might not starve, they are a burden on the economy,
That's just goofy. As children, their parents support them. Their parents buy more goods, thus more money circulates the economy. When they grow up, they get jobs and cause even more wealth to be distributed.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Don't look in the
developed countries, chum.
Look at the problems in Brazil, for instance. Two ways to attack the problem. Pour assistance into said country, or have said country control their breeding population.
This was a specific statement issued to two people, not a general commandment issued to all of humanty. You also need to take things in context. This statement may be very good advice when given to the only two people on earth, but it is not so good advice applied today.
When you lose something irreplaceable, you don't mourn for the thing you lost, you mourn for yourself. - Harpo Marx
The passage with a bit more context is "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it."
I find it hard to believe that an order to "fill the earth" could be given to only two people. How could two people fill the earth? I think it's more probable that this was an order given to humanity as a whole.
When water freezes, it takes up more volume than when it is a solid. This has to do with the fact that ice has a different molecular structure than water (the H20 molecules ring up into little hexagons). Think about this, the glaciers in the north pole are floating. Therefore they must be less dense than the water they are floating in, therefore the ice *CANNOT* take up the same amount of volume. Now if the ice melts, you would in fact have a reduction in volume, meaning the sea level would lower.
However, the glaciers extend far above the surface. Something like 30% of the glacier will be above the water level. All of that will go into the ocean as the glacier melts. This may not sound like much, but we are talking *cubic kilometers* of ice here. Tons of it.
Now the question is how much do they cancel out? Does the reduction from ice->water cancel out the addition from ice above the surface -> sea?
What you said about the South Pole is indeed right though. Much of the ice is kilometers thick on top of the antarctica continent. All of that would have a completely positive effect on the sea level.
Instead of starting with a hypothetical (Global Warming) and trying to determine what we should or shouldn't do about it, we should start with some actual effect (alteration of the atmosphere) and deal with that.
Most scientists agree that Global Warming is real but all serious scientists agree (and can measure and prove) that humans are altering the composition of the atmosphere by dumping billions of pounds of industrial waste into it in the form of carbon dioxide.
Does everyone agree about what effect that change will have on the climate? No. But it's pretty damn unlikely that it will have no effect. If the effect of the alteration of the atmosphere is somewhat uncertain, and the change affects something our lives depend on, then it makes sense to stop doing it.
This is the atmosphere we're talking about. The only one we have. Let's stop experimenting on it (unless you have a backup atmosphere we can use in case we break this one.)
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
Is it just me, or did it seem strange when the entire media and government of the UK was publicising the new film "the secret life of walter mitty" a few months ago (Dr. David Kelly affair)? Mind you, they shot their load a bit too soon, because the film still isn't out yet. Spielberg needs to get his publicity machine better synced with local political scandals...
I even heard at one point that there wasn't oxygen on the planet until it got polluted by those damn plants and vegetation! - that's what I heard...
Did you also hear that those plants went extinct when they changed their atmosphere? There might be a lesson in there somewhere.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
I think you are right about floating ice displacing its melted water equivalent, but there is an awful lot of glacial ice sitting on top of Greenland. I read that there are measurable changes taking place there which indicate the ice sheet is melting. It could destabilize enough for vast sections to slide off into the ocean and melt.
Human nature could well destroy all human life. Most people don't want to become involved unless it directly affects them. The unfortunate thing about the damaging the eco system is that affects may not become apparent until it is far too late.
Personally, I don't believe that mankind is intelligent enough to save itself. My prediction:
Mankind will continue to argue about whether or not global warming is a problem. Many of those who will argue that it's unproven or just not true will have business agendas of their own and will believe that if it is a problem that there is still time for them to make their fortune before being forced to change their ways.
The eco system will the stressed until finally a slow but unstoppable cascade effect will occur. Once the point of no return has been passed one species after another will become extinct and death and destruction will climb up though the food chain.
By the time people stop arguing about the dangers of abusing our eco system it will be far too late. A massive world effort will ensue where all the wealth gained from raping our planet will be spent on a desperate search for a way to save ourselves but we will only find a grave.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
There is also a significant amount of ice on Greenland
which, if it melts in significant quantities will also pose a threat to coastal regions, oceanic currents and oceanic salinity.
Dogma - "let's just say we'd like to avoid any empirical entanglements."
The single largest imbalance in the earth's ecology is humanity. We take up more space than other species, we consume more resources, and we don't produce many things useful to other species.
If human civilization (which is mostly based on costal settlements) were to collapse as a result of rising oceans, what would the ecological impact be? Very little, I suspect. Most species would still have their niches. The niches would just move up hill and toward the poles.
The only species that would be heavily impacted would be those costal species that could not relocate faster than the water rises. I can't think of any, except humanity: we are not ourselves without our cities, and our cities cannot be moved.
Thus, global warming/flooding is not an environmental problem, it is an enviromental solution.
Global flooding is an economic problem though...
vi is my shepard, I shall not font.
I am not a tree hugging hippy, i believe in being environmentally responsible. so lets look at the whole thing from another perspective
1) the amount of people with severe allergies and as-ma is increasing exponentially.
2) SUV's use 10 times more resources and create 3 times more waste that normal cars (both manufacturing use and disposal).
3) more Americans buy SUV's as a status symbol than any other country.
4) people who buy SUV's don't need SUV's
5) technology exists and is in mass production that can
a) make cars that get 60+ MPG,b) are safer and use less natural resources in their production.
as long as people drive SUV's around we are fucked. because the SUV points to a general opinion that i don't care what happens in the future i want to look good now.
what we need to do is outlaw any car that way-es over 1 ton and gets less then 60 MPG and our economic and political world will be a much better place.
Heh, Barrow is said to be at "high risk" under threat by about 2070 or something like that.
:p
Speaking as someone who currently works there, I can confirm with confidence that it isn't a bad thing at all
One thing I remembered about Sept 11, 2002 was the lack of planes. Afterwards, analysis found some interesting impacts on the weather. Check out this URL, as I don't think many people noticed it:
1 2, 00.html?tw=wn_story_related
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,525
Makes you wonder what the long term affect is of everything we do...
I'm out of touch with the science part, but a thing that would convince me of the human impact is climate archeology showing a tight correlation between co2 and average temperature. The aim is then to distinguish between intrinsic variability and the impact of humanity, intrinsic variability being , uh, large.
,which is a bit more general, and not related to blame.
I think(from memory) the total variation of sea level since the ternary is about 200m. Is this mirrored in the CO2 levels? A link anyone?
Another angle is , why think in terms of proof if climate change is caused(or maybe triggered) by humans or not.
The question then becomes "is it worth it to try and take control over CO2 levels"
And the general question becomes just "what can we do to reduce the damage from climate change", which does more than just 'try and reduce the cause'
Finding out for myself! Brrrr, I'd rather take the word for it from a scientist i have confidence in.
And in that case, let's skip statisticians. Weather is a lousy system for taking samples. The average temperature in one century is different from the average temperature in another century, the same applies for millenia, and so on. It doesn't average out.
The USSR, with an economy about 40% of the US, produced about an equal amount of pollution in the late 80s and 90's. Pollution numbers were derived from data from the Earth Resources Technologoy Satellites, the 40% figure from post-Communist Russian economists.
Representaive gov't may be a big help, but not gov't in general.
Which world do you live in? Sure much of the US may be designed around automobiles, but much of the other 95% of the world is not.
Folks, hate to break it to you; but it supposed to get warmer. It is the end of an Ice Age and part of the natural cycle of things. These tend to run in 1000 year cycles.
About 985AD, Leif Ericson's Viking colony in Greenland raised wheat. How, because it was warmer then than it is today! Circa 43BC, Julius Caesar wrote of the red wine vineyards in England. Sorry, it is too cold today to have such grapes in England.
The area that I live, Dallas, Texas has been under water a number of times. I'm not worried about it going back under water in my life time. So, it is not the end of the world, my children friends, but part of the natural cycle on this planet. Think in geologic time spans and it will make a lot more sense.
My 2,
Will
This might be interesting, if I actually believed in global warming. In any case, I'll be quite safe here in the upper Midwest.
Sounds like E85 fuel is the way to go. Not only does it cut dependency on foreign oil, but supporting your local farms in the production of E85 is good for your local ecconomy as well. And..it's renewable.
"Current research prepared by Argonne National Laboratory (a U.S. Department of Energy Laboratory), indicates a 38% gain in the overall energy input/output equation for the corn-to-ethanol process. That is, if 100 BTUs of energy is used to plant corn, harvest the crop, transport it, etc., 138 BTUs of energy is available in the fuel ethanol. Corn yields and processing technologies have improved significantly over the past 20 years and they continue to do so, making ethanol production less and less energy intensive."
I'm willing to bet with the advancements in bio-engineering, we can get longer chained hydrocarbons from plant (or faster growth). This would yield even more available energy to work with.
Check out http://www.e85fuel.com for more info.
Life is not for the lazy.
Sad...but true.
Read the entire 2 volumes, and the financial persons answers (which seemed to be the most "informative). Because I consider myself fairly scientific, but also historic, I don't put much stock in Global Warming Theories. However one of the things that was interesting about Volume two on Foresight's website (God that is a horrid name) is the mention of atmoshperic saturation, coupled (at the same time) with droughts around the world. This has always confussed me; the ability of this "supposed" Global warming to increase the ammount of water vapor in our atmosphere "exponentially" (eg: rain) but for it also to decrease it because of evaporation and heat.
As with most theories that have surfaced as to the validity or invalidity of Global Warming I find them to be fairly cyclical, providing worries or answers that are easily countered or canceled out by another factor. This is on par with the claims that increased Green House gasses would actually counter the holes in the O-zone, or even better that the heat that is produced by the supposed "Green house" affect is very nearly canceled out by the fact that it blocks out just as much radiation and/or heat. Can someone verify this or at least give me a better idea then this poorly put together site....
Since when is a natural cycle a consequence? The earth enters a natural ice age whether humans contribute to it or not. There is nothing we can do to deter the next ice age, if we try to alter the earth's natural cycle, I'm sure we'd do some irriversable damage in the process. Just let the earth run it's course, and in the mean time try to branch out into space or prepare for the next ice age.
On the subject of efficiency... Nothing beats a human on a bicycle.
Try it! It's fun, healthy and very low in pollution.
Why blame the world for this? The US' population is about 300 million, but contributes/pollutes CO2 by the order of 25%.
Oh that's right, blame everyone else for the problem in your back yard is much easier. Keep driving your SUVs and keep your computers' uptime as long as possible, but don't whine about how the world is the problem.
You're buying into the bull that the oil barrons are feeding you. By being efficient and using renewable energy, we use less oil, which either saves us money or we won't have to pay for energy anymore. Using less energy is bad for the oil market.
There's also the new economy/market for renewable energy, which the oil barrons would like you to not think about.
Meanwhile, the government is doing bugger all in other polluting aspects that might piss off the voters. 3 million more cars on the road since Labour came to power, for example, and the scrapping of the escalator in fuel taxes.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
You obviously have never been in ecological disater zones like Mexico City, some part in the former Easter Block or the disappearing rain forest in Brazil.
Otherwise you would silently drop such stupid assertions.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I would say only two words Enron, Shell.
Now, wise guy, get out of that hole if you possibly can.
What an idiot.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Eeurope is not socialist, no matter how you want to spin it.
European states are all capitalist but goverments listen more carfully to the needs of the people and act in consequence.
In other countries people are left to their own devices.
Choose your favourite but don't lie (even rethorically) when making your point.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Breathe the air and then, while you desperately try to grasp for some oxygen for your lungs, tell me that environment is not important.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
That's also human influence, is it not? Or am I missing news about millions of free cows happily farting away in some distant corner of Antarctis?
Dr. S. Fred Singer is an atmospheric physicist who served as the first director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service, chief scientist of the U.S. Department of Transportation; deputy assistant administrator for policy in the Environmental Protection Agency; and deputy assistant secretary of the Department of the Interior. He wrote the books "Global Climate Change," "The Greenhouse Debate Continued," and "Hot Talk, Cold Science: Global Warming's Unfinished Debate."
0 040422.shtml
He was asked the following question:
Tell me about global warming. Is there a consensus? Is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? Is it clearly damaging the environment?
His answer:
I think the simplest way to talk about it is to look at it, ask questions: Is the climate actually warming? And then you have to look at the data. And the data that I'm most familiar with, and I think the best data that we have, come from weather satellites because they make observations of the whole globe every day and they're good instruments. They tell us the climate is not warming significantly. So this is not a problem. To attack a non-problem with a measure that would really damage our economy, I think would just be completely irresponsible.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/larryelder/le2
So here we have a definite expert telling us everything is alright. Who to believe?
Government IS the problem.
I agree in general. I did not mean that correlations indicate causation.
Complex systems have a network of cyclical cause-effect relations. Say, global warming can result in CO2 changes .
But in this specific context I'd have a lot more confidence in the models if there is proof(heh-heh) of historical CO2(main component of greenhouse gasses) -Temperature correlation . To me it would put me at ease-subjectively- with that the models are playing in the right ballpark.
I don't think they're all doing 'miscalculations', just don't trust a certain self evident intuition. One should judge the detailed realistic model more by the toy models from which it's derived.
The early cries about global warming were certainly based on insulator models. The effect is real enough, but how long have they been adding details, 'adding tweaking buttons' to this model?
Are there also models where CO2 acts as a 'regime shift trigger'(merely pushing the system in a new regime, like triggering an ice age that could also occur spontaneously), models where it acts as a 'climate stability controller'(making climate more predictable or more erratic, rather than warmer or colder) or as an 'amplifier'(multiplyling the impact of other factors)?
The common intuition fits models where CO2 is an and insulator (plain greenhouse effect). And I'm not sure if the bulk of the media can handle any information that does not match this intuition.
Please bear in mind that much of the "grain" that cows eat is stalks, leaves and other material which is not edible by humans. Also, grass-fed beef uses feed that is *entirely* inedible to humans as well as often unusable for other forms of agriculture.
I do agree that grain-feeding (as opposed to silage) is wasteful, and also unhealthy in terms of the resulting meat's fat and nutrition content. An interesting article on the subject can be found here:
Splendor from the Grass
By Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig, PhD
Splendor from the Grass
For information on more sustainable farming methods, check out the concept of Permaculture:
Permaculture the Earth
However, at current (and increasing) levels of human population and consumption, even grass-fed beef is going to cause more damage than the environment can handle, so it's certainly not a cure-all -- but at least it can reduce some of the detrimental environmental and health effects of our agriculture and diet, as part of an overall movement towards a more sustainable (agri)culture.
Gwneir anghywirdebau sy buchedd. Namyn dydy erioed anghywirdeb at wedi caru.
Are you some kind of loon-a-whack religious nutter who takes the bible literally? Oh my god. That just ensures that you are DOOMED TO FAILURE.
Who is Twirlip of the Mists?
"Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it."
Okay, been there, done that. What next?
Nope, no literal Bible translation for me. I'm just playing along with the thread of the argument, for argument's sake.
OK. So why have you foed me again?? I don't get it. We seem to share the same views based on what I've read in your comments. I surely hope that it has nothing to do with my, admittedly, brash approach to discussion. I only wish to intimidate those who intimidate my compatriots.
Who is Twirlip of the Mists?
Hm. I don't recall foeing (is that a word?) you before, but I could easily be wrong. I'll unfoe you.
However, I'm not so sure we have the same views. I happen to enjoy reading twirlip and bmetzler, for instance. I'm also firmly planning on voting for Bush this fall, though I have plenty of friends who are on the other side. So you'll have to decide what you think about me.
I also have a tendency to foe people who are overly boorish in their style, no matter what their views, just to make slashdot more enjoyable for me to read. Increase the signal/noise ratio, as it were. (I know, I know... "On slashdot, man?! You're insane!" I'm probably gonna hit the friend/foe limit soon.)
But I'm gonna give you another chance, since you ask.
I see. You sound like a fair man regardless of our differences. But I think I know now that you probably added me to your foes list due to my, sometimes, brash behavior. I am trying my hardest to mimic what I see on the right. There isn't enough of that kind of thing on the left (thank goodness), but it's needed to attract attention. Thanks for unfoeing me. If you wind up adding me back on, I can understand why though.
Who is Twirlip of the Mists?