Slashdot Mirror
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
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.
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.
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!
And the polar ice cap is melting fast too... Most of us may live to see it all but disappear. Think of it as the mother of all ice cubes, and imagine what the melting is going to do --- dilute the 'drink' (which will change water density which will change ocean water flow, which will seriously mess with weather patterns) and once it finishes melting, it's function as a thermal buffer disappears and global warming will really start to hurt us.
I'm thinking that people are underestimating that last point.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
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.
Before you mod me down, remember, good scientists ask lots of questions, annoying questions.
Good scientists ask a lot of questions, but then they do research to try to find answers. The problem with this topic is that every jackass on both sides thinks he's an environmental scientist because he noticed Earth used to be hot or that it's really big or that we burn a lot of crap. Or, more likely, he heard someone on the radio who heard from "a scientist" that everything is going to either be okay or explode, depending on which station you listen to.
I wish everyone who didn't at least have a very strong chemistry background would just shut up about it. Which might be quite a few people on Slashdot, but every time my boss mentions it, he deserves to be punched in the mouth.
I don't know. I'm not one of those chemistry guys. I don't have the kind of equipment you'd need to measure this stuff. My stance on the issue is entirely based on the fact that I don't think it's a good idea to be pumping billions of tons of anything into the atmosphere, and that should get slowed down a little.
..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!
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.
"The problem is that these phases normally last millions of years, and the transitions between them are often extremely slow"
Antarctic ice cores from the last 300,000 years show something different from what you claim.
http://www.koshland-science-museum.org/exhibitgcc/ historical02.jsp
The data that I have seen shows that the ice-age cycles last 100,000 years, not millions, and that the transitions can be abrupt. (data from 300,000 years of ice cores from Vostok, Antarctica)
Climate can exhibit abrupt shifts over large regions of the world. As the last glacial period was giving way to the current warm interglacial period, average temperatures in Greenland returned to glacial levels for more than 1,000 years. This unusual period, which is called the Younger Dryas, ended abruptly about 12,000 years ago. Evidence from an ice core drilled in Greenland indicates that temperatures there rose approximately 15F (8C) in less than a decade.
http://www.weathernotebook.org/transcripts/1999/10 /20.html
"Scientists used to think that climate took hundreds, even thousands of years to change. Now we know better. Hi, I'm Dave Thurlow from the Mount Washington Observatory and this is The Weather Notebook.
An example of an extremely quick climate change came during a period of time known as the Younger Dryas, which happened right after the last ice age ended, about 12,000 years ago. The Younger Dryas itself lasted about 1,000 years. What we didn't know until recently was just how quickly the Younger Dryas started and stopped. In a period of less than 50 years, the climate from the eastern US and Canada to much of Europe went from climate conditions much like today's, to frigid readings more like the Ice Age, at least a ten degree Farenheit change. That's how it stayed for a thousand years - and then the climate flipped back to normal in as little as 20 years."
Are you just making up your claims?
Do you have data to back them up?
but has anyone taken into consideration that the earth has been warming up steadily for the past several thousand years?...the Earth fluctuates quite frequently (geologic time) in temperature... We very well may be causing this, which would be bad, but what if we are not?
Yes, the earth has been warming. The issue that is being raised here, however, is not the general warming trend, but the rate of warming. The claim (and there is an slowly increasing amount of data to back it up) is that the rate of warming has undergone a very dramatic increase in the last 100 years that is unprecendented in recent history (last 1000 years or so). The sudden rise correlates well with dramatic increases in atmospheric CO2 from the industrial revolution onward, and there are studies on the effects of CO2 in the atmosphere that lend creedence to a causal rather than just correlated relationship.
Yes the planet goes through natural cycles of cooling and warming, and over time it can indeed fluctuate over huge temperatures. The risk is that we are disturbing the natural fluctuation and pushing the system out of its rough equilibrium. Systems often have tipping (bifurcation) points that can radically alter the behaviour of the system. A pendulum naturally swings back and forth steadily, but give it a hard enough push and it just starts spinning round and round. In essence we are giving the pendulum of warming and cooling a very strong push. Whether the pendulum will simply swing a little higher then settle back, or go over the top and start spinning in just one direction is certainly up for debate. Possibilities for feedback systems and induced dampening given the manner of warming are almost innumerable, and we are still working to understand the most obvious candidates well. There isn't reason to panic yet, but there is most certainly reason for concern.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
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
> 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
Of course the earth was warmer before. The earth was molten at one time, perhaps even in a gaseous state much like the sun. Are you saying we shouldn't worry about global warming until we reach 6,000C? It's not the earth we are worried about, it's us.
