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IEA Warns of Irreversible Climate Change In 5 Years
iONiUM writes "As a follow up to the previous slashdot story, there has been a new release by the International Energy Agency indicating that within 5 years we will have irreversible climate change. According to the IEA, 'There are few signs that the urgently needed change in direction in global energy trends is under way. Although the recovery in the world economy since 2009 has been uneven, and future economic prospects remain uncertain, global primary energy demand rebounded by a remarkable 5% in 2010, pushing CO2 emissions to a new high. Subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption of fossil fuels jumped to over $400bn (£250.7bn).'"
As 60% of the energy usage is all the third-world countries, the answer is obvious.
is it that bad seein a hot chick again? if i see a hot chick walkin down the hall i dont say "repost"
Due to massive reduction programs, most of the world keeps CO2 at most slightly increasing, and in some cases lowering. Except for China who's doubling their pollution every ten years.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
I don't expect changes to be made. Capitalistic culture has no thought of the future; people are selfish and will sacrifice their descendants to make things just a bit easier and more profitable to themselves.
I'm kind of curious to see how the world will end up by the time I die.
we are past the point of the last Irreversible claim... and the one before that... and the one before that...
There will be irreversible climate change. The corporate powers that profit from the status quo have more than enough money to continue confusing the issue for centuries to come. Short of a major catastrophe (i.e. millions dead in first world countries), nothing will ever break through the wall of propaganda to awaken the masses.
Cue deniers coming in to lie about how all the world's climatologists are in a conspiracy being funded by Big Solar or whatever.
this will turn into a discussion assigning political blame, and nothing but a lot of hot air will be generated (pun intended)
what should happen:
blame should be set aside, and fixing the problem should be talked about. seed the ocean with iron to create phytoplankton blooms to suck out CO2 and sink to the ocean floor? it has flaws. so strategize some other ideas. yes, some will have anxiety about doing such major ecosystem altering activity when we aren't sure of every infinitesimal outcome... missing the whole goddamn point about what is already happening to the climate. penny wise, pound foolish. it's time for dramatic action, not hand wringing
look: natural, manmade, whatever: obviously the climate is changing, only complete idiots still insist it isn't. so the most compelling, overarching argument is: we have a vested economic interest in keeping our environment the way we are used to it. so we can talk about a price point about what we are willing to invest to keep the thermostat where it should be. so find the price point and fit a plan of action. end of discussion
we are homo sapiens: we don't evolve fur, we kill animals and wear their hides. we don't look for berries, we slash and burn and make the berries grow where we want them. and we don't get used to a hotter earth with more violent storms. we put our hands on the thermostat, and put the earth in the climate zone we like
we are homo sapiens: we don't adapt to the environment, we adapt the environment to us. we aren't fatalistic spineless scatterbrains. this whole climate change topic is really just an engineering problem, with currently not enough engineers working on it, and too many talking heads and other assorted nitwits involved. roll up the sleeves and get to work
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It may be no longer possible to reverse it simply by cutting consumption, but geoengineering solutions can still work.
The Earth's Climate will enter stasis, and stop changing for the first time ever?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
You think that coal/shale oil/shale gas isn't highly subsidized by the tax/rate payer? Please can I have some of whatever you are smoking 'cause it's some pretty powerful stuff to put you in such a fantasy land
So what are any Of you going to do about it? Continue to point fingers at China? The third world? Oil companies?
How about accepting that you can't change others, and instead set examples yourself. I moved into the city, leave my A/C and heat off whenever possible, bicycle for 95% of my trips (including commuting), grow as much of my own food as I can, and buy the rest locally and in-season whenever possible.
2 years ago, I was doing none of that. Now my personal energy footprint is a fraction of what it had been. Perhaps not as much as is needed, but it's something, and none of it has honestly even been hard.
So again I ask: what are you going to do about it? What will you or have you changed about your lifestyle to help avert global disaster?
No comment.
This is the kind of stuff I oppose when I say I'm a skeptic about global warming. The article makes clear that this is a propaganda statement focused on the upcoming climate summit. I want science, not propaganda.
Sure, I accept that CO2 affects the earth's temperature. I understand this equation, and know that it has been accepted science for a hundred years.
But saying that there is a 'point of no return,' a point where massive feedbacks start making the planet vastly hotter than what CO2 could do on its own, where ocean currents stop flowing.......that stretches belief.
The evidence for it is sparse. In fact, there is good evidence to believe the opposite: that each successive ton of CO2 causes a smaller and smaller effect on the earth's climate (see the above equation and consider its implications if you are in doubt). Thus going from 380ppm to 480ppm atmospheric CO2 will have a smaller effect than going from 280ppm to 380ppm.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Carbon emissions are a real problem. We don't need a bunch of zealots claiming the sky is falling unless we do things their way.
With the third world getting ready to ramp up energy production the idea of conservation is a pipe dream. China is already ignoring us and the rest will do the same.
We need to globally spend trillions of dollars on energy research and we need to do it yesterday. It's the only answer left.
Built a cheap portal to an alternative Earth that is 85 million years in the past, in order to colonize it.
Or wait for the rapture.
Because the above choices are more realistic than expecting the human race to put short-term greed aside to save the planet.
Ask a bunch of people if they would be willing to receive a billion dollar now, in exchange to blowing up the Earth 200 years in the future, you would be surprised how many of them would say yes. That is the problem with the human race.
Don't worry, according to Family Radio, the world will end several times before then.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
If climate change trends toward warming and the Earths atmosphere becomes to hot for global ecology to continue could we possible try to correct the issue with a nuclear winter? I realize that using explosions that output allot of ionizing radiation would be absurd but what if we where to deliver particulate matter to the atmosphere another way? Perhaps an artificially induced impact winter via a redirected celestial body? It would be a measure of last resort but would such methods even have a slight chance of helping compensate for global warming?
...there's no point in resisting but every point in positioning for survival.
This will mean competition for space in the lifeboat, so to speak. That will mean willingness to let competitors die off, to use violence to save our own countries, and do things which are unfashionable.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
from the summary :
Subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption of fossil fuels jumped to over $400bn
that dwarfs green subsidies.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
If you think China gives one rat's ass what the IEA thinks about 'climate change' you've got more lead and mercury in your brain than a resident of Shenzhen. The only way their CO2 output is going to stop growing is if we apply tariffs. We won't do that, because we like keeping the industry that makes our stuff faaar away from our precious selves.
Funnily enough, China's actually doing a heap more stuff on reducing emissions than most countries, including starting trial emissions trading schemes next year. And their investment in renewable energies is extraordinary. Unfortunately, they're also the largest country in the world and they're industrialising their population at a crazy rate -- so whether they do enough remains to be seen.
But they certainly care a lot more than one rat's ass, and more than a lot of developed countries also.
No way to make any meaningful changes within 5 years. IEA screwed up by crying wolf with a doomsday that was too early.
But saying that there is a 'point of no return,' a point where massive feedbacks start making the planet vastly hotter than what CO2 could do on its own, where ocean currents stop flowing.......that stretches belief.
No one is saying that. The "Irreversible Climate Change" in the article means the 2C warming considered unsafe will be unavoidable.
The evidence for it is sparse. In fact, there is good evidence to believe the opposite: that each successive ton of CO2 causes a smaller and smaller effect on the earth's climate (see the above equation and consider its implications if you are in doubt). Thus going from 380ppm to 480ppm atmospheric CO2 will have a smaller effect than going from 280ppm to 380ppm.
Yes, the warming is proportional to the exponential of CO2, so every doubling of C02 will give roughly the same amount of warming. This is well known.
although this depends entirely on how the term "third world" is defined. Unfortunately, you provided no citation for your claim, and the term "third world" is so ludicrously imprecise as to be meaningless, so there is no basis to even evaluate your statement.
Incidentally, this TED talk by Hans Rosling may enlighten your view of the world and its countries: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVimVzgtD6w
True but irrelevant. It's like saying it's okay to flood cities with water, because fish depend on it.
They can warn all they like but it's pointless Emerging economies feel it's now their turn to have a go at a house, 3 kids and 2 cars. The US of A doesn't recognize the concept of climate change and quite a few of their citizens cannot be pried from their gas guzzling SUV without a big crowbar and a tow truck. Europe at least has some governments that recognize the concept and are willing to implement some half baked measures to try and slow this down but at the moment they've got their hands full with the economy. Since the whole world economy still operates on a growth is essential model I don't see this changing at all
Look the point of the post and article is that if we don't get out shit together and soon there are going to be some tipping points that are not going to be reversed (i.e. no arctic ice to support polar bears, thus the end to them). But if get away from the fossil fuel industry by investing in solar, wind and my particular favorite geothermal we might be able to stem the tide and spread those technological innovations to 3rd world countries as a cheaper alternative to fossil fuels. Are you telling me that if we didn't have the best and brightest science people on green energy technologies that we wouldn't be able to get the cost of that energy down to below how much it costs for extractive fossil fuel energy? Please anyone have an argument that's counter?
Badges!?! We don't need no stinking badges!
Zone refining requires huge amounts of energy but because of the large scale it ends up being not a lot of energy per unit. Thus the GP poster is correct but almost completely irrelevant unless he's addressing a completely uninformed audience that thinks the infrastructure is made from sunshine and puppies (ie. what the nuclear fanboys stuck in the 1970s think). Many heavy industries use very nasty stuff (eg. hydroflouric acid in oil refining).
If we ended the Federal Breeding Subsidy in the U.S., we could reduce our carbon footprint as a species in very short order. Even better: $1k per child tax ($200 federal, $800 state). Would help pay for schools too.
It was 71 degrees the other day on November 1st.
We're talking about climate, not weather (events). You're off-topic dude...
Mod -1, asinine.
Natural climate change might not be changeable or preventable. Human contributed climate change absolutely is, and the point of trying to do something about it is that while natural climate change might not be so bad, natural climate change added to anthropogenic climate change very well might be. So we should work on affecting the part of the equation we have control over.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
Ever lit a fire?
Starting some things can cause others to happen.
pre-industrial civilization or slavery
Right, because those are the only two options. Nice false dichotomy you've set up there. Almost had me convinced that simply whistling past the graveyard is the best course of action
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
Let's face it, CO2 emissions will drop as soon as we run out of fossil fuel. And not a minute before that. There are no two ways about it. On the whole we are a greedy kind of breed and we will always rationalise reasons for doing the wrong things. So we'd better get used to this.
... Repeat until oil is finished. Expect a fluctuation in oil price in the near years to come.
Viable alternatives to fossil fuel will emerge as soon economics allow this. Remember when oil prices boomed a couple of years ago? Suddenly all kinds of research boomed as well. But the oil price all of a sudden stabilised to a level we perceive as fine and dandy.
I don't believe in a well organised conspiracy of oil producing countries as that would require much more intelligence and cooperation than portrayed by any kind of existing governing body. Instead I believe that almost everyone in the energy market is acting in the best possible interest of their limited awareness. Oil prices rise, alternative research boosts, oil prices drop, alternative research slows down,
I don't see developments going in any other significant direction in the current way the world is governed. And I don't expect world government to change any time soon. Who or what would be powerful, charming and effective enough to change mankind's nature? It would require a disproportional amount of concentrated power to achieve such a thing, which after having saved our civilisation will inevitable start at exploiting it.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
So, this means: In a couple of years, power plants for renewable energy will be a Business Hit.
Existing property (especially houses etc.) will be destroyed, opening a new market opportunity.
Demands for insurances etc. will grow.
Additional goods will be invented to help people live conveniently in the changing environment.
IT industries will benefit because virtual live becomes more important, since travelling will become unaffordable an unattractive due to drastic weather an degenerated environments.
Bottomline: The economy will benefit tremendously in 1st world countries.
And just to make this clear: Yes, this is cynic, and it's not what I feel. But it explains very well, why companies an governments don't care to much
Trolling is a art!
Actually it uses less, especially if you have dynamic contrast.
The Official Site of 1337 Pwnage
Urmm.. that's exactly what we've been doing for the last 100 years.
Dead fuel is free energy; its that simple. Chemically stored energy from the past that you only have to extract and refine for a huge gain for the effort put into it. Naturally, this costs less, its power ratio is quite high and that goes a long way for making costly production cheaper.
On the other side you have new energy production that has to PRODUCE ALL the actual energy all by itself from nothing so to speak. This is a much lower power ratio; and to compete production cost has to be extremely low--- its not really about it costing a lot: its about costing so little that total production from a weak power source can compete against "free energy" harvesting!
Energy just is going to have to cost something; remember we subsidize many aspects of traditional fuel sources and by a far greater amount than the alternatives get (even today this continues.) Alternatives already compete and beat unsubsidized traditional power systems-- that time is already here and we don't see it because the system is skewed.
Say you do invent the replacement tomorrow; its true cost will be covered up by misinformation (from the competition) and remember the "to market in 5 years" statement that was said so much that it developed an additional sarcastic meaning?? Going to production with some new tech can take a long time. So in 5 years your invention is in the market (if lucky) but by that time, you may lose against new cheaper alternatives and then its too late to fix climate change.
Energy demands will drive prices up and demands are crazy high as the population gets crazy high there are limits which we can easily hit starting in a few hundred years. Stop having kids; being so selfish.
The best and brightest are in the financial industry gambling away your pension plans (on purpose.) The almost 2 million green jobs we should have by the end of this year should out weigh the only 80,000 coal workers... but coal workers are somehow better than green jobs...
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
I'm a scientist and a skeptic by nature. Not of global warming, I've read enough scientific papers myself to convince me; of the fact that humans are solely responsible.
Could someone please inform me where to look for direct access to the scientific evidence that disproves other sources of possible global warming?
Thanks sincerely.
Liberty.
The increase in CO2 is not natural, and it's not by definition irreversible.
Warning that we're about to go over the 450 ppm level isn't over hyped doomsday rhetoric. It's just simple extrapolation of current trend.
We can still argue whether 450 ppm is the correct upper limit, and scientific discussion is still ongoing. The question is: while the discussion is still going on, should we go ahead and exceed the 450 ppm level, knowing that we don't really have a way to extract the CO2 from the atmosphere if we're wrong.
Do you realize that it's possible for what you say to be true (and I agree with the general point) AND for it to also be true that humans are capable of altering the environment? Given that, it's also possible that the natural changes wouldn't be so bad, but the human caused changes might end up being very bad for us. So shouldn't we do something to stop the changes we can stop?
The answer to your questions lies not in the direct answer, but the indirect one. To give the answer I have to give a little background.
The Earth's climate has always been changing and it always will. The treehugger notion we could or should stop the climate from changing is great irony - because that would be a bigger imposition on the Earth's ecology than doing nothing. It would introduce a static climate never before seen on Earth - if it were possible - with inevitable and unforeseen consequences. But there are temperature zones the Earth appears not to like, and it transitions through them swiftly - and then stays on one side or another of this zone for a longer time. There are other zones that global average temperature can vary in for a considerable period of time - until it enters this unsavory zone and then rapidly crosses over it again. I'll leave the "why" of this to some philosopher or trained scientist, but it's a useful observed fact without understanding why.
Giving the average global temperature of the 21st century as 0, we reached the peak of the current temperate zone about 5,000 years ago at a level called the Holocene Climatic Optimum at about +1C. This is about 4-8C below the maximum temperature for the last 450K years or so, and there appear to be feedback effects which prevent the temperature from going any higher than that maximum because it hasn't deviated from this pattern for 2.5 million years - longer than humans have been around. There is a climate danger zone at -0.6C and if we enter it the temperature drops quickly to a new range of -5 to -8C for a very long time. Glaciers march and scrape our cities into the sea, owning the land for a hundred thousand years.
Unfortunately for our teeming billions, up until about 300 years ago the temperature had declined from the Holocene Optimum of +1C to -0.6C and was trending down. -0.6C appears to be the upper bound of one of those unsavory zones, and the next stop is -5C which is quite a drastic change. We were on the cusp of transition into the ice, and in fact that period is called the "little ice age". Each time in the last half-million years the average temperature passed below -0.7C it skipped directly over the intervening temperatures and went directly to the lower level - resulting in the die-off of terrestrial animals including humans, glaciation, and other unpleasant effects. The duration of this cold period averages 100,000 years which is likely longer than we could bear it. If it had not been for the warming currently attributed by some to the burning of fossil fuels and its concomitant CO2 discharge, we would likely already be suffering the cold dipping to -5C or more.
Perhaps 6 billion of us would be dead already, or never born - not from the cold, but from the inevitable famine and struggling for resources that it would bring. But that's not the end. 300 years from now there would be only a few million of our seven billions left, if the resulting wars didn't leave the planet uninhabitable entirely. Our entire industrial revolution, sciences and arts these last 200 years? Lost, perhaps forever.
No matter what we do the Earth will not stay habitable to this many humans forever. In the last half-million years we've had only four such periods lasting an average 12,000 years or so. This warm period we now enjoy is not the Earth's normal temperature. And when it's over, it really and truly does appear to be over for a very long time. It will be cold sooner or later. For me and mine, I
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Yeah, what kind of a person would have that attitude?
Oh.
On a more serious note, I actually agree. We need to ramp up certain industries and ramp down others to make this happen, but that still requires energy, so energy investment is one of the most important.
How do we make that happen? By letting the true cost of current energy become reality. If coal, oil, etc. weren't masked by subsidies and externalities, they would be much more expensive, and we would have already been developing alternatives.
But other big changes are needed, some of which would have also been happening over time if it weren't for the masking. Things like increasing population density, development of more mass transit. And still other changes, like corporate culture changes to promote telework, reduce travel. And still others, like having a culture that values conservation and efficiency, not contests to see how many hotdogs one can eat.
That's the thing: the free marketeers are right that the market can solve the problems, but they need the right information to do so. And that information requirement is where the free marketeers come out wrong. They don't slam the corporations for lobbying in favor of masks. Instead, they blame their bogeyman: the government. Except when it comes to defense, of course, because war's always a good bet. A hedge against inflation, if you will.
The answer is, what is the cost of limiting our society to 450ppm, and what are all of the possible probabilities of either beneficial impact from 450+ppm, and negative impact from 450+ppm. The short answer to that is we have a good idea about the costs, and they would drive most of the world into poverty and a brutish existence, and we have no idea about what the real benefits/disadvantages we would experience from +450ppm.
When we began the process of agriculture and animal husbandry, someone could have argued about whether or not there was an upper limit to how much farmland we should cultivate, and how many animals we should breed. And they could have further argued that we shouldn't exceed some arbitrary limit until we had a way to quickly return land to its original, unfarmed state, and return the animals to their wild nature. The precautionary principle is a sweet siren song and a dangerous delusion.
No! Climate is not related to local weather event, it has never worked this way, and it never will. Yet, each time there's a weather event these days, people blame it on global warming. EACH SINGLE FUCKING TIME. I even heard or read many times this when it was too cold.
The same thing will happen if we just continue to burn fossil fuels. We can't keep producing them at current rate for much longer. The peak oil problem is likely more urgent than global warming, so an aggressive plan for transition would benefit us either way.
Sure, we have plenty of ideas.
But I see your point. Short term benefits outweigh long term doubts. Since, long term, we're all dead anyway, I can't argue with that.
"the fact that humans are solely responsible."
Have you EVER bothered to look at the IPCC reports? EVER. EVEN ONCE?
Beause there's a chapter in there (Chapter 7, IIRC), titled "Attribution of climate change forcings". There's even a little bar graph showing the forcings on climate and do you know what, man's influence is ONLY ONE OF THEM.
It's the biggest single forcing changing today and it's one we can do something about.
So I would suggest rather than pretend you're a scientist, you put the straw away and go to the IPCC website and find out what the scientists say, not what the shock jocks say.
M'kay?
Citation needed (eg: real statistics)
Please don't make assemption based on your FEELINGS. That's what we get on the news each time there's a weather event, and it's not at all a scientific way to understand the issue.
This is really just writing on the wall that the world is screwed because people won't change especially if it impacts their wallets. By the time they realize they should have it will be too late. Hell when you got countries like China threatening to throw more garbage in the air if they don't get their way you know there isn't much you can do.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/china-threatens-massive-venting-of-super-greenhouse-gases-in-attempt-to-extort-billions-as-unfccc-meeting-approaches-2011-11-08
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
Here's a start:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_weather_records
Notice how many heat records have been recorded since 2000, and how most cold records are much older.
And here's a paper describing the statistical relationship between climate and extreme weather:
http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan/Publications/Nature/rahmstorf_coumou_2011.pdf
Adaptation is far more expensive btw, and you can see why using a modicum of logical thought.
Nobody's trying to outlaw CO2. People just want to prevent it from rising too far.
Keeping CO2 below 450 ppm isn't going to harm any plants, when it has been below 350 ppm for hundreds of thousands of years.
Australia's emission may be insignificant now but Australia is 14th (out of 200) in the total accumulated emissions since the start of the industrial revolution.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Notice how many heat records have been recorded since 2000, and how most cold records are much older.
Yet, everybody agrees that earth has been cooling down since around 2000.
By the way, single list doesn't help, we need a graph with evolution and trends, which this link isn't giving. Also, what this list shows (by a quick read) is that there's a lot more abnormal warm events in the northern hemisphere, which isn't surprising (the north has been warmer when the south has been cooler over this last decade).
Last, you've talked about ONE event and I didn't agree, and now you're talking about a bunch of them, with a global view of earth. This is totally different, and I may start to agree if you go on the wide scale thing, with multiple years results. Know what I mean?
My fellow Americans, we are screwed, blued, and tattooed.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
No, only a couple of crackpots agree on that. Here's a link of global temperature anomalies in tabular format:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.txt
Average for 2000-2009 was +0.52
Average for 1990-1999 was +0.31
Average for 1980-1989 was +0.18
Doesn't look like it's getting colder, especially if you consider that every single year since 2000 has been warmer than the 1990-1999 average.
The Human species had its chance to survive and chose badly.
Climate change may change our society, it may result in many human deaths (especially in overpopulated third-world countries), and it may cause many animal species to go extinct. But it certainly will not cause the extinction of the human species.
Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get. I've heard it put like this: Weather throws the punches but climate trains the boxer. So yes, a shift in weather patterns is a sign of a changing climate
The following graph shows that the ration of US record hot to record cold temperatures has increased steadily up to the point where it was 2:1 in the 2000's: http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2009/images/temps_2.jpg
In 2011 it was much worse than that - and this is during a moderately strong la-nina (which drives temperatures down): http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5baWZYXDlCo/Tjhrbi97kpI/AAAAAAAACSg/YYzIk2KsANo/s1600/temp.records.073111.jpg
Throughout the earth's geologic history it has been must colder than now at times and much warmer and had more oxygen and less oxygen and life went on. Climate doesn't happen in a few years. Just because you anecdotally had an extra hot day or an extra cold day means absolutely squat. If you look at historical and gelogic records you will find we aren't suddenly turning into a worldwide sulfur pit. for example, an ice free north pole happened about 80 years ago. How much manmade greenhouse gases are actually contributing to global warming is debatable. Each side brings on their own so-called experts and their own so-called scientific evidence to support their contention. And climategate didn't help. What will probably happen if/when the seas rise is that the major cities will follow the dutch example and the rest will move or be moved to higher ground. To handle the floods and droughts we could build an interstate aqueduct system from rivers in areas that typically flood to rivers in areas that typically dry out and use pumps the size of the ones they used in the great salt lake. Or we will do some other engineering kind of solution. Life will go on, regardless, and we will adapt to the climate if we cannot adapt the climate to us.
Why guess? Don't you have Internet access? Too stupid to use it? It's under 5% of human output.
They didn't have LEDs in the mid 1800s. Do you really need that WHOLE pile of text answered, or is that enough to demonstrate that you have no idea what you are talking about? No PV, no Solar Thermal Power. No nuclear power even, if you want that crowd to chime in. They burnt gas for LIGHT alone FFS!
Your whole mode of argument so ridiculous, I can't even think of a car analogy to help you understand.
Seven other verses for Whistling Past the Graveyard.
Which holds zero water, as you're too much a of coward to post non AC
They're everywhere today, and on both sides of this debate!
an oilrig isnt efficient, unless it's magically fabricating the oil it's pumping out rather than extracting it from the earth?
Yet another trollmouthed coward not prepared to use their own name, with no sensible arguments supporting their 'position'
I don't believe the Earth will be like Venus because Venus is in a different orbit than Earth is. But I do think the Earth will change and probably become hostile to our species. We didn't always have the atmosphere we do now. and when our species dies off, another species will take our place. Our sun can probably support the deveopment of one more species before it perishes. The Human species had its chance to survive and chose badly.
Here we go again, 1st species very similar to ours survived the last ice age. You know when most of northern europe and north america were covered in fucking ice! So, I'm pretty sure humanity will survive the coming ecological apocalypse. 2nd the term irreversible need to be qualified on what time scale we are talking about the earth has been around for 4+ billion years, and has probably undergone several irreversible climate changes(the introduction of large quanties of oxygen being one). However, if you want to do your part please prepare a large concrete tomb and before it sets shoot yourself in the head, and fall into said concrete that way your carbon will be sequestered and help reduce the greenhouse gases.
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
I know there was a lot of research done about methane and greenhouse gases released by cows. As America is also #1 in Body Mass Index maybe it's not our consumption, maybe we just are releasing a lot of gas into the air ourselves.
With LED's, PV's (Which currently do not create more energy than used to make them when you factor in ALL costs and not just point of manufacture costs), Geothermal (which is the only viable green tech now), CFLs, LEED certified housing, LED monitors and TV's and everything else we STILL emit approx 24tons per cap. And do you know what a LED light adds to the conversion? At 10 times more efficient than an incandescent lightbulb you can now keep a SINGLE lightulb on for ten times longer. OH GOODY!!! No computers. No cell phones. No HOUSING. 2.2 tons per year. That's all your allowed. That is 2.2 tons and DROPPING. As the population increases that per capita number MUST drop to keep pace.. And that is to simply break even with predictions. Because.. After all. We're adding more CO2 than the planet can handle right? So we have to cut it back until we aren't adding any more. The point, utterly missed by you, is the futility and folly of claiming that we can reduce CO2 emissions to any meaningful level to change the atmospheric composition. Much like raising taxes on the rich to fix the deficit.. It's a great soundbite but utterly, mathematically meaningless against the scope of the perceived problem.
I'm sure you're probably in a warmer part of the country than Chicago, but here's a snapshot of November 1sts here over the years:
Chicago Midway Airport - Average Temperature 53deg. Fahrenheit on November 1
1948 - 66deg.
1950 - 80deg.
1952 - 73deg.
1956 - 69deg.
1964 - 66deg.
1971 - 69deg.
1974 - 72deg.
1982 - 66deg.
1983 - 69deg.
1984 - 66deg.
1987 - 66deg.
1990 - 73deg.
1999 - 75deg.
2000 - 75deg.
2001- 66deg.
2011 - 66deg.
All other years were 65deg. F or below on Nov. 1. During the period from 2001-2011, the temperature didn't break 54 degrees (on Nov. 1) the for that entire decade. If anything, the last ten years have been cooler than usual, as there was no Nov. 1 that broke 65 (my arbitrary definition of a "warm" day) for 10 years, although temperatures hovered around the average during the entire time, the lone outlier being 2006 at 42deg. F. So, in conclusion. stop being so reactionary, it makes all people who believe in science sound like effeminate fools.
Source: http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KMDW/2011/11/1/DailyHistory.html?req_city=NA&req_state=NA&req_statename=NA
Just googled the news archives for 'irreversible climate change' + 'years away'. Hmmm... 50-100, 30-60, 15, 10, 5, already here -- and all those answers are from the last 5 years.
And if I'm not mistaken, sustainable nuclear fusion is STILL 20 years away (and we've be saying that for the last 30 years at least!)
The majority of this species believes in an Earth that will exist forever because a 2500 year old anthology of books say so.
That statement is almost definitely incorrect, assuming you're referring to religious belief. First off, not one major religion had a fully set canon 2500 years ago, and the general pattern is one in which the world comes to an end and become a much better place when the dust settles.
The Christian anthology is about 1600 years old, put together by a committee in Byzantium around 360 CE, and finally approved by all major branches of Christianity only about 1550 CE. It makes very clear mention of the end of the world, and in fact the people who believe in this version of an invisible man often believe the world will end before global warming could kill us, making the whole issue unimportant. The Muslim anthology can be no older than 1300 years old, because Mohammed didn't exist before then. Both Sunni and Shia Islam have a firm belief in an end of the world, although they differ on exactly what signals it. The Jewish anthology is the oldest anthology, but it has a believe in a messiah that shows up to fix everything and basically ends the world as we know it. Indian and Asian faiths don't really have the same sort of formal anthologies, but Hindus definitely believe in the current world being destroyed and replaced, and Buddhists also have a definite set of circumstances in which the world comes to an end.
That covers the vast majority of religious believers. The major religions that don't have an "end of the world" scenario (Taoism, Shinto, native African faiths such as Yoruba, western paganