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Siberian Permafrost Melting
TeknoHog writes "New
Scientist Reports on a remarkable runaway process of global warming
that has been going on in Siberia for the past few years. 'Western Siberia has warmed faster than almost anywhere else on the planet, with an increase in average temperatures of some 3C in the last 40 years.' As a result, a million
square kilometers (the area of France and Germany) of frozen peat bog have
been found to be melting, according to Russian and international
scientists. This releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas, which
contributes to further global warming."
La-la-la-la-la! MMMMM!!! I can't hear your!!! La-la-la-la-la!!
The war is going well, we plan to fix Social Security if the stubborn opponents would just see reason! I have political capital to spend and I'm going to spend it!
La-la-la-la-la! MMMMM!!! Hoo-Hah! Yellow rose of Texas .. HMMM MMM MMM MMM MMM MMMMMMM!!! La-la-la! (Dick see if we can round up some more troops and invade Siberberia, lookin' for weapons, setting up democracy sorta thing) La-la-la-la!!!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Again, from all the science it seems like global warming will be a catastrophe, but it would be nice to find a few more bog people.
And yes, I have a degree in anthropology.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
I think their server has been warmed by more than 3C.
With all that methane being produced, you could surely turn that area into a methane farm. We've got engines that can run off methane, and those could be used as generators for power into the grid. This would be a good thing for Russia. Might as well take advantage of the energy that's about to come your way.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I'm will to bet you won't hear that many people in Siberia complaining.
People who live in an area considered the "frozen hell" of this world are complaining about it finally warming up?
Yes, as a representative of Standard Oil Co....ehm...I mean, Exxon, Mobil, and other oil companies, I would like to assure all of the slashdot readers that there is no such things as global warming. These are lies spread by liberal commie scientists with an agenda. We, on the other hand, are completely impartial and unbiased.
American Left scientist: This is bald proof that Global Warming is occuring and causing climatic changes in our lifetime. The rise in greenhouse gasses since the advent of the Industrial Revolution matches the rise in global temperatures, giving further proof that humans are a key component in the climatic puzzle. By drastically reducing our fossil fuel emissions and other man-made greenhouse gasses, it should be possible to manage the expected warming trend. Acting now is absolutely necessary to keeping pristine environments like the Siberian taiga in their pristine state.
American Right scientist: This is interesting data. However a few degrees change over a short span of only 40 years is not indicative of any long-term trend towards either a cooling cycle or a heating cycle. Nevertheless, as the historical temperature has fluctuated greatly in the past and it seems that we are actually coming out of a trough, it seems reasonable to assume that a warming trend would be on the horizon. At the least, it should indicate that we need more study of the phenomenon.
European scientists: Ziss is clearly ze work of ze fat, stinking Americans and zer fat, stinking wives and cars.
Siberian citizens: Ya, I am sinkink dat I like za balmy weather.
That aside, one wonders what presidents eat when they get into the White House. How can one protect American jobs while exporting our entire industrial base with the so called out-sourcing?
PS: I am speaking as an American.
But as a native of Western Siberia I can confirm some very unusual weather patterns. For instance this summer has been so far very tropics-like. Around 35C during the day with 80%+ humidity. Very unusual...
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
http://www.waverley.gov.uk/waste/peat.asp#What%20i s%20Peat?
Peat is made of incompletely decomposed plant remains, which accumulate in waterlogged soils over thousands of years. It occurs because the natural processes of decay are prevented by the acidic water logging and depleted oxygen.
If the Siberian wasteland was covered with plants and water for thousands of years, doesn't that imply that during that time the wasteland was not frozen?
And, if it was not frozen, doesn't that imply that it was warmer in the distant past than it was in the recent past?
So, the question is, what caused that warming thousands of years ago and what is the "proper" temperature for the earth?
If the earth wants to return the tundra to a boglike state, more power to him!
David Bellamy said, "We criticise people from the third world countries for not conserving their rainforests, but when it comes to our peat bogs which are actually a rarer habitat than the tropical rainforest, we are doing a much worse job". (The Times, Saturday November 25, 2000).
Exploitation by afforestation, conversion to agriculture and commercial peat extraction has destroyed much of our peat lands. In the last century we lost 75% of our blanket bogs and 94% of our raised bogs. Gardeners and horticulture used a staggering 2.55 million cubic metres of peat each year. In the UK there is less than 9,500 acres of near natural raised bog left.
Hello, we are coming out of an ice age! I know I am one of the 'unwashed masses' when it comes to the science of Global Warming, so don't take this as an authority, but last I heard, the Earth fluctuates quite frequently (geologic time) in temperature, and the dinosaurs were enjoying world-wide tropics.
We very well may be causing this, which would be bad, but what if we are not?
Before you mod me down, remember, good scientists ask lots of questions, annoying questions.
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to govern any other" -John Ada
Not only that, but the waste products would be water and carbon dioxide. CO2 is of course a greenhouse gas, but one far less potent than methane. IIRC, it's a factor of about 100 to 1, which means that if one molecule of methane produces one molecule of CO2 when burned, you're solving 99% of the problem.
It is debatable whether 99% remediation is sufficient, but surely it's a good start. At the very least, it would be nice to use some of the energy produced in combustion to sequester the CO2 rather than dump it into the atmosphere.
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
So I guess the remaining question is how fast this 70 billion tonnes of methane is actually entering the atmosphere (adjust properly for acceleration effects)...
Come play Moral Decay!
hey, Global warming is just a THEORY...
oh, I guess I should add that ID is just an idea, but I will omit that in order to dupe the retarded public.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
The last 100 years has been just one big huge orgy of mass consumption and it still continues, spreading to developing countries like China. But anyone who thinks we can just continue to rape the globe forever with no consquences is delusional.
Question is, are we going to be stupid enough to continue down this wreckless path? Does humanity secretly have an unfulfilled death wish? Was World War II just a fluke or was it a flash of the selfish inhumanity really lies within each of us?
Listen I'm willing to admit I'm part of the problem. I recognize things have to change. Each of needs to wake up, find a way to snap out of these unsustainable lifestyles we all lead and avoid the terrible consequences that surely await us if we don't.
Let's quit being fucking idiots. What do we need to do?
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
The climate on planet Earth has gotten less than a degree warmer in the last 150 years.
I'd contribute it to the global cycle of change just like spring, summer, fall, and winter,
day and night, axial tilt, the tides, the ice age,
and the inevitability of mid-season on FOX.
But let's not jump to any conclusions.
..this submission is a good example of why your statistics aren't representative of the real picture of climate change. When you say, "Hey, it's not even 1 degree warmer! Bok bok bok!", you're talking about average temperatures.
Meanwhile, some places -- like Siberia -- are heating up, while others -- like warm ocean currents that heat air -- are cooling down. So it's not surprising that some areas are getting hotter and some are getting cooler. The point is that we can see evidence that a climactic equilibrium that has existed for hundreds of years is now becoming much more dynamic and unpredictable. And we're probably to blame for at least some of it, and maybe most of it.
Anyway, the short version of this speech is: Averages are often terribly misleading statistics.
Methane doesn't have a smell, and it's not the primary component of farts. Profane Muthafucka has been working hard and long in his laboratory to answer the age-old question: what's in farts, why do they smell so bad, and why do I enjoy my own farts, but nobody else's?
The answer is that it's mostly hydrogen, which doesn't smell. The odor comes from organic compounds such as indole, skatole, and mercaptans, and the inorganic gas hydrogen sulfide. All of these compounds taken into the nose together, oddly enough, smell like poop.
The phenomenon of enjoyment of your own farts, but nobody else's farts is still something of a mystery to me. I am currently spending long hours in a closed box, alternately by myself and with a man eating Taco Bell burritos to find the answer. I am confident that this research might have some remote application to the war on terror, either for detecting bin Ladin, or for flushing him out. Literally.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Pure methane is odorless, but when used commercially is usually mixed with small quantities of strongly-smelling sulfur compounds such as ethyl mercaptan to enable the detection of leaks.
(from wikipedia)
GOOFUS has a PhD.
GALLANT has a PhD in a field unrelated to his research.
GOOFUS gets little respect as a scientist outside the scientific community.
GALLANT gets little respect as a scientist inside the scientific community.
GOOFUS drives a beat-up old car.
GALLANT drives a BMW unless his chauffeur is driving.
GOOFUS wears street clothes to work, maybe a lab suit on occasion.
GALLANT wears three piece suits at all times.
GOOFUS is employed by a "university", a "hospital", or a "laboratory".
GALLANT is employed by a "Coalition", an "Institute", an "Association", a "Foundation", a "Council", or a "White House".
GOOFUS earns $30000 per year unless they cut his funding.
GALLANT earns $200000 per year but makes his real money from speaking fees.
GOOFUS lives anywhere in the country.
GALLANT lives in a wealthy area near Washington DC, but may have additional homes elsewhere.
GOOFUS may sometimes be filmed standing in front of big melting icebergs.
GALLANT may be filmed sitting in front of a bookcase or standing behind a podium at a $2000 per plate fundraiser, although there may be ice melting in his drink.
GOOFUS is a dues-paying member of several scientific grassroots organizations.
GALLANT is on the payroll of several scientific astroturf organizations.
GOOFUS gets summoned for jury duty but is never picked as a juror.
GALLANT claims "the jury is still out" on evolution or global warming, since he considers himself to be on the jury.
GOOFUS maintains the world is five billion years old.
GALLANT isn't really saying, but creationists distribute his pamphlets all the time.
GOOFUS claims the world is warming as a direct result of human activity.
GALLANT either claims that climate change doesn't exist, or if it does, that humans have nothing to do with it.
GOOFUS and his graduate students do the dirty work of collecting raw data and looking for conclusions to be drawn from it.
GALLANT does the dirty work of discrediting GOOFUS by manipulating his data in Excel with statistically invalid techniques.
GOOFUS writes scientific papers and grant proposals.
GALLANT writes the nation's environmental legislation and a column for the Wall Street Journal's editorial page.
GOOFUS draws scientific conclusions from the data he collects that usually come out in agreement with the scientific consensus.
GALLANT paints the scientific consensus as being entirely political in nature and enjoys comparing himself to Galileo.
GOOFUS is heavily trained to be a skeptic and to treat information from all sources with a skeptical mind.
GALLANT is heavily marketed as a skeptic but reserves his skepticism for GOOFUS.
GOOFUS isn't paid much attention by the press since his opinions are commonplace among scientists.
GALLANT holds maverick opinions for a scientist which keeps him busy running from one balanced talk show to the next.
GOOFUS has no PR skills.
GALLANT leverages his PR experience all the time, although he has access to paid PR staff.
GOOFUS claims the sky is falling and we have to take painful steps to reduce CO2 emissions now.
GALLANT claims the free market will take care of it and recommends solving the problem by conning Zimbabwe out of their pollution credits.
GOOFUS advises his kids not to go into science.
GALLANT advises the president.
It's a mistake to think of this as a linear trend. It is accelerating; also it takes some decades to warm up to a given forcing. What we see now is the warming we already committed to in 1980. What's more, policies themselves take time to develop and implement, so really what we see now was pretty much the inevitable warming that we had in place by 1960 or so.
In effect, we are already committed to fifty years of more warming. If we don't get a grip on it, there is no reason to expect it won't accelerate, and go on for a very long time. If we do nothing as far as policy is concerned, the science tells us pretty clearly that things will keep getting more out of whack and faster.
The question is, when do we decide to do something about it? Until the coal runs out or we get it into our heads that it is time to act, whatever we see at any given moment will be a small fraction of what we are already committed to.
When I first started studying this matter in 1991, I believed that the world would start taking action by about now, so I did not believe people who saw this as the biggest problem around.
I was wrong.
At this point we are in big trouble and still lots of folks are coming up with irrational arguments for ignoring it.
mt
We NeoCons don't deny that the climate is changing; we deny that it's the fault of mankind. We maintain that climate change is a natural part of the planet's life cycle. The planet experienced dramatic global warming following the last ice age -- my car's not that old, is yours?
I am not left-handed, either!
More than a little. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=74 http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=76
mt
Just hits me strange.
So what was this frozen peat bog before? How did peat grow in ice?
> I am listening to Michael Crichton's STATE OF FEAR book, and I'll admit I have my doubts now about global warming claims. Or at least I'm more skeptical now about claims from either side. Suffice it to say, Crichton is normally a very astute researcher for his books, even though he obviously bends the truth to make his fiction more interesting.
Why the hell anyone would rely on a fiction writer to inform them about the state of the world is beyond me.
Or if you do, you should at least be a dedicated geek and get your spin on reality from Star Wars or The Matrix.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Why does your political leaning have anything to do with whether you believe humankind is causing global warming? If you're that far gone, you're not judging the issue on the evidence; you're believing whatever fits most comfortably with your pre-established worldview.
I should buy some cement.
> We NeoCons don't deny that the climate is changing; we deny that it's the fault of mankind. We maintain that climate change is a natural part of the planet's life cycle.
Since it's going to screw up your golden age regardless of what's causing it, why aren't you interested in doing whatever is possible to reverse it?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
High latitude methane may nevertheless work out to be a big deal. Softening the blow a bit is the fact that methane is shorter-lived in the atmosphere than CO2.
Some researchers believe that tundral methane releases play a big role in the termination of the recent glaciations.
mt
So, wait....if it's not natural for this formerly "permafrost" peat bog to be melting, how is it that this peat moss was, at some point, able to grow in the first place?
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
What!? Dude. Every single country in the UN signed the Kyoto protocol, including Russia. Two, the US and Australia, have since changed their minds and won't ratify it. There are only four other countries that haven't yet ratified it: Croatia, Kazakhstan, Monaco, and Zambia.
The Kyoto Protocol isn't some little thing. It's a pact between 141 countries to tackle global warming, even though the planet's #1 greenhouse gas polluter refuses to help.
I should buy some cement.
" What on Earth makes you think we can change it? " An American relative gave me a "Say you can and you will" poster (never seen anything comparable in any other country). World community except 1 is trying to prevent too drastic change.
"What on Earth makes you think we should change it?!?!"
Um.. disappearing glaciers? Insurance companies panicking ?
"Are you so arrogant as to think we have a say in it?"
Dutch researchers calculated China and India can reduce emissions even when the use of electricity will double. Key word: efficiency. Absent word: nuclear power.
While it may seem paradoxical that even though we can't be sure if changes could lead to sudden warming or sudden cooling, pumping out tons and tons of greenhouse gasses into the air is basically performing a huge, uncontrolled experiment in global climate change.
It's not that hard to imagine why we can't really tell whether sudden warming or sudden cooling will be the result.
Imagine a pendulum. It's a ridiculously simplified model, but it provides the right basic mechanics to get the idea across. Set a pendulum swinging and it fluctuates naturally back and forth about an equilibrium. If you give the pendlum a hard push while it's swinging a couple of different things can happen: it can swing up high reach it's peack then swing back hard just as high in the opposite direction; alternatively you can push it so hard that it swings up over the top and just keeps going round and round in the same direction.
In essence we are giving the global climate a push. Is it a hard push? Hard enough to push past a tipping point, or swing back hard in the other direction? It's easy to enumerate all the significant forces acting on a pendulum, but if you give one a push it can still be hard to guess which way it will go. The number of different forces acting in rough balance to keep the global climate gently fluctuating is frighteningly large, and many we can currently only guess at. Which way will things go? Will forces dampen the pendulums swing or exaggerate it? What are all the different tipping points for all those different forces? These are very non-trivial questions.
The only really obvious thing is that introducing a new and unchecked driving force to a potentially unstable system is not especially clever. What exactly will happen is unclear, but surely it is sensible for us to seek our own equilibrium that suits us rather than letting nature find its own equilibrium that may not.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
Am I the only one who is excited about this?? Think of the possibilities! We've already exhumed one mammoth from the ice in Siberia... think about how many more things we're going to find out about our ancestors, how many exciting possibilities there are. I'm really not worried.
I'm a paleontologist, and actually I'm not excited about this at all. Melting permafrost means melting carcasses of mammoth, woolly rhino and other fauna of the last glaciation. If nobody's there to pick them up at the exact time when they melt, it's buh-bye frozen fossils and welcome microbes.
"We'd have to wear gas masks when we went outside, because of air pollution."
0 5cavallo
You can thank American Government pollution laws for that not happening. Go to a major city in China; there, you'll DEFINITELY need gas masks to deal with pollution, especially near those "free enterprize" zones where pollution is not regulated. China has 7 of the world's most polluted cities. Proof: http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/news/nts40287.htm
Oh and recently, Exxon-Mobil Corporation announced that peak oil will happen in 5 years. Proof: http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=mj
Also, for a good miniature end-of-the-world scenario that happened, go read up on Rapa Nui, aka Easter Island.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Well, let's see... The amount of energy coming from the sun and from the radioactive decay in the earth is pretty much the same as it is today, for say 100 Million years. All during that time quite a bit of that energy has been stored by plants and microscopic critters and was deposited in the ocean floor..
We've been using that stored energy, releasing all of that carbon which is superbly good at reflecting infrared energy--which impacts the primary means for the cooling of the planet--radiation. It's proven by ice core samples that CO2 levels were fairly level for a long long time up until the 1800's, where concentration has grown almost exponentially. Even the oil giants will admit it in their studies!
We're using up gobs of energy that was stored up a long long time ago, which necessarily produces heat (except for energy derived from natural events which we have no control over, such as hydro, wind, geothermal, etc.--but most of our power comes from coal, oil and gas). Yearly consumption, by the way, is on the order of ~500 exajoules today. That's a buttload of energy, and if the earth can't get rid of it by radiating, it's just not gonna happen. If radiating ability is significantly impaired, we lose. Once it gets hot enough, water vapor will start to have much the same impact as the CO2. The cycle could literally run away and blow up in our faces, for all we know. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. I can't say, but many scientists have a pretty good idea of what will happen, but it's possible that they know what will happen about as well as anyone else... So, why stack all your chips and throw the ball into the roulette wheel without giving it a real good thought?
So, it's a two forked problem, we're pumping out tons of energy such that the planet has never experienced before, and we ARE impairing it's ability to radiate, as far as we can tell. History can't account for today, and for mankind--and we must tread cautiously because of that. It's true that there are climatic changes over the course of thousands of years, no argument there. But there were no humans driving their H2's around back then. A few degrees over the course of a couple hundred years are particularly worrying in the grand scheme of things, and sticking your head in the ground is the worst kind of solution!
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
There's an article on WorldChanging.com today about this very topic. They discuss the viability of terraforming techniques to address this problem.
The nearest terraforming solution would be the use of methanotrophes, a bacteria that is known to consume methane.
It's worth a read (it's enviro-techy, a good combination).
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/003283.html
World Changing - News for Humans, Stuff about our planet
There was a recent article in the New York Times about this and now there is this article: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1730079, 00.html
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
Those lefties want to leave it there, can you believe that? It is the will of God that we dig it up and burn it -- NOW!
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
climate change is a natural part of the planet's life cycle
*Slow* climate change is. As far as we can tell, the world has never seen anywhere close to this fast of global climate change. Perhaps you remember this famous graph. Note two key details:
* The biggest difference, as far as resolution will allow, is about 10C. It took about *20,000* years for this to happen. Just at our rate over the last century, that would take only 2000 years. At current rates? About 500 years.
* CO2 levels have an incredible correlation with temperature
dramatic warming following the last ice age
That was nothing - three degrees average in several thousand years? That's a walk in the park compared to what we have ongoing currently.
Next to my desk we have an Ire Extinguisher. Our boss is really assertive, so we like the idea of having it.
If we do nothing as far as policy is concerned, the science tells us pretty clearly that things will keep getting more out of whack and faster.
The science says NOTHING conclusive concerning what part of global warming is natural and what part is due to human activity. Jury's still out on this one, at least to people who care about empiricism.
Without an answer to that question (and even with one) we really have no idea what, if anything, can be done to slow down warming. Everything in that area is pure guesswork and nobody knows if doing things like drastically reducing emissions will have any effect. We only have a single sample to work with, and a wrong guess won't become apparent for at least fifty years.
The question is, when do we decide to do something about it?
Perhaps when we know what part of climate change is natural and what part is artificial? And after we determine with some reasonable degree of certainty what methods can be used to slow it down - assuming that's the desirable outcome?
whatever we see at any given moment will be a small fraction of what we are already committed to.
That's true no matter what happens and what process is to blame. We've only got the one planet, which means we're "committed to" whatever the hell happens to it regardless.
At this point we are in big trouble
No, we aren't. The doomsayers cry out that the end is nigh, but so far humans have adapted remarkably well to changing climactic conditions. In fact, humans sans any real technology have managed to survive several much more radical climate changes - and without their numbers being endangered in any real way.
still lots of folks are coming up with irrational arguments for ignoring it.
Some folks ignore it, but a good many would like some more science along with an empirically sound approach, rather than frenzied hair-pulling, teeth-gnashing, and I-just-pulled-this-out-of-my-ass guesswork.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
it's simple. the ice melts in summer, exposing the previous years layer of dead moss. on top of that, a new layer grows. in the winter, that moss dies, and becomes the dead layer the next years layer grows on, and so on. this has been happening for thousands of years straight. sometimes much much longer.
the bottom layers of moss (pete, decomposed moss) haven't defrosted in millenia, and they now are. and staying that way. I think that's the news.
I haven't read the article, mind you, and this explanation is from memory of biology 10. so I may be waaaaay off. someone, feel free to confirm or deny this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peat
hey, guess what. I didn't read the wikipedia article either, but I glanced at it, and I think it agrees. w00t!
What irks me, really, is that while 'neo-cons,' for lack of a better stereotype, have been sneering at eco-sensitive groups and warnings regarding pollution, for apparently being wrong, they fail to realize that it was only these whistle blowers that caused the environmental laws and restrictions to come into place that have manages to slow(if not entirely stem) the major effects of pollution.
And for the record, oil is a limited resource that can and will be depleted if we continue to guzzle the stuff at the rate we do, and anyone who believes otherwise, well. Oil is naturally produced very, very slowly, and not in massive quantities. It took billions of years to build up the reserves that exist, and we've managed to deplete them in less than a century. If anyone actually believes that the earth is pumping out as much oil as the world is consuming on a daily basis, they need to go back to school, because that crap just isn't any kind of rational thought.
And yes, for the record, I do believe that man is a significant factor in global warming. The only scientists that believe otherwise happen to be sponsored by the industries who really want to hear good things for their businesses.
I also like to believe(hope) that there are some neo-cons who are at least willing to admit that introducing unnaturally large amounts of chemicals into the o-zone is obviously going to affect it in some way. Which is preferable, at least, to putting on the blinders and completely neglecting the planet's future based on presumptions that they cannot prove to be correct.
Reasonably, if there's even a small chance that we are causing global warming, then we should do everything we can to do slow or stem that cycle. Playing the denial game is only going to ensure that it happens.
Completely false. Here's the primary datafile used to generate that graph. Graphed CO2 levels are from measured, direct trapped CO2 in the ice. Graphed temperature is determined by the proportion of heavy water ice (oceans are richer in heavy water and glaciers poorer in it because of selective evaporation (the heavier the water, the harder it is to evaporate); the colder the climate, the more pronounced the effect).
Next time, don't just make stuff up when you want reply to a post, ok?
Next to my desk we have an Ire Extinguisher. Our boss is really assertive, so we like the idea of having it.
There are leaders who could do something about it (or at least said they would), like Al Gore; blame the voters for sneering at his nerdiness and voting for people who tell them they can have it all and not pay for it. Don't give up on the system, participate and make it work, it's the only hope we have.
Hunters and gatherers move on to more fertile land, and kill or are killed by those who already lived there. Unfortunately, when the killing uses modern weapons, it actually could be threatening the race and not just unlucky tribes this time.
Many civilisations were wiped out by climate shifts; history is written by the victors, and not just in war. For instance, several years of drought is thought to have put paid to the Mayans, a cold change wiped out the Vikings in Greenland.
But yes, humans and civilisation will survive, but many individuals may not; and the cost to non-human life will be much more severe.
Radiochemistry. For example,
I live in Romania and the wather has gone bad here too. And I'm not talking about "oh, I didn't get my perfect tan" changes. I'm talking about floodings on a massive scale. I'm talking about thousands of people loosing EVERYTHING they have: houses, animals, crops. I'm talking about people dying. I'm talking about parents desperatly looking for their children for days, only to find them dead - if they find their bodies at all.
Definetly gives you an entirely new view on the global warming, because now it hits very close to home. It's not just another story in the evening news, it's something that affects you and the ones close to you.
So now when I read about this in Siberia, my first thought was: "Great! So in following years even more people will die or loose their houses..."
I'm getting married this year. And I find myself alarmingly often asking myself if I really want to raise a child in this world...
Then you need to factor in every single extinct homonid species and subspecies that did NOT make it.
Sure, humanity survived without technology. Mind you, we weren't exactly causing this level of pollution a million years ago, either. Even with just "natural causes" to contend with, the vast majority of hominids did NOT make it and we damn near didn't, either.
Will we survive global warming? Possibly. Humans are sufficiently numerous and sufficiently mobile that it would take a total collapse of the ecosystem to finish off the race. That could happen, though. It is possible.
Will it decimate humanity? Oh, very likely. I suspect the human population will be in the hundreds of millions, by the end of the century, rather than the projected tens of billions. It depends on just how much the environment lags behind the input.
If the lag is sufficiently small, we're seeing the major effects of what we're doing now right now. This means a 5C rise over the last century would result in a 5C rise this century (we've had exponential growth, so far, but efficiency is beginning to catch up, so we can't just do a simple extrapolation). A 10C total rise would finish off life in the tropics and severely reduce it in the subtropics.
If, however, the lag is closer to a century (much more likely) then we're barely seeing the effects of the Industrial Revolution. A 5C rise now could translate to a cumulative 20-25C rise over a century from now, with no additional input from us. That's just from what we've put into the environment already, allowing for the time lags inherent in a global scale.
But, of course, humans aren't going to stop the pollution tomorrow. And if efficiency does NOT improve to reduce pollution, then the 20-25C rise will be an underestimate. In that case, a few hamlets might survive on the antarctic continent, but the rest of the planet will resemble Death Valley.
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)
While the original list was plain silly, I have to laugh at this.
Because the US is the single greatest defender of democracy in the history of the world.
Given the history of the US in backing non-democratic governments that overthrow democratic but socialist governments, (nd remember that doesn't mean communist or want to become communist, lots of countries elect socialist governments from time to time, much of Europe for example.
Look at the brutal un-democratic regimes the US still backs. If someone from Saudi Arabia or Uzbekistan hates the US its unlikely to be because they hate it for its freedom and democracy but more likely because it backs a deeply unpopular regime (of course that is just one reason, there may be others rational and irrational).
We are all grateful for what the US did in WWII, but remember was against a democratic election there since the result would probably have been something it didn't want.
The US is no worse than most countries in the way it acts in its own interest, but it isn't really much better either. If you look at its history it isn't some great bastion of worldwide democracy and freedom, just self interested like everyone else.
To come vaguely back on topic, when the rest of the world sees a US reluctance to do anything about climate change, a lot of people see that same self-interest, although very short term, again. It seems to largely be US scientist (and a minority of them) who don't think humans are having an effect. Many of which work for US companies that give large donations to US politicians. This makes people pretty sceptical.
Anyone have photos of this? any aerial ones I can overlay on google earth?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_galI used to be a sceptic. These days, I'm not so certain.
10 men are sailing in a whaler on a whale hunt. The boat, being an older boat made of wood, it leaks a little. But after sailing about for a few hours, many men begin to notice that the amount of water in the boat seems to have increased quite significantly, much more than what is usual or expected. What should the men do?
a) Take more measurements and get conclusive evidence that their boat is actually going to sink before they can make it back to shore.
OR
b) Start bailing.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
> We'd have to wear gas masks when we went outside, because of air pollution.
Do you have any idea how many laws and regulations have been imposed to reduce air pollution during the last 40 years?
> We'd be out of oil (evidently it was all floating in the ocean).
There's only a finite amount of oil in the ground, and demand is still growing. You do the math.
> DDT was the scourge of the world.
Are you arguing that DDT is, in fact, safe?
> And, yes, the Coming Ice Age would freeze us all.
Was there ever a consensus among scientists that and Ice Age was imminent? I hear this all the time from global warming deniers, but I don't actually recall hearing it way back when. (There was a big flap over a possible nuclear winter, though.)
> I say again: Global Warning? Meh. Take a number, you'll find the dispenser next to the Y2k countdown calendar.
So, just because one problem was overblown, we can safely ignore all the others?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Guys, guys - I think you're forgetting the real issue is that 13% of Americans believe Joan of Ark was the wife of Noah...
Methane moleculas are excited by UV-radiation, and excited molecula of methane can react with two O2 moleculas producing CO2 and H20.
Why a 2 front war when we have not caught Bin Ladin yet.
Because we have the most powerful, best-trained military in the world, and can work on two things at once.
Yeah, you lot are so good that you regularly shoot your own side. Not to mention that the US army is rediculously trigger happy too.
You might have the bigest army in the world, but that sure as hell doesn't make it the best. Training is what counts, and from what I see on the news (including abc) it appears that some parts of the US Army/Navy require more of that.
And I suppose you know what her name was?
hint, don't look in the bible, it's not there.
Because the US is the single greatest defender of democracy in the history of the world.
... It caused Clinton to tuck tail and leave Somalia to the warlords.
I hope this is meant as irony, because otherwise it's kind of sad.
Although the US is indeed one of the biggest countries that occasionally comes to the defense of democracy, it's also one of the biggest countries to overthrow democratically elected governments and replace them with a pro-US dictator whenever that fits better into their goals.
Iran, for example, had a democratically elected government before the US replaced it with the Shah in 1954. You may also have heard of Pinochet in Chili, and of all the mess the US was involved in Central America.
And because in the preceding years, they saw terrorism work like a charm.
I don't think that was because of terrorism, but rather because the US forces were unable to deal with guerilla's. I can't remember any terrorist strike against a US civilian target that had anything to do with Somalia.
And about those WMDs, it was the US that claimed to have proof, not the other way around. So far, that proof seems to have been a complete and utter fabrication.
mcv.
one additional point of note. The sun's output has been increasing. So our "constant out from the sun" has been increasing, helping to contribute.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
How can people think, that mankind's effect on global warming must be proven completely true before acting on it? The fact that there is no consensus among scientists should be enough. Why, you might ask? What is the possible cost of not acting on it? What is the potential gain we win if we do not? What is the worst case scenario? Destruction of civilisation as we know it? Might not be but eveng semi-neglible possibility alone scares the sh*t out of me, especially when we compare it to potential gain of not losing couple of jobs. Btw. Anyone familiar with the Butterfly Effect? Very interesting reading indeed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect Mankind working almost as a whole to pump atmosphere full of CO2 and methane is a bit more than a butterfly flapping its wings. - Jussi
Just build higher?!
Do you have any concept of the time and money it takes to rebuild a commercial building more complex than a Wal-Mart? Or an interstate highway? Or a tunnel? Or a port? Or a railroad? Or an airport? Or a high-voltage power transmission line? Or a nuclear power plant? Do you have ANY idea how much human effort and raw material is tied up in the infrastructure of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Boston, Providence, Washington, Miami, New Orleans, Baltimore, Savannah, Norfolk, and Tampa? That's tens or hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of stuff to rebuild on the east coast of the US alone.
And what 'piles of cash' exactly, do we have to do it with, considering much of our vast national debt is held by China, who will be busy rebuilding what they lost in Hong Kong and Shanghai, and finding something to do with the Japanese and Taiwanese refugees?
And when Tel Aviv AND Gaza AND Qatar and Dubai flood out, those land pressures won't start a catastrophic war, no sir. And when India loses Mumbai and Chennai and Pakistan loses Karachi, there won't be any incentive for them to start lobbing nukes.
Here is what I am hearing:
"The world is experiencing global warming!"
"Are you sure?"
"Yup, here is a science that proves that 400,000 years ago, it was cooler."
"Wait, I thought there was an ice age that we are still coming out of."
"That's true, but people aren't worrying enough about pollution so we are trying to emphasize that the impact is global. So far, the only science that we have that proves that is that it is warmer. Oil is bad."
We're using up gobs of energy that was stored up a long long time ago, which necessarily produces heat [...]. Yearly consumption, by the way, is on the order of ~500 exajoules today. That's a buttload of energy, and if the earth can't get rid of it by radiating, it's just not gonna happen.
.367), so we get something like 5000 times the 500 exajoules.
Our energy production is in no way relevant, as the Earth's energy input from the Sun is still thousands of times more than that. Let's make a rough calculation... One kW per square meter makes 60*60*24*365*1000*pi*6300000^2=3.9322e+24 J per year. Divide that by your 500 exaJ, and you get about 8000. Ok, some is reflected (earth's albedo is
All heat on surface of earth is radiated to space, all the time, no matter how it is generated, so Earth's energy input and output are about exactly the same. It's the buffer effect of the atmosphere that matters.
So the only thing that is relevant, is CO2 and other greenhouse gasses, which keep the Sun's energy trapped. Please keep to the facts.
While no individual scientist has the time to question every single theory in existence, a real scientist will _accept_ that any given theory _can_ be questioned. No matter how old, how established, how popular, or how well it fits his political party's doctrine.
There's a reason why even established stuff like gravity is called a "theory" and never renamed to "fact". It's always just a "theory" (ok, in the scientific sense, not in the common usage of "just a theory", which is more like "hypothesis".) It can _always_ be a candidate to be better understood, revised or outright discarded.
The moment one theory is put on a pedestal, it's suddenly taken as a 100% finished and definitive fact, that noone should ever question, it stopped being science.
So when I see a whole bloody thread and a whole bloody disertation aimed openly at discrediting anyone who dares question the sacred truth, and based on such fine fallacies as:
- Ad Hominem and more speciffically a very verbose case of Poisoning The Well (The _whole_ purpose of the whole GALLANT vs GOOFUS thing is to ridicule and undermine the credibility of GALLANT, instead of whether his theories might or might not be right. So most of the other fallacies are just there to serve this one.)
- Appeal to Numbers (More of us believe X instead of Y, so X must be true. Or conversely, don't even consider Y, since it doesn't have a "consensus".)
- Appeal to Motive (Let's divert the question from whether a theory is right to the possibility that anyone supporting it _might_ have some hidden motives.)
- Argumentum ad Lazarum and other forms of Appeal to Emotion to paint GOOFUS as _likeable_, as the only proof needed that his is the right theory. (Surely the poor guy who earns less and doesn't wear a suit must be right, because he's the one your average slashdotter can sympathise more.)
- Appeal To Spite and/or Association Fallacy (Surely the _only_ ones supporting those theories are those evil conservatives/oil cartels/whatever supporting those theories. And because they're evil, anyone or any theory associated with them is automatically evil and discredited.)
(You can also add the Begging The Question to the last one, since there's a bit of circular logic and assuming that you already know they're evil, in classifying them as evil in the first place.)
- Appeal To Fear (While not directly a theme of the GOOFUS vs GALLANT story, it _is_ the _main_ theme waved around in this whole using ecology as political capital. If you don't imediately stop believing all else and do as we say, we're all doomed!)
And so on, and so forth.
Sorry, that is _not_ science. It's politics and religion, but science it sure as heck ain't. I don't know which is the correct theory there, but it sure as heck ain't decided by such GALLANT-vs-GOOFUS Poisoning the Well rhetoric.
(Which of course, doesn't invalidate the fact that global warming might (or might not) be real. Like anything which is just a string of fallacies, it really doesn't prove anything. It does, however, disgust me profoundly.)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I hope this is meant as irony, because otherwise it's kind of sad
No, sad would be the lack of democracy in Japan, or Germany. Or throughout eastern Europe. Happily that's not the case. Happier still will be democracy throughout the Middle East - not just in Israel, and partially in Egypt. That, of course, is the whole damn point of sticking it out in Iraq. Even the Saudis just started having municipal elections... these things take time.
don't think that was because of terrorism, but rather because the US forces were unable to deal with guerilla's
The last straw was the shoot-down of the Blackhawk in Mogadishu. If you'll recall, Somalia was (and still is) a hot spot for al Qaeda supported and trained insurgency. Having been deprived of their cozy little spot in Afghanistan, they're looking to set up shop in other chaotic places. That Clinton didn't send in major troops to make that problem go away right after the embassy bombings is a damn shame, really. But the bad news is that the locals and the al Qaeda people there spurring them on remain convinced that shooting up a helicopter crew was all it took to run the US out of the peacekeeping mission there. In practical effect, that's true. Just like blowing up some barracks in Beruit would be seen by the people that did it as all it took to remove our Marine presence from that trouble spot. That's the conclusion they reasonably drew, and is exactly the sort of thing that has people like Zarqawi convinced that enough car bombs in Iraq will eventually get him that country as a playground for the mysoginistic, medeival-minded theocratic thugocracy that he'd like to see running the entire Middle East.
it's also one of the biggest countries to overthrow democratically elected governments and replace them with a pro-US dictator whenever that fits better into their goals.
Help me out, here, with some post-Cold War examples. That's crucial, because stopping the tyranny of the Soviet Union was paramount. Ask the folks living in Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland etc what they think of the results of playing chess with the Soviets in their proxy/puppet conflicts in places like Central America and Asia over the last decades of their influence. It's over now. The true socialist crazies (say, Chavez in Venezuela) are now having to get support from immitation communists (like China) that are really just totalitarian-run emerging capitalist economies that won't tolerate (as a population) that crap for much longer. I'm amused that people like Chavez think China's support is idealogical.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Those in turn existed because some people (e.g., Galileo) dared question the existing model...
As the OP said, GALLANT paints the scientific consensus as being entirely political in nature and enjoys comparing himself to Galileo.
They laughed at Galileo, they laughed at Einstein... but they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. To compare fake science bought and paid for by folks with a huge monetary stake in the results to the work of Galileo or Einstein is an insult to every scientist who ever honestly questioned dogma.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Yes, because hey, it wouldn't be right if a small percentage of people in Africa possibly got cancer instead of the 2.7 million people dying every year from malaria. Then again, it's not really toxic to humans anyway (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT).
Oh, come on. The whole point is that the most vocal critics of climate change are paid off by companies with a huge stake in it. You can manufacture fantasies of power-mad ivory-tower cranks in white coats trying to destroy capitalism (If you don't imediately stop believing all else and do as we say, we're all doomed!), but the fact remains that reputable scientists don't have to be paid off by lobbyists to come to a conclusion. Those are not real scientists.
And you're just trying to muddy the waters, make it so that a casual reader of this discussion will conclude that there are crazy zealots on both sides and, gee, maybe we shouldn't do anything because science is divided on the issue. Which it ain't.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
This is polemical nonsense. If science says nothing colclusive about this matter it says nothing conclusive about anything.
This is the only planet in the known universe that supports advanced life, not a court of law. Even if the "beyond a reasonable doubt" criterion were not satisfied (a threshhold which was passed some time ago) the criterion is wrong; greenhouse gases are not innocent until proven guilty.
If you must use legalistic arguments, surely the presumption of innocence goes to the undisturbed atmosphere, not to the pollutant.
The best available evidence is overwhelming that most or even all of the observed warming is caused by humans, that most of past warming and cooling episodes were related to natural variation in greenhouse gases, and that the warming will continue to accelerate. The predictions based on this understanding that were made around 1990 are on track.
If you want to call this frenzied hair-pulling, teeth-gnashing, and I-just-pulled-this-out-of-my-ass guesswork I guess you can do that, but I think it's an empirically sound approach to call you uninformed on this matter, to say the least.
mt
... on a screenplay by a guy who has "agenda" written on his forehead.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
But the free market is happily 'solving' the problem of Co2 emissions.
;-) ) is to be supportive of measures that fund alternative energy (yes, nuclear power, even if you hate bush, nuclear power is most likely the only short-term way out of fossil fuel dependence at almost *any* price), and to be supportive of measures that increase the price of fossil fuels (no Alaskan oil exploration. no excess U.S. refinery permits).
Anyone notice the price of oil (and other fossil fuels, which have gone up dramatically as well) today?
Back when I was a debater, in college, virtually every proposal to counter Co2 emissions was dependant upon altering the prices of fossil fuels.
Sure, the mechanisms were different; some utilized high levels of taxes, implemented globally. Some used means of artificially limiting supply; when we agree to burn only x exajoules of energy, the price per unit goes up.
In any case, none of those proposals (all of which were directly from left leaning political panels on climate change) envisioned prices as high as they are now, or as high as they are projected to be in the near future. I do not believe there is anyway that political action will be able to unite all the major Co2 emitting countries under one policy. It's simply impossible.
Significantly higher oil prices? We'll have conservation out the wazoo, now, and alternate energy technologies (yes, including Nuclear, which is probably the best way out of fossil fuels in the short run (you take what you can get, and there is the potential for a really wonderful powersource, if the only idiotic nuclear companies would step out of the way for the latest and greatest designs being used in research throughout the world)) are on the short-term horizon.
Anyone notice the hybrid trend? Or walk into a honda dealership or a saturn dealership?
See all the signs about conservation? Fuel Efficiency? Mark my words-- If oil prices collapse again, all of this green-wave will vanish. Keep oil prices high, and we'll move off the fossil fuel economy in the near future.
Quite frankly, if you are really worried about emissions-related global warming, (which I'm not, there are many other factors which I believe account for warming better than industrial era emissions. Like humanities desire to clear forests, and the resulting desertification. Or conversion of various land types to ecologically useless farmland) your best bet is to vote for policies that keep oil prices high, and drive it up through the roof.
If oil was $120-200 a barrel, electric cars would be a reality, even with their dinky 100 mile range. If oil was that high, nuclear plants would be built *right-now*, and the major auto companies would be building a hydrogen economy in conjunction with the oil companies *right-now*. Oh, and oil is projected to be at these levels if demand patterns continue to grow at their current rate.
I never believed the supply-side problems presented by the dooms-dayers of the 70. Rather, I thought we would experience demand that slowly outstripped supply, allowing the market to adjust economic allocations to account for it. That's exactly what we are experiencing. These corporations already have their plans laid; they've been waiting for economic conditions to be right, so they can get the jump on their competitors.
Basically, I'm asking for people to stop clamoring for lower gas prices. It's a blessing in disguise. If oil prices had only gone up from their high in the 70s, we'd live in a different world today. It's really too bad that the Shah's regime collapsed; as the architech of the first-wave price hikes, he would have unknowingly corrected the world dependence on fossil fuels.
The next best step for concerned individuals to take (i.e. people who are not the dictators of statist regimes who can alter prices at whim
That's the way out of fossil fuel emissions. You'll *never*, *ever* get a pure political solution. Attack the economics of the problem, and the free market
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Yes, I don't doubt that a true religious zealot would feel a need to get violent on the heretics. After all, we've already seen that in the form of the Inquisition. Nothing new there. If anything, it just proves my point that some people found _religion_, not science, there.
However, the question is, can you actually argue a point without crap like "I wanted to slap you like a bitch" or "you stupid cunt"? Zealot tantrums are an amusing read, but sadly prove nothing in science.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
First off, yes, there were denials of warming by some neocons. At least until now:
w elt_naturschutz/bericht-47597.html
0 02377292_ocean13m.html8 .htme ws/community/friloc07.txt. html
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8917093/
Then there's the argument that, oh, the environment will just adjust and absorb the carbon. Nope:
http://www.sundayherald.com/51146
http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/um
Oh, and why worry, it's just heat, right?
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L2949844
http://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2005/08/05/n
http://www.bgsu.edu/offices/pr/news/2005/news8474
Someone had to do it.
First, take a moment to consider the context in which I was replying. It was an ill-considered troll feeding moment, and the GP's rhetorical silliness (traitors in the White House, neo-cons destroying space shuttles, our horrible economy, blah blah) got what the commentor wanted - an off-the-cuff jab back. You know, when you reply too briefly and without enough context, the... um... Anonymous Coward Trolling Terrorists win... or something like that.
Seriously, you must know by this point in your life that pretty much nothing is that simple.
Clearly. And the problem with clowns like the guy I was replying to is that you either need to construct a 1000-word history lesson (that he won't even read anyway), and explain the underlying concepts that are worth defending while putting historical compromises/mis-steps in perspective, or you just put in a rhetorical jab that may or may not register at the level at which that person is communicating. I know it's vastly more complicated than that, but actually I do find the basic reality pretty simple. There is no greater force for democracy and liberty, right now, this minute, than the U.S., warts and all. We do now, and have always had to hold our noses while dealing with certain other societies/individuals.
Do I find it frustrating that the Saudis are who they are? Yup. But you'll notice they've managed to avoid seeming bristly and overtly hostile, as a regime, as opposed to those charming Taliban folks, or Saddam, or North Korea, or the delightfully late Yassir Arafat, etc. There are definately strong currents in Saudi Arabia that would like to see both us AND the house of Saud swirl the toilet. That puts the Saudis in that famous enemy-of-my-enemy category. Too late, of course - they could have headed off the bin Laden family's favorite son a long time ago, and didn't. I really don't think they expected him and his followers to become as malignant as they have become.
The idea that anybody could, at this point, still attempt to defend this administration is bizarre enough
I've got all sorts of bones to pick with the administration. But they are the administration. We truly, acually, really are dealing with issues that could make the economic and social impact of 9/11 look trivial, and I have an interest in at least attempting to squash the "traitors in the White House" silliness because that's the stuff that gets circulated more than, say, enormous AIDS support to Africa, or pressuring Syria to get out of Lebannon's internal politics, or continuing to keep China from breathing down Taiwan's neck any more than they already do. Etc.
I loathe Bush's take on most matters related to the sciences (though I like much of the current NASA redirection - but that's another, and mixed discussion). I find him earnest, but definitely a product of his generation, and too much under the sway of the religious circles that he grabbed hold of while shaking off his youthful over-partying excesses. I don't think he wants babies and old people to starve, and I don't think he likes poison water, or wants to see Iran burn, baby burn. But he's the C-in-C, and dealing with an unbelievably difficult moment in history, and there are people out here just saying some damn silly stuff.
I'm not too worried that you've lost all respect for me, since I'll just keep posting my thoughts, however provoked they may be, sometimes, by flamebating nitwits. One of these days I'll learn not to fall for that stuff, or will decide to invest the extra time in making my comments in context even when it will be wasted on the actual person to whom I'm replying. I guess I'm still rather shocked that anybody bothers to read anything I say, so it's not always in the forefront of my mind to ask myself what a wider audience might conclude about me, based on a barbed, late-night exchange made while watching Conan O'Brien and scratching at six new no-doubt global-warming-caused mosquito bites.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
You're predicting unsustainability on the premise that technology will never progress beyond what we have today - like all alarmists. As if the status quo this moment is all we're ever going to achieve, despite the fact that the entirety of human history contradicts this notion.
In order for technology to progress, someone has to realize it needs to change.
But you claim everybody who promotes change is an alarmist.
You're caught in a loop of illogic.
It's this pesky little problem called national borders. Many, if not most of them haven't been in place for hundreds of years, some only tens.
Everything I've heard about global warming suggests changes in sea level, which hits hardest on low-lying areas, with Bangladesh being frequently mentioned. So what happens when part of Bangladesh becomes the Indian Ocean, and a significant part of the rest has flooding problems? What happens when portions of northern European countries decide they'd rather be in the North Sea? How about when Florida seacoast becomes Atlantic and Gulf shallows?
Past tipping points were accompanied by extinctions of various sizes. I suspect humans WILL adapt just fine.
But I doubt our societies will. I expect there would be a lot of social strife, and more deaths would be caused by other humans than by climatic problems.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
The science says NOTHING conclusive concerning what part of global warming is natural and what part is due to human activity. Jury's still out on this one, at least to people who care about empiricism.
Almost but not quite correct. The general consensus among the scientific crowd is that roughly 50% of the increase so far is due to human activity. The other 50% would have happened anyway.
Now, this is admittedly only accurate to about 2 or 3 bits, depending on the model, and this isn't what you'd call engineering accuracy. When they say 50%, it could be 40% or 60% and still be within the error bars. They're hard at work adding another bit or two, but it's slow going.
Two bits is slightly different from nothing.
Hell, I have lots of fields in my data structures that are only one bit. Very few programmers would consider that "nothing". Sometimes one bit is all you need to get the job done right.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
1. cease driving an internal combustion vehicle.
Up until I had a bad accident my primary transportation was a bike.
2. shutting off power to your residence.
Not needed if you generate the power you use. Going Off the grid is being done more and more.
4. growing your own food and processing it.
Yeap, I love to garden and I like to can and otherwise preserve what I grow.
6. avoiding the use of anything that is made with plastic.
Again not needed. Plastics were originally made from plant material. Cellophane was made from the cellulose of plants. Hemp, aka marijuana and probably the most industrially versatile plant is a good plant source. On his Iron Mountain estate Henry Ford not only built an automobile using hemp for some of the material but was also powered by fuel made from hemp. Rudulph Diesel designed his diesel engine to run on most any oil made from plants. Both alcohol and biodiesel are carbon neutral and both can be made from hemp. Actually the reason hemp was made "illegal" via the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 was because it posed a serious threat to some rich and powerful people. When congress was "debating" the act Dr James Woodward who was both a doctor and an attorney testified on behalf of the AMA. He said all of the testimony in support of the act was nothing more than tabloid sensationalism and that it could potentionally be a powerful medicine. During WWII hemp was so important the US government made the movie Hemp for Victory in 1942 in an effort to get farmers to grow it.
FalconShould there be a Law?
If you're sick of entitlements then why did you vote for someone who supports entitlements instead of voting for someone like Michael Badnarik who really would work to end entitlements?
FalconShould there be a Law?
A lot of people like to drum up arguments that the world is a few thosand years old. They are wrong. They do not deserve equal time to inflict their superstition on children. They do not deserve their own "research grants".
In the case of climate change, there is a spectrum of scientific opinion, and the exact middle of it is being cast as "one side", while there is a pile of propaganda with a couple of credentialed paid advocates, pretty much outside the spectrum of scientific opinion or at best very much at the fringe (I'm being generous here) that is cast in the press as "the other side".
Whenever people see these as two contending scientific opinions rather than a political opinion arrayed against the great mass of scientific reseach, the propagandists win.
Of course junk science cuts both ways, but in this case the junk is on the side that says there isn't a problem, not on the side that says it is.
That all said, I regret my use of the word "unanimous", and I regret that parent picked up on it. I make no claim that all the membership of the scientific bodies I mentioned supported their positions. Note these are in some cases huge groups, and an occasional bad apple will stray in. The relevant bodies themselves are all agreed (a sort of unanimity), but it goes too far to say or imply that their memberships are *unanimous* about whether IPCC fairly represents the science.
That said, the not-quite-unanimous vast majority of scientists in relevant fields would agree that IPCC does a good job of summarizing the scientific evidence. It is a thorough, disciplined and responsible presentation of the center of informed scientific opinion on these matters.
mt
What you're seeing in this flood of posts is evidence of what's called "new conservativism" or "neo-conservativism" here in the states. It actually started some 20 years ago, with the election of Reagan, but grew and blossomed throughout the years of the Gingrich ascendancy and the "contract with America". The "new" part is really a change in the tactical approach to argument and disagreement. The tactic (Rove is a good example of how to use it well) is now to wrap your flag around you and immediately discredit/bash/hack apart anything you don't like as commie atheist liberal tree-hugging unethical anti-american immoral hippie sputum. Once the other side has been successfully characterized as undeserving of respect, nothing they say can be taken seriously, by anyone. It's very effective, too. Ordinarily, to stand taller than others you have to straighten your back. Using this method, you can just bash others until they get smaller. It's much less demanding and oh so much more fun. I'm not suggesting that it's right, only that this is "the way it is".
As for why most Americans aren't terribly worried, given hurricanes, drought and the like -- it has to do as much with geography than anything else. We've got, here in the southern half of North America, more rich and varied kinds of terrain and weather than almost anywhere else on the planet. We have HUGE coastlines. If you don't like the weather where you are, you can move someplace that's more to your liking. It may oversimplify it a bit, but that's my sense of it.
As for your last paragraph -- Well, we make our own common sense, here. If we wanted western european common sense, we'd never have left. Incidentally, I'm only the third generation of my family that's been born here, and we came from Minsk, where they also lack the western european flavor of common sense.
Anyhow, I hope that helps you sort it all out. What you may be missing, though, is that while there are a lot of naysaying posts (from Americans) about global warming, there are also a great many posts that are not so dismissive of the idea. Slashdot, in my experience, seems to get the attention of more of us commie atheist liberal tree-hugging unethical anti-american immoral hippie sputa than the neo-conservatives, but I can't really quantify it.
Have a nice day!
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R