UN Report Downgrades Human Impact on Climate

GodInHell writes to mention an article in the Telegraph, stating that man's impact on the environment has been 'downgraded'. A UN report has found that our species has not had as large effect on climate change as was previously thought. The average temperature is still due to rise almost 5 degrees C in the next 100 years, bringing drastic changes in weather patterns. From the article: "The panel, however, has lowered predictions of how much sea levels will rise in comparison with its last report in 2001. Climate change skeptics are expected to seize on the revised figures as evidence that action to combat global warming is less urgent. Scientists insist that the lower estimates for sea levels and the human impact on global warming are simply a refinement due to better data on how climate works rather than a reduction in the risk posed by global warming."

Comments

Damn

[Colin Smith]

And I was due to have some river front property.

Re:Damn

[technoextreme]

And I was due to have some river front property.

Don't you mean beach front property??? I've never heard that the rivers were going to rise in respone to global warming. I could be wrong.

Re:Damn

[mark_osmd]

It will if the property is on the bank of a river right where it's entering the ocean.

Re:Damn

[Jarjarthejedi]

If Ocean levels rise River levels will rise in response, it won't be anywhere near as much as the Ocean's predicted to but if he lives, say, 5 ft. from the bank and builds a dam downriver he might pull it off :P

Re:Damn

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"And I was due to have some river front property."

Boy I hear ya. Superman foiled my plans, too. Tights wearin git.

Re:Damn

[oggiejnr]

I would be very concerned here in Hull, UK if sea levels rise as the River Humber is tidal and some areas of the city and nearby area are below sea level. London would have similar problems with a rising in the level of the Thames. There loads of other areas around the world which would suffer similar problems.

Re:Damn

[Ucklak]

I saw Waterworld and James Earl Jones said that the entire world will be covered in water.

At that time, it will be hip to have genetically modified ears that act as gills.

Re:Damn

[Korin43]

I was under the impression that even with the "quick" rate of global warming, you're still going to have more than a couple days to pack up and leave when the water gets too high..

Re:Damn

[Mintrubber]

Maybe you should ask the people of New Orleans how happy they are about theirs.

I know this is /.

[benhocking]

But please RTFA and not just the summary/headline.

Re:I know this is /.

[sa1lnr]

I'd rather read the actual report rather than some newspapers spin on an unreleased report.

Most of these are 'Developing Countries'

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Led by China, they don't want their "path to prosperity" cut off by the big 5 or 6, who already burned the carbon, and will maintain another era of dominance.

Re:Most of these are 'Developing Countries'

[Moridineas]

Well, who knows. People today seem to be almost solely fixated on "global warming" and carbon dioxide emissions. There are many, many other pollution problems--sulfur dioxide / acid rain being one of them. China for instance today has huge sulfur dioxide emissions, roughly comparable to the US 25 years ago before we got good about it.

It's a difficult position, seeing as I saw one estimate that in terms of co2, China would overtake the US in roughly 5 years at current rates. (I'm not sure how accurate that is). It's truly got to be a global initiative, but one that doesn't do more harm than good. Plans like Kyoto makes huge exceptions for countries like China and India. This is of course good for them, not so good for everyone else.

In short, I have no idea what's going to happen :p

Re:Most of these are 'Developing Countries'

[Anonymous Coward]

here are many, many other pollution problems--sulfur dioxide / acid rain being one of them. China for instance today has huge sulfur dioxide emissions, roughly comparable to the US 25 years ago before we got good about it.

Which is fortunate because sulfur dioxide combats global warming sort of the same way a nuclear winter combats global warming, but to a smaller scale. Many scientists are considering increasing sulfur dioxide emissions in certain locations if we can't do anything else to stop global warming.

Re:Most of these are 'Developing Countries'

[ronanbear]

Recent research has indicated that one of the short term effects of SO2 is to reduce climate forcings but the long term implications are less clear.

For example SO2 causes acid rain which damages vegatation releasing CO2. It's far to early to tell whether increasing SO2 emissions will help or will just cause a lot more damage. It's an interesting theory but it's still not well understood.

We've gone from trying to predict whether it will rain this afternoon to trying to predict the climate for 100 years. It's the complicated and difficult modelling challenge in human history and it's no wonder why people find it so hard to understand the issues.

Sulphur is nasty. Best to wait a few years before doing anything about it.

Re:Most of these are 'Developing Countries'

[dragons_flight]

Well, who knows. People today seem to be almost solely fixated on "global warming" and carbon dioxide emissions. There are many, many other pollution problems--sulfur dioxide / acid rain being one of them. China for instance today has huge sulfur dioxide emissions, roughly comparable to the US 25 years ago before we got good about it.

Yes, SO2 matters, but because it only persists in the atmosphere for a few years it is our problem to solve (or not). For example, China could substantially address their sulfur problems in a few decades if they decided they wanted to do so. By contrast, CO2 has a very long residence time and about 20% of what we emit today will still be in the atmosphere 300 years from now. Consequently, how we address CO2 has profound long-term consequences that are unlike almost any other form of air pollution.

Re:Most of these are 'Developing Countries'

[Moridineas]

I don't disagree with you, I merely wanted to comment that there are still many forms of pollution--air, water, soil, etc--that effect many millions, even billions of people around the world every day, while co2 seems to have hit the "fad" cause level.

somewhat like how AIDS kills many people, but other diseases like malaria kill and infect many times more, yet AIDS is focused upon so much more than any other disease.

Re:Most of these are 'Developing Countries'

[misanthrope101]

In short, I have no idea what's going to happen

In short, I do. We're doomed. The good news is that the planet will be fine.

Re:Most of these are 'Developing Countries'

[TerminalWriter]

We've gone from trying to predict whether it will rain this afternoon to trying to predict the climate for 100 years. It's the complicated and difficult modelling challenge in human history and it's no wonder why people find it so hard to understand the issues

And we still don't always get the weather for the afternoon right.

Re:Funny how the UN changes its mind every 5 minut

[EzraSj]

Yes, God forbid an international agency change its mind about something when new information sheds light on the problem!
There is nothing admirable about stubbornness in face of facts. I, for one, am glad that the UN isn't dragging it's feet on this issue. If only others were so prescient.

Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[leandrod]

Politics apart, if sea levels forecasts are lowered, that in itself represents a lower risk.

The logic is so simple, it is even ridiculous: part of the risk of global warming is higher sea levels.

If sea levels are not expected to be so high, to the expected risk is not so high.

Now if (these) scientists think the risk is still high enough to still warrant our worries, that is quite another thing.

I for myself still think global warming could be nice, after the initial, inevitable adaptation pains. More crops, more habitable lands.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[Decaff]

I for myself still think global warming could be nice, after the initial, inevitable adaptation pains. More crops, more habitable lands.

Global warming does not imply more crops, or more habitable lands. It implies less. For example, a significant fraction of the world relies on the glaciers in the Himalayas for water. If those go, there will be vastly less habitable lands.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[Nasajin]

I for myself still think global warming could be nice, after the initial, inevitable adaptation pains. More crops, more habitable lands.

...more disease vectors, greater drought, more flooding, colder and longer winters, drier summers... The list goes on. The fact that the issue has been "downgraded" is irrelevant. If we're still going to suffer 5 degrees increase in climate temperature, then the point is moot. Climate change is still happening, and its still a bad thing. I can see the evidence locally: the domestic livestock are delivering their young at the same time each year, but these days it's still frosting, and a lot of young die from the amniotic fluids (from their birth) freezing.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[IHawkMike]

I have always wondered exactly why sea levels would rise with global warming. Since liquid water is denser than ice, I would think that the melting of ice would lower sea levels. Granted, ice above water would melt first but wouldn't that cause the body of ice to rise displacing it with denser water? I guess I'm probably thinking in simple terms of icebergs as I really don't understand how glaciers work. Now I believe the experts, I've just never heard this point made in any discussions about it.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[fredmosby]

a significant fraction of the world relies on the glaciers in the Himalayas for water. If those go, there will be vastly less habitable lands.

The water doesn't have to come from glaciers, as long as there is precipitation in the mountains there will be water downstream. Global warming would only result in less arable land if it makes the world dryer overall, but most simulations show the world getting wetter if it gets hotter.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[anagama]

Rain is often seasonal. Part of the problem in the Western US, is that if there is not a sufficiently cold winter, snow pack in the mountains melts early and then in the dry season (summer), there isn't enough water flowing down the rivers because it already flowed away. Summer BTW coincides with the growing season. Water and ice are not really the same thing -- sure it's all water, but snow is water storage and rain is water runoff.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[leandrod]

...more disease vectors, greater drought, more flooding, colder and longer winters, drier summers... The list goes on.

Bzzt. The list is all about local effects, and part of what I described as painful adaptation may include migration from areas adversely affected to areas favourably affect. In fact, it is ludicrous to think about colder and longer winters globally when the issue is global warming.

Anyway, Russians haven't migrated in masse from Moscow because it has cold, long winters and hot, dry summers. Human society is incredibly adaptable, and we have lots of other more important issues to care about, such as literacy, malaria, AIDS, and the cultural wars. Caring about global warming when most people are still striving to make a living (not talking about unemployment in the First World, but misery in the Third) may be after all counter-productive, as our culture could well crumble in a few generations if it continues its decadence and so many people continue without their share in its riches.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[krotkruton]

As some of the other reponses noted, global warming does not mean more land or crops. As the temperature rises, climate patterns change, usually making dry places more dry and wet places more wet. This means increased flooding for the wet places and droughts for the dry. It's hard to grow most of our current produce staples in either of those environments.

On the topic of more habitable lands, that seems pretty ridiculous to me. If the sea level rises, earth's total land mass will decrease significantly, displacing millions to hundreds of millions of people. With that many "refugees", areas that were once habitable would become wastelands while trying to support them. When you say more habitable lands, I'm guessing you're talking about frozen areas becoming habitable because of increased temperatures. The problem there is again due to droughts. Most of the frozen places on earth get little rainfall. It's hard to say how increased temperatures in these areas would affect rainfall, but if they follow patterns in other places, they wouldn't be habitable. Even if they do become habitable, we now have to completely relocate or rebuild our infrastructures for manufacturing, agricultural, and basically every other aspect of modern life.

Let's finally look at what would happen if the the sea level rose and new land becomes habitable due to global warming. Assuming none of the other problems I have mentioned are major factors and that everyone who is displaced by the oceans (Florida, most of Western Europe, China along the Yellow River, most of India along the delta, islands across the world, etc) is able to safely move farther inland. They would need to continue to move inland due to the massive hurricanes/typhoons that would be destroying anything built along the coast, which would considerably decrease the amount of habitable land. Living in Africa or around the Equator would be pretty much out of the question due to the increased heat in the summer, again leaving less space for people.

Now, if you had said that you think global warming might be good because hundreds of millions of people will die, giving our global economy and political systems a chance to rebuild itself from scratch due to anarchy, revolutions, and war, then that's a different story.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[fredmosby]

But water can be stored by building dams. And I believe China, which is where most of the people who would be effected live, already has a lot of dams for flood control and power generation.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[Nasajin]

A certainly see your point, but I was merely considering the predicament of other species who have less of an ability to migrate, and less adabtability that humans have due to technology and information. I'll also point out that one of the large issues involved in global warming is that the disease malaria is carried by mosquitos. As the climate warms globally, these mosquitos will span greater distances - spreading malaria to communities that have not had to deal with malarial outbreaks, or have less resistance to malaria due to a lack of any significant anemic populations.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[fimbulvetr]

Dams can only do so much. Watch how arizona, nevada and cali all bicker about the colorado river for an idea of why. Of course, it doesn't help that someone had the bright idea of building cities with parks, lawns and fountains in the desert, but that's not my point.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[leandrod]

I was merely considering the predicament of other species who have less of an ability to migrate, and less adabtability that humans have due to technology and information.

So what? It will be neither the first nor the last mass extinction. Nature has recovered everytime, and the Earth has been shaken quite a few times. If anything, it seems that biological diversity has been increasing except for some minor human-induced damage in the last two or three centuries.

We can't be sentimental about nature. It isn't a person, and humans are different from animals; we can care for them, and plants too, and even inanimate nature, but not to the point of romanticising anything. I am still for caring for people over nature, if a choice must be made; and in the end it may prove to be the best course, as people suffering from misery aren't likely to care for nature.

I'll also point out that one of the large issues involved in global warming is that the disease malaria is carried by mosquitos. As the climate warms globally, these mosquitos will span greater distances - spreading malaria to communities that have not had to deal with malarial outbreaks, or have less resistance to malaria due to a lack of any significant anemic populations.

Why so many environmentalists assume static environments? Malaria is fougth with success anywhere there is a sufficiently dense and resourceful human population. Brazil is an example: it has all but erradicated malaria from most of its more densely inhabitated regions, so that only a small minority of population still has to really care about it.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[leandrod]

As the temperature rises, climate patterns change, usually making dry places more dry and wet places more wet. This means increased flooding for the wet places and droughts for the dry. It's hard to grow most of our current produce staples in either of those environments.

These are two ideas that are very difficult to reconcile. There must be lots of place with the opposite effects, and places with no significant humidity difference. BTW, less ice and more sea would in the average mean more humidity, which would be a net gain. Again, it seems to me most people are just repeating scare lines about worst cases and generalising them. References welcome, though.

If the sea level rises, earth's total land mass will decrease significantly, displacing millions to hundreds of millions of people. With that many "refugees", areas that were once habitable would become wastelands while trying to support them.

The numbers seem exaggerated, and turning habitable areas into wastelands would just fly in the face of logic. More people need better support structures, more intensive farming and so on. Again, references welcome.

we now have to completely relocate or rebuild our infrastructures for manufacturing, agricultural, and basically every other aspect of modern life.

How naïve. So many societies have recovered from such destruction, and all we are talking about here is planned moving to higher lands. It is not like sea levels will rise in a repentine tsunami. As things go, most business will just plan their new installations in higher land and possibly more to the North, as old ones get obsolete.

They would need to continue to move inland due to the massive hurricanes/typhoons that would be destroying anything built along the coast, which would considerably decrease the amount of habitable land. Living in Africa or around the Equator would be pretty much out of the question due to the increased heat in the summer, again leaving less space for people.

Again, how naïve. Extreme heat is not found around the Equator, but in deserts and in deeply continental areas, both of which would most probably decrease. Hurricanes and typhoons are not nearly as destructive as you make them, as witnessed by the high populational density in historically affected areas; even that Katrina would find so many people to affect in her path is a witness to how well people have dealt with them in the past, and how naïvely comfortable they had become.

if you had said that you think global warming might be good because hundreds of millions of people will die, giving our global economy and political systems a chance to rebuild itself from scratch due to anarchy, revolutions, and war, then that's a different story.

Just what I thought. Ecofascism is on the rise. Keep your nature, I stand with people.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[cagrin]

So what? It will be neither the first nor the last mass extinction. Nature has recovered everytime, and the Earth has been shaken quite a few times.

We(Humans) have become the caretakers of the world environment through our technology and population growth. I believe it even says something about this in the bible. If we don't care about our environment - in which we live - than may we go extinct as well, since we will deserve nothing less.
Salt-Water Fish Extinction Seen By 2048 Seafood May Be Gone by 2048

If anything, it seems that biological diversity has been increasing except for some minor human-induced damage in the last two or three centuries.

Unless you're talking about the increase of invasive species, i have no idea where you're getting this.

We can't be sentimental about nature.

How irritating ;/

It isn't a person,

It supports the life around us.

and humans are different from animals

Not so different...many examples of this can be seen on the daily news.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[Nasajin]

I understand your perspective, but "nature" hasn't been destroyed yet. Just because it's suffering severe stress to rebalance an equilibrium weather pattern doesn't mean we should hurry it along. Furthermore, in reply to your comment, "So what? It will be neither the first nor the last mass extinction.": mass extinctions are terribly damaging to the environment and to grace them with the "So what?" treatment is irresponsible. It takes a long time for "nature" to recover from any extinction - thousands on thousands of years in most cases.

Imagine if the earth's cattle all suddenly died from intolerable climate, or chickens all suddenly died out from extremely fast propagating disease vectors bearing bird flu - a lot of humans beings rely on these animals for sustenance for their milk or eggs, or for their meat products. I too hold human life far above animals, but that doesn't mean that I take their presence for granted.

Finally, I think it is the fact that environmentalists understand that the environment isn't static is the problem. Because they understand that the environment isn't static, they understand that global warming is a real, and dangerous, threat to future generations. What Earth had 10,000 years ago was a relatively stable environment that lasted in an equilibrium state for most of the last 9000 years. Mars, Venus, and all the other planets in our solar system exist in equilibrium climates, and what environmentalists are seeking to avoid is for Earth to enter into a similar inhospitable equilibrium.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[SEMW]

The melting of ice will leave sea levels unchanged (an experiment you can try yourself with a glass of iced water). The rising sea levels comes from the fact that above 4 degrees C, water gets less dense the higher its temperature. The effect is not very large percentage-wise, but when the ocean is very deep and contains a lot of water, so a slight change in density will result in significant changes to sea level. I did the maths (not very well) on how much this would be about half a year ago on Slashdot, but can't find it now; Google doesn't seem to be bringing up any of my old posts for some reason...

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[krotkruton]

Ok, I'll admit I went a little overboard, maybe even a lot. However, it was in response to the comment "I for myself still think global warming could be nice, after the initial, inevitable adaptation pains. More crops, more habitable lands."

I was trying to give a bunch of examples as to why that probably wouldn't be true (in my opinion, definitely won't be true). My intention was not to prove the effects of global warming, just to list other possible consequences of it, which I felt the parent poster needed due to his/her opinion. Besides the climate change mistakes that I made and you pointed out, which I don't care to argue about since I won't claim to know exactly what will happen, I want to focus on:

How naïve. So many societies have recovered from such destruction, and all we are talking about here is planned moving to higher lands. It is not like sea levels will rise in a repentine tsunami. As things go, most business will just plan their new installations in higher land and possibly more to the North, as old ones get obsolete.

You're right, a lot of societies have recovered from massive levels of destruction, and some haven't. As I see, the major problem we will have with global warming would be from the rise in the sea level. I understand that some of these projections for land masses are exaggerated, but I think it is safe to say that at least tens of millions of people would be displaced from their homes if the sea levels rose to some of the more conservative levels of projection (some predictions claim hundreds of millions just in India). This might not happen in a day, but moving 10 million people in a year isn't easy either, especially in some of these countries that don't have infrastructure or funding to do it properly. Without knowing how fast this change would occur, it is hard to know just how damaging it would be. If you want to claim that 10 million refugees wouldn't cause increased crime, violence, possible revolutions, and wars, then that is a different argument which can easily be traced through history. As you brought up Katrina, there were 1.4 million people in New Orleans before the hurricane which displaced most of them. Those that remained or returned shortly after had to deal with a lot of social issues including crime and such, along with the destruction caused by the hurricane. My point here is not to talk about the effects of nature but instead the way people handle the aftermath.

Finally,

if you had said that you think global warming might be good because hundreds of millions of people will die, giving our global economy and political systems a chance to rebuild itself from scratch due to anarchy, revolutions, and war, then that's a different story.

Just what I thought. Ecofascism is on the rise. Keep your nature, I stand with people.

After re-reading my post, I can see where you get that, even though it was not my intention. I'm not trying to sound like a tree-hugger here, but you can read into it however you want. I firmly believe that in the end, it doesn't matter what we do to this planet because it will adapt to us in the end. With the exception of a few catastrophic solar system events, the earth isn't going anywhere. Hell, it took a few giant meteors over the years and now here we are. My reason for trying to stop some changes from taking place is not to protect the planet, but to keep the planet from adapting and killing me. You can call me naive all you want, but the idea that you either stand with the planet or with the people is a great definition of the word. What I intended to say in that quote was that there may be some so-called "benefits" from global warming, but that increased land and crops is not one of them. I do not think that hundreds of millions of deaths, revolutions, and wars are a good thing, but I'm sure that some people think that such a scenario would be good, so I wouldn't choose to argue with them because I can't provide such an argument. I can however, provide a basic explanation (which of course is arguable) as to why there will not be more land or crops.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[SEMW]

did the maths (not very well) on how much this would be about half a year ago on Slashdot, but can't find it now Ahah, found it! http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=19327 8&cid=15860180. As I said, it wasn't a very accurate calculation, and Muttley poked some holes in it, but it gives you a ballpark.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[leandrod]

We(Humans) have become the caretakers of the world environment through our technology and population growth.

Not. We have to take care of ourselves. If that necessitates our taking care of the environment, so be it; but we must be clear about what is the goal. Romanticising nature won't help when the poor of the world revolt against about we caring more about a few coastal areas than about human misery, and if their misery and ignorance end up compounding the possible problems of global warming.

I believe it even says something about this in the bible.

Either you believe in the Bible or not. If you do, you have to convert and evangelise, because everything else would be counterproductive in this fallen world. If you don't, it isn't honest to quote it.

If we don't care about our environment - in which we live - than may we go extinct as well, since we will deserve nothing less.

As if we could if we wanted, short of global nuclear war.

Sorry. You can't romanticise nature and keep a rational conversation.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[StikyPad]

Actually, they rely on the precipitation caused by the Himalayas; the glaciers are incidendal. The mountains force all of water vapor to condense as the air rises to pass over them, thus it's rainy in India and dry in Tibet. Granted, at some point the mountains will erode, and glacial melting may well facilitate that erosion, however it is unlikely that this will happen at any time in the relevant future, nor that, in 50 million years, anyone will look back and say "Those 20th Century bastards.. if only they'd saved the glaciers, the Himalayas would still be foothills instead of plains."

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[whereiseljefe]

I second your opinion.

Nature (and the Earth) will persist no matter what we have done to it. If we nuke ourselves into oblivion, there will be a sudden explosion of radiation-resistant creatures. If we die off, something will take our place. We are but expendable life-forms, no different to nature than any other dominate life form.

Extinctions on a vastly greater scale than anything we currently predict have happened before (The K-T Boundary, aka the End Cretaceous extinction that killed the dinosaurs was NOT the largest extinction, and that event took every single dinsaur down and allowed the mammals, previously incredibly inferior and stuck in a rat-like stage of evolution, to diversify and become the dominate type of life form on the planet).

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[cagrin]

Not. We have to take care of ourselves.

This is selfish, and i wholeheartedly disagree with it.

Either you believe in the Bible or not. If you do, you have to convert and evangelise, because everything else would be counterproductive in this fallen world. If you don't, it isn't honest to quote it.

I may have been referring to the following...

"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." ...hence, caretakers in my view...but apparently not in yours.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[leandrod]

We have to take care of ourselves.

This is selfish, and i wholeheartedly disagree with it.

It is not selfish if I aim to help humankind, and not myself or my family and friends only. And it is the only rational thing to do, if we believe in a difference between man and nature. If we don't, then there is no reason to try to be more rational than animals, and in this case we should just consider ourselves part of nature and do what other animals do: prey.

let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." ...hence, caretakers in my view...but apparently not in yours.

Do you grasp the difference between caretaking and dominion?

I do believe dominion includes caretaking. But the end is human ('go forth and multiply, and replenish the Earth' or something the like), not natural.

But in the end, the issue is that, if you believe in the Bible, you also have to accept that without people being converted there is no salvation, neither of souls nor of the Earth. And then the focus must be not global warming, but our sinfulness and the cross of Christ.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[burner]

The Sahara is in the tropics, but that land is not particularly productive.

Arable land is most productive when the climate is predictable (consider the capital outlay costs involved in farming, now consider having to move that farm because the local climate became drier and some remote climate became wetter and warmer). Climate change coming from more energy in the atmosphere increases unpredictability (though you'll probably not accept that assertion).

Humans are clever, and I'm sure we'll be able to work around climate change (particularly food production and distribution), but the nagging question is this: how many people will die in the meantime?

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[geobeck]

I for myself still think global warming could be nice, after the initial, inevitable adaptation pains. More crops, more habitable lands.

So all that land that is not currently arable is magically going to become able to support crops? You don't think maybe there's more currently preventing that than just annual temperature variations?

Looking at northern Canada, for example, all of the land that has cultivatable soil is already cultivated. Even if we were to slash and burn the northern boreal forest, nothing would grow in that mix of peat and muskeg... except maybe specially-bred rice, but there was no world shortage of that, last time I checked.

Come to think of it, there was no world shortage of food in general last time I checked. Just how would having more arable land benefit the world, even if it could happen? It still wouldn't put food in the hands of those who need it.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[Capsaicin]

>Global warming does not imply more crops, or more habitable lands. It implies less.
Sorry, but I can't take your word for it. I would need references.

Since you kicked off this discussion with the claim that global warming does imply more crops, the onus is actually on you to provide the references. Affirmanti non neganti incumbit probatio and all that (excuse my Latin spelling).

So where are your references?

The idea that Global Warming will result in more crops is pure conjecture on your part lacking any supporting evidence. It's a bogus claim, now put up, or get back into your box!

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[leandrod]

The Sahara is in the tropics, but that land is not particularly productive.

Nor are Gobi or the siberian tundra. So what? Compare arable land to arable land and deserts to deserts. Or do statistics.

Climate change coming from more energy in the atmosphere increases unpredictability (though you'll probably not accept that assertion).

Why wouldn't I? I already accepted there are painful transition costs.

the nagging question is this: how many people will die in the meantime?

How many people will die if we don't deal with misery first? Worse, what can we do without dealing with misery first? Most proposals I see floating around have costs that will hinder the minoration of misery, and miserable people will produce a lot of pollution while they try to get some wealth. Or would we rather they die?

I am all for taxing externalities and the such. But it must be rational.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[leandrod]

The idea that Global Warming will result in more crops is pure conjecture

At least is a reasonable conjecture, while the opposite idea just flies in the face of logic. I might accept there is more to the climate than simple logic, but would need data. Haven't seen any yet.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[leandrod]

So all that land that is not currently arable is magically going to become able to support crops? You don't think maybe there's more currently preventing that than just annual temperature variations?

Who mentioned that? I am just thinking about annual averages.

Looking at northern Canada, for example, all of the land that has cultivatable soil is already cultivated.

But with which productivity? Higher temperatures are good for animals and plants, barring the extremes in deserts (and our ingrained habits).

Even if we were to slash and burn the northern boreal forest, nothing would grow in that mix of peat and muskeg... except maybe specially-bred rice

So there is a forest there, but nothing would grow?

there was no world shortage of food in general last time I checked. Just how would having more arable land benefit the world, even if it could happen? It still wouldn't put food in the hands of those who need it.

Sure indeed, this is all a cultural and political problem. But economy plays its part, so further abundance would do some good. Also, more extensive habitable land would help easing population distribution, which is a big part of all that.

But you actually made my point for me. We have much worse, pressing problems to think about than a few degrees, a small, slow variation in sea levels and some hurricanes. Including people who are dying now.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[arminw]

....So where are your references?.....

Come now. No references are needed for this. Simple physics. Warmer oceans evaporate more water and a warmer atmosphere can hold much more water. This combined effect will mean more rain everywhere, even in places that get very little right now. There is no conjecture, but that is how the laws of nature work. A warmer Earth is a more fruitful place for all. Much of the world's ice is already floating on the oceans and is therefore displacing the water. All that floating ice melting would not raise the oceans even a millimeter. All the ice on land melting would not make much of a rise either. Just get yourself a globe and look how much ice area on land there is compared to the vastness of the oceans. The worlds major ice stores are in Antarctica and Greenland. If that all melted the oceans would not rise enough to cause many problems. It would take a LOT of global warming for a long time to melt all that ice, not just a few degrees. If the average temperature of the whole planet increased by as much as 10DegC, the worlds deserts would shrink to insignificance. There is evidence that the vast Sahara was once inhabited land.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[Meph_the_Balrog]

More crops, more habitable lands.

How about in a country like Australia. Here we have an arid center to the country. Increase the average temperature, and that arid zone spreads out further towards the coast. Combine that with slowly rising sea levels and I'm sure I don't need to explain the net result.

Mind you, I'm one of the ones that think this would all have happened eventually, and that we mere mortals have only hastened the inevitable.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[loki_tiwaz]

Global warming will not help anything. I am now starting to become much more agnostic towards the 'save the planet' ideology but if the overall temperature of the ocean rises, that lowers the amount of gas dissolved in it, specifically, in the part that is warmest (the surface) which will lead to a reduction in the most vigorous ecosystem on the planet, which will have repercussions specifically to the human race being that one of the major sources of food is the ocean. on the other hand, we can farm fish, the only limitation is crop production of food sources for the fish and energy to maintain the fish environment optimally.

Global warming will lead to greater efficiency of non-combustion based energy generation methods - a hotter atmosphere is more turbulent, so winds will get stronger, there will be more energy for heat-absorbing methods of energy generation (solar steam turbines and possible future low boiling point liquids that could be used).

There will be a reduction in available water on the planet, which is something that is not talked about. In chemistry I remember learning about dissolution behaviors of gases and liquids and hotter liquids dissolve less gas, but hotter gases dissolve more liquids.

I think the obvious solution to global warming no matter what the cause is planting more forests. Forests will slow down the movement of water from watercourses by creating a buffer zone of shade, they will sequester excess carbon, and they will produce ample sources of carbon for us to make the next years widgets from. Turning away from grazing animals as food and focusing on animals which prefer forest environments and waterways will help foster this too. Forests also produce strong localised humidity regions that attract more rain near elevated regions near the coastline as well, so these areas are the most important ones to focus on.

I'm no whinging hippy but it seems very obvious to me that planting plants is the best way to buffer ourselves against this climate change. Not because I love forests, because forests produce many benefits that a hotter atmosphere would otherwise cause suffering. Also, more forests will lower levels of carbon dioxide which will help reduce the greenhouse effect. I think that it's not the last 200 years of forest clearing that is leaving us vulnerable, it's the last 5000 or so years of agriculture based on grasses and grazers for food.

The biggest issue that we have to face with global warming is the movement of water from the ground to the atmosphere. If we don't manage to find some way to slow this down we are going to end up with massive problems from water shortages.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[loki_tiwaz]

Finally, I think it is the fact that environmentalists understand that the environment isn't static is the problem. Because they understand that the environment isn't static, they understand that global warming is a real, and dangerous, threat to future generations. What Earth had 10,000 years ago was a relatively stable environment that lasted in an equilibrium state for most of the last 9000 years. Mars, Venus, and all the other planets in our solar system exist in equilibrium climates, and what environmentalists are seeking to avoid is for Earth to enter into a similar inhospitable equilibrium.

On what basis do you support your assertion that the environment has been stable for that long? I have heard of two major global warming incidents, one in the middle ages and one about 5000 years ago. 10000 years ago was the last ice age. The crux of the issue now is that the climate naturally fluctuates due to solar and orbital fluctuations. Lets not forget that comets and asteroids occasionally hit planets too.

It still seems very obvious to me that the solution is to plant more trees and grow more non-grass crops for our food (hemp anyone?) and increase vegetation in urban environments. Trees, especially in large groups, are naturally more resistant to fluctuations in the direction of more heat and in fact modify their climate by slowing the movement of water on the ground and increasing the humidity directly above them. Transitioning from dry climate is possible too, there is many trees which do well in dryer conditions yet also do well in wetter conditions. The sheer mass of advantages to an immediate and intensive period of forest planting is less than a 20 year lead time for returns on investment.

Plus trees are pretty, and bring birdies which make pretty noises, and little critters which are cute and best of all increase the possibilities for privacy in an increasingly populous human society. All we have to do is take this seriously and stop relying on grasses and grazers for food. I know one thing for sure, a major aim for me in the next 20 years is to get myself some serious acreage and plant intensively so when my children are my age they'll have a beautiful and vibrant living environment to live in. Trees are not intrinsically counter to our modern technologically based society. With our new technologies we could be burning them for energy without the concomitant increase in particulates, we could make plastics from them, and they are excellent building materials to boot. *sigh*

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[Capsaicin]

No references are needed for this. Simple physics.

Sorry, must have posted before having my coffee ... I thought we were discussing planetary climatology with all the complexities that imports.

There is no conjecture, but that is how the laws of nature work. A warmer Earth is a more fruitful place for all.

Sorry but that is nothing but conjecture. I'll classify your opinions as unsubstantiated.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[Capsaicin]

At least is a reasonable conjecture, while the opposite idea just flies in the face of logic.

You seemed to have missed my point, which was one of logic, not of climatology. You are the person making a positive assertion, you are the person upon whom the onus of proof falls. Thus it is not open to you to argue that someone who does not buy (what you have now admitted to be) your unsubstantiated conjecture needs to provide references. They don't - you do.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[sholden]

Carbon is what plants are made of. They get carbon from CO2. global warming (in this context) implies greater levels of CO2 (that's the theory for the cause after all, and wht some people would like to see reduced). Hence global warming would naively lead to better plant growth and hence better crop yields.

It's essentially the default theory - it has been studied for decades and everytime someone increases the CO2 levels in a greenhouse the plants grow better than the control greenhouse. It's been done thousands of times. Do you require people to provide references when they claim the Earth orbits the sun due to gravity as well? When people say a larger force will result in a higher acceleration on a given body? When people claim better nutrition results in healthier people?

Of course while it's the default theory, it can crumble if further evidence is found such as: http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2006-06/200 6-06-30-voa64.cfm?CFID=31128799&CFTOKEN=70212074

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[krotkruton]

Much of the world's ice is already floating on the oceans and is therefore displacing the water.

Flat out wrong. I couldn't immediately find a reference to contrast your lack of proof, but it becomes a moot point shortly.

All that floating ice melting would not raise the oceans even a millimeter. All the ice on land melting would not make much of a rise either... The worlds major ice stores are in Antarctica and Greenland. If that all melted the oceans would not rise enough to cause many problems.

All the ice on Greenland alone would cause a 15 to 20 foot rise in sea level (4th paragraph). Although the article states that it is unlikely for all of it to melt in this century, Greenland isn't "all the ice on land".

Just get yourself a globe and look how much ice area on land there is compared to the vastness of the oceans.

Wow; just wow. You do realize that the earth is in 3 dimensions right? Since talk about climate doesn't work and you demonstrated such a colossal knowledge of physics, let's try math. Earth ocean's are a combined total of just under 142,000,000 square miles. An iceberg named B-15 fell of the Ross Shelf and is approximately 4250 square miles with a thickness between 20 and 60 meters, so I'll be conservative and go with 20. 20 * 11,000 / 142,000,000 = .000599 meters or just over half a millimeter. Calculated at 40 meters it turns out to be .001197m and at 60 its .001796m. The West Antarctic ice sheet is "holding an estimated 30 million cubic kilometres" which is 30 billion cubic meters, which would raise the oceans levels 30*10^9 / 142,000,000 = 211 meters. Ice doesn't have to look big on a map to take up a lot of space. That last article I cited explains how they expect the Ross Ice Shelf to drop abruptly due to samples taken from the shelf, and that once one glacier disappears, the rest tend to follow more quickly.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[Lars T.]

....So where are your references?.....

Come now. No references are needed for this. Simple physics. Warmer oceans evaporate more water and a warmer atmosphere can hold much more water. This combined effect will mean more rain everywhere, even in places that get very little right now. There is no conjecture, but that is how the laws of nature work. A warmer Earth is a more fruitful place for all. Much of the world's ice is already floating on the oceans and is therefore displacing the water. All that floating ice melting would not raise the oceans even a millimeter. All the ice on land melting would not make much of a rise either. Just get yourself a globe and look how much ice area on land there is compared to the vastness of the oceans. The worlds major ice stores are in Antarctica and Greenland. If that all melted the oceans would not rise enough to cause many problems. It would take a LOT of global warming for a long time to melt all that ice, not just a few degrees. If the average temperature of the whole planet increased by as much as 10DegC, the worlds deserts would shrink to insignificance. There is evidence that the vast Sahara was once inhabited land. Sure, and we all know that deserts got more rain instead of growing bigger in the last couple of decades.

Ohh, and much of the Earth's ice is infact on the continent of Antarctica.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[redcane]

Simple physics also shows oceans hold less carbon as they heat. Simple physics also shows if we release all the carbon available in fossil fuels, it would oxidise, and we would have no oxygen to breath. Perhaps these two small examples can show you simple physics does not encompass the complexity of climate. Simple physics can tell you what is happening on a scale where you know all the forces that are acting. Simple physics dictates the earth should be -15 degrees celcius. More complex physics found the effect of greenhouse gasses bringing the earths temperature to a more livable level (through the carbon ammonia cycle). Have a look at the research on extinctions circa 52 million yeasr ago (if memory serves me rightly). This is our best record of a time with high CO2 levels. Ice cores have been found showing the acidity of oceans causing the prior layer to be eaten away by acid (CO2 is carbonic acid after all). The CO2 levels of that time might not have been caused by humans, but why emulate them, considering the problems it caused then?

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[redcane]

But do you think it would be a good thing for the humans to become extinct allowing the bacteria to evolve into the more dominant life form?

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[leandrod]

How about in a country like Australia

As I said, changes are painful, and we can't judge the global situation by local effects only. Also, I doubt we know enough to really be sure if it will be for the worse like that; for all I know, Australia could well benefit for having a milder climate due to a smaller are far from the ocean. I would like to know better, though.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[Decaff]

Never heard about glaciers in Himalaya are going.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4346211. stm

They may be diminishing, but they will still be there in all probability.

Irrelevant. Any reduction in water volume would be serious.

Shorter winters would give us more crops, as tropical lands already have higher productivity than temperate and cold ones.

You mean like Saharan Africa?

Tropical lands only have higher productivity when there is more rainfall.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[Decaff]

Actually, they rely on the precipitation caused by the Himalayas; the glaciers are incidendal.

No they aren't, as they act as a water store. Also, glacier decline indicates lack of precipitation.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[mahmud]

Yeah, but if one assumes that the whole world gets wetter, then some of that meltwater from continental ice sheats will end up in the atmosphere and on land.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[Anonymous Coward]

>> The idea that Global Warming will result in more crops is pure conjecture > > At least is a reasonable conjecture, while the opposite idea just flies in the face of logic Only if you're utterly pig-ignorant of the basics of plant biology and climatology. Given your signature and your 180* wrong notions, that's a fair assumption.

Why do so many clever people persist in assuming that because they're smart, the first thought that crosses their mind about a topic they know nothing about is bound to be correct? I find the self-importance and arrogance displayed in these sorts of comments really depressing; I find it harder and harder to give people the benefit of the doubt. These days I assume everyone's a fuckwitted moron regardless of things like financial success or achievements in a very narrow domain (sport, business, politics, non-scientific academics.) Such celebration and triumphant brandishment of stunning ignorance as a badge of pride just makes me more and more misanthropic. Hurry up H5N1, mutate already and wipe this plague of humans from the face of the planet :(

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[hotdiggitydawg]

I for myself still think global warming could be nice, after the initial, inevitable adaptation pains. More crops, more habitable lands.

...more disease vectors, greater drought, more flooding, colder and longer winters, drier summers...The list goes on. The fact that the issue has been "downgraded" is irrelevant. If we're still going to suffer 5 degrees increase in climate temperature, then the point is moot. Climate change is still happening, and its still a bad thing. I can see the evidence locally: the domestic livestock are delivering their young at the same time each year, but these days it's still frosting, and a lot of young die from the amniotic fluids (from their birth) freezing. The issue itself hasn't been downgraded, rather the level of impact humas have on it has. To me it sounds like we're in for pretty much the same disaster (OK, maybe slightly lower sea levels, but otherwise pretty much the same) and yet they now think mankind is a smaller factor in the situation... IE. our bad behaviour hasn't contributed as much as previously thought to the cause, so our remedial behaviour won't be able to contribute as much as previously thought to the solution. Scary stuff.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[CrimsonAvenger]

As you brought up Katrina, there were 1.4 million people in New Orleans before the hurricane which displaced most of them.

Umm, no. New Orleans had a population of less than 500,000 before Katrina. About half have returned.

Jefferson Parish, right next door had comparable pre-Katrina population, and a much greater percentage have returned.

Those that remained or returned shortly after had to deal with a lot of social issues including crime and such, along with the destruction caused by the hurricane.

Umm, no. Crime wasn't much of an issue after Katrina, and didn't start picking up again for quite some time. The biggest post-Katrina issues were shortages of contractors and City Inspectors (amazing how hard it is to get 100,000 homes reoccupied when each of them requires an electrical inspection by one of the TWO (!!!) City Inspectors authorized to do such inspections.

Note, by the by, that the City government's refusal to allow people to return to some neighborhoods for months after the storm will likely have the effect of causing MORE people to stay in place during the next big storm (which we expect to see any decade now - they average about 40 years apart), since repairing and rebuilding is infinitely easier if you aren't forced to let all your stuff rot and mold for months before you take care of it.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[zhenlin]

Actually, 30 million cubic kilometres is 30 × 10^15, or 30 quadrillion (short scale) cubic metres. Divide that by the oceanic surface area of 361 million square kilometres and we get 83 metres. (But the world is not flat and gravitation is not uniform, so, eh.)

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[arminw]

....Flat out wrong. I couldn't immediately find a reference to contrast your lack of proof.......

You don't need to get any proof of this from anyone else. Do some REAL experimental science yourself. After all science is experimenting not conjecturing about what may have happened in the distant past or the unknown future.

1. Take a tall glass and fill it with ice cubes.
2. Fill the rest of the glass with cold tap water until it is as full as you can get it without spilling over the rim. Make sure the ice cubes are floating in the water and not touching the bottom of the glass.
3. Let all the ice melt.
4. Carefully OBSERVE the water level.
5. You may, if you are really a careful observer, see that the water level has even decreased slightly.
6. Repeat experiment as many times needed to convince yourself that you are wrong.
If you do observe a DECREASE, I'll let you think about its cause for a while. Please do post the results of your experiment for others. You don't have to write a long dissertation, summary will do.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[Decaff]

Carbon is what plants are made of. They get carbon from CO2. global warming (in this context) implies greater levels of CO2 (that's the theory for the cause after all, and wht some people would like to see reduced). Hence global warming would naively lead to better plant growth and hence better crop yields.

There is more to global warming that CO2 increase - there is also warming. This inevitably results in climate change, with no guarantee that this change will lead to increased crop yields. Patterns of winds and rainfall are very delicate.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[Don853]

The fact that a melting ice cube will not contribute to a rise in water level was not wrong, and was not what the parent was disputing. The contention that Much of the world's ice is already floating on the oceans and is therefore displacing the water. All that floating ice melting would not raise the oceans even a millimeter. All the ice on land melting would not make much of a rise either is misleading. The largest portion of the world's ice is in Antartica. This melting would cause a large rise in sea levels (though the world would need to warm quite a bit for *all* of it to melt)

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[arminw]

......The largest portion of the world's ice is in Antartica.....

Even a substantial part of that is floating on the oceans surrounding that continent. Those extensive floating ice fields would have to melt first, before the land based ice would even begin to melt. As the oceans warm up, more water evaporates and the surface where the ice used to be is exposed. All that added water then precipitates out over the land. That means that ice could actually build up on the colder, elevated locations of the planet, lowering the level of the seas.

Get out that beautiful National Geographic relief map of the world's oceans sometime. Notice that many of the major rivers continue their bed across what is now the continental shelf and then drop off suddenly into the deep basins. The Amazon is the most prominent example. If these shelves had always been under water, the river bed would end at present sea level.

It is a fact that a warmer atmosphere can hold much more water in suspension which would more than compensate for any melting ice masses on land. A hurricane is a powerful demonstration of the incredible water holding capacity of warm, tropical air. Water both in vapor and liquid forms has a huge heat storing capacity. Warm moist air and warmer ocean currents would affect the climate much more in the now colder parts of earth than the tropics. We see a demonstration of this in how the Gulf Stream keeps most of Europe much warmer in winter than comparable latitudes elsewhere.

Real global warming, say 10degC or so would greatly increase the habitable land area for both man and beast. I don't think any of our Canadian friends would object to orange groves in their northern territories. There is no indication that we are headed for that sort of warming any time soon.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[krotkruton]

Umm, no. New Orleans had a population of less than 500,000 before Katrina. About half have returned.

New Orleans Proper had a population of less than 500,000. The Greater New Orlenas area had a population of 1.4 million. Since the Greater New Orleans area was affected by Katrina and most of those people were displaced, that was the figure I gave.

Umm, no. Crime wasn't much of an issue after Katrina, and didn't start picking up again for quite some time.

I bet you're going to say that the looting caught on camera in the streets didn't happen, and neither did the pockets police corruption. Since the reports of rape in the Superdome were uncomfirmed, they probably weren't true either.

I do like how you focused on two of the more minor points of my post that are easy to argue about, while not touching on the main idea at all. This isn't about crime in New Orleans or how people will react during the next hurricane. Its about the issue on a larger scale where you have tens if not hundreds of millions of people displaced from their homes, which you failed to address.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[krotkruton]

As the other reply to your post stated, nothing I said had anything to do with "ice cubes in a glass full of water." These analogous ice cubes (glaciers) are not in the water but are essentially suspended above it. Since you like experiements, try this.

1. Fill up a glass of water half way.
2. Drop ice cubes in the glass of water until it is filled to the top by water and ice cubes.
3. Let all the ice melt.
4. Carefully OBSERVE the new water level.
5. You may, if you are a really careful observer, see that the water level has even increased slightly (or more) from where it was in step 1.
6. Repeat experiement as many times as needed to convince yourself that you are wrong.
If you do observe a DECREASE, I'll let you think about its cause for a while. Please do post the results of your experiment for others. You don't have to write a long dissertation, summary will do.

You don't need to get any proof of this from anyone else. Do some REAL experimental science yourself. After all science is experimenting not conjecturing about what may have happened in the distant past or the unknown future.

Not really. It's hard to define science exactly, but it definitely includes the scientific method in which scientists makes hypotheses to explain events and then develop experimental studies to determine the accuracy of such predictions.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[krotkruton]

Yeah, it was getting late and I was pretty tired. I knew I was going to mess up a calculation in there somewhere with a stupid mistake. Thanks for the correction.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[CrimsonAvenger]

The Greater New Orlenas area had a population of 1.4 million.

GNO hadn't had a population of 1.4 million for a very long time - the population of the area had been in decline for decades.

I bet you're going to say that the looting caught on camera in the streets didn't happen, and neither did the pockets police corruption. Since the reports of rape in the Superdome were uncomfirmed, they probably weren't true either.

The looting caught on camera, eh? Did you notice that they played the same bits quite a lot? That's because there really wasn't that much to show. The rapes in the Superdome? Odd that no-one came forward afterward to charge rape, wasn't it? Frankly, the whole Superdome situation was blown out of all recognition by the newsies.

I do like how you focused on two of the more minor points of my post that are easy to argue about, while not touching on the main idea at all.

I responded to the parts I had information to contradict. Unlike most everyone who talks about Katrina on /., I was actually in New Orleans when the storm hit, and for the immediate aftermath.

Its about the issue on a larger scale where you have tens if not hundreds of millions of people displaced from their homes, which you failed to address.

However, if you want me to discuss this part, I will. Consider the expected effect of GCC (Global Climate Change) on sea-levels, as they are now expected to be - 17 inches (about 45cm for you people outside the USA). Spread over 100 years. Which is about 1/6 inch per year. Sure, it'll be a problem.

But it won't be a SUDDEN problem. It's not like everyone is going to go along, fat, dumb, and happy, and wake up one day with a foot of water in their neighborhood. It will be a glacially slow change, dealt with by individuals as it affects them. the guy living in the lowest spot is going to find his land never getting dry after the monsoons one year, and he'll be forced to move.

The guy next to him will have a similar effect - 20 years later. And so on.

Assuming, of course, that they don't build a two-foot high floodwall sometime in the next HUNDRED YEARS!

And raise that floodwall another couple-three feet every century thereafter. That might be a bit tough, don't you think? Maybe we can get a few Dutch engineers to give them pointers.

As to changes in growing seasons and such. Could be a problem. Not a SUDDEN problem, but a problem. Actually, potentially less of a problem than the sealevel thing - after all, you can switch crops to something else, unless your land turns to desert or tundra. If it does either of those, you're pretty much screwed. Well, we must concede that certain Amerind (native Americans they're not - they just got here 10000 years before the rest of us) types managed to get along quite well farming in deserts. irrigation is a wonderful thing, really.

So maybe it won't be the utter catastrophe some people like to think it will be. And even if it is an utter catastrophe, it'll be a glacially slow catastrophe. There won't be any part of the situation where we have to relocate tens of millions of people RIGHT NOW! More like thousands this year, and next year, and the next, and the next....

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[krotkruton]

I do like how you focused on two of the more minor points of my post that are easy to argue about, while not touching on the main idea at all.

I responded to the parts I had information to contradict. Unlike most everyone who talks about Katrina on /., I was actually in New Orleans when the storm hit, and for the immediate aftermath.

I said that because I thought you were the same person that I was replying to. Since you weren't I shouldn't have bitched that you didn't respond to my whole post, my fault.

I got the 1.4 million figure from wikipedia's page, which could obviously be wrong.

Consider the expected effect of GCC (Global Climate Change) on sea-levels, as they are now expected to be - 17 inches (about 45cm for you people outside the USA). Spread over 100 years. Which is about 1/6 inch per year. Sure, it'll be a problem. ... But it won't be a SUDDEN problem.

Here's where I think you're wrong, and have shown evidence in other parts of this thread to explain that. If we are just talking about melting glaciers, then the 17 inch estimate might be right, but the issue isn't only about melting. Many of the glaciers (on shelves above the water) are breaking off and falling into the water, causing a much more sudden change (take a look at the Ross shelf and what happened to it lately). There are a lot of estimations out there that predict different scenarios.

There won't be any part of the situation where we have to relocate tens of millions of people RIGHT NOW! More like thousands this year, and next year, and the next, and the next....

Assuming 10 million people are displaced over a hundred years, that's 100,000 people a year. Looking at some of the estimates for areas in India that say hundreds of millions will be displaced, that's a million people a year. Again, that all depends on the estimations that you select. 17 inches is a very conservative estimate (according ot what I've read and cited in my other posts in this thread) and I'm not sure of exactly what that would do to the land ass over the years.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[Decaff]

Those extensive floating ice fields would have to melt first, before the land based ice would even begin to melt.

No, not true. The floating ice fields don't somehow keep the land ice warm.

All that added water then precipitates out over the land.

Says who? That depends on a lot - wind directions, ocean currents.

That means that ice could actually build up on the colder, elevated locations of the planet, lowering the level of the seas.

Well that isn't happening. On those colder elevated locations, ice is currently disappearing.

It is a fact that a warmer atmosphere can hold much more water in suspension which would more than compensate for any melting ice masses on land.

I thought you said all that evaporated water had to come out on land? Instead, it can remain in the warmer air.

Water both in vapor and liquid forms has a huge heat storing capacity. Warm moist air and warmer ocean currents would affect the climate much more in the now colder parts of earth than the tropics. We see a demonstration of this in how the Gulf Stream keeps most of Europe much warmer in winter than comparable latitudes elsewhere.

Unless the melting of Artic and Greenland ice alters the salinity of the North Atlantic to the point at which ocean currents are changed - then Europe could get a LOT colder, even though the rest of the world was warming up.
Real global warming, say 10degC or so would greatly increase the habitable land area for both man and beast.

I think not. That would mean significant areas of the world with temperatures regularly hitting 50C in summer.

One of the possible causes of the Permian extinction 250 million years ago was a 10C temperature rise. That wiped out almost all species.

I don't think any of our Canadian friends would object to orange groves in their northern territories.

Those groves could be full of USA migrants who have abandoned the new deserts where the praries used to be.

There is no indication that we are headed for that sort of warming any time soon.

We could well be. A temperature rise of 5C could be enough to start a positive feedback of warming due to the release of methane from oceanic hydrates. That could easily push things up by another 5C.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[Nasajin]

On what basis do you support your assertion that the environment has been stable for that long? I have heard of two major global warming incidents, one in the middle ages and one about 5000 years ago. 10000 years ago was the last ice age.

I'm well aware of these incidents, it's why I pointedly referred to the last 9,000 out of 10,000 years... Furthermore, while solar and orbital fluctuations bias and unbalance an equilibrium, comets, asteroids, and volcanos (one of the other major cataclysms that cause global climate change) are often recovered from because the climate's system is in equilibrium. (i.e. volcanic ash, dust, etc eventually drops out of the sky, excess heat is absorbed by large bodies of water, or dissipates into space)

Also, I completely agree on the planting of trees, nothing could help our environment more. In fact, by turning CO2 in our atmosphere into condensed plant matter, we could prevent greater instability in our climate. A big problem at the moment is that large resources of coal are being burnt, and releasing massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere - this CO2 was extracted by the plants from the atmosphere over millions of years, and it's now being dumped straight back in all at once.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[arminw]

......then develop experimental studies to determine the accuracy of such predictions.......

The repeatable experiment is the key to good science. It separates educated conjecture from what is really observed. Einstein came up with some far out hypotheses and had the math to prove them. Many experiments have been done and are still ongoing that show that he is describing things as they are.

Here is an example of the difference between experimental observation and the interpretation:

In 1929 Mr. Hubble discovered that light from stars and galaxies is shifted toward the red end of the spectrum. That is STILL all that we can actually measure. He INTERPRETED that the cause of this is the familiar doppler effect. That is where we get the idea that these galaxies are receding from us and each other at astonishing velocities approaching the speed of light. More recent data show that the red shift must be caused by something more fundamental than simple doppler stretching. The data of the red shift is not in dispute, only its interpretation.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[CrimsonAvenger]

Here's where I think you're wrong, and have shown evidence in other parts of this thread to explain that. If we are just talking about melting glaciers, then the 17 inch estimate might be right, but the issue isn't only about melting. Many of the glaciers (on shelves above the water) are breaking off and falling into the water, causing a much more sudden change (take a look at the Ross shelf and what happened to it lately). There are a lot of estimations out there that predict different scenarios.

certainly possible. We have what? 140,000,000 square miles of ocean? To raise the sea level by 1 foot suddenly means an event involving 28,000 cubic miles of surface ice falling into the ocean in a short timespan (a year or less, perhaps). Assuming a 100 foot thick ice sheet, we're talking 1,400,000 square miles. Somehow, I don't see that as a reasonable event, GIVEN CURRENT CONDITIONS.

Yes, the conditions will change. But they are unlikely to change in such as a way that a piece of ice 100 feet thick and half the area of CONUS (CONtinental US == USA minus Alaska and Hawaii) might fall from land to sea without a significant warning - decades, most likely. Which gives us the decades needed to do the planning required to deal with it.

And note that the extreme event I described is only a 1 foot sea-level change. Certainly noticeable, but a one foot seawall isn't that hard to build either, especially given years (if not decades) of warning.

Assuming 10 million people are displaced over a hundred years, that's 100,000 people a year. Looking at some of the estimates for areas in India that say hundreds of millions will be displaced, that's a million people a year. Again, that all depends on the estimations that you select. 17 inches is a very conservative estimate (according ot what I've read and cited in my other posts in this thread) and I'm not sure of exactly what that would do to the land ass over the years.

From what I saw in TFA, 17 inches isn't especially conservative, given that it's an extrapolation of current trends. It could be more, but isn't terribly likely to be much more, unless something like two billion more people start living at European/American standards of living between now and then.

And, again, we'll have time to notice the change and make plans to deal with it. Years, at least, decades more likely.

Editorial Commentary: frankly, I'm much more concerned that the changes in salinity caused by massive amounts of land-ice going into the oceans will cause - shutdown of the thermohaline conveyer is not totally impossible. And that will make things very unpleasant for Europe and Canada (and the northern USA eventually). Not sure what it'll do to the rest of the world, but it won't be pretty.

Now, do you have a solution? And don't blather about Kyoto - even if that had been approved by everyone, and actually implemented by everyone (it wasn't, and it hasn't been by the people who DID approve it), it would have negligible effects on future climate change. Let's talk about a Treaty binding on everyone that does NOT include the "we'll talk about what comes after XXXX date after we get the Treaty passed". I'd rather have one that says "reduce CO2 emissions by 1% per year everywhere, in perpetuity, and we'll discuss other requirements as they become issues", rather than a "reduce CO2 emissions this much, then stop until we negotiate the next round"

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[krotkruton]

Ok, so how did your observation of my experiment go?

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[arminw]

....I think not. That would mean significant areas of the world with temperatures regularly hitting 50C in summer.......

Just because it gets warmer at the polar regions doesn't mean it has to get correspondingly hotter in the tropics. The small presently observed warming that everybody is talking about is affecting those cold places, but has no discernible effect in the tropical lands or seas.

(.....I thought you said all that evaporated water had to come out on land? Instead, it can remain in the warmer air.....)

When warm moist air from the oceans hits land, it rises and therefore cools. That cooling causes the water to precipitate. If it cold enough such in the polar regions, it makes snow which piles up into ice.

(....A temperature rise of 5C could be enough to start a positive feedback of warming......)

The average temperature of earth is determined by solar output and how much heat from the sun gets to the surface and how much radiates away again. When the oceans get warmer, more water evaporates and there are more clouds which reflect sunlight. That puts a damper on further heating. That is a negative feedback effect.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[arminw]

....Ok, so how did your observation of my experiment go?.....

The water level stayed the same or may have decreased minutely. I made sure that all the ice was floating in the glass. Any ice touching the bottom of the glass is equivalent to glaciers on land and would make the level go up. The key is that to simulate the sea ice, the ice cubes have to totally float in the water.

The reason the water level might actually do DOWN is that any trapped gases in the ice increases the volume of the ice displacing the water will pass off into the air. That effect is small however.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[Decaff]

Just because it gets warmer at the polar regions doesn't mean it has to get correspondingly hotter in the tropics. The small presently observed warming that everybody is talking about is affecting those cold places, but has no discernible effect in the tropical lands or seas.

You spoke about an average rise of 10C that would certainly have a dramatic effect in the tropical lands.

And if you don't think that temperature changes in the poles don't affect tropical lands, you don't know climate.

When warm moist air from the oceans hits land, it rises and therefore cools. That cooling causes the water to precipitate. If it cold enough such in the polar regions, it makes snow which piles up into ice.

But that isn't happening, or at least not as much as it used to. This is because it is not as cold as it used to be in the polar regions.

The Permian extinction was possibly caused by average rise of 10C.

The average temperature of earth is determined by solar output and how much heat from the sun gets to the surface and how much radiates away again. When the oceans get warmer, more water evaporates and there are more clouds which reflect sunlight. That puts a damper on further heating. That is a negative feedback effect.

There is only so much water the air can hold, and methane is an extremely strong greenhouse gas - it easily counteracts the cloud effect. Note that water is also a greenhouse gas - in addition to reflecting some sunlight, it also keeps heat in.

Also, the decreasing area of ice over the poles leads to less reflection - another positive feedback.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[krotkruton]

certainly possible. We have what? 140,000,000 square miles of ocean? To raise the sea level by 1 foot suddenly means an event involving 28,000 cubic miles of surface ice falling into the ocean in a short timespan (a year or less, perhaps). Assuming a 100 foot thick ice sheet, we're talking 1,400,000 square miles. Somehow, I don't see that as a reasonable event, GIVEN CURRENT CONDITIONS.

Yes, the conditions will change. But they are unlikely to change in such as a way that a piece of ice 100 feet thick and half the area of CONUS (CONtinental US == USA minus Alaska and Hawaii) might fall from land to sea without a significant warning - decades, most likely. Which gives us the decades needed to do the planning required to deal with it. (Bold emphasis mine)

In 2002, 3250 square km fell off the Larsen B Ice shelf over a 35 day period. That converts to about 1255 square miles while the thickness is hard to determine. Assuming there are 100 feet of ice above sea level, thats a little over half an inch in 35 days from a single ice shelf. Also, that article goes on to explain how the most likely cause of the break is climate change. There are other articles about the Ross Ice Shelf and its possibility of sudden collapse. As I'm sure you know, current conditions aren't the only factors that influence the ice. The 2005 deterioration of the B-15 iceberg off the Ross Ice Shelf is suspected to have been caused by a storm near Alaska that produced waves strong enough to break up the ice. The faster icebergs deteriorate, the faster the their ice is turned to water and added to the ocean's volume. I'm not trying to say that this iceberg could raise the sea level by a foot, I'm just trying to demonstrate how it is surely possible for these things to happen relatively quickly compared to decades or a century, and that 2 billion more industrialized people are not needed to cause it.

Even more so, these icebergs are similar to ice or snow on a roof (think 10 inches). As they melt, the edges fall off first. As the edges melt, due to a variety of reasons including internal temperature, mass, gravity and surface area , the rest of the snow melts and falls off at increasing speeds. The icebergs will not melt at a constant rate.

I'm much more concerned that the changes in salinity caused by massive amounts of land-ice going into the oceans will cause - shutdown of the thermohaline conveyer is not totally impossible.

I agree with you, this is a serious concern. Its also hard to know what the effects would be of combining global warming with a potential ice age due to the conveyer shutting down, or any other effects that might come from that.

Now, do you have a solution?

No, and I don't claim to have one. Again, I was just trying to show why I don't think that an increase in global temperature will produce more habitable and fertile land.

I think its important to again point out how this thread started. I'm not saying that I'm completely right on all of this. My goal to show that he was wrong. If you look at the initial post, I don't think you'll agree with that much of what he said anymore, or at least you won't say that he is right with high certainty.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[krotkruton]

You are completely missing my point. I'm not trying to simulate sea ice, neither was "my experiement" if you read it (since it was an adaptation of yours, I'm guessing you just glanced and thougth they were the same). To simulate the ice that I was describing, that being the West Antarctic ice sheet which is on land, you do not put the ice in water. You do realize that the Antarctica is on land and not a floating ice berg right? Most of the ice on Antarctica is not floating in the water, and if you have some reference that says otherwise, please present it. The simulation I described entailed taking a glass of water (ocean) and dropping ice cubes into the glass (ice shelves) from above the glass (simulating, above water; not in water; on land), then measuring the difference. If you really want to claim that adding ice cubes to a glass of water will decrease the level of the water (unless you leave it out long enough for the water to evaporate), well, then I really don't know what to say.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[CrimsonAvenger]

In 2002, 3250 square km fell off the Larsen B Ice shelf over a 35 day period [nsidc.org]. That converts to about 1255 square miles while the thickness is hard to determine. Assuming there are 100 feet of ice above sea level, thats a little over half an inch in 35 days from a single ice shelf.

Umm...with 140,000,000 square miles of ocean, a 1250 square mile berg will only cause a 1/2 inch increase in sea-level if the berg extends 4000 feet above sea-level. That one didn't.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[WhiplashII]

I believe the pertinent proof is that during periods of lower temperatures (such as following volcanic eruptions, etc.) we have less plant life. Global coolings leads to less plant life, so logicaly it follows that global warming would lead to higher plant life. In addition, looking at the historical record of the Earth, periods hotter than now have more plant life.

This is described somewhat by Nasa.

OK, now that there is proof on the table, can you change your world view - or is this a religion to you?

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[krotkruton]

Yes, I was trying to do too many calculations too quickly, and didn't watch my units. I also don't have time to find another good past example, but you can see some in my other posts in this thread (where I also make at least one mistake in calculations which was corrected). I do not think that the mistake invalidates my point, only that it fails to support it the way I wanted it to.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[Capsaicin]

It's essentially the default theory - it has been studied for decades and everytime someone increases the CO2 levels in a greenhouse the plants grow better than the control greenhouse. It's been done thousands of times.

There's no dispute here that CO2 encourages plant growth. However, the effect of increasing C02 on a global level (ie not just in a greenhouse) has now been studied for decades as well. Despite many remaining uncertainties, there is general agreement about expected climatic changes. (So much so that we seen downward revisions being made of some prior predictions, ie. the observation that sealevels will not rise as much as previously expected reflects an increasing precisions of the modelling.) This general agreement is now the "default theory." The rosy scenario painted by OP doesn't agree with with the null hypothesis.

Do you require people to provide references when they claim the Earth orbits the sun due to gravity as well?

Firstly I did not require people to provide references, OP did that. I merely pointed out he was not entitled to ask for them. (And in fact on precisely the same basis you raise). What OP essentially did was make a claim outside our current scientific understanding, like "the sun revolves around the earth" (to use your example), when someone told him that was wrong, he demanded references. As you point out you shouldn't need to reestablish factoids that are generally accepted among experts in the field, a fortiori when it is you who are making some positive assertion which disagrees (which is not to say it is incorrect) with current thought.

Of course while it's the default theory, it can crumble if further evidence is found.

Exactly, the null hypothesis moves with increasing scientific understanding. In terms of GW, the default theory is conveniently summed up in the IPCC reports, which are the subject of this topic. Nobody's modelling is coming up with a "More crops, more habitable lands" scenario, and it cannot in any way be considered the default theory at this time (as nice as it would be if it turns out to be true).

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[cagrin]

It is not selfish if I aim to help humankind,

This is a selfish view of the world in that it is ours for the taking, irrespective of the natural lifeforms that exist around us. Rather than only use nature(animals/plants) as a simple resource(finite), we need to learn how to co-exist in harmony with our natural environment, lest we end up destroying it. Your condescending view of nature belongs in the middle ages, not the 21st century. I take that back, it doesn't belong in the middle ages either.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[arminw]

....You do realize that the Antarctica is on land and not a floating ice berg right?........

Yes indeed you are right of course. However I said that in my original post that melting ice from land will increase the water level, but only slightly. However, to melt all that ice in the polar regions and high altitudes would require a huge average increase of temperatures on the entire planet. That is not likely nor projected to happen. As temperature rises in the oceans, more water evaporates and the now warmer atmosphere can hold immensely more water. This added water also means more clouds which reflect sunlight and thus have a negative feedback effect on the warming. At some point things would balance. To quantify all these interacting variables is tough exactly to predict. Present predictions based on simple calculation of land ice and ocean volumes does not take these feedback effects into account. We know from engineering that negative feedback tends to stabilize any system. Because of the laws of physics, the climate of the earth is an extremely complex negative feedback control system many of whose parameter are unknown and hard to measure. It is however precisely because of these laws, including the unique properties of water that make life possible and make the long term climate as stable as it is.

Water is the ONLY naturally occurring substance that EXPANDS in volume upon passing from a liquid to a solid. If water became more dense as it froze, the ice would sink to the bottom of all bodies of water. That would mean most of the earth's water would be ice and life would be difficult or impossible.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[arminw]

....methane is an extremely strong greenhouse gas.....

All green houses and all so called green house gases and agents can only keep solar energy in that has been absorbed. As the average temperature of the atmosphere rises, more water evaporates. This water eventually makes for more and much thicker clouds which are excellent reflectors of light. Light from the sun that is reflected back into space cannot warm anything. If nothing gets warmed, then all the greenhouse gases have no heat to trap. This reflection effect combined with the higher water content of the atmosphere has the tendency to put the brakes onto global warming. If the greenhouse gases doubled or tripled the rise in temperature and the ice meltdown is not anywhere near what it is imagined to be by simple minded computer models. Climate is an exceedingly complex negative feedback system, with many of its parameters unknown and very hard to determine. However, negative feedback tends to make for stability of any system. That includes the earth's average temperature control system.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[krotkruton]

Again, you seem to be missing the point. It isn't just about melting ice. As the ice melts, the glaciers break off and fall into the water, or slide down from mountains into the water. These chunks of glaciers are like ice cubes being dropped into a glass of water, not like ice cubes floating in the water. You originally claimed that all the ice on land would not raise the ocean levels, and then in subsequent posts have gone on to explain why icebergs floating in the water will not raise the level without discussing how the ice on land will affect things.

However I said that in my original post that melting ice from land will increase the water level, but only slightly. However, to melt all that ice in the polar regions and high altitudes would require a huge average increase of temperatures on the entire planet.

Since you are going to quote your original post, here it is Much of the world's ice is already floating on the oceans and is therefore displacing the water. All that floating ice melting would not raise the oceans even a millimeter. All the ice on land melting would not make much of a rise either. Just get yourself a globe and look how much ice area on land there is compared to the vastness of the oceans.

Now, I may be reading that wrong, but you said that the oceans would not rise "much" if "all" the ice on land melted. From some simple calculations done in other parts of this thread, all the ice on the West Antarctic shelf would raise the average sea level by about 83 meters. That is only a portion of ALL the ice on land. You're right that it would take a large increase of temperature to melt ALL the ice, but we don't need to melt ALL of it to get significant rises in the sea level. And again, ice that falls off of the land will also contribute to such rises in sea level, much like dropping ice cubes in a glass and observing the water level (since the ice wasn't in the ocean before, you can't start with the ice in the glass).

I'll be happy to address the other issues in your post when you address that one.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[Decaff]

All green houses and all so called green house gases and agents can only keep solar energy in that has been absorbed. As the average temperature of the atmosphere rises, more water evaporates. This water eventually makes for more and much thicker clouds which are excellent reflectors of light.

Wrong.

Light from the sun that is reflected back into space cannot warm anything. If nothing gets warmed, then all the greenhouse gases have no heat to trap. This reflection effect combined with the higher water content of the atmosphere has the tendency to put the brakes onto global warming.

Only to an extent. What you are forgetting is that not all the water that evaporates turns into clouds - clouds are a result of condensation.

If the greenhouse gases doubled or tripled the rise in temperature and the ice meltdown is not anywhere near what it is imagined to be by simple minded computer models.

Simple minded computer models aren't being used.

Climate is an exceedingly complex negative feedback system, with many of its parameters unknown and very hard to determine. However, negative feedback tends to make for stability of any system. That includes the earth's average temperature control system.

And positive feedback tends to make for instability. We know that positive feedback in climate is very common through Earth's history as there have been periods much warmer and much colder than now, as positive feedback in the directions of cooling and then warming have come into play.

The mechanisms you suggest for negative feedback simply haven't worked in the past - why should they work now?

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[Decaff]

I believe the pertinent proof is that during periods of lower temperatures (such as following volcanic eruptions, etc.) we have less plant life. Global coolings leads to less plant life, so logicaly it follows that global warming would lead to higher plant life. In addition, looking at the historical record of the Earth, periods hotter than now have more plant life.

This is described somewhat by Nasa.

OK, now that there is proof on the table, can you change your world view - or is this a religion to you?

That is proof of higher quantities of plant life, but not higher quantities of food crops. The growth of food crops depends critically on certain temperature regimes and rainfall patterns.

The majority of CO2 is taken up by plant life and photosynthetic bacteria in the sea, and they are not easy to harvest!

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[testadicazzo]

A more relevant experiment would be to fill a tall glass with ice cubes, then fill the glass half way with water, and mark the water level. Let the ice melt and observe the rise in water level. What happened: You have ice stacked up above the water level, so it isn't displacing any water, which is the situation we have here on earth where a lot of ice is stacked up on land.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[leandrod]

This is a selfish view of the world in that it is ours for the taking

And it is. We just have to be careful to not destroy what may be useful later.

There is no other personalities in the natural world we have to account for. All other earthly living beings can't be preserved at the expense of humans.

we need to learn how to co-exist in harmony with our natural environment

There is no such thing as harmony in nature, unless you mean birds singing and so on: harmony is a musical concept. What nature has is predation.

Your condescending view of nature belongs in the middle ages, not the 21st century.

It is not condescending, it is objective. Your view, by contrast, is Romantic; only that you don't seem to be aware of the fact.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[CrimsonAvenger]

Let's put that event in perspective: if a similar event were to happen EVERY day between now and Jan 1, 2010, sea-level would rise about a foot.

I still think it's fair to say that we won't be seeing events causing a sudden, significant, sea-level rise without a considerable change in the status quo, and we will have plenty of time to deal with it when that significant change appears.

So even if such an event were to start - mammoth ice sheets breaking off from Antarctica on a daily basis - we'd have three years to make such preparations as might be required. Which preparations amount to a one foot sea-wall around really low-lying cities and farmland.

I think we can safely wait until we see two such events happen in the same week before we worry too much about it. And frankly I'd wait till we saw 10 in one month (at 10 per month, it would take nearly ten years to produce that 1 foot rise in sea-level) before I became concerned enough to even start thinking about budgetting for it, much less building for it.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[WhiplashII]

You asked for some proof, I gave it to you. You then said that my proof was not valid, and you provided no proof of that assertion.

You need to realize that this is religion to you. You will not accept any proof I can give you, because you have an irrational belief. There is always a way to discount facts - but if you are doing that without any counter-proof, you are irrationally clinging to your original belief.

To put it simply, where is your evidence that food crops are more heat sensitive than every other plant on Earth?

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[arminw]

.....The mechanisms you suggest for negative feedback simply haven't worked in the past - why should they work now.....

Please give me some examples of positive feedback in nature occurring, today, things that we can observe happening now or experiments that can be done in a lab. Don't always come with conjecture about the distant past. There is compelling evidence that our planet was warmer and cooler in the past than today, but there is no way that the assertion of positive feedback occurring can be inferred from that. Negative feedback processes are common in both natural and manmade systems for the precise reason of stability. Even in a positive feedback situation, such as an oscillator, negative feedback eventually predominates to limit the amplitude of the oscillations.

A large disturbance of the climate, such as a meteor hit will cause the climate to stabilize in a relatively short time. The Krakatoa volcanic eruption in 1883 had a significant effect on the earth's climate for only a short time. The reason that the output of the sun is many times more stable than the power in the outlets of your house is that a very finely tuned negative feedback system between its gravity and the fusion reaction keeps it that way. Your own body temperature and other vital processes are regulated by complex multi-loop negative feedback.

(.....Simple minded computer models aren't being used....)

The computer programs used make many assumptions and simplifications of the incredibly complex feedback interactions involved. There are basically two reasons. One is that even the most powerful supercomputers are nowhere good enough to calculate the equations that we know apply. The second is that we have trouble determining what the value of many of the input variables should be. Bottom line: Climate prediction is a dubious science with a large dose of faith.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[Decaff]

You asked for some proof, I gave it to you. You then said that my proof was not valid, and you provided no proof of that assertion.

You need to realize that this is religion to you. You will not accept any proof I can give you, because you have an irrational belief. There is always a way to discount facts - but if you are doing that without any counter-proof, you are irrationally clinging to your original belief.

To put it simply, where is your evidence that food crops are more heat sensitive than every other plant on Earth

All you gave proof of was that plant life in general would increase as a result of CO2 increase.

That is not the same as food crops increasing in general as a result of global warming!

It is not just a matter of heat sensitivity, it is a matter of weather patterns. For example, if ocean currents change (as they well might), this could affect monsoons, resulting in droughts in Asia. Plants aren't going to be able to take advantage of that CO2 without water!

You are stuck with one single factor involved in global warming. Things are far more complicated than that.

However, if you want an actual example of how food crops are directly affected by temperature, look at this:

http://www.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?id=12354

"Staple food crop harvests could drop dramatically in a warmer climate as plants produce less wheat or rice with smaller grains, scientists from the University of Reading have found from a study involving peanuts.

Very hot temperatures during the flowering period prevent seeds from forming properly, and lead to faster growth overall which does not allow grains the time to grow."

Do you see now why your discussion of CO2 concentrations is far too simple?

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[cagrin]

There is no such thing as harmony in nature, unless you mean birds singing and so on: harmony is a musical concept. What nature has is predation.

We(humans) for the most part, are not part of nature anymore, but could easily destroy what is left by our lack of knowledge or caring about how our global activities affect nature. Nature also has symbiosis, co-operation, and i'm sure many other 'romantic' ideals.

It is not condescending, it is objective

It's selfish.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[Decaff]

Please give me some examples of positive feedback in nature occurring, today, things that we can observe happening now or experiments that can be done in a lab.

The melting of Artic ice and permafrost. As the ice melts, it is revealing less reflecting water, which absorbs more heat, melting more ice. This is happening right now.

A large disturbance of the climate, such as a meteor hit will cause the climate to stabilize in a relatively short time.

No, it doesn't. If you look at what happens, it can result in significant changes for a long time - millenia.

So you are wrong here.

The Krakatoa volcanic eruption in 1883 had a significant effect on the earth's climate for only a short time.

The Krakatoa eruption was extremely minor by comparison with the volume of CO2 and dust we are ejecting long term. If you take a look at a bigger eruption, like that at Toba 70,000 years ago, it really did wreck the climate - it created a mini ice age.

So this claim is wrong.

One is that even the most powerful supercomputers are nowhere good enough to calculate the equations that we know apply.

Of course not - things are chaotic. This is why statistical ensembles are run.

Bottom line: Climate prediction is a dubious science with a large dose of faith.

Bottom line: That is just your wishful thinking, to avoid the truth. You can't simply put forward false statements like that about the meteor strike, and use that in attempt to claim you are right, and the mass of climate scientists are wrong. It is faith in the face of evidence.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[arminw]

.....As the ice melts, it is revealing less reflecting water.......

An off that non-reflecting water more moisture evaporates which falls as more snow on the land, making more ice. Thus the negative feedback keeps the water level the same or makes it even less.

(.....Toba 70,000 years ago,......)
Stop conjecturing about how things were ages ago when nobody was around to actually OBSSERVE what really happened. How does anyone know that it was that volcanic eruption and not one of many other causes that made a mini ice age? Confine your discussion to what we can see happening now or can duplicate in the lab. The Krakatoa eruption caused a cold summer and crop failures for a year. We have historical records written by people who experienced this.

(.....This is why statistical ensembles are run.....)
I am sure that being on /. you have heard of GIGO. (Garbage in - Garbage out) That applies to statistics also. How does anyone know that the underlying input assumptions are correct? Talk about faith! We live here on the West Coast. The weather reports today are LESS accurate than they were in the 50s and before. Back then the Weather Bureau would say confidently: "You are going to get rain tomorrow or the day after, lots of it, get the sandbags out". That is exactly what happened, lots of rain and flooding rivers. Today all they can guess is there is a xx% chance of rain. Now the weather predictors rely on satellites and fancy computing systems and get it wrong far more often than they used to back when there were weather ships stationed a few hundred miles out in the ocean. These ships had real people on them that actually OBSERVED what the weather was like and phoned their observations to the central office. If nobody can yet reliably predict the short term or seasonal weather, despite all the advanced computing, what gives you such confidence that long term climate predictions, such as global warming are any more reliable? I cannot prove that the climate scientists are wrong and you cannot prove them right. The humbling fact is that we humans simply cannot predict the future accurately, and that includes the weather, for tomorrow, the next year or the next millennium. Just because the majority of any group, including scientists, believes something is true, does not make it so.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[Decaff]

An off that non-reflecting water more moisture evaporates which falls as more snow on the land, making more ice. Thus the negative feedback keeps the water level the same or makes it even less.

No, it doesn't, because it is too cold. Remember that water produced by ice melting is at the same temperature as the ice - you need to study the principles of latent heat. You aren't talking sense in terms of physics here.

Stop conjecturing about how things were ages ago when nobody was around to actually OBSSERVE what really happened. How does anyone know that it was that volcanic eruption and not one of many other causes that made a mini ice age?

Because the records of what happened are clear, and well understood. The eruption produced substantial quantities of ash and sulphates which blocked sunlight. This is all in the records of sedimentary deposits. It isn't controversial!

The humbling fact is that we humans simply cannot predict the future accurately, and that includes the weather, for tomorrow, the next year or the next millennium.

Sorry, but I am afraid we can. Predicting the weather for tomorrow is not the same as predicting long-term climate.

Also, we aren't talking about accuracy - but about trends.

Just because the majority of any group, including scientists, believes something is true, does not make it so.

Yes, I am afraid it does. That is the way science works, and has always worked.

Just because you, in a minority, believe differently, does not make what you believe right.

You can't have things both ways - try and provide me with evidence that positive feedback doesn't happen, but when I show you are wrong, you try and dismiss the subject altogether.

I am sorry for you. You are trying to hide behind so much false science and personal belief. The truth is hard to face, I know, but we have to face it.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[arminw]

.....Predicting the weather for tomorrow is not the same as predicting long-term climate.......

No, it is much harder to predict long term weather than tomorrow's weather and we can't do either very well.

(....No, it doesn't, because it is too cold. Remember that water produced by ice melting is at the same temperature as the ice - you need to study the principles of latent heat.....)

So you are saying that cold water evaporates less than the ice covered ocean? It turns out that it can be and has been accurately MEASURED exactly how much water evaporates at any given temperature and pressure. Much more water evaporates off the areas that are now water, rather than ice. This extra moisture has to and eventually and indeed does precipitate. There is no need to conjecture about volcanic eruptions. Even the arctic and Antarctic waters, barely above freezing evaporate a huge amount of water, compared to the ice covered ocean and ice on land. Even ice and snow evaporate. The process is called sublimation, where a solid passed directly from solid to vapor, without becoming liquid.

(.....Yes, I am afraid it does. That is the way science works, and has always worked......)

Unfortunately it has. Scientists are human and as such are subject to the " my mind is made up, don't confuse me with the facts syndrome. It would seem that one person can convince the scientific community if their arguments are good enough. It would be nice if this were the case, but I don't think human nature allows. Francis Bacon was unable to convince the scientistists of his time that the speed of light is finite. John Snow had mediocre success trying to convince the scientists of his time that germs caused disease rather than "miasma." Semmelweiss had practically no success trying to get doctors to wash their hands before delivering babies for pregnant mothers. Or, for a particularly telling example, consider Einstein's theory of relativity. Even TEN YEARS after he had proposed it, including what I think you will agree are rather good reasons, the scientific community refused to accept it. In 1921 when Einstein received the Nobel prize, relativity was not menationed at all! A more modern example is William Tift's work on quantization of red shift. Proposed and supported with evidence in 1977, it has been verified to increasing accuracy at least 4 times by separate scientists at Oxford, University of Arizona, Canadian National Research Center, and the Royal Observatory at Edinburgh. The last verification was in 2003, yet scientists still refuse to accept it. Why? Because it is real evidence that demolishes some key aspects of the "Big Bang" theory and the supposed age of the Universe.

Re:Risk assessment is lowered, politics apart

[Decaff]

So you are saying that cold water evaporates less than the ice covered ocean? It turns out that it can be and has been accurately MEASURED exactly how much water evaporates at any given temperature and pressure. Much more water evaporates off the areas that are now water, rather than ice. This extra moisture has to and eventually and indeed does precipitate.

Sure, some of it does. But positive feedback could only be avoided if large areas of high-altitude reflective clouds sat over the poles to cover the area where the ice was. They obviously don't.

You do realise that those who model climate and talk about positive feedback systems do understand all this?

There is no need to conjecture about volcanic eruptions. Even the arctic and Antarctic waters, barely above freezing evaporate a huge amount of water, compared to the ice covered ocean and ice on land. Even ice and snow evaporate. The process is called sublimation, where a solid passed directly from solid to vapor, without becoming liquid.

Yes, I know.

The problem is that you keep ignoring the fact that your supposed negative feedback mechanisms haven't worked in the past. We have had massive ice ages and times where there was no ice at all.

Why should negative feedback magically overcome global warming now when it has failed to do so often in the past.

Even TEN YEARS after he had proposed it, including what I think you will agree are rather good reasons, the scientific community refused to accept it. In 1921 when Einstein received the Nobel prize, relativity was not menationed at all!

This is a very tired old argument. It goes like this:

(1) Science often progresses through a few individuals who disagree with the mainstream.
(2) I disagree with the mainstream.
(3) Therefore I am right.

Unfortunately, virtually all who disagree with the mainstream are wrong. There are few Einsteins. You don't get to pick and choose those who are Einsteins beforehand - you have to wait until their ideas are tested long term.

Also....

It would seem that one person can convince the scientific community if their arguments are good enough.

Yes, but your arguments aren't. You keep showing you either don't understand the physics of the situation (such as arguing that increased atmospheric vapour would counteract the effects of ice loss at the poles). Or you actually reject evidence, such as the well-established climatic effects of the Toba eruption.

Francis Bacon was unable to convince the scientistists of his time that the speed of light is finite.

Well that is hardly surprising, as there was at the time no way to measure the speed of light. Bacon died in 1626. The first practical measurements were in 1667.

Even TEN YEARS after he had proposed it, including what I think you will agree are rather good reasons, the scientific community refused to accept it.

Nonsense. Special Relativity was accepted immediately. General Relativity had to wait for evidence.

In 1921 when Einstein received the Nobel prize, relativity was not menationed at all!

The reason why it wasn't mentioned is that that particular Nobel Prize was not awarded for relativity. It was awarded for his work on quantum theory.

The last verification was in 2003, yet scientists still refuse to accept it. Why? Because it is real evidence that demolishes some key aspects of the "Big Bang" theory and the supposed age of the Universe.

No. They refuse to accept it because the evidence for it isn't clear. It certainly has not been "verified 4 times". In 2005 data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey was checked for evidence of periodicity and none was found (Tang and Zang, 2005). Also check the review of Bajan et al from this year: "in our opinion the existence of redshift periodicity among galaxies is not well established.".

You are simply cherry-picking scraps of ideas.

Never mind, Captain Smith...

[dpbsmith]

...our revised data show we're only going to graze that iceberg.

Report details

[Anonymous Coward]

Sea level is currently 0.000 meters above sea level, and is predicted to be 0.000 meters above sea level in 100 years.

Re:Report details

[poochNik]

From the article: The IPCC has been forced to halve its predictions for sea-level rise by 2100, one of the key threats from climate change. It says improved data have reduced the upper estimate from 34 in to 17 in.

That is a huge change (and bear in mind that's the "upper estimate") and shows that this has about the same rigor as, say, sociology or, maybe, economics. Basically, we don't really understand this incredibly complex weather system because it's way too complex with its huge number of sub-systems and sub-sub-systems, etc., that we are still discovering (putting aside understanding how they work and why). It's only to be expected that the IPCC messes up on a major prediction.

And why did the IPCC lower the range? It turns out that the aerosols that were banned way back because they were "evil" had a beneficial effect -- with respect to global warming. Who knew?

And that's the point: we don't know. We all want to solve the problem NOW, but in extremely large scale systems that's extremely difficult. We might look at a coding practice for a guideline: change only one thing at a time, then see what happens. If everything's OK, try another small change. Changing a lot of stuff at once is almost certain to make the system worse and much more difficult to get right.

So man-made CO2 doesn't matter anymore?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

man's impact on the environment has been 'downgraded'

I'll celebrate by having baked beens and onions for dinner.

Re:So man-made CO2 doesn't matter anymore?

[pjt33]

Do you mean CO2 or CH4?

I missed this discovery...

[nametaken]

"It also says that the overall human effect on global warming since the industrial revolution is less than had been thought, due to the unexpected levels of cooling caused by aerosol sprays, which reflect heat from the sun."

Wow, so uh, the aerosol sprays were helping? Damn... I'm getting rid of these awful pump-style hairspray bottles!

Re:I missed this discovery...

[spikexyz]

Aerosol means fine particulate matter in the atmosphere....not aersol cans.

Re:I missed this discovery...

[pimpimpim]

but calling it 'aerosol sprays' is certainly making you think of the cans. It's not that anything else is currently 'spraying' aerosols, is it. In any case, it will make for an interesting finale in the next hollywood natural disaster movie! The world saved by deodorant! It would stink, though.

Mind Boggles

[Jarjarthejedi]

"Scientists insist that the lower estimates for sea levels and the human impact on global warming are simply a refinement due to better data on how climate works rather than a reduction in the risk posed by global warming."

Wait...wait...the sea won't rise as high, and yet the risk is the same...someone explain that one to me.

Personally I've always been a fan of the 'Humans aren't capable of doing much damage to the Earth' theorists who say it's due to the sun becoming hotter (which happens quite often, don't laugh) or some other kind of trend we haven't been around long enough to notice.

Of course they claim that it's because the Ocean's absorbing it and aerosols are reflecting it so I guess I'm still a crackpot eh? Anyone else notice that every Global Warming report seems the same? 'Our last estimate was too high, but it's still dire because of "insert new theory/problem"'?

Re:Mind Boggles

[fimbulvetr]

So are you just ignorant to the huge yellow and brown clouds lingering over even moderately sized cities in the US? I'd say we affect the climate more than we admit.

Re:Mind Boggles

[Anonymous Coward]

There is more potential dangers than just the ocean cover beach front condos. Just the fact that the atmosphere itself will be 5 degrees warmer can lend itself to changes. Just take weather patterns for example. If the average temperature is 5 degrees more, than the volume of air that is warmer is mich larger than it currently is. Air might not cool as fast, and might heat up quicker. Whole weather patterns can be changed if there is interruption, thus interrupting regular precipitation globally.

England is at a latitude where many other countries of the world are pretty cold (look at parts of Canada at the same lat. eh), and depends on the warm stream that traverses the Atlantic from the equator to bring warm water and air to it. Now lets say the 5 degree temp change increases the amount of warmth England gets. It's sea side could turn from what it is into something closer to the southern French coast. There are also plant and animal life which are fairly delicate and require a certain range of temperature to survive. If they're already at their upper boundary, then an increase could push them over that boundary.

It's all extremely complicated and very much a highly elaborate domino's game.

Re:Mind Boggles

[dragons_flight]

The previous sea level predictions for 2100 were still less than a meter. Given that most of the land on earth is more than 3 feet above sea level, sea level rise was never a major part of the near-term concern posed by global warming (except for specific coastal cities and vulnerable islands).

Most of the scientific concerns over climate change are, to be blunt, associated with the changing climate (e.g. temperatures, precipiation, storminess) and not associated with the incremental change in sea level, even if sea level is an easier threat to convey to the public.

Re:Mind Boggles

[DeadChobi]

I'd be more interested in a reduction in carbon pollution as a pedestrian than I would be as a "responsible world citizen." Inhaling the pollution from the cloud of thick, black smoke from a semi truck changing gears as it drives by is as bad as smoking a carton of cigarretes. I think we should do something to reduce our emissions because of smog. It's not that I don't care about nature, but people like me are more inclined to care about your cause when your solution actually directly impacts our lives. Reliable, efficient, and clean mass-transit systems are socialist programs that I'm very amicable to.

Re:Mind Boggles

[hxnwix]

We would all like to turn out the lights here at Global Warming Conspiracy HQ, but certain highly intelligent crackpots continue to remain skeptical. These guys are really stymieing us... just when we think we have a bow on this box of lies, Certain Individuals find flaws! Their insights are insightful and include the stunning notion that, since sea ice floats, once it melts, its displacement will actually decrease! Ocean levels will fall!

We are running out of scientific sounding ideas. It's become so bad that, no matter the veracity of our predictions, we are disbelieved. It is truly a case of "insert new theory/problem."

"the debate is over"?

[b17bmbr]

perhaps we can rethink our blind devotion to global warming and man's supposed virulent impact. I have never understood why is it accepted completely that we're somehow responsible for supposed "global warming" and that we think we can do anything about it. There is still much scientific debate (unless looking for government research funding) and (yes, I RTFA) much information still coming in and I'm sure more will come in the future. The truth is probably more troublesome, in that we simply don't know. We live in a world of perfect access to information, and we expect to be able to know everything, and we assume we have complete control as well. So much for post-modern, secular humanism, eh? We are not omnipotent and omniscient.

The earth has been around 6 billion years, give or take, and it's gone through more violent and extreme changes long before a single human emerged from the primordial sludge. And now we're to believe that somehow earth's perfect harmonial environemntal equilibirum, which never ever existed in the first place, is being upset by man? When I see a Monday night football game in Seattle in November, and there's snow on the ground, I can only conclude "global warming" is causing it. Sure.

Re:"the debate is over"?

[pnot]

The earth has been around 6 billion years, give or take, and it's gone through more violent and extreme changes long before a single human emerged from the primordial sludge.

Oh, the earth can certainly handle what we're throwing at it; even if we succeed in wiping ourselves and 99% of existing species out, evolution will just continue with the remaining 1% and produce something that can handle the new conditions. It won't be the first mass extinction.

Make no mistake: it's not about "saving the earth", it's about saving the human race, or at least civilization as we know it.

When I see a Monday night football game in Seattle in November, and there's snow on the ground, I can only conclude "global warming" is causing it. Sure.

You're missing the "global" in global warming. Just because the earth as a whole is getting warmer and the ice caps are melting, it doesn't necessarily mean your backyard is getting a tropical climate. For some regions the long-term prognosis is that it will get a whole lot colder -- for example, western Europe if the gulf stream shuts off.

One reasonable inference we can make is that weather will get more violent and less predictable, simply because we're pushing more energy into a system that exhibits chaotic behaviour. So expect more freak weather -- and on a local, short-term level, that's could just as well be snowstorms as heatwaves.

Re:"the debate is over"?

[grcumb]

perhaps we can rethink our blind devotion to global warming and man's supposed virulent impact. I have never understood why is it accepted completely that we're somehow responsible for supposed "global warming" and that we think we can do anything about it.

[Emphasis mine.]

Nicely trolled, sir. You've begged the question quite nicely, and you'd have effectively sand-bagged any reasoned response, except you forgot something: Your understanding doesn't matter. Your failure to comprehend scientific consensus has no effect on the accuracy of the findings, nor on the continuing refinement of the data models, which, after all, is what this story is reporting about.

The earth has been around 6 billion years, give or take, and it's gone through more violent and extreme changes long before a single human emerged from the primordial sludge.

Absolutely right, and on several of those occasions, the conditions were antithetical to human existence. See, the issue here is not saving the planet. Earth will do just fine, thank you very much. The issue, if I may, is saving the humans, who are not nearly so resilient, and to whom, heaven knows why, many of us seem to have a sentimental attachment. Perhaps it has something to do with being human ourselves.

HTH, HAND.

Re:"the debate is over"?

[kalidasa]

So much for post-modern, secular humanism, eh? We are not omnipotent and omniscient.

Actually, it's religions that are into the whole "omnipotent and omniscient" bit, not secular humanists.

When I see a Monday night football game in Seattle in November, and there's snow on the ground, I can only conclude "global warming" is causing it. Sure.

On the other hand, there have been a bunch of 60 degree days in late November and early December in the Northeast. What happens when you add more energy to a stable system? It becomes more turbulent.

Re:"the debate is over"?

[dangitman]

We live in a world of perfect access to information, and we expect to be able to know everything, and we assume we have complete control as well.

We do?

I'm not sure what world you live on, but on Earth, we don't - and I don't know very many people who believe this. I hear some anonymous strangers on the internet saying things like this, but when it comes to people I actually know and trust, I haven't ever heard anyone express this opinion.

Re:"the debate is over"?

[Goaway]

I have never understood

I'm not sure why you think your ignorance is an interesting topic of discussion for the rest of us.

Re:"the debate is over"?

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>our blind devotion to global warming

Straw man argument do not lead to good policy decisions.

>we simply don't know

There could be no better argument for avoiding large-scale experiments, then. But we do know that CO2 levels are rising, that it's not coming from living organisms, and that the pattern of change (warmer lower atmosphere, cooler upper atmosphere, warmer nights) matches the effects physics says to expect from CO2.

>So much for post-modern, secular humanism, eh?

Straw man arguments do not lead to good policy decisions.

>The earth has been around 6 billion years, give or take

4.5 billion.

>now we're to believe that somehow earth's perfect harmonial environemntal equilibirum, which never ever existed in the first place, is being upset by man?

Straw man arguments do not lead to good policy decisions. Neither do non sequiturs: none of the big excursions in the geological record happened while we were trying to feed six billion humans with climate-sensitive crops. Or had hundreds of millions of humans living within a few meters of sea level.

>When I see a Monday night football game in Seattle in November, and there's snow on the ground

A dry day in Seattle doesn't mean the climate is dry. A rainy day in Tucson doesn't mean the climate is wet. The fact that there was a cold day in winter in one place is not climate data. Confusing weather with climate, like the media do when they yammer about a heat wave during a climate change conference, is stupid.

Re:"the debate is over"?

[Jugalator]

The truth is probably more troublesome, in that we simply don't know.

And until we do know, we should be careful about greenhouse gas emissions.
Or do the "better safe than sorry" not mean much to people?

This is a logic I haven't really understood in this debate -- people go on about "we don't know if it's much about us!" like it was going to help.

That's actually an even worse scenario, where we need to be extra careful until we do know the extent of our responsibility for the detected dramatic changes in atmosphere composition as for CO2 lately (yes, it seems to be going far above the former natural cycles the past hundred of thousands of years).

Re:"the debate is over"?

[StikyPad]

The issue, if I may, is saving the humans, who are not nearly so resilient, and to whom, heaven knows why, many of us seem to have a sentimental attachment. Perhaps it has something to do with being human ourselves.

That's just more nonsense. Humans are as resilient as pretty much any creature on the planet, except perhaps cockroaches, especially where climate is concerned. The average temperature would have to rise pretty substantially -- which would almost definately be checked by evaporative cooling from the oceans -- in order for climate to be unsurvivable. We may experience more stormy weather, but maybe building for that is what we should be focusing our energies on rather than trying to change something we can't -- the climate.

Re:"the debate is over"?

[Megane]

Your failure to comprehend scientific consensus has no effect on the accuracy of the findings, nor on the continuing refinement of the data models, which, after all, is what this story is reporting about.

There is no such thing as "scientific concensus".

Re:"the debate is over"?

[MrBSquish]

I think you missed the point. Its not the fact that Humans aren't as resiliant as any other creature, its the fact that Humans or for that matter any other creature aren't as resiliant as the Earth! The climate change which we are CURRENTLY experiencing is not just affecting us, its ALREADY affecting various plants an animals. "The average temperature would have to rise pretty substantially" - "almost definately be check by evaporative cooling" - Oh really? fair enough, so this evaporative cooling? was that what the Earth was using when Hurricane Katrina killed all those poor people in New Orleans? Because that IS what rapid evaporative cooling can cause. Look mate, what I'm trying to tell you is this, its not just the fact that we as humans can withstand a couple of degrees, because your right, we can. What we cannot withstand is the other effects of this temperature. Like crop failure from hurricanes and as we call them in Australia cyclones, flooding, or on the flip side drought. Livestock are also effected by these things, especially drought. What does this amount to? - lack of food. What does lack of food amount to? At the least - lower standards of living, at the worst - death.

Re:"the debate is over"?

[slughead]

Nicely trolled, sir. You've begged the question quite nicely, and you'd have effectively sand-bagged any reasoned response, except you forgot something: Your understanding doesn't matter.

Apparently, nobody's understanding matters.

I know a few things about global warming but I'm hardly a scientist. I do know what to look for when I'm gaging expertise, and total ignorance of evidence and blindly calling everyone a 'troll' who disagrees with you will definitely get your idea flushed down my mind's toilet.

The studies on this subject are not actually all that hard to read. When all is said and done, temperatures have only risen 0.6 degrees in the past 100 years. Yes I know it doesn't matter what happens globally, but in specific and dangerous locations like Greenland (whose ice loss we now know was exaggerated ).

This is all in addition to the standard gripes I have with the sensationalism and lies coming from the media, and the near silence of the scientific community unless confronted by inquisitive people. Peer review doesn't work if nobody's willing to speak. Essentially, the reported findings of the world's largest climate experiment stated "11 degrees"... the data really pointed to 3 degrees. "Peer review" was silent until a journalist ASKED them. Listen to the radio show link (earlier in this paragraph), it's chilling (note my brand new global warming pun!).

Re:"the debate is over"?

[misanthrope101]

I have never understood why is it accepted completely that we're somehow responsible for supposed "global warming" and that we think we can do anything about it.

1. Because in laboratory experiments "greenhouse gases" have been shown to trap heat and raise the temperature. Inferred from this is the conclusion that "greenhouse gases" trap heat and raise the temperature, and when you release them into the environment in large amounts, you'll be at least partly responsible for trapped heat and a raised temperature.

2. We are doing something about it. We're making it worse.

Re:"the debate is over"?

[theCat]

it's frustrating, isn't it? The debate was over before it got started, because it's too abstract and requires a certain commitment to logical thought and careful analysis. And most of the public, and I'd say all of the politicians, are too mentally lazy to undergo the effort.

If we were talking about the approach of the Mongol horde, where everyone could climb the parapets and see for themselves the rising cloud of dust from thousands of horses, there would be less yammering about the coming problem, yes? Or even in the the case of a deadly pandemic, where cemetaries start to fill up with bodies and the cartman goes through the streets calling "bring out yer dead!" like a scene from Monty Python's "Holy Grail", people would pretty much get it.

But climate... so long as the *weather* is nice today, or tolerable, or tolerable somewhere else that I can reach with little effort, or somewhere else that is easily defended against refuges also seeking better *weather*, then what's to complain about?

As a species we're probably too stupid, in the end, to survive. Or perhaps we're due for another defining bottleneck in our slow evolution.

You have to ask yourself, given our ability to change the world, and therefore our ability to destroy our own supporting habitat right out from under us, what physical or chemical changes must our brain undergo such that the part that allows us to dream up novel tools is tempered by an instinct not to use such tools to our eventual destruction? We're told that "market forces" is the answer, but since the invention of slavery and forced labor we see that the market just makes things worse. We need an outside influence, something apart from the inventive monkey mind, to say "bad monkey no banana" when we go too far.

Fat chance. We *are* doomed.

Re:"the debate is over"?

[CFTM]

Aye, about four billion years ago, scientists believe that we were struck by an asteroid that was so large that the material ejected from the collision was the foundation for the formation of the moon. Life existed on our planet before that occurred; life exists after!

On our best [worst?] day, we couldn't hope to destroy life on this planet. I would imagine that even detonating the majority of our nuclear payload would only do so much good; save us releasing so much energy that the planet can no longer remain together.

Re:"the debate is over"?

[Rakarra]

That's just more nonsense. Humans are as resilient as pretty much any creature on the planet, except perhaps cockroaches, especially where climate is concerned.

Humans are not entirely self-reliant though. We rely on plants and animals for so many of our needs -- food and air being the most important ones. Sure, technically people can live in inhospitable environments, but I fear for civilization if a much larger percentage of the world population is forced to do so.

Finland is getting heat waves

[MikkoApo]

It's pretty hard to say if it's due the greenhouse effect, but Finland hasn't gotten permanent snow yet (at least in the southern parts). I remember a time when I had to walk through snow banks on my birthday (7th of oct) but this year it's almost warm enough to cycle to work in shorts (+7C).

The weather is breaking temperature records and even in the northern parts it's not better. For example tourism is getting hit badly. Yesterday I saw some news footage where tourists were walking in something which was much closer to water then snow and they were supposed to be on a skiing holiday. And even worse, if it doesn't snow the Finnish Santa isn't going to get off the ground in two weeks.

Of course we're changing our environment

[caseih]

And it's not pretty either. Even if you ignore global warming or global climate change for a moment, you just have to step outside in any of our urban centers, look at the sky and take a whiff. Of course we're hurting and changing the environment. That's the real shame of it. I happen to work with an environmental scientist and he says the number one bad thing that everyone is ignoring is the short-term, immediate affect on our health. We're slowly killing ourselves in our own pollution.

Whether the long-term effect of what we do is 10 degrees of warming, 5 degrees of warming, or even 5 degrees of cooling, we're still have a pretty drastic affect on the poor earth. Apparently, there is new research coming out all the time (and not from the grand right-wing conspiracy) that global warming isn't happening as fast as some think. But does it really matter that it's slower than we thought? We still have to confront the same issues. Net carbon increase, particulates, and nitrous oxides, all of which damage our health, as well as the environment.

Re:Of course we're changing our environment

[Jugalator]

I agree, it's interesting to watch the furious hunt for a cure for cancer, when it's pretty obvious why it's so frequent in the societies of today.

What we're looking for is probably for another cure for cancer than an improved environment.

Re:Of course we're changing our environment

[chris_eineke]

We're slowly killing ourselves in our own pollution.

In the book Ghost Map, Steven Johnson shows how Cholera was transmitted through the consumption of polluted drinking water in Victorian London. The disease spread easily because people were drinking water they took a shit in. So what'll be the next big epidemic that's spread through the consumption of polluted air? Ah wait, I think I already found one. This gives the expression "the shit hitting the fan" a totally new meaning. :P

Re:Of course we're changing our environment

[khallow]

The main cause of cancer is people failing to die of other causes first. Second, is whether the person smokes or not. Pollution along with diet is further down the list.

Re:Of course we're changing our environment

[Profound]

>> nitrous oxides

The downside is that there is pollution, the upside is that everything will be really, really funny.

Re:Of course we're changing our environment

[Skippy_kangaroo]

Do you know the greatest cure for that?

Economic growth. As we get richer we are less willing to tolerate pollution and can afford to pay for the removal of pollution. (It's just the growth of the NIMBY movement writ large.)

Compare, say, Taiwan and China who are at lower levels of economic development with big US or UK cities. The US and UK cities are immesurably cleaner. Furthermore, these same US or UK cities that you are complaining about are much cleaner than they were, say, 100 or even 50 years ago. Why do you think countries moved to unleaded petrol? Because they could afford to. Lead is cheaper as an additive, but the side effects in terms of smog are pretty dire. Consider, even, the move to diesel as a more environmentally friendly fuel. It happened because we could afford to develop high efficiency diesel engines and low-sulphur fuels.

So people are not ignoring pollution - its just that they prefer to have functional hospitals and schools and police forces. And when they can afford to they'll get rid of as much pollution as they want to. And when enough people care enough about greenhouse gas emissions to actually pay for it in their electricity bill (using the alternative energy suppliers that seem to be popping up in many countries) they will switch.

Re:Of course we're changing our environment

[FridayBob]

Sad, but true. I keep thinking that the human race is no better than a bacterial culture in a hypothetical closed-ecosystem lab experiment, where the bacteria can't help but eat up and poison their environment, some algae for example, faster than the latter can regenerate. The bacteria are incapable of self-regulation, even if their own survival is at stake. Individually, some of us may be aware of what's going on and attempt to alert the majority to the danger, but most of us don't seem to understand the trouble we're in. Rich or poor, most people are just too busy looking out for themselves to even give the environment and their impact on it more than a second thought. In other words, collectively we're no smarter than those bacteria: we're not capable of self-regulation either. Add to that the fact that there's now over six billion of us and counting and that we're using up the world's resources much faster than is sustainable with or without the greenhouse effect, and it's pretty obvious we're all heading for the mother of all disasters.


(I'm supposed to say something funny or ironic now,
but for some reason I can't think of anything).

Re:Of course we're changing our environment

[An Onerous Coward]

That would be a nice counterargument, if "economic growth" in modern terms wasn't just shorthand for "turning nonrenewable natural resources into trash at a faster rate than ever before." Our entire economic infrastructure is based on ever accelerating consumption of oil, metals, water, and timber, all of which are being used faster than they can be replenished. The faster we consume, the harder it's going to hit us when we finally run out of all the things we need.

Re:Of course we're changing our environment

[evilviper]

I happen to work with an environmental scientist and he says the number one bad thing that everyone is ignoring is the short-term, immediate affect on our health. We're slowly killing ourselves in our own pollution.

That makes no sense at all. For the past 100 years, there's been overwhelming support for reducing pollution that causes short-term health effects. The standards are always becoming continually more stringent, and there are several under way.

Where is this imaginary world, where the EPA doesn't exist?

If ANYTHING, it's long-term effects that are commonly ignored, while the short-term effects get overwhelming scrutiny.

Re:Of course we're changing our environment

[argStyopa]

"we're still have a pretty drastic affect on the poor earth. "

The Earth doesn't give a shit. The only ones who care or are even AWARE of an impact are the stupid hairless monkeys that infest every continent.

"Net carbon increase, particulates, and nitrous oxides, all of which damage ... the environment."
They change the environment, they don't damage it. The earth started (apparently) a coalescing ball of dust and rock, for a long time was little more than a sphere of semisolid molten rock. For the majority of its history it hasn't had what we would call a breathable atmosphere. It's been both 100C warmer and 100C cooler, and it seemed to settle at a much warmer temperature than now. In the last several million years it's gotten significantly cooler (on average).

Yes, those hairless monkeys may have polluted their cage past the point of habitability. We shall see. But the earth? Even if you can't help but anthropomorphize, it couldn't care less. She's seen the obliteration of 99% of all species not once but SEVERAL times, and they keep growing back.

Re:Of course we're changing our environment

[jadavis]

We're slowly killing ourselves in our own pollution.

Huh?

So, then there must be numbers showing that people in cities die younger from lung problems and cancer (after controlling for cigarette smoking), right? Show us.

Re:Of course we're changing our environment

[Kattspya]

What good does a natural resource do in the ground? What kind of benefit do I get from an undisturbed bauxite vein?

Re:Of course we're changing our environment

[An Onerous Coward]

Two possible answers: What kind of benefit do you get from money that's sitting undisturbed in your bank account? Now, the bauxite vein probably isn't bearing interest, but the returns on bank accounts are also pitiful. The benefit of keeping money in a bank account is knowing that it will be there later, when you actually do need it.

Meanwhile, resources like forests and fish actually do bear interest. If we use such resources faster than they can replenish themselves, then we're guaranteed a lower quality of life in the long term.

Second answer: The benefit of leaving the bauxite alone is not having to deal with the environmental damage that occurs when we extract, process, and use it.

Re:Of course we're changing our environment

[Kattspya]

Letting money sitting in the bank is useless if we are likely to find replacement for money. So it's a bad analogy. It's more like saving firewood and going cold for the time it takes to wire the house for electricity and then finding your firewood more or less useless.

What if the majority (or the ruling majority) had your opinion during the industrial revolution?

I am confident that we will find a replacement for oil when we have to. If the price per barrel goes high enough other technologies will become economically feasible and get more research funding.

Re:Of course we're changing our environment

[An Onerous Coward]

The analogy is better than you imply. "Money" is an abstract entity, which is easy enough to replace with other abstract entities. But crude oil is a specific substance with a very specific and unique set of physical properties. So even if we transition our economy away from using oil for fuel, for plastics, for fertilizers, etc., to the point where we supposedly don't need it anymore, there is still some value in having it available, because new uses might be found for it.

Your "we must use every ounce of oil available before we transition away from it, else waste nature's bounty" attitude ignores a dozen salient facts. First, when we burn oil it puts CO2 into the atmosphere. Even run-of-the-mill global warming deniers should recognize that making these huge changes in the composition of our atmosphere might affect something, and it will be very tricky and expensive to undo the change we're making.

Next, it ignores the environmental impact of actually extracting resources. I brought this up before, and you didn't address it.

Next, the bigger we grow our oil-dependent economy, the more infrastructure has to be replaced during the transition phase. The harder we work to maintain current extraction rates, the more quickly and suddenly the supply will bottom out, and the more damaging it will be to the overall economy. To extend your analogy, it's like knowing you have a finite supply of wood, but building major additions to the house, upgrading the furnace-based heating system, and waiting until your supply is mostly gone before you start even exploring getting the power company to string power lines out to your house or installing the electric heaters.

What I'm saying is, if we'd recognized that our reliance on oil was bad for our country back in the 70's, and started seriously exploring our other options (biofuels, electric cars, Dread Nuclear), we would not be having this discussion today, we would not have involved ourselves in two separate wars in the Middle East, we would have bigger oil reserves (which we're still extremely dependent on for chemical fertilizer), and less CO2 in the atmosphere.

You're happy just knowing that we'll find replacements for oil if the price per barrel goes high enough. I'm not. It will mean that, at least in the short term, we'll be living in an economy where energy is significantly more expensive than it was historically. This has huge, long-term consequences for an economy that has been relying on cheap energy for over a century. We moved the bulk of our manufacturing capacity to China on the assumption that we could get goods from there to here cheaply, and we can't just turn on a dime and bring all that manufacturing back the moment shipping costs become prohibitive. We built millions of acres of suburban housing under the assumption that we could cheaply shuttle people to far-flung jobs and shopping centers, and it will be difficult to transition to a denser, less fuel-hungry system. All that churn necessary to adapt to changes in the economy amount to waste, and could have been avoided if we'd seen it coming and planned ahead for it.

Of course, it's possible that the energy crunch will be a short-term thing, and intensive research into alternative energies might eventually lead energy to be cheap again. But there will still be a very difficult transition period that could have been much simpler if we'd begun seriously investing in that intensive research decades ago.

You want to make this entire conversation about oil. What about metal? What about fish? What about timber? What about fresh water? You can't tell me that it's a good idea to be pushing every one of the resources we depend on to the breaking point, with the glib assumption that we'll easily find a replacement for each of them as they run out. Sure, we can run out of metal. We'll just use plastics. Which... depend on oil. And if we run out of fish, we'll just eat more beef. But modern agriculture also depends heavily on oil for fertilizer. Timber?

Re:Of course we're changing our environment

[aminorex]

> if "economic growth" in modern terms wasn't just shorthand for "turning nonrenewable natural resources into trash at a faster rate than ever before."

This condition seems obsolete: There won't be any more non-renewable natural resources to trash. In the unfolding Malthusian catastrophe, we're around the 50% consumed level for calories, which means the bulk of the population should die off within the generation, leaving essentially nothing, unless we rapidly refocus resources on creating a sustainable model for development. Yes, this has been called too early several times, and the result is exactly analogous to the story of the boy who cried wolf. Oh well. Wolf's here. Too bad.

Doesn't matter what's causing it, we can slow it

[dsanfte]

It really doesn't matter to what extent Global Warming is man's problem or nature's: it's still happening, and we can still help slow it down.

It's clear that it's heppening, now do we want it to happen faster, or slower?

Cow Farts = Global Warming

[Old.UNIX.Nut]

Want to do your part to fight "global warming", then dump that SUV for something that gets at least 25MPG and stop eating beef.

Re:Cow Farts = Global Warming

[caseih]

Give me a break about the cows. I can fix that one anyway. Just add flare stacks to each animal and burn it off harmlessly (it is carbon-neutral). Or collect it and heat your home with it. It's actually such a small amount that neither suggestion is serious.

The truth of the matter is that our landfills are giving off more methane than cows. The first step should be to collect that gas. As for cows farting, I gather there are several orders of magnitude more people on the planet than cows, who have the same problem, so I guess we should take care of them first.

But dumping the SUV? Absolutely. Saying the human affect on the environment is less than we thought should not be an excuse to keep guzzling fossil fuels. Unfortunately, only economics is going to cure us of our oil drug dependency, or massive willpower (unlikely given human nature). And right now the economics of buying a hybrid car don't make sense yet, either in terms of dollar cost or in terms of environmental impact cost.

Ummm, hang on a sec...

[Aphrika]

man's impact on the environment has been 'downgraded'. A UN report has found that our species has not had as large effect on climate change as was previously thought

Last time I checked, environment was very different from climate change.

Man has undeniably had a huge effect on the environment; making species extinct, over fishing/hunting other species to the point of extinction, using up the Earth's non-renewable fuel sources - wood, oil, coal, building over huge chunks of the planet, not to mention the various poisons, dioxins and various nuclear stuff we throw into the atmosphere, ground and oceans.

In this case the submitter has his facts wrong. The Telegraph article linked mentions only climate change, not man's impact on the environment as a whole. Sorry to nitpick, but I see those words being substituted for each other way too much now. You can argue all you like about climate change, but man's impact on the environment as a whole is proven.

Re:Ummm, hang on a sec...

[izomiac]

While I agree with you in essence, I suppose I'll nitpick as well.

Main Entry: environment
Pronunciation: in-'vI-r&(n)-m&nt, -'vI(-&)r(n)-
Function: noun
1 : the circumstances, objects, or conditions by which one is surrounded
2 a : the complex of physical, chemical, and biotic factors (as climate, soil, and living things) that act upon an organism or an ecological community and ultimately determine its form and survival b : the aggregate of social and cultural conditions that influence the life of an individual or community
3 : the position or characteristic position of a linguistic element in a sequence
4 : a computer interface from which various tasks can be performed

So if our effect on the climate has been downgraded then wouldn't our effect on the environment be downgraded as well? After all, the "environment" seems to include the climate. (Reducing one part while keeping the others constant should reduce the overall total.)

Energy Crises Redux

[Shannon Love]

I remember back when I was a teenager circa 1980 and the UN and virtually everyone else confidently explained that the world was running out of oil, that oil would only grow more rare and more expensive and that anybody who claimed otherwise was just a payed shrill of the oil industry.

The more things change the more they stay the same.

It was really funny watching people try to explain in 1985, after the oil crash, exactly why they so confidently predicted permanent oil shortages only 5 years before. I can't but wonder if 10 years from now we will get a big "never mind" from climatologist as well. After all, accurately measuring oil resources is relatively simple compared to predicting climate 100 years in the future.

Re:Energy Crises Redux

[dangitman]

I remember back when I was a teenager circa 1980 and the UN and virtually everyone else confidently explained that the world was running out of oil, that oil would only grow more rare and more expensive and that anybody who claimed otherwise was just a payed shrill of the oil industry.

And that is happening right now. So, what was wrong with that sentiment?

Re:Energy Crises Redux

[Anonymous Coward]

The world was running out of oil, that oil would only grow more rare and more expensive

Wherease in reality more oil is being added to the planet all the time and it has never been as cheap as it is now!

Re:Energy Crises Redux

[fimbulvetr]

At least in the US, the reason we haven't noticed _much_ difference, is because we've been able to unlock old reservoirs that we promised ourselves we wouldn't touch, in addition to having more advanced technology to find more supply. There's no secret we have plenty of oil right now, but the way you word that response is that you're confident we'll have oil indefinitly, which is certainly not the case.

Re:Energy Crises Redux

[Shannon Love]

Well, the problem is that (1) known oil reserves are much higher today than they were 20 years ago, something few at the time would have predicted and (2) the recent price spikes were caused by rapid increases in consumption, not reductions in available stocks. The "Energy Crises" proponents held that oil stocks would be in perpetual decline from the late--70's onward. Had you told them that in the year 2000 people would be driving giant SUVs and the major environmental concern would be that we were burning so much petroleum that we might be altering the earth's climate, most would have called you insane. It was a very bizarre time in retrospect. Everybody, and I do mean everybody, bought into the entire concept and then in a period of less than a year the entire "crises" simply disappeared. I think Anthrogenic Global Warming will suffer the same fate. If nothing else, the same segments of the political spectrum who pushed the idea of the "energy crises" (and in many cases the same individuals) are pushing global warming. I think we will spend the next decade listening to one hysterical prediction of doom after another until we find out that global warming is a relatively small problem.

Re:Energy Crises Redux

[Shannon Love]

People have been confidently predicting the exhaustion of oil supplies since literally 1867, shortly after the first modern oil well was drilled. The problem is that people think of oil and all other "natural" resources as being some discrete substance that basically lays in large natural barrels underground and that when you reach the bottom of the barrel you run out of resource. It doesn't work that way. There is no such thing as a "natural" resource (unless you want to count oxygen). Everything else is an artificial resource created by human action. The amount of resource doesn't depend on amount of any particular substance in the earth's makeup but rather on the technology we bring to bear on any particular problem. People keep predicting the exhaustion of oil because they keep thinking that whatever and where ever we extracted oil at the time represented our ability to extract oil for the foreseeable future. For over a 100 years they have been constantly wrong. We extract and use substances today that people just a few decades ago wouldn't even have thought of as usable oil. We will never run out of any resource because we can just create more just as we have always done.

Re:Energy Crises Redux

[dangitman]

Everybody, and I do mean everybody, bought into the entire concept and then in a period of less than a year the entire "crises" simply disappeared.

But it hasn't. We are going to be facing wars and all kinds of other strife over oil shortages. So, they found some more oil. That hasn't stopped us consuming it unsustainably.

Neither global warming nor oil shortages are going to happen overnight. They take place over many years - but still a short time, when you consider that the industrial revolution wasn't much more than 100 years ago. Humans are pretty alarmist by nature - but then we are overly confident. If a crisis doesn't develop in a few short years, people tend to think the problem doesn't exist, even as long-term problems continue to get more serious. It makes it very hard for the rational people among us to warn of long-term crises, because if there isn't an "apocalypse" in the short term, many think there is no problem. It's the short-term problems and sensationalist horror that people respond to. Look at 9/11 for example - so many people were outraged, and "something had to be done" - even though more people are killed every year by other preventable causes. It was the immediacy that caused people to notice, that caused political change. Our environmental and pollution problems will cost a magnitude of order more lives, but the globally distributed, slowly-acting nature of the effects will likely cause people to do nothing about it.

Re:Energy Crises Redux

[fimbulvetr]

The oil supply is finite. Say it with me: "finite"

This means there's only so much. There's no magical fairies with wands lobbing barrels of oil, coal, or natural gas into underground reservoirs for our plundering. Oil took millions of years to form from organic deposits. Organic deposits which represent life forms so diverse, you and I have not and can not imagine them. Numbers of organisms so high, that they make our current environment look like a mail order ant farm. We'll certainly have it used up with in the millenium at the exponentially increasing rate of consumption we're currently at. Arguably, the only true "natural" resources we have are the sun, which provides us with energy which more or less provides us with conditions favorable for our current environment, and the elements that accreted on our planet and one time or another. The elements either reflect the energy back into space, or collect and store the energy somehow.

Even the sun's energy is finite, but I won't be around long enough to collect the money from you that I'd win in the bet. We burn oil. We burn gas. We have nuclear power plants. This means we're breaking down the molecular bonds of this "trapped energy" and taking a considerably small portion of it for ourselves. Remarkably, the rest of the energy we didn't use is still stored in molecular bonds in the form of stuff we don't like. Well, I shouldn't say we, there could be a few people out there that like the breathing of, and seeing of, the yellow-brown haze that dwarfs clouds on a warm summer's day, or those beautiful sites layered with "Radioactive" signs and big fences. Sure beats those rolling green hills, wildlife and clear rivers, doesn't it?

In any case, there are evils and lesser evils. Right now oil is about the worst one, not only because it's byproducts are so wretched, but also because we're building our entire civilization on it, while being totally ignorant to an approaching light at the end of the tunnel.

Re:Energy Crises Redux

[Shannon Love]

The idea that we can deplete "natural" resources comes from a profound misunderstanding of such resources come into being. Human create them, they do not exist in nature. Oil was not a "natural" resource 120 years ago and I very much doubt it will be one a 100 years for now. In fact, I give it about 30 years max. There is no such thing as "unsustainable" consumption. Over the whole of human history we have created more and more resources. There is no reason to assume that this process will continue. The idea we will run out of resources without some kind of state control and rationing is merely an academic conceit of people with no understanding of the way our civilization creates and uses its technology. It has no empirical basis. People have been making predictions of resource exhaustion since the time of Malthus and they have ALL been wrong.

You remind me of the those back in the 70's enthrall to Paul Ehrlich and his concept of the population bomb. They were convinced that if they didn't take drastic action, like cutting off the people of starve, then the whole planet was doomed. As it turned out population control was minor problem easily handled automatically by raising standards of living, exactly the opposite tack advocated by Ehrlich et al. Places that did buy into the whole idea, like China, may have done themselves serious harm.

I see nothing but a history of failed predictions and nothing that suggest that the means and methods that have carried us to this point will suddenly fail.

Re:Energy Crises Redux

[Shannon Love]

Say this with me: There is no such single thing as "oil".

The earth's crust contains gigatons of interred carbon compounds, ranging in form from gaseous to crystalline solid. We can turn any carbon compound into any other. Its just a matter of cost. We routinely extract and refine substances today that 50 years ago no one would have classified as usable oil. We are not going to run out organic compounds anytime soon and so we will not ever reach any "practical" limit on the availability of something loosely defined as oil.

More importantly, oil wasn't a natural resource 150 years ago, what makes you think it will be one 150 years in the future? Do you burn a lot wood, coal or whale blubber in your car? Heck, 120 years ago, aluminum was precious metal, now we make soda cans out of it. We will never exhaust oil because long before we hit any theoretical limit on "oil" supplies we will have moved on to other more efficient and convenient energy sources just as we did with wood, coal and whale blubber.

" Sure beats those rolling green hills, wildlife and clear rivers, doesn't it?" It certainly does. Absent technology, those rolling green hills won't provide you with reliable food, the wildlife will kill you and the clear rivers seethes with parasites. Natures fine on TV but it sucks to be right in the middle of it. Of course, there is also the fact that as we distance ourselves from nature with our technology we don't have impact the natrual world as hard. Energy intensive agriculture has become so effecient that it is using less and less land to produce more and more food. In north America and Europe, significant amounts of agricultural land are reverting back to the wild. In a hundred years we might have nothing but cities with food factories surrounded by vast natural areas.

You simply do not understand how technology creates and uses resources so it is easy for people to frighten you with simplistic arguments. Hysteria driven political interventions poise a far greater danger than any possibility of resource exhaustion.

Re:Energy Crises Redux

[Budenny]

Well, you forgot part of it, which is even more bizarre. Back then when the predictions were of oil running out, there were also predictions of dramatic die-offs in the US population by the year 2000, and it was also being predicted that we would be seeing global cooling on a scale grand enough to cause massive crop failures and famines....

And no-one ever held up their hand, apologized, and said they had been just wrong. Instead the same people seamlessly started talking about the dangers of global warming.

Its called being of an hysterical disposition.

Re:Energy Crises Redux

[dangitman]

The idea that we can deplete "natural" resources comes from a profound misunderstanding of such resources come into being. Human create them, they do not exist in nature. Oil was not a "natural" resource 120 years ago

Say what? The oil was there before humans came along and used it. We did not create it.

There is no such thing as "unsustainable" consumption.

And what's your reasoning for this? It is profoundly at odds with physical reality and history.

Over the whole of human history we have created more and more resources.

Can you provide any examples?

The idea we will run out of resources without some kind of state control and rationing is merely an academic conceit of people with no understanding of the way our civilization creates and uses its technology.

When did I ever mention anything about state control and rationing? The fact is that we have run many resources nearly dry. I'm not sure why you are bringing "state control" into this.

People have been making predictions of resource exhaustion since the time of Malthus and they have ALL been wrong.

Those who made rash predictions and specified a year may have been wrong, but those with a more rational approach have yet to be proven wrong. How can you say somebody is proven wrong if they don't specify a date? It could still happen in the future.

You remind me of the those back in the 70's enthrall to Paul Ehrlich and his concept of the population bomb. They were convinced that if they didn't take drastic action, like cutting off the people of starve, then the whole planet was doomed.

Why? When did I mention anything about "drastic action" or a "population bomb"?

As it turned out population control was minor problem easily handled automatically by raising standards of living, exactly the opposite tack advocated by Ehrlich et al.

Eh? Overpopulation is a major problem today in many parts of the world.

I see nothing but a history of failed predictions and nothing that suggest that the means and methods that have carried us to this point will suddenly fail.

But when did I say it would suddenly fail? My whole point all a long is that it will not be that sudden, but rather a slow decline. And that decline could be halted or even reversed if we decided to manage the problems. I'm not sure where you are getting this alarmism from. Most respectable scientists and environmentalists have been talking about slow declines, not sudden apocalypses. Are you deliberately listening to emotional arguments (from both sides) rather than the more sober reality?

Quit guilting SUVs

[Shivetya]

Look at the near luxury sedans that are so popular today. Hell look at most sedans and coupes in the 25K+ range...

for cars most of them get abysmal mileage. 18 in the city? Sheesh, my crossover averages 21 and its bigger than many sedans.

A lot of cars are overpowered today. For the most part SUVs suffer because of their size and gearing. Too many are still geared to tow which many people will never do. But whats the excuse of all the new 8cylinder and overpowered 6 cylinder cars?

I already use my motorcycle as much as possible to get to and from work, the 48+ mpg is great. I still have the crossover because I have to have a vehicle capable of hauling stuff I buy (lots of landscaping for my house) and doing the runs while at work with a couple of others along for the ride.

Many families are going to have one member with a large vehicle. Its pure economics. For most every SUV in the parking lot at work the SO of that driver is usually in a smaller car that gets decent mileage. Yeah there are large numbers of dual SUV families but for many people the flexibility these vehicles offer outweigh the added expense they incur in initial price, maintenance, and gas.

But get over the "SUV" blame game. Too many cars today exist that serve even less use than the SUV

Re:Quit guilting SUVs

[SaDan]

Your motorcycle only gets 48mpg? ;-)

In all seriousness, you're right on the money. I'm in one of those families with the minivan (21-25mpg) and the compact car (35-40mpg).

There are plenty of SUVs that get good mileage for what they are, and even more luxury cars that get absolute crap for fuel economy. I know a guy at work with an Audi A8 that gets worse fuel economy than my parents' Chevy Suburban LT 4x4.

Time to get priorities straight, people.

Show me the report

[DaoudaW]

This is so lame. The report will not get published until February. We only have an unnamed source saying that while the estimated magnitude of the effects of global warming on sea level are lower than previously thought, this does not reflect a lowering of the risk posed by global warming. The reason given for this lowered estimate is unexpected reflection of solar rays by man-made aerosol sprays. How does this deserve the headline, "UN downgrades man's impact on the climate"? If anything it means that humanity has had more impact, albeit counteractive.

But I believe we should all wait for the report before either arguing for or against what it may/may not contain.

Re:Show me the report

[scoonbutt]

Aerosols in this context refers to liquid particles in the atmosphere such as clouds. The reporter for the article reworded that erroneously as "aerosol sprays" because he or she only knows about aerosol hairspray.

Re:Show me the report

[DaoudaW]

I considered that also but since the report isn't yet available, I only had the reporters comments to go on...

I think someone really, really hates the UN

[benhocking]

I had assumed that you actually cared about the issue one way or the other. I didn't realize you just had an axe to grind. Carry on.

Any Irony Here?

[eldavojohn]

China for instance today has huge sulfur dioxide emissions, roughly comparable to the US 25 years ago before we got good about it.

Yeah, you know, you kind of skipped something important in this whole 'fairness of polluting' issue. You know, our (I'm American) economy raged when we didn't care about dumping shit in the environment. And it's still pretty evident that green products cost more (not always but usually). In fact, carbon neutrality would almost certainly raise the price of your product and a carbon tax would stagnate the economy at least a little.

So, when we chastise other nations for doing what we did 25 years ago, we may be hobbling them somewhat in the international market if we force them not to do that. I mean, look at the great infrastructure and products that we've produced while destroying the environment. You have to admit that it's given us an upper hand.

And this doesn't just apply to chemicals and gases, remember our 'save the rain forest' campaigns? Well, who was campaigning us to stop logging in North America (pictures on the right side)? We've literally deforested much of the United States and benefited from it quite a bit. Who's to say we're not completely hobbling the economies in 3rd world countries that are attempting to tap their nation's natural resources of wood?

I guess in the end I just ask that you don't tell a nation not to do something but offer them an inexpensive or practical alternative ... or, hell, maybe even compensate them for lost wealth? I don't know, I'm not an economist and I'm sure I'm going to get a lot of negative replies for defending China or people cutting down rain forest for land. Oh well.

Re:Any Irony Here?

[ebers]

> I guess in the end I just ask that you don't tell a nation not to do something but offer them an inexpensive or practical alternative ... or, hell, maybe even compensate them for lost wealth? I don't know, I'm not an economist and I'm sure I'm going to get a lot of negative replies for defending China or people cutting down rain forest for land. Oh well.

You are right on. This is an angle that the environmental movement has not yet come to terms with. The gorilla in the room is not the carbon production of the currently industrialized countries, it is the carbon production in the near future (20-50 years) of the currently inductrializing countries, which are far more populous. Most of the rhetoric of the global warming movement has been centered about modest lifestyle changes in developing countries: smaller cars, power conservation, and subsidizing carbon neutral energy sources. These are easy changes to make for the average westerner: They don't strongly impact our quality of life. Too bad the the carbon withheld from the atmosphere due to these changes is so small compared to the quantities that will be released a generation from now from the populous countries that are currently industrializing.
    For the global warming movement to address the gorilla in the room, they would have to ask people in China and India to forgo that first refrigerator, automobile, computer, tractor, or paved road. And that is not a morally defensable or politically feasable position. Until the global warming movement faces up to this fact their efforts in the developed world are just a sideshow.
    I think human carbon emmisions contribute to global warming, and that human carbon emmisions will explode in the next 50 years due to the industrialization of populated countries and due to increasing carbon emissions from alternative oil sources. (Coal gassification, tar sands, extra heavy oil... all of these release a ton of carbon just to produce, before they are even burned!) Greens should be lobbying the governments of devloped countries hard for r&d into affordable carbon neutral technologies that can be scaled to the meet to enourmous quantities of energy that the developing world will soon be demanding. The only tech. I know of that is carbon neutral, sufficiently scalable, reasonably affordable, and could be implemented on a massive scale just one generation from now is nuclear fission. If greens aren't advocating for this than I don't think they are serious about putting a major dent in global warming.

Re:Any Irony Here?

[bug1]

"a carbon tax would stagnate the economy at least a little"

Stagnate: To cease to flow; to be motionless

So the economy would be a little bit motionless ?

You could have said it would _slow_ the economy, less typing, and it even makes sense.

Re:Any Irony Here?

[Moridineas]

That's more or less the point I was trying to make.

Today's developed countries developed largely ignoring the environment. From Dickensian London to deforestation and strip mining in the 20th century etc. Today, we're reforming in some ways, and new industries are developing around protecting the environment, alternative fuel sources, etc.

The situation in China is much like it was for us years ago--a Chinese friend recently spent a year in Beijing and constantly complained about the pollution and the smog and the like. I'm not at all saying that China must stop--their economy is a large part of the prosperity of the rest of the world as well. I'm saying that environmentally speaking it would be best for them to stop. That's the reason that Kyoto largely exempts developing economies--being good to the environment is expensive.

Re:Any Irony Here?

[gb506]

...or, hell, maybe even compensate them for lost wealth?

That sounds like it'd be a great idea if a.) the science and collective wisdom at the time we got our "head start" supported the fact that we were seriously damaging the environment AND we did nothing at all to change, and b.) the people in the US and elsewhere who would be on the hook to pay (the under 40 crowd today, probably) were primarily responsible for the current state of things.

It'll go over like a lead baloon...

Re:Any Irony Here?

[lionheart1327]

Quite frankly, from all I've seen from the Greens, it looks like they're much more interested in making all us filthy heathens return to "mother nature" and not actually address the problem in a sane technological manner.

But that's just my impression.

Re:Any Irony Here?

[sumdumass]

The problem with the You did it so why cannot they do it type of argument is that we now know what we didn't know then.

This is important because We now know that some forms of pollution and emissions totally fuck everything up. Thats why we stopped, not just because it sounded like the next evolutionary step in the process. Imagine if we didn't discourage third world countries from placing their waste water and sewage runoff treatment facilities a quart mile upstream from their drinking water intake source? Imagine letting other countries develop and use nuclear weapons because the US did it once. Imagine letting these countries force children to work in factories and have slave labor because we did it once.

I know it is easy to get caught up in the what feels right type policies. It does seem right to let others do anything we did in hopes they can become just as strong as we are. But we should only extend that to processes we have upgraded because of efficiency, safety or something else. When we change a proccess because it damages the people working or the enviroment then it shouldn't really be considered. It is one of those things, if it is bad enough to stop it in one area, it should be discouraged in every area. Of course some things are matters of perspective like to what degree certain steps should be taken and whatnot. But it is generaly a bad idea to approve of something because you did it once.

Re:Any Irony Here?

[evilviper]

So, when we chastise other nations for doing what we did 25 years ago, we may be hobbling them somewhat in the international market if we force them not to do that.

1) it's been more than 25 years ago...

2) back then, nobody had much of any idea of the effects.

3) what we were doing was the pinacle of high tech at the time. Pollution controls didn't exist, until we invented them.

Today, the Chinese government certainly knows the cause and effects of pollution, know the technology exists to significantly reduce the problem, and yet they don't bother to use it, anyhow, usually for reasons of national pride (they'd have to buy this tech from foreign companies, instead of using extremely dirty domesticly made products).

THAT is the difference.

offer them an inexpensive or practical alternative ... or, hell, maybe even compensate them for lost wealth?

So China shouldn't have to pay for their own pollution or pollution controls? Somebody else should pay for it, for them?

Not likely. China is now quite wealthy, they just chose not to control their pollution, because nobody has forced them to do so. Threaten to ban Chinese imports if they aren't produced "green", and they'll straighten up real fast. Of course I realize the political will to play chicken with cheap Chinese junk just isn't there, but that's besides the point.

Re:Any Irony Here?

[loki_tiwaz]

oh, china would have to *buy* the technology eh? interesting... do we really need any more arguments to support the abolition of patents? china disregards them anyway and i'm sure they have a humongous industrial espionage operation going on too.

Re:Any Irony Here?

[Lars T.]

Why is it always the 800 lb. gorilla warning us that there will be other 800 lb. gorillas if we keep him from becoming a 900 lb. gorilla - esp. when he's actually talking about 10 gorrilas of 80 lb. each.

Re:Any Irony Here?

[Lars T.]

Climate is subject to many variables, including solar output. There is evidence that human activity has had little if any effect on global climate in the past. Humans didn't build Pyramids 10000 years ago, so the Pyramids must be all natural occurances.

Re:Any Irony Here?

[redcane]

Solar output varies on a known cycle. There are minor variations due to sun spots etc, but overall large trends are known. Look up Milankovich cycles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles. There is little evidence we have affected global climate in the past, because we have enlarged our population greatly in the last 50-100 years. We have a much greater effect now. Also the industrial revolution is recent (comparitively). It has been calculated that 46% of human carbon emissions are still in the atmosphere. There is of course evidence that are affecting the global climate in the present. Mainly a lot of little things....

Re:Any Irony Here?

[whoop]

No, the proper Slashdot Response is, "That word doesn't mean what you think it means."

Re:Any Irony Here?

[TranscendentalAnarch]

What is this? Economic reparations?

Re:Any Irony Here?

[Rei]

And how long would it take them, if you gave them 10 typewriters, to write the complete works of Thoreau?

Re:Any Irony Here?

[Rakarra]

Not likely. China is now quite wealthy, they just chose not to control their pollution, because nobody has forced them to do so. Threaten to ban Chinese imports if they aren't produced "green", and they'll straighten up real fast.

Unfortunately since manufacturing in this country is nearly non-existant now and we import so much from China, a ban on Chinese imports would hurt the US far more than it would China and they know it. Our politicians also know it and know that Americans wouldn't be willing to enforce environmental standards for China if it meant nearly every good in our country went up in price. The global climate would have to change in far more catastrophic ways before there will be that type of support.

With the reliance on cheap imports, we've let the Chinese buy US. They don't need to invade for us to let them do as they please, since they weild enormous economic power here.

Re:Any Irony Here?

[evilviper]

Unfortunately since manufacturing in this country is nearly non-existant now and we import so much from China, a ban on Chinese imports would hurt the US far more than it would China and they know it.

No, absolutely NONE of that has the tiniest bit of truth behind it.

The US is the #1 manufacturer in the world, by FAR, at $1.79 trillion annually. Almost double that of #2 (which also still *isn't* China, BTW). Despite all the hype, China is still only #4 in the world.

The huge trade imbalance actually makes it quite profitable for the USA to ban Chinese trade, although there will of course be painful shortages if done suddenly.

Re:Any Irony Here?

[evilviper]

On the contrary I think we're all in this together and need to prepare for and help other countries do what we've already done.

You might as well "help" Bill Gates buy a Porche.

China has vastly more than the necessary means, knows the effects of pollution on themselves and others, and just intentionally chooses not to use pollution controls.

Maybe the UK should "help" the US control their pollution, rather than criticising them for not signing Kyoto.

Doesn't really matter

[dangitman]

Whether humans are 10% or 90% responsible for climate change doesn't really matter. What matters is that sea levels are rising, and more chaotic weather patterns are predicted, regardless of the cause. Saying "it's not our fault" doesn't stop the sea from rising, or weather patterns affecting our lives. So, we have to adapt to that.

The climate change "skeptics" mostly come from a position of not wanting to change anything about the way we live on this planet. They never really cared about environmental effects, whether natural or man-made. I don't think this report is going to help their credibility anyway, because it's not like they ever cared about the effects of climate change, as long as we could keep on living in a wasteful (and profitable) way.

MOD PARENT UP

[alizard]

it's amazing how few of the MS-fanboy wingnuts around here understand that this is how science is supposed to work. When new facts come in, theoretical frameworks are supposed to be revised to fit the facts.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[mondoterrifico]

I am always reminded of the Maynard Keynes quote,
"When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[poopdeville]

Yet again, Tool becomes a spring of insight.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[nelsonal]

Um, wrong Maynard, the Tool lead is Maynard James Keenan. The quote is attributed to John Maynard Keynes the British economist who was the first economist to have a very meaningful impact on global policy. He essentially created the policies that governemnts applied to the depression, worked on the Marshall plan, Great Society, and creating Bretton Woods (which was what really created the middle class in the US for the next 40 years).

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[Kattspya]

So did Keynes ever become a member of the Austrian school of economics? ;)

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[poopdeville]

Thank you for explaining the obvious.

Re:Funny how the UN changes its mind every 5 minut

[EzraSj]

You really think that the people who deal with climate change are the same ones who ordered the withdrawl from Rwanda?

Me saying that the UN is doing something responsible here is NOT analogous to saying it has never made a mistake.

Let's try a new metaphor ...

[charlie]

Let us imagine that one night you wake up and discover that your house is on fire.

You dial 999 (or 911, if you're American) and ask for help: the nice despatcher tells you that the police department were watching your house and they're pretty sure there was no arsonist.

Do you think, "oh, it's not an arson attack," and go back to bed?

(Or do you evacuate the burning building anyway, and wait for the fire service to get there?)

Here's the point: the house is on fire. It doesn't matter why it's on fire, in the first instance; the fire is an emergency situation and needs to be dealt with regardless of the cause.

And by analogy, it doesn't matter whether the observations of climactic change are attributable to anthropogenic warming or to some other cause, or to a mixture of causes -- if we don't take action we're going to be in deep shit.

Re:Let's try a new metaphor ...

[cirby]

The real case:

Someone tells you that, if you don't take drastic action right now, your house will catch on fire some time in the next 100 years. A while back, the same guy was telling you the house was going to be flooded due to the same actions that will now, supposedly cause that fire.

The current "fire prediction panel" has downgraded the actual fire risk, to boot, since all of their previous predictions of fire have not come true, and it turns out that some of the evidence they were using to predict the fire was actually made up. It seems that the computer model they were using also predicts fire if you put random noise into the input hopper.

Meanwhile, the people who scream most about how the fire will destroy the house are going to bed while smoking, while insisting that you need to turn out all of your lights and sleep on the floor.

Re:Let's try a new metaphor ...

[MoneyT]

Let's try a better metaphore. Let's say you wake up one night and think that because your house is made of wood, that it might catch fire if some burning embers from a lit cigarette fall on it, after all, that's how smokey the bear says forest fires get started.

So you institute an imediate policy againsts lit cigarettes of all types within 100 yards of your house and comission some studies on house fires.

Over the years, your studies begin to reveal that while cigarettes can cause a fire, it's not the most likely cause.

Do you continue your capaign against cigarettes or do you revise your protection models.

The point is, your house isn't on fire, it's at risk, but effective safety is knowing which risks are most important to minimize.

Also the point is that analogies are shitty, why don't you just say what you mean, which is, despite the fact that the study shows human impact is lesser AND shows that newer understandings demonstrate a reduced risk, you would rather blindly continue with current policies as is, much like the few crackpots who completely deny global warming want to continue with their current policies as is.

Re:Let's try a new metaphor ...

[cockroach2]

IMHO, *if* we are, as the story implies, not as much responsible for the changes as previously thought, our actions to prevent global warming are even more likely to fail (reducing a mostly irrelevant part of the problem doesn't solve it).

On the other hand, actions to reduce CO2 often also improve the air quality in general (eg. better cars -> less other toxic gases), so we should probably keep trying to "improve" our lifestyle. In the meantime, our politicians can relax, stop whining and go back to work. Maybe they can figure out what to do - after all, that's what they're paid for...

Re:Let's try a new metaphor ...

[SEMW]

If you're located in the UK as an American, 911 isn't going to help you. Actually, even in the UK, 911 will still connect you to the emergency services, as will 112. (Anyone remember the days of "Get me Whitehall-1212!"? Liar.)

Re:Let's try a new metaphor ...

[evilviper]

it doesn't matter whether the observations of climactic change are attributable to anthropogenic warming or to some other cause,

It matters in how you should RESPOND to the problem.

Up to now, any discussion on reducing global warming by means OTHER than reducing industrial CO2 emissions, has gotten dismissed out-of-hand as being from a bunch of idiots who don't know their asses from a hole in the ground.

Glaciers vs. Rain

[MarkusQ]

The difference is in how it's delivered. Having a steady flow of melt-water is much nicer for agriculture than occasional flash flooding, even if the later does provide more water per year on average.

--MarkusQ

Close to a non-story

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

They're dialing back predictions of human impact by 25%. That is less than the known uncertainties in the range of possible predictions.

Then, the revised forecast includes one scenario of a 4.5 degrees C rise in average global temperature. That's still well into the severe range.

Re:Moron.

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

The Earth is warming up and it's all due to our own activities, and only a fool would dismiss that obvious fact!

Suppose it's not an obvious fact. Suppose there were only a 50% chance that human activity is really the cause of the global climate change we're observing.

What is the prudent course of action?

Keep one thing in mind...

[Jugalator]

RTFA before commenting. :-)

I can only say it wasn't very "calming" to me:

"The bottom line is that the climate is still warming while our greenhouse gas emissions have accelerated, so we are storing up problems for ourselves in the future."

It warns that carbon dioxide emissions have risen during the past five years by three per cent, well above the 0.4 per cent a year average of the previous two decades. The authors also state that the climate is almost certain to warm by at least 1.5 C during the next 100 years.

Britain can expect more storms of similar ferocity to those that wreaked havoc across the country last week, even bringing a tornado to north-west London.

He said: "The oceans have been acting like giant storage heaters by trapping heat and carbon dioxide. They might be bit of a time-bomb as they have been masking the real effects of the carbon dioxide we have been releasing into the atmosphere.

"People are very worried about what will happen in 2030 to 2050, as we think that at that point the oceans will no longer be able to absorb the carbon dioxide being emitted. It will be a tipping point and that is why it is now critical to act to counter any acceleration that will occur when this happens."

Sorry if I'm not feeling overwhelmingly optimistic about our influences after reading this. :-)

UN downgrades fears of global warming

[crmartin]

... in other news, Al Gore's head explodes, realclimate.org accuses UN of being funded by Exxon through the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

A perfect clarification of the issue

[gcranston]

FTA

Climate change skeptics are expected to seize on the revised figures as evidence that action to combat global warming is less urgent. Scientists insist that the lower estimates for sea levels and the human impact on global warming are simply a refinement due to better data on how climate works rather than a reduction in the risk posed by global warming."

(emphasis mine)

That's right. The skeptics take this report as vindication. The scientists.... wait a minute. It's skeptics versus scientists? You mean, none of the scientists are skeptical of the global warming theory? Oh yeah, There hasn't been a single article in a reputable journal arguing against the fact that global warming is our fault. My mistake. I thought the counter-arguments were based on fact, observation, and reason.

Remember: Science. It works, bitches

Re:A perfect clarification of the issue

[GigsVT]

The debate really isn't whether there is warming or higher CO2, the debate is whether it is human caused or not, and if it even matters really.

Your post is a pure straw man.

Re:A perfect clarification of the issue

[gcranston]

You're right. That is (regrettably) the debate. MY POINT, is that the debate is between reputable scientists (it is our fault and it matters) and skeptics like politicians, oil & gas, auto mfr, and the media (it's not our fault).

My point is that this is sad. I can't believe the debate can go on so long when one side talks about observation, fact, and reason (this is the science side, for those following at home), while the other simply shouts a lot.

While we're at it, what are some of the other times scientific evidence has been ignored or even persecuted?

1. Galileo, Copernicus, et. al. No! the earth must be the center of the universe.
2. Newton. The universe can't operate according to a set of defined immutable laws or God wouldn't be able to impose his will! Heretic!
3. Challenger. If you launch at this low temp, the o-rings will shatter and you will have "substantial loss of life". Nah, let's go for it! We're freaking NASA here!

Do I really need to go on?

Seems like when we ignore conclusions based on observation and reason, the result is either blind ignorance of the world in which we live, or loss of life, or both.

Remember: Science. It works bitches

See also: Playing Devil's Advocate to Win

Re:A perfect clarification of the issue

[GigsVT]

It is sad if a majority of scientists don't understand the difference between correlation and causation.

I don't believe that to be the case.

There are a number of scientists that understand the concept. Those are just the ones that would risk their professional reputation by standing up to the leftist establishment. There's probably a lot more of them.

While we're at it, what are some of the other times scientific evidence has been ignored or even persecuted?

Exactly my point. Environmentalism is religious dogma these days. It's environmentalism vs science, and science is losing badly at this point.

Equal time for fringe views

[shma]

And unsurprisingly, the article ends with this:

However, Julian Morris, executive director of the International Policy Network, urged governments to be cautious. "There needs to be better data before billions of pounds are spent on policy measures that may have little impact," he said.

Of course, they don't bother to say who these people are, or the fringe views they hold. From wikipedia

In November 2004, IPN released a report claiming that "climate change is 'a myth', sea levels are not rising and Britain's chief scientist is 'an embarrassment' for believing catastrophe is inevitable." It called "the science warning of an environmental disaster caused by climate change ... 'fatally flawed'" and contested predictions that the global sea level would increase by a meter over the next century, saying that "sea level rises will reach a maximum of just 20cms." Moreover, the report listed some benefits of global warming, including "increasing fish stocks in the north Atlantic and reducing the incidence of temperature-related deaths among vulnerable people." The British newspaper The Guardian claimed that IPN had received $50,000 from ExxonMobil, which "list[ed] the donation as part of its 'climate change outreach' programme."

Re:Equal time for fringe views

[xoyoboxoyobo]

I don't know what part of the North Atlantic they're talking about, but the fishing industry in Boston has collapsed. Cod, which used to be cheap and plentiful is as expensive as haddock now.

Re:Never thought about that!

[TheDreadSlashdotterD]

and at least use what is left of their gray matter and look at what these enviro-wackos are doing.

You assume that there's something left. Such an assumption is silly.

crumbs FTW

[lorenlal]

If I was a mod, that'd be a +1.

With statement from parent - He's right, we're not talking about saving the world, we're talking about the life currently here. The climate will be pushed, and balance (with more or less rain, more or less CO2, whatever). Something that I've been yelling for years is:

How about not freaking out? Regardless if there's a ton of warming from our evil vehicles or not, we can at least take a bit of ownership and reduce our individual effects and do it with some intelligence.
Drive a car that gets better mileage cause it'll save you cash at the pump.
Use those halogen bulbs cause you only have to change them every 3-5 years, and they use less energy... etc etc...

The people I hang out with aren't living in constant fear of Earth striking us down for killing the planet, but I think that if I can make less of an impact... Then cool. If you can't, fine, no big deal.

I'm sure we have *some* effect on the overall climate, I'll just do what I can to cut that down. While I'm at it, I might as well see if there's a way to save some cash doing it too.

Re:crumbs FTW

[Anonymous Coward]

Use those halogen bulbs cause you only have to change them every 3-5 years, and they use less energy... etc etc...

Halogen bulbs use more energy. Although each halogen is usually only 40-50W you need more of them to cover the same area as an incandescent.

You were perhaps thinking of flourescent bulbs.

Total bullocks

[grishknash]

You want to know how I know we are truly screwed? Simply read the division and absolute total lack of understanding of natural systems within this forum. Its astounding that supposedly educated people can know so little.
We're screwed. [Human populations explicitly. The furry creatures of the planet are wringing thier hands at glee at the demise of Homo sapiens. I can't blame them.]

Re:Total bullocks

[khallow]

Sorry, but I don't see your point. Even if one assumed unreasonably that Slashdot was the means by which the Human Race would decide how to modify its environmental footprint, I still see fruitful exchange of information occuring. I notice you don't actually say anything in this story either here or elsewhere. So I have no idea where you seem to think the ignorance lies.

Re:Total bullocks

[An Onerous Coward]

Irrelevant quote from my favoritest movie EVAR!: "If only it did have hands, my wife. If only... it did... have... hands..."

Whew! Gives me chills just thinking about it!

From Taco Bell?

[ebers]

> I'll celebrate by having baked beens and onions for dinner.

More accurate information makes it more urgent

[nuggz]

The information in the past has been slightly better than unfounded fearmongering.
Some of the claims being made by some environmentalists were quite simply ridiculous, fearmongering undermines their whole arguement.

I'm glad that someone is finally putting together more accurate and reasonable data. This might get more support as more people accept it.

Oh and score one for those who claimed the fearmongering was a bit of an exageration.

You see... This is the problem...

[Colin Smith]

Make no mistake: it's not about "saving the earth", it's about saving the human race, or at least civilization as we know it. We've gone from a 5C raise in average temperature and say 20' raise in sea levels to the end of civilisation, the extinction of the human race, 99% of the life on the planet and the end of the plant itself.

It's ALL bullshit. Hyperbolic hysteria and it harms the case of the environmentalists.

Civilisation will not end.
The human race will certainly not become extinct.
99% of the existing species will also not be made extinct.
The planet will not end.

Re:You see... This is the problem...

[pnot]

We've gone from a 5C raise in average temperature

Yes, five degrees sounds so innocuous, doesn't it? But a 5-degree rise across the whole earth requires an enormous input of energy, and can have enormous consequences. The temperature difference between now and the last glacial period -- with ice sheets covering much of North America and Eurasia -- is around 8 degrees.

and say 20' raise in sea levels to the end of civilisation

A 20-inch sea-level rise isn't so trivial either; in Bangladesh alone, that translates to over ten million displaced persons -- worldwide, far more. Tens of millions of refugees isn't exactly conducive to global stability.

the extinction of the human race, 99% of the life on the planet

Now you're misrepresenting me; I wrote "even if we succeed in wiping ourselves and 99% of existing species out...". I was positing a ridiculously over-the-top scenario in order to argue that there's no way we can destroy the planet.

end of the plant itself.

I think you've completely missed my point, which was precisely that we are not going to destroy the planet, no matter how hard we try.

Civilisation will not end.

I wrote "it's about saving the human race, or at least civilization as we know it", and I stand by that. "Civilization as we know it" has not been around very long at all; how long depends how you define it, but certainly not more than ten thousand years. If we're talking modern, industrialized civilization, perhaps two hundred years. Hell, even as a species we've only been around for 200,000 years (that is, around 0.1% as long as the dinosaurs).

Peanuts. Small change. I'm sure the Persian empire, the Maya civilization, and imperial China all looked pretty permanent to their citizens too. Just this century we've had one war which could have destroyed civilization as we know it. Are you really so sure we'll manage even another millenium?

Even without environmental catastrophe, the odds don't look great. Throw in global sea-level rises, increased frequency of natural disasters, desertification, and the breakdown of the gulf stream and it's all looking a little shaky. Sure, it might hold together in our lifetimes, but really, that's a very, very short-term view.

Re:You see... This is the problem...

[jdgeorge]

On the general topic: A 5 Celsius degree increase in temperature is the same as a 9 Fahrenheit degree increase. My thermometer and cost of cooling my house tells me that 9 degrees Fahrenheit is a disturbingly large number that, if reached, will be extremely expensive for people who live where I do.

On the topic of your post, you stated:

It's ALL bullshit. Hyperbolic hysteria and it harms the case of the environmentalists.

Civilization will not end.
The human race will certainly not become extinct.
99% of the existing species will also not be made extinct.
The planet will not end.

You thoroughly misrepresented the parent poster.... The parent poster did not claim that any of these things would occur. He claimed that the environmental effort is "about saving the human race, or at least civilization as we know it". He also claimed that "even if we succeed in wiping ourselves and 99% of existing species out, evolution will just continue with the remaining 1% and produce something that can handle the new conditions. It won't be the first mass extinction." Finally, he said nothing about the planet ending.

Your phrases "ALL bullshit" and "Hyperbolic hysteria" aptly describe your assertions and misrepresentations.

wrong story....

[sponga]

that was Lex Luther who was supposed to have it

Re:Doesn't matter what's causing it, we can slow i

[Quarters]

If it's nature's doing the last statement we humans should be making is "We can still help slow it down." Who are we to say that it should be slowed down? We are so ignorant of the whole thing we can't even agree on the base cause of it. I, for one, wouldn't want us mucking around trying to change nature under the auspices that we're doing it for nature's own good.

Re:Funny how the UN changes its mind every 5 minut

[Andy Gardner]

Strange, since the UN is the one that pulled out its peacekeepers from Rwanda, allowing the machete genocide, AFTER the UN was the one that disarmed the local population and left them helpless at the hands of the totalitarian overlords there.

It's also strange how you're glossing over the fact that the US is a member of the UN and voted on this issue. Guess how they voted? Well despite not having any troops involved they insisted that UNAMIR (the UN forces) should be withdrawn.

US Department of State, cable number 099440, "Talking Points for UNAMIR Withdrawal", April 15, 1994.

"the international community must give highest priority to full, orderly withdrawal of all UNAMIR personnel as soon as possible."

"that we will oppose any effort at this time to preserve a UNAMIR presence in Rwanda."

It's also interesting that the US later opposed sending UN troops back in after the genocide started.

US Department of State, cable number 127262, "Rwanda: Security Council Discussions", May 13, 1994.

With much of the killing completed and most of the remaining armed forces fleeing the RPF's countrywide advance, US officials argue against a UN plan for a robust effort launched into Kigali to protect surviving Rwandans, rescue others, and deliver assistance. Such a plan, "in current circumstances, would require a Chapter VII mandate", and the US "is not prepared at this point to lift heavy equipment and troops into Kigali". It is however, willing to consider its own plan, "outside-in", by which protective zones would be established on Rwanda's borders. Even this plan, however, is likely to be "an active protection operation requiring the use of lethal force." As for the several thousand Rwandans in Kigali under deteriorating UN protection, "we recommend that these ad hoc protective efforts should continue until a suitable alternative arrangement can be ensured." Even when a plan for 5,500 troops with a protection mandate is finally approved on May 17, the troops would not all be in place until September, two months after the RPF captures the country and one month after Gen. Dallaire completed his service in Rwanda.

reality check

[Ignatius]

So climate changes? Big deal. It always has and always will, locally and gobally, with or without human intervention. It does not matter a bit whether the next climate change will be caused by human activity or not.

The current peak in CO2 emissions will decline all by itself when the coal and hydrocarbon deposits slowly run out. As those reserves are, in historic timescales, basically fixed, so is the total amount of CO2 that will eventually be released back into the biosphere, and it does not really matter if this happens in 200, 500 or 1000 years. Will will have to deal with the effects eventually, both the economic (the end of the fossil fuel era) as well as any climatic ones (in addition to any climatic changes which come about for unrelated reasons).

And guess what? That's exactly what we will do! If the oil supply stopped overnight, it would be the end of the world as we know it. If global sealevels rose five or ten meters within a week, it would be a global catastrophy. If the same things happen in the course of a decade, it will be a huge crisis, but civilisation will survive. If it happens over the course of a century (in line with the most pessimistic scenarios), mankind will face huge changes, of course, but to the average person, IMO, those changes will be LESS noticable then the major conflicts and revolutions of the 20th century. Think about how life has changed for the average European or American in the last hundred of years.

Adopting to slowly changing circumstances is something that we, as humans, are really good at. It's basically our second nature. We are so good at dealing with these slow revolutions, that most of us don't notice them in their everyday life.

Re:reality check

[misanthrope101]

Well, yes. If 5.8 billion people died of some pathogen, some people would still live, and there would still be a civilization of sorts. Nothing, short of the end of the world, is the end of the world. Got it. Am I supposed to take something constructive away from what you're saying?

If the temp rose 150 degrees worldwide, the world would still exist. We however, would not. But dammit, it sure wouldn't be the end of the world. I have to concede the wisdom of what you're saying.

Irrelevant!

[shma]

The IPCC has been forced to halve its predictions for sea-level rise by 2100, one of the key threats from climate change. It says improved data have reduced the upper estimate from 34 in to 17 in.

Once again, newpapers show that they have absolutely zero knowledge of science or statistics. Tell me, if I do two experiments to try and find the radius of the earth, and find the first time that my results are 6,370 +/- 3210 km, and the second time that my results are 6370 +/- 10km , is this 'junk science' because my upper bound has dropped by 33%? Of course not. All this quote shows is that their calculations are getting more precise. If you want to show that they were wrong in their last report you'd have to show a large change in their AVERAGE value, and since the sensationalist reporter here didn't bother to even quote it, there's nothing we can say.

By the way, if you want to, you can see projections of sea level from the 2001 report online. The sea level rise for several different scenarios is given in the graph on the right. The overall error bounds are larger because they combine all the data for these scenarios, which are vastly different in their assumptions about economic, technological and population growth in the next century.

Re:Irrelevant!

[argStyopa]

You're right, a reduction in the top end is only a refinement of data and otherwise unremarkable...unless a group of people are using that top-end data to constantly fuel a public whinging campaign about how the sky is falling.

THEN a reduction in the top end shows their Cassandra predictions for what they are. It doesn't change the reality, of course, but then again the public debate is rarely about the reality.

From TFA

[ajpr]

Britain can expect more storms of similar ferocity to those that wreaked havoc across the country last week, even bringing a tornado to north-west London.

Wasn't there a film about global warming that had tornadoes in cities? I think I'm scared now.

Re:From TFA

[popsicle67]

THE ONLY THING TO FEAR IS THE TRUTH. The truth is Global Warming is a movie that has been playing on the news for 20 years now. That's almost as long as Dark Side of the Moon's run.

Re:Doesn't matter what's causing it, we can slow i

[startled]

I, for one, wouldn't want us mucking around trying to change nature under the auspices that we're doing it for nature's own good.

Mucking about doing unnatural things like burning less oil?

Note how the article ends

[wytcld]

However, Julian Morris, executive director of the International Policy Network, urged governments to be cautious. "There needs to be better data before billions of pounds are spent on policy measures that may have little impact," he said.

Most often when a reporter puts a quote at the end of the article, that quote presents the conclusion the reporter would like the reader to take away. In this case, it wasn't even worth the reporter's time explaining who in hell the "International Policy Network" is, let alone why an opinion from them should be pertinent here. Note also that the article above that details a lowered prediction of sea level rise precisely because there is now better data. So Mr. Morris's comment is a non sequitor.

Re:Note how the article ends

[dylan_-]

In this case, it wasn't even worth the reporter's time explaining who in hell the "International Policy Network" is, let alone why an opinion from them should be pertinent here.

They're a "right-wing thinktank"....or a "corporate-funded campaigning group" depending on your point of view. They did receive large sums of money from (surprise, surprise!) Exxon. More stuff here

I don't understand all these metaphors!

[startled]

With all of these "house on fire" metaphors, why hasn't someone suggested simply buying fire insurance?

Then, if your house burns down, just stay somewhere else for a while while someone builds you a new house.

Re:Moron.

[cagrin]

I too am saddened by slashdotters(and many others) who apparently couldn't care less about the environment, until the 'sky falls down on them'...ozone hole anybody. NASA and NOAA Announce Ozone Hole is a Double Record Breaker

Old environmentalism vs new environmentalism

[heroine]

A long time ago, environmentalism meant not doing things which damaged environments. Lead contamination was reduced by not using lead. Acid rain was reduced by not producing acid. Deforestation was reduced by not deforesting.

Now the "new environmentalism" says you can assign a dollar value to every kind of environmental damage and instead of preventing the damage you can recover the lost value by feeding money into another cause.

Use all the lead you want but compensate by paying into disposal funds. Make all the acid rain as you want but compensate by paying into water funds. Make all the CO2 you want but compensate by paying into hurricane relief funds.

So far new environmentalism has won over every living breathing voter without a hitch. It certainly is easier than the old way.

Re:Old environmentalism vs new environmentalism

[argoff]

This is because, "environmentalism" as we know it never has been about the environment, but always about the money. The fact that "global warming" must be solved by the UN and massive government micro regulations at every level while individuals making private choices by their own free will is considered tersiary should be more telling than all the studies, science, and calculations on global warming combined.

The war on "gobal warming" is like the war on drugs. Notice how they try and control the distribution of drugs and give themselves massive pay and police power to do so, while never addressing the reason why people do drugs. Well, notice how they go about "solving" the "global warming" problem the same way.

Re:Never thought about that!

[SEMW]

All of this so called global warming garbage just makes me shake my head. I guess no one ever cared to look at the output from the sun, which, has GROWN (ie:hotter) over the last several years. If you turn up your furnace, guess what? Your house gets hotter. If it is due to the Sun, the stratosphere would be warming as well; however, the stratosphere is cooling. Moreover, if it is purely down to the Sun, then why do temperature changes so closely match CO2 concentrations?

I know that most of the hysteria surrounding global warming is just scientist who are hell bent on maintaing their current level of government funding (suckling at the trough) Who on Earth is paying scientists to produce evidence showing that climate change exists? Certainly not the current administrations. No-one stands to benefit in the least from fabricating evidence. For your hypothesis to be correct, the entire, vast scientific community around the world, from Universities; Universities, research scientists, and all, would have to be participating in some sort of vast consipiracy. I'm sorry, that's rubbish. The evidence is there; no-one is fabricating it. If you want to argue against it, may I suggest breaking the habit of a lifetime and actually... consider the evidence and attempt to refute it, rather than tout paranoid conspiracy theories?

Re:what really happened

[SEMW]

Except that the changes that are happening now far supplant the minor variations mentioned in the link you post. Have a look at http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Carbon_ Dioxide_400kyr_Rev_png: historicalically, CO2 concentrations have oscillated from around 190 to 290 ppmv in the ice-age cycles; they're now at about 380.

Re:Read "The Skeptical Environmentalist"

[SEMW]

I believe the point, whilst admittedly not made in the most eloquent manner, was that have a lot of references doesn't automatically make someone right.

Great comeback, lefty. Whilst we're here, can someone please explain to me why the political right seem to regard Global warming as a political issue? It's Science; it doesn't (well, shouldn't) change depending on political affiliation.

Re:And this is what happens.

[SEMW]

Uh, no. They're revising predictions by 25% in response to new data. But of course, I should have realised that in the political world, any reasoned change in position entirely based on data, facts, and evidence is apparently "flip-flopping"...

Re:What does this even mean?

[SEMW]

How do you measure the temperature? Uhhh... With a thermometer? Sorry, I don't quite understand what you're getting at...

How do you calculate the average temperature? By taking an average of predicted temperatures all over the world

Why is it due to rise? Global warming. Surely you must have heard of it?

Why is it due to rise 5 degrees? Because that's what the bhest models we have tell us it's going to rise by.

Why is it due to rise over the next 100 years? Uhh... It's also due to rise over the next 50 and 500 years, obviously by less and more respectively. The article just happened to give what it would rise by in 100 years.

We can't even accurately predict the weather day to day; why should I believe these predictions are any better? You're confusing weather with climate. The Weather is a non-linear system; making prediction of day-to-day fluctuations very hard since they are chaotic (in the mathematical sense of the word). On Average, however, trends can be obsereved in global average temperature over decades -- energy is conserved; more Sun's energy, higher average temperatures.

Re:And I hung my hat on Global Cooling

[SEMW]

I just see Global Warming as the trendy Hollywood thing to worry about. Thirty years ago it was Global Cooling and finding ways to melt the Arctic ice caps... Yes, because as we all know, vast amounts of new data and improved theory accuracy means that old theories are still just as valid and likely to be true as new ones. Which is why satellites are now launched based on Archimedes' and Zeno's laws of motion; everyone still thinks it is as likely that the Sun goes round the Earth than the other way round; and large numbers of people still argue that Biblical Creationism should be taught as Science. Oh wait, that last one is actually true...

What the hell are you talking about?

[Sycraft-fu]

The reason cancer is such a large killer in industrialized nations (and it should be noted that heart disease and stroke are larger killers) as opposed to the 3rd world is that it is in the 3rd world you die of something else first. Cancer is by and large an old person's disease. It simply doesn't affect the young very often. Well when you are dying of Malaria or the like first, cancer rarely has a chance to strike. Also, due to poor medical care, if you do die of cancer it's usually not chalked up to that since it isn't often diagnosed.

It's simply a result of our better medical treatment. We are eliminating all the more simple things that kill people. If you live in a place without antibiotics, infections are often fatal. In a 1st world nation, it's very rarely the case.

There is also stability to consider as well. Rampaging warfare does not do good things for life expectancy. Either way, cancer is not caused by whatever scary industrial bogeyman you hate.

I don't believe this.

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Then, when you need to downgrade your prediction from "the world is going to end in ten years because all the oceans will rise up and DROWN US!!!!" to "we might not be having as much effect as we thought..." your entire movement loses ALL credibility.

If everyone were intelligent, then the public wouldn't be blinded by the mistake, dismiss the claims altogether, and just treat it more wearily. Thankfully most of the people in power are intelligent enough to recognise the body of evidence for global warming that is still valid.

It just goes to show that in the end, carefully reasoned debate and proportioned response is much more effective than hysterics.

And those flamebait mods go to show that you can't engage in a carefully reasoned debate with opportunistic smugness.

Re:Doesn't matter what's causing it, we can slow i

[Quarters]

No. Mucking about doing half-assed bad-movie science things like injecting this or that into the atmosphere or building a sun-shield in space or any of the other baker's dozen "Global Warming solutions" that have gotten press in the past eighteen months.

Yes, we can all conserve energy, thanks for pointing that obviousness out. I'm sorry your attempt to turn my comment into a strawman didn't work out as well as you had hoped.

Re:Doesn't matter what's causing it, we can slow i

[dasunt]

It really doesn't matter to what extent Global Warming is man's problem or nature's: it's still happening, and we can still help slow it down.

It's clear that it's heppening, now do we want it to happen faster, or slower?

Before we enter the realm of Pascal's Wager, shouldn't we ask ourself what the expected effects will be and their costs, versus the cost of doing something now?

17 inches in 100 years? How is this a big deal?

[Robotbeat]

Okay. So, the article says that in 100 years, the sea level will rise by up to 17 inches. Now, I live in Minnesota, the Land of 10000 Lakes. My family's cabin is on a lake north of wear I live, and we have had fluctuations of, like, one or two meters over the last twenty years. Guess what? When the level goes up, we move the dock up. When it goes down, we bring the dock back down. Sometimes we have more beach, sometimes we have less. It's not really that big of a deal.

In the ocean, you already have tides and storms and such. I think that 17 inches would have even LESS of an impact in the ocean, since those other effects already have to be accounted for when finding a good spot to put a dock or a house.

And, if we have 100 years to deal with this, I really don't know why we don't just take a couple billion dollars or so from one of these studies and invest it in some high-growth investment market and just let compound interest give us the solution? If Kyoto would put any significant pressure (like, at least %1) on the $13 trillion American economy, we could just go without Kyoto and put that $130 billion a year for twenty years and then pay every islander in the world a $5000 stipend every year forever from the interest earned? I mean, I could survive on $5000 a year, and I live in America! That amount of money would allow one to pretty much live in luxury in a third world country. Am I the only one who thinks that Kyoto would put more pressure than just 1% on the American economy, assuming it was actually followed?

If a sea level rise of 17 inches is really one of the biggest problems of global warming, then it sure doesn't make me that worried (especially since Minnesota is land-locked and, hey, it gets pretty cold here in the winter...).

Try reading the actual details from the Canuck who

[DaedalusHKX]

lead the troop there. Soldier of Fortune ran a longtime article on him awhile back, and detailed the way it played out on the ground. I had a friend of a friend point this out to me back when I actually believed the anti-gun lobby and the socialist lobby. I believed them up until I got out of college and realized that society shouldn't cost me out of MY earnings and the fruits of my labor. Suit yourself... but I shouldn't have to pay for something I don't support... namely your income :)

Re:Funny how the UN changes its mind every 5 minut

[sumdumass]

Well, you gotta give it to the Clinton administration. When they act anti war, they really act anti war.

Maybe someone should have set them down and explained that sometimes bad people do bad things and the only way to stop them is to do bad things too. Maybe if they understood this concept a little more instead of how to inflate economic numbers or play Mr. Stink finger with a cigar half the bad things in the last 8 years never would have happened. Maybe not.

Maybe some one pointed

[JohnnyGTO]

out to the UN that the entire Solar System was warming. Space Research Thats Cool - Global Warming on Mars?, Mars Is Warming, NASA Scientists Report ,

Mars Is Warming, NASA Scientists Report or The Enterprise Mission Which reads in part "Ice core samples, from places like Greenland and our old pal Lake Vostok, have shown that the Earth has undergone drastic and rapid climate change in the past. The most recent major shift was about 12,000 years ago, with the vast majority of the change occurring in only 40 years. In fact, some key indicators of global climate change, such as average annual temperatures, increased by 5 to 10 degrees C in only 10 years! Various prosaic explanations have been asserted to explain these odd and sudden shifts, mostly centering around the suns energy output and sun spots. Indeed, our own recent warming trend has been alternately explained as the result of this same "solar instability," or blamed on increasing human fossil fuel activity (which is not the case)."

Dont get me wrong I love the smell of clean air but I think someone in the global warming camp has been feeding us a lot of horse crap.

Re:Doesn't matter what's causing it, we can slow i

[An Onerous Coward]

The last argument anyone on your side of the aisle should ever be trotting out is, "We shouldn't be mucking around trying to change nature."

Re:WE'RE OFF THE HOOK! WE'RE OFF THE HOOK!

[An Onerous Coward]

/me vents a celebratory canister of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Environment movement

[oldhack]

The environmentalism has replaced Christianity as the new religion in the West, Europe in particular. It's to be praised for raising people's awareness and sensitivity on the consequence of our lifestyle, but unfortunately it also smells of dogmatic religious ferocity. It's presented with a certain moral and spiritual angle that, I think, appeals to those of us living in largely secular cultures. Unfortunately, this often hinders the frank, pragmatic discourse the issue deserves. Take global warming for example. There are several aspects to the question:

1. Is it warming up? (seems like it)
2. What are the consequences?
3. Are we largely responsible?
4. Can we do anything about it?
5. If yes, then how should we go about it? (depends on 2, 3, & 4)

But put the question in moral/spiritual tone, and you get FOX News style shout match between two extremist sides. Well, maybe it's also a reaction to the influence of profit-driven corporate agenda that disregard economic externalities like environmental issues. Two wrongs don't make a right, though, eh.

Re:Environment movement

[polar red]

"the influence of profit-driven corporate agenda"
that's the reason for the environmentalists to shout harder and harder ? It's frustrating to be kept quiet (the media are in the hands of those corps).

Only 5 degrees in 100 years, what about in 500

[Magikomik]

The report implies the prediction that if nothing is done now, we have 50 degrees rise in 500 years. We have now spring flowers like Dandelion, in December 2006, at Swabian Highlands which never happened before: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DslIolIomA0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsLoDsCj7zQ

Re:Only 5 degrees in 100 years, what about in 500

[Magikomik]

I meant 25 in 500. That would kill a lot of plants and many animals and many humans too, beginning with Africa.

Downward trend

[superyooser]

Whatever the reality, it is slowing down in the media. And at this rate, thirty years from now they'll be reporting that humans are causing global cooling.

Re:Read "The Skeptical Environmentalist"

[NilleKopparmynt]

Let me give you an example of how this science is used in Sweden. The green party in Sweden succeeded in adding a tax for burning plastic. (Unlike US we do not bury our trash, we burn it) The companies which burn trash ofcourse just add this tax to the price for displosal of garbage. The result is that we burn just as much plastic as before but the price is higher for the consumer who does not have any means to avoid this tax. The social democrats which was in power of course listened to the green party regarding adding the tax but then ignored their suggestion that the increased tax income should be used to improve public transport. So, at least in leftist Sweden the climate issue is just used as an excuse to rise taxes.
So I guess that the difference regarding left and right way of dealing with global warming can be summed up as : Left - Rise taxes and ignore the problem. Right - Just ignore the problem.

Re:Moron.

[TooManyNames]

Suppose it's not an obvious fact. Suppose there were only a 50% chance that human activity is really the cause of the global climate change we're observing.

I have heard this before... Suppose that there is a 50% chance that hell exists and only true Christians can escape it. Prudence would dictate that everyone choose Christianity (and do anything to prove their faith), right? Of course, the same argument can be made for whatever religion you'd prefer.

The problem with such a risk analysis is that you make assumptions which are inherently unclear. After all, how do you assign such probabilities and what courses of action should be chosen based off of those probabilities? Furthermore, how do you describe consequences of falling into one category or another? For example, human impact on the environment may be much lower (say 1*10^-38%) or higher (say 98%) than 50%. If, in the first case, the result is absolute annihilation of all life on earth, should humans seek to stop "hurting" their involvement (even if this is getting into the likelihood of random teleportation of large objects)? On the other hand, if in the second case humans brought about a 0.5m rise in sea level, would this justify a major shift in human tinkering? Suppose further that sustaining an environmentally friendly change according to some set of standards would incur costs exceeding the combined GDP of the top 10 most economically prosperous nations. Would the changes be worth it (in either scenario listed above)?

Before you look at any numbers or try to generate some risk/benefit model, realize that all of the figures I provided were utter BS... I just made them up. So what information can you glean from randomly cobbled together bits of data? Nothing. Arbitrarily assigning a probability or consequence for human impact on the environment does nothing for the sake of argument in the context of risk analysis. Those that would seek to repudiate "environmentalist" claims attempt to show that, in spite of complex modeling and data interpretation, such claims are still essentially arbitrary and serve an agenda. When reports such as these surface and scientists claim that the same risk should be attributed to a lower level of human impact, it becomes difficult not to swayed into a skeptical position.

Re:Doesn't matter what's causing it, we can slow i

[TempeTerra]

The tree-hugging hippy environmentalists are a dying breed, but they make a great straw-man if you want to justify some pollutin' - and so we keep hearing about them.

The best argument for conservation is that it benefits humans to maintain the status quo. A clean, temperate environment with good biodiversity is the ideal situation, and we should be trying to maintain that even if the move away from it is 'natural'.

Standard disclaimer applies about not trying to terraform unless you're really sure you know what you're doing.

And yet, this is the worse path they can take

[WindBourne]

It is far better for China, India and others to not invest into coal/oil infrastructure and instead spend the money on alternative or nuclear power. In fact, they would be smart to leap frog over our oil automobile and jump directly to bio-fuel or electric. You really can not dominant by copying somebody else. You have to innovate and be better.

Re:Never thought about that!

[evilviper]

If it is due to the Sun, the stratosphere would be warming as well; however, the stratosphere is cooling.

Way to discredit yourself...

You say it can't be due to the Sun, because that would heat-up the stratosphere, and the stratosphere is cooling. HOWEVER, the fact of the matter is that the Sun is hotter than ever recorded before.

freaking reality check... hello!

[hxnwix]

So, because humanity has survived many a storied & horrid deprevation, this next repulsive calamity will be more of the same, namely:

ocean levels rising
large swaths of the most densely populated land in the world vanishing beneath the waves
tropical diseases heading north
the desertification of the tropics

Yes, we will deal with it. We'll probably handle it the same way that we handled the wars that you mentioned: by fighting each other and making a bad situation worse.

Would you tell a heroin addict to continue shooting up since the consequences will resemble his previous anguishes? Would you suggest that a diabetic with an amputated foot have a get-well cake, seeing as how losing the leg is sorta like losing the foot?

Re:freaking reality check... hello!

[Ignatius]

Sea levels are actually an excellent example of slow adaption at work: Coast land is created and eroded/flooded all the time. This usually does not pose much of a problem, as the change is much slower than the typical lifetime of a building. Every city is in a constant process of being rebuilt. If the ocean level rises, houses on lower ground will tend to be replaced by buildings on higher ground.

If some land is going to become unhabitable during the next decades, it's not that people will flee in panic: They will simply tend to settle in different areas as they always do - and on much shorter timescales - for economic reasons. Even if the ocean level will rise 10m during the next 100 years, the resulting migration - while huge in total - will still be negligable when compared to the ongoing migration caused by unempolyment or poverty or such mundane reasons as couples moving together.

The same thing will happen when fossil fuels supply slowly declines: It's no problem to get along with half the current energy consumption or less without having to significantly lower your standard of living. This is especially true for the US, as this would merely mean that an American citizen will have to make do with what an average European currently gets along quite well (and often with a higher standard of living).

Similar picture with the food supply, even though it is doubtful that global warming will have a significant negative net-effect on the global agricultural output (the regional effects might as well cancel out for the most part): There are huge reserves in terms of overproduction, unused land, inefficient distribution and processing (e.g. one calorie of meat equals seven calories of crops), which could easily feed twice the current world population NOW, if we decide to go about it, again with only moderate changes to our current lifestyle (which might, in fact, be for the better in many Western countries).

The bottom line of all this is: yes, changes will come along, like they always have. However, instead of worring how to PREVENT change (which might be futile or at least very hard), it seems more wise to me to think how we can ADAPT to the change in due course (with the added benefit that this will also help with non-anthropogenic changes). And of course, it's already happening. At the end of the day, many measures proposed by the "safe the climate" crowd happen to be the very same measures will will come along anyway, albait less hysterically and with less fanfare, as people adapt to the decreasing supply in fossil fuels.

What we do NOT need, is a fatalistic doomsday-attitude or extreme govermental intervention to pressure developments which will happen in due curse, anyway. A resonable Oil-tax (which we already have in Europe), some relocation of long-term infrastructure spending away from regions in danger of being flooded (because they are under sealevel now) and other similar moderate measures are no doubt reasonable to preempt some of the economic pressure, but the real change will be brought about by higher oil and energy prices all by itself.

Re:freaking reality check... hello!

[hxnwix]

I think that we actually ought to worry about preventing catastrophic climate change. Yes, even though we will suffer and muddle through the melted permafrost and tropical deserts, even though we will adapt to our ruined climate, we should try hard to prevent what some fatalists see as innevitable.

Increasing oil taxes and using the proceeds to fund mass transit, fission power and other renewable energy production does make sense. Let's do it. Let's not say that losing 10,20,30,40% of the habitable land on the planet to the ocean is really not so very bad. Because it will be awful and it will lead to strife. Let's not say that having the gulf stream's flow cease, making northern Europe's climate identical to Siberia's and the Yukon's would be tolerable. Humanity would suffer immensely. Don't hide behind a myopic utopian view of our history that ignores our faults - we would suffer, fight and perish as habitable land area dwindles.

Re:Read "The Skeptical Environmentalist"

[SEMW]

I'm not sure I understand. OK, so taxes were raised on burning plastic in an attempt to discourage the burning of plastic. Fine; economic incentives often work (would high-economy diesal cars and the Prius have done so well if fuel duty did not exist?). But then you say that "we burn just as much plastic as before". Well, clearly the economic incentive has failed; because if it had suceesed maybe you'd start not burning your plastic, or using less plastic. So, why did the economic incentive fail? If the tax wasn't large enough to change any behaviour, I doubt you would be using it as an example. I can only conclude that there must be some inherent reason why you burn plastic; in which case the governing party should investigate the inherent reason and see if it is valid; and if it is legislative, remove it. Even if there is a reason why you must burn plastic waste, the economic incentive should still do what it was intented to do and reduce plastic usage, yes? If the consumer has to pay more to dispose of garbage they should produce less garbage; e.g. by using proper reusable shopping bags rather than use-once flimsy plastic ones. Which should be a good thing, yes?

Re:Read "The Skeptical Environmentalist"

[NilleKopparmynt]

Economic incentives only work if you give people a choice. In the example I mentioned people does not have a choice. I guess I missed to mention that in Sweden you pay for the size of your garbage bin and also the frequency it is emptied. If you fill it with plastic or no plastic whatsoever does not affect the price.
The thing is that if they wanted to give people a choice they would have put the tax on the price of the items wrapped in plastic and also plastic bags in the supermarket. Then people can easily avoid buying things since they see that they are more expensive but the government does not want people to have a choice because then people could avoid paying this tax.

Re:Doesn't matter what's causing it, we can slow i

[Banner]

Um, dude, we as a race are just not that powerful. Sorry to burst your bubble there.

Re:Never thought about that!

[evilviper]

My source for the Stratosphere cooling was NASA; I'm sure they'll be happy to know they've been discredited.

100% strawman.

It's your assertion that a solar increse inherently requires warming of the stratosphere that is the bullshit here.

Climate model on your laptop

[HoneyBeeSpace]

If you'd like to do some of the experiments discussed in the article yourself, the EdGCM project has wrapped a NASA global climate model (GCM) in a GUI (OS X and Win). You can add CO2 or turn the sun down by a few percent all with a checkbox and a slider. Supercomputers and advanced FORTRAN programmers are no longer necessary to run your own GCM. Disclaimer: I'm the project developer.

A reply never before seen on Slashdot!

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

I have heard this before... Suppose that there is a 50% chance that hell exists and only true Christians can escape it. Prudence would dictate that everyone choose Christianity (and do anything to prove their faith), right? Of course, the same argument can be made for whatever religion you'd prefer.

I think we both agree that Pascal's wager is bullshit (the reasons why this is so are well documented in Wikipedia ).

Arbitrarily assigning a probability or consequence for human impact on the environment does nothing for the sake of argument in the context of risk analysis.
[snip]

Dammit; I think you're right.

Re:Doesn't matter what's causing it, we can slow i

[misanthrope101]

That's the funny thing about the "environmental skeptics." Somehow "pollute less and consume fewer finite resources" became a far-left wacko idea. Since the environmentalists are never going to be able to predict anything with 100% accuracy, and the science will always be changing due to new research, the "skeptics" can eternally muddy the waters as we continue to undermine the planet's ability to sustain human society.

Re:Facts

[ErroneousBee]

Really?

So the population of the UK has always been 60 million, even back when it was 3 million?

Re:Try reading the actual details from the Canuck

[Andy Gardner]

Sorry, are you disputing how the US voted on this issue? Or are you disputing documented factual history on how they put pressure on the UN to remove the UNAMIR mission?

No doubt

[benhocking]

Especially when what the report has probably lowered is only the worst case scenario. Hopefully, the worst case scenario will always be lessened as one approaches the date in question.

Well, duh

[yesthatmcgurk]

"Climate change skeptics are expected to seize on the revised figures as evidence that action to combat global warming is less urgent"

Well, that's because it is. But don't let this stop you from whipping up hysteria as per usual.
In 100 years, oil prices will be down below 10$ per barrel (in 2006 dollars) due to the rise of alternate fuel technologies and the linked decrease in the reliance of oil in the creation of energy. Unless we replace the CO2 reduction with an increase in other greenhouse gasses (i.e., escaped hydrogen gas), looks like it isn't the end of the world as we know it.

Re:Doesn't matter what's causing it, we can slow i

[Urban Garlic]

> It really doesn't matter to what extent Global Warming is man's problem or nature's.

Of course it does, this is in fact the key question, because it tells us how much control we (theoretically) have over the process. We want to mitigate the damage, of course, but not to the degree that the cost of mitigation exceeds the expected cost of the damage. In which case, it absolutely does matter to what extent global warming is anthropogenic -- the greater the degree to which it's anthropogenic, particularly the degree to which it's driven by anthropogenic atmospheric carbon dioxide, the more control we (theoretically) have over it.

On the other hand, if anthropogenic carbon dioxide doesn't drive global warming, then switching to a carbon-neutral economy won't strongly influence the process, and we as a society will then have to pay the costs of switching and the costs of mitigating the impact of climate change.

From what I have read, it seems that anthropogenic carbon dioxide is a major factor driving the process, and a carbon-neutral economy is a long-term requirement anyways, since fossil fuel reserves are finite, so I'm with the enviros on this one. But it's asinine to pretend that environmentalism is an unalloyed virtue and that cost-benefit balances don't matter.

Re:Facts

[FlyingSquidStudios]

You have a flawed understanding of 'fact' since it was never a fact that the UK has always had a population of 60 million. It may currently have a population of that size, I don't know, but I don't think anyone has ever proposed that populations ever stay constant. The fact is that when the population is 60 million, it is 60 million and when it is 3 million, it is 3 million. This isn't that hard to grasp...

Lack of information

[SimDarth]

Accurate climatology data = 50 years Estimated age of the earth = billions of years yeah, we REALLY know a lot about why the earth changes climate.

Re:Lack of information

[shalmaneser1]

Accurate climatology data = 50 yearsEstimated age of the earth = billions of yearsyeah, we REALLY know a lot about why the earth changes climate. I feel the same way about physics and, even, science in general. Its been around too $#@! long; how could we possibly know anything about it?

Re:Funny how the UN changes its mind every 5 minut

[hunterx11]

I'm no Clinton fan, but accusing him of being a dove is ridiculous. Have you heard of Bosnia or Kosovo or Iraq?

Re:Facts

[BytePusher]

The whole point of the quote is that often times what we call "facts" are really assumptions. Assumptions are necessary for survival, they're our best guess at what's going on when we don't have all the facts. However, we need to be prepared to modify our assumptions(make a better guess) as we learn new facts. The quote is an insightful statement on a common flaw of reasoning. I for one like it and will use it.

Both these posts are ridiculous

[snowwrestler]

This is an angle that the environmental movement has not yet come to terms with. The gorilla in the room is not the carbon production of the currently industrialized countries, it is the carbon production in the near future (20-50 years) of the currently inductrializing countries, which are far more populous.

You are wrong. There are numerous environmental organizations working on the issues of the industrializing nations. Just because you have not heard of them, does not mean they do not exist. Here is just one example.

Most of the rhetoric of the global warming movement has been centered about modest lifestyle changes in developing countries: smaller cars, power conservation, and subsidizing carbon neutral energy sources. These are easy changes to make for the average westerner: They don't strongly impact our quality of life. Too bad the the carbon withheld from the atmosphere due to these changes is so small compared to the quantities that will be released a generation from now from the populous countries that are currently industrializing.

This completely misses the point. The focus is not on modest lifestyle changes, it is on developing technologies that produce major impacts on carbon dioxide emissions, with only modest impacts on lifestyle. It's not just about getting everyone to buy a smaller car--the important work is getting the car makers to produce much more efficient machines that do the same thing. My 1997 car gets 30 MPG; my mom's hybrid gets more than 40 MPG; and my friend's turbo diesel gets 50 MPG. All three cars are the same size and go the same speed.

For the global warming movement to address the gorilla in the room, they would have to ask people in China and India to forgo that first refrigerator, automobile, computer, tractor, or paved road. And that is not a morally defensable or politically feasable position. Until the global warming movement faces up to this fact their efforts in the developed world are just a sideshow.

Bullshit, this is a stupid straw man. The U.S. went through our polluting phase with these technologies because we were developing them for the first time. Now they are already developed and vastly improved. There is absolutely no reason China should have to recapitulate the entire nasty process, especially when we are so open to sharing technology and subsidizing a modern manufacturing base through open global trade. The point is to encourage them to learn from our mistakes and build energy efficiency and clean technologies into their infrastructure from the beginning--a choice we did not have.

Re:Both these posts are ridiculous

[Rei]

An interesting example of attempts to save the environment in developing countries with minimal impact on people's lives that I saw recently was the introduction of an efficient woodburning stove to replace open cooking fires. Provides major health benefits (almost eliminates smoke in the kitchen), reduces deforestation, and saves people time/money (from having to get the wood), for minimal upfront cost.

Lots of simple inventions can greatly improve peoples' lives if engineered with the practical constraints of life in the region in mind. Here's another example -- a crank-driven nut sheller designed for use by people that still have to do the work by hand. A single sheller, made mostly of concrete using very simple molds, can serve an entire village and free up dozens of hours per week per person. This means more time for things like education, jobs to earn money, and improving local infrastructure.

Re:Facts

[ErroneousBee]

You have a flawed understanding of 'fact' since it was never a fact that the UK has always had a population of 60 million. It may currently have a population of that size, I don't know, but I don't think anyone has ever proposed that populations ever stay constant. The fact is that when the population is 60 million, it is 60 million and when it is 3 million, it is 3 million. This isn't that hard to grasp...

So a fact is, by your definition, something that is universally true and doesnt change?

By most other peoples definitions a fact is just a peice of information.

so when you argue that facts dont change, you are just using a circular argument based on your own incrorrect definition. Facts change, deal with it.

Leapfrog

[berbo]

Agreed.

In addition, there is the leapfrog effect: by jump from very old technology to very new technology, it becomes even more cost-effective.

Telegraph article is wrong

[x1048576]

The Telegraph report is obviously wrong. The IPCC report just summarizes the scientific literature. There has not been any paper published that would justify reducing the estimate. The reporter has confused climate sensitivity (how much warming you eventually get from doubling CO2), with predicted warming in 2100.

Bad Data + Bad Models == Bad Public Policy

[HighOrbit]

is this 'junk science' because my upper bound has dropped by 33%?

It is, if you are using your upper margin to **profoundly** influence public policy in a manner that will **drastically** effect the lifestyles of **BILLIONS** of people. Because the environmental movement is trying to spur people into action, they generally publicize the worst case scenarios.

I have no doubt that average recorded temperatures are rising and the recorded CO2 levels have risen as a result of industrial activity. What this article demonstrates is that uncontrolled and unknown variables make the current models inaccurate. The variable mentioned in the article was cooling caused by aerosols. But just how many more unknown variables are there? You don't know and neither do the world's best and brightest climatologists. Will we find another unknown variable that (from the article) reduces the "overall estimate of this effect by 25 per cent"? No models are perfect, but they should have a better margin of error than 25%, if they are going to be the basis of important public policy that will effect countless people.

Even if the warming model is accurate (i.e. a predicted warming is eventually born out exactly as predicted), it is not certain that the predicted disastrous consequences will follow exactly as predicted. Have you stopped to think that a unjustified drastic course of action might end up costing more lives from loss of production and lowering of lifestyles (food, goods, and shelter in simpler terms) than the actual change in the climate? No? Well, think about it before we go off the deep end.

Now going back to "recorded" temperatures. Do you know how many statistical data models have been fubar by unrepresentative sampling or flawed collection methodology? Lots. Do you know how many honest scientists and statisticians have been flummoxed and lead astray by seemingly good, but actually flawed data sets? Lots. What makes you so sure that this is any different? Bad data fed into bad models leading to bad public policy could be a medicine worse than the disease.

I happened to think that the data says we are getting warmer. Just how warmer, what the consequences will be, and exactly why (and in what proportions) are still up to debate because they are still unknown, regardless of what somebody's possibly flawed model says.

You might think that global-warming skeptics are anti-science or just plain stupid. But it is not anti-science to be reluctant to swallow every scientific fad "hook-line-and-sinker", especially one that has strong political overtones. It wasn't that long ago that the scientific consensus considered eugenics to be firmly grounded in biology and evolutionary theory. Countless papers on Eugenics were published in respected peer-reviewed journals. We now know that eugenics was pseudo-science, but for decades it influenced public policy in regards to social welfare and mental health and millions of lives were destroyed. Eugenics was a perfect vehicle for people with an agenda. Long before global warming was even thought up, environmentalists were looking for a (pseudo) scientific reason to justify reduction of industrial activity and to fight the "evil" that is the capitalist raping of the environment. Now they have latched onto global warming as their vehicle. Does that itself make the theory of global warming invalid? No, but it does mean it should be scrutinized.

Fine, next time, you refund ALL the cash the US

[DaedalusHKX]

spent on the UN (taxpayer cash, btw) and I will gladly not dispute a thing you guys do that pisses me off. Until then, put up an equal purse, or shut up.

Re:Fine, next time, you refund ALL the cash the US

[Andy Gardner]

Well you can dispute all you want I'm just stating the facts. While you we're blaming the UN for the Rwandan genocide I merely pointed out that the US is member of the UNSC. It voted and applied diplomatic pressure for the withdrawl of UN troops and later opposed reinstating them.

As for refunding US aid. Considering any aid provided by the US is almost always tied directly to its foreign policy, refusing it probably wouldn't be an option...

While you're complaining about you're own generosity it might be worth noting that the US donates %.22(GNI) putting it behind all but Portugal, the top 5 countries donate over %.8(GNI). And before you say, but the US is a larger economy so %.22 is a huge amount, the UK, France and Germany alone donate more than the US.

Re:Moron.

[cagrin]

This 'news' is four years old...btw, i found your ancestor Ancient Apelike Fossil Not Human Ancestor

Okay, and the USA is one of HOW MANY?

[DaedalusHKX]

How many other Security Council members with veto power are there?

Russia, China, etc?

Why didn't those paragons of virtue jump in to save those Rwandans from US Government bigotry? How about France? England??

Until the UN stepped in with "disarmament of the people" (which left them helpless, as usual for the UN, they need someone to "protect" so the only route is to create "dependency" which it then pretends to fill). It happened again in Kenya, it happened in Rhodesia (when the entire "free world" let that place go to hell, not just the USG).

Why do you automatically assume that our government is any less autonomous than yours, that somehow hey abide by our will? They DICTATE TO US what to will, just like you gov't does you. You have a government that tells you how to vote, think, act and believe, and ours is the same. IT is NOT the US of A. USA and USG are DIFFERENT GROUPS. One is "We The People" and the other is "We The Inner Party" (1984 reference, hope you got it).

PS: opposal of reinstatement of UN troops.

[DaedalusHKX]

How many "free peoples" desire foreign troops on their soil?

Canadian eh?

Would you like some Russian troops peacekeeping there, to keep those evil marijuana dealers from shooting those poor mounties?

How about Australia, with their pacified populace, would you like some Kenyan guerillas, donated to the UN, to peacekeep there in Aussie land?

And for those in the US who so love the UN, I wonder how they'd like it when Chinese blue helmets are patrolling our streets, kicking in doors, and killing americans who don't subject to being tagged like cattle and controlled like videogame characters.

Think its not coming? Why did the UN use Darfur to justify their request to have a "standing army" and "mandate to invade a sovereign country, to right wrongs", I heard Kofi's speech on the BBC World News Hour... can't deny it. Why do you think the UN is fighting so hard to kill the world supply of food? It was down to thirty days of food worldwide supplies in recent years, and I'm sure now that they've discovered it isn't man, but cow farts causing "global warming", they will want livestock ranching to stop (while the idea has merits in some aspects, the UN isn't pushing those aspects, just like it didn't disarm south africa, rwanda, kenya, sudanese tribals for "peace" but for "pieces").

Re:Funny how the UN changes its mind every 5 minut

[sumdumass]

Have you heard of Bosnia or Kosovo or Iraq

Sure I have. Lets see, Both the first two mentioned happened during the second term. The demands to pull forces that we weren't even a part of from Rwanda in '93 and '94. But if we must examine those three conflicts mentioned we will.

Iraq was nothing short of a joke. We flew planes and blew up only missile positions firing at our planes. We withdrew the UN weapons inspectors "out of protest" then complained that Iraq wouldn't let them do their jobs or back in. We should have done what Bush the second has done when they shot down our fighter back in '93 but instead we toyed with as little as possible.

Bosnia, Yes, We have a helicopter shot down during a peace keeping and humanitarian mission (read distributing aid to civilians that their government didn't care about at the time). Instead of unleashing hell to protect the survivors we shot some warning shots around the downed pilots while they mutilated and dragged one of the pilots through the streets. Then after hours of politically correct bullshit in an attempt to gather a rescue force large enough to take the entire town, we strolled into hell because we were only in a defensive posture even though we were walking into hostile territory. Gotta make sure we only attack those attacking us instead of laying down a curfew and shooting anything out and about. The end result, "Team america world police" and we lost a few more good guys. Why, because we wasn't willing to do it right in the first place!

Kosovo, Yes, the continuance of the Bosnia bullshit. Actualy from the displaced people of the bosnia bullshit. The names have changed a little and it is targeted at certain ethnic people instead of waring factions. This time the public image from Rwanda and how we fucked up in somalia has been tainted us so we bomb some military targets (most of them cardboard cutouts), We took out a Chinese embassy to dispel rumors of campaign finance and selling military secrets. We solved part of the problem by taking refugees and bringing them back to America, taking the power off line a few times and with internation presure, we forced Milosevi to resign.

But this was a NATO action. We were committed by treaty and from force outside our leaders control. We chose to bomb instead of using military forces in a way that could have ended it sooner.

but accusing him of being a dove is ridiculous

To accuse him of much else is misleading. Hailed when he had the chance. Stuck around and half-assed it when he didn't. Of course I took some artistic leave on this. But outside of sarcastic interpretations, It all matches history. To some, he did more then enough. To others, It is a joke at best. You can guess which group I'm in.

Re:Never thought about that!

[evilviper]

I believe his assertion was that "if the sun was warming the earth, then it would have to warm the stratosphere too", not that "increase in solar heat output must warm the stratosphere"

You're splitting hairs. The increased solar output is, in fact, warming the earth. That fact has been very thoroughly proven.

Do you have an explanation of how the sun is going to warm the earth more than it warms the stratosphere,

The Earth is solid, and absorbs the light that hits it. The stratosphere is not solid, and light passes right through that.

Why anyone thinks the tempuratures in two very different areas are somehow utterly inseperable in is absolutely beyond by powers of reasoning. So, I'd either need an in-depth explation of the reasoning behind his claim (to discredit that), or I'd have to explain the field of climatology in it's entirety to explain it (at least to explain it any better than I did above).

Re:Doesn't matter what's causing it, we can slow i

[yoden]

Burning the oil has a purpose besides its consequences. Kyoto protocol is all about the consequences. We understand the purpose, how well do we understand the consequences?

Re:Funny how the UN changes its mind every 5 minut

[hunterx11]

But this was a NATO action. We were committed by treaty and from force outside our leaders control. We chose to bomb instead of using military forces in a way that could have ended it sooner. Oh, the poor weak U.S., being bullied by all of those more powerful countries what with their greater clout in NATO. Whose idea was it to go through NATO instead of the UN to avoid a Russian veto, again? It must have been Iceland; if only Clinton had the balls he should've, or at least used what he had to stand up to Reyjavík instead of blowing a load on a blue dress!

Whether he did too much or not enough is certainly an opinion, but whether he was the driving force behind military campaigns is not. To some, he did too much, even. Whether you like Clinton or hate him, being a dove was neither a virtue nor a vice of his.

Filtering the news

[Kineel]

It's interesting to see how political beliefs effect reporting, for instance the original post says:

The average temperature is still due to rise almost 5 degrees C in the next 100 years, bringing drastic changes in weather patterns. But the article specifically states:

It also predicts that temperatures will rise by up to 4.5 C during the next 100 years "by up to" means at a maximum of 4.5C, maybe less. While "due to rise" would imply that we already know the temperature will rise that much. In fact we do not know how much it will rise, but it COULD/MIGHT/MAY rise as much as 4.5C. Most scientists believe it will be from 1C-2C rise in the next 100 to 150 years.

Re:Funny how the UN changes its mind every 5 minut

[sumdumass]

Whose idea was it to go through NATO instead of the UN to avoid a Russian veto, again?

Actualy is was General Wesley Clark's Idea. And of course the Clinton admninistration ran with it. Doesn't make much difference seeing how Clark is a democrate and was looking for a way to save face for the blunder of the Dayton Accords. You see, Richard Holbrooke, President Bill Clinton, and General Wesley Clark who were instremental in brokering the Dayton Accords with Clinton eventualy signing it also in parris, december of '95. (hence the later name of the parris protocal).

Clinton/or his administration (he may not have had as much of a role outside fo taking credit) basicly created the mess and had to clean it up. So I imagine that cleaning up his legacy would be a pretty important thing to do. But this just goes along with my suggestion that clinton disliked the military or using it. But this time his personal reputation was on the line so it was ok to use some force. In other words he was forced to go into action with them. It wasn't because of his own free will. And it was from presure of the other NATO countries saying look what a mess you have made.

You think what I'm saying about clinton having to save face is a streatch? Well consider this before comming to that conlcusion. In may of 93, just 4 months after taking office from a presidentail campain that ran on among other things "ending needless waiste in government" and "controling government spending" Clinton held LAX up for 45 minuntes waiting for a $200 haircut from his wife's hair dresser. And yes, he held up the entire los angelas airport, Airforce 1 was in the middle of takeoff when he was notified she was in the area. Instead of turning the plane around, they left it sitting on the tarmac instead of aborting the takeoff and going back to the secure hanger. This causes all other flights to go into a holding pattern because security protocal wouldn't allow any other planes to land while the president was on the runway. So, not only did he get riped off on a $200 haircut, he spent thousands of tax dollars in paying for crew, fuel, altering the flight plan and forced a backup and inconvienience for passengers as well as workers and other companies at one of the most busy airports in the world.

We could on and on for days about how shit was halfassed around clinton. Many of it, he had no real involvment with but was constantly taking credit for. Over hyping results, numbers and such. When asked why he claimed the economy was in the tank when the number he cited as being justification for his claim to the best economy ever were actualy higher then when he was in office, He claimed because: if 9/11 wouldn't have happened and everything kept going as it was before the numbers started falling (while he was in offive) they should be higher by now.

Clinton was and still is a lying manipulative SOB, He seems to have convinced you otherwise though. Take his speeches, other peoples praises and such out of the conversation, substitute president X for Clinton and review the facts, I bet you see thing entirly different. Wether your a fan of him or not.

Time for some physics

[Decaff]

So you are saying that cold water evaporates less than the ice covered ocean? It turns out that it can be and has been accurately MEASURED exactly how much water evaporates at any given temperature and pressure. Much more water evaporates off the areas that are now water, rather than ice.

I thought it was time I put a stop to this argument.

The vapour pressure of water at or close to 0C is insignificant:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Water_vapor_pre ssure_graph.jpg

The statement that 'much more water evaporates off the areas that are now water, rather than ice' is wrong. Because the vapour pressure of water has been measured accurately is why we know that it is insignificant at those temperatures.

  Even if the vapour pressure was higher, it would be insignificant compared to the water vapour already in the atmosphere resulting from evaporation of warmer sources. The temperature of those warmer sources is not rising so fast, so you can't use that increase to suggest enough additional cloud cover to block sunlight in the Arctic.

The water resulting from melting ice in the Artic does not contribute significantly to global cloud cover, and so does not change the reflection back of solar radation.

This is why the positive feedback of ice melting, leading to more exposed water areas, absorbing more head and melting more ice, happens: negative feedback effects that would block sunlight hitting the Arctic are totally insignificant.

Interesting that "strategic masters" make such:

[DaedalusHKX]

Banal, mistakes.

Its like Kasparov or Karpov checkmating themselves and saying "nah, couldn't see that coming, honest mistake, I swear!"

People of the caliber you see in the UN don't "make mistakes"... everyday joes like you and me, can make mistakes, international bureaucrats are too practiced to "make mistakes".

Clark was also guilty for WACO, TEXAS...

[DaedalusHKX]

But that probably skipped off the radar.

Look the issue is that you're confusing America with the U.S. Government.

There are two entities at stake, USG and USA... USA is us joes, USG Zionist controlled, autonomous federal government.

You can thank your buddy Alexander Hamilton for all the doublespeak we deal with, the central banks, the worldwide web of evil we've woven and consequently been woven into... you can thank that gun advocate Aaron Burr for killing Hamilton in a duel in 1804, else who knows how far into the New World Order we would be today... still, the banksters have accomplished in 200 short years, what we, normal, sane people had never seen coming... (well, can't say "all of we" but most of us, anyways).

Give the doom sayers their credit, they were right.