So you're saying that the system fluctuates, is at times unstable and can undergo rapid a dramatic change. Are you sure that adding a new significant unchecked driver to an unstable system is all that wise? Wouldn't you be concerned that it could trigger one of those extremely dramatic shifts?
I'm sure that the system as a whole will find a new equilibrium around the new input, it just might not be plesant for humans in the short to medium term. The question isn't whether the global climate can cope with us, but whether we can cope with the global climate.
It seems sensible to me that, being intelligent and capable, we should try and find our own sustainable equilibrium rather than just pushing the system as hard as we can and finding out what balance it decides to strike to deal with it.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
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
> All real science I've ever seen shows global warming to be total bullshit.
Could you cite some of that "real science" for us?
Or does "real" just mean "that I agree with"?
And speaking of "bullshit", did you know that bovine flatulence is a major soure of atmoshperic methane?
> Also, we know from history that the planet goes through cycles of hot and cold (remember the fact that there was an Ice Age anyone?)
We also know that the current cycle isn't behaving like the previous ones, as you'd know if you'd actually been reading any "real science".
> so there's no proof that any changes in temperatures are from human causes.
We aren't looking for "proof", we're looking for an explanation. We see abberations in the pattern of global temperatures, we have physics that explains the interactions of gasses and heat, we put 2+2 together and get 4.
Your ignorance doesn't do much to undercut that line of reasoning.
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
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.
"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.
The earth fluctuates between being warmer and cooler. It has been much warmer in the past. It has been warm enough, in fact, for peat moss to grow there (though peat moss can grow in relatively chilly conditions).
Does this invalidate concerns about global warming? Not especially. Even if the warming were entiely natural it doesn't mean it's going to suit humans terribly well, particularly if the change is fairly abrupt. On the other hand the rate of warming (which is the main point for climatologists who are concerned about global warming) has increased very dramatically over the last 100 years. There is an increasing amount of data showing this rate of warming is unprecenedented over the last 1000 years. Interestingly the increasing rate of warming correlates very closely with increased CO2 (and other) emissions following the industrial revolution. There is enough data regarding how CO2 and methane can trap heat and produce warming to lend creedence to the claim that it may be a causal, rather than just correlated, relationship. If we really have provided a powerful enough new driver to significantly alter the behaviour of the system then that is definitely cause fr some concern. The global climate is a very complex system and we know little about its stability with new forces acting on it, nor do we understand the tipping points of the system which can result in sudden and complete changes in behaviour.
So yes, the earth was warmer, and no, that's not especially meaningful to discussions about current global warming.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
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!
This is all interesting but as I take a few min today to think about this, I'm both concerned and excited.
On the one hand this is unknown territory for humans as you mention. It is the 'greenhouse effect' which could have dramatic consequences including an ice age if ocean currents flip.
It is playing with fire. This is possibly the worst thing that can happen in the last several thousand years.
But it is the greenhouse effect. If you have ever worked around greenhouses, you inject C02 to induce faster plant grow. Like plants like bogs..
Why did dinosaurs tower 3 stories? The biomass could support them. Would we survive a transition to a CO2 rich atmosphere? I don't know.
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,
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.
Methane moleculas are excited by UV-radiation, and excited molecula of methane can react with two O2 moleculas producing CO2 and H20.
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
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 visited Grenoble in the French Alps where they had the winter olympics in 1968. They still have some of the facilities there that they used in 1968, like the ski jump etc, but they don't have snow that low in the winter anymore to use any of them! The climate change has made what was a sure place to run the olympics 37 years ago into a place where you don't get any snow in the winter...
--- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
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
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
... 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."
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.
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.
You overestimate the uncertainties. If you read things like the IPCC report you will see that there is actually a fairly strong consensus on the amount of warming (they give confidence limits); and fairly good models for the impact. Scientists always admit uncertainty - but uncertainty isn't synonymous with having no clue...
You then state that the economic impact will be devastating. That statment is probably fraught with more uncertainty than any of the climate change predictions. How do you know that the effect of limit greenhouse emissions won't actually improve our economy by stimulating greater efficiency and innovation?
Human genome = 3 billion base pairs = 6 GBit. Windows + Office = 20 Gbit. Which is more impressive?