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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."
And I was due to have some river front property.
Deleted
But please RTFA and not just the summary/headline.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
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.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
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.
Meta, Meta, Meta
...our revised data show we're only going to graze that iceberg.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Sea level is currently 0.000 meters above sea level, and is predicted to be 0.000 meters above sea level in 100 years.
man's impact on the environment has been 'downgraded'
I'll celebrate by having baked beens and onions for dinner.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
"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"'?
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
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.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
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.
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.
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?
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
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.
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.
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.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
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
My work here is dung.
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.
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
... in other news, Al Gore's head explodes, realclimate.org accuses UN of being funded by Exxon through the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
And unsurprisingly, the article ends with this:
... '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."
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
I came here for a good argument
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.
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.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
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.
Deleted
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.
I came here for a good argument
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.
~ awaiting spiritual enlightenment ~
Aerosol means fine particulate matter in the atmosphere....not aersol cans.
I am always reminded of the Maynard Keynes quote,
"When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"
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?
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.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
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."
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
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.
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...).
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.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
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?
Much of the world's ice is already floating on the oceans and is therefore displacing the water.
.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.
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 =
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.
I'm no Clinton fan, but accusing him of being a dove is ridiculous. Have you heard of Bosnia or Kosovo or Iraq?
English is easier said than done.
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.
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.
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.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.