Slashdot Mirror
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!
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.
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)
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
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.
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 |
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.
. . . 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.
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.
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
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)
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.
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)
Yes. But that extra ice is the part that sticks out above the water. The weight of the ice (including the part sticking out) is exactly the same as that of the displaced water. So when the ice melts, the resulting water will have precisely the same volume as the hole in the water displaced by the ice.
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?
Hasn't lived in Winnipeg Canada. ;)
The bigger threat is agenda based junk science.
www.junkscience.com
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
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?
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."
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
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.
BINGO! You are correct. But acknowledging this fact would mess up a perfectly dandy argument in favor of the Kyoto protocol. That's why it tends to get conveniently overlooked...
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
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.
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.
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
> Where is my logic flawed here?
You're forgetting that a lot of the ice is above the water. So when it melts the resultant water flows into the sea.
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.
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!
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!
You are overlooking the fact that the water expands when it warms up
In the case of Ice -> water it contracts. Ice is less dense than liquid water - which is why it floats. Liquid water does change desity as it warms up, but not very much. Averaged with all the temperature changes of all the oceans of the world this is not going to be a significant factor.
In order for sea levels to rise ice that isn't currently floating would have to melt. And it is, most of the glaciers in North America are loosing mass as is the Greenland Ice Sheet. The Antartic Ice sheet is loosing its Ice shelf in clumps (something that happened in the 60's in the artic).
All generalizations are false, including this one. Mark Twain
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.
BINGO! You are correct. But acknowledging this fact would mess up a perfectly dandy argument in favor of the Kyoto protocol. That's why it tends to get conveniently overlooked...
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.
Don't forget that much of this ice is above the waterline, which once melted would transfer below the waterline, raising sea level.
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.
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
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
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.