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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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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.
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.
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.
I'm not saying global warming is 100% real. However, there is SOME evidance to support it, and given that, why not have lower emission vehicles? If nothing else, I would prefer not to be able to see the air (the green sunsets in LA are neat however).
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
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
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.
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.
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
Of course you have to keep in mind that (and I'm pretty sure about this, not certain though, it's hard to wrap your head around) ice from the north pole displaces just as much water when it's ice as when it's water - because it's floating, melting that shouldn't change the level. However melting or mining ice from the south pole will cause the sea level to rise, because it's on land at the moment.
Hope that made some kind of sense, and if I'm wrong about any of it please correct me!
"Studies have shown that people who eat peanuts live longer than those who do not eat."
What, you mean only the ice over water on the North Pole will melt, and the ice over land such as Antarctica, Greenland, Canada, Russia, and such will still stay ice for some reason? Or does any water melting from that ice somehow not alter the sea level?
If it seems that easy to undermine such a concept being presented by a number of scientists, then you may want to reconsider whether you're taking everything into account.
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
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!
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.
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...
Actually, as posted elsewhere, this is incorrect. Frozen H2O forms a structure that actually is less dense than liquid H2O, which is why ice floats.
... is less dense than liquid H2O". Hence, when melted it will compact back into liquid and NOT raise the sea level. It's a question of mass, not volume!
Don't forget that much of this ice is above the waterline, which once melted would transfer below the waterline, raising sea level.
This is true, but the part of the ice that is above the waterline is entirely made up of the extra "structure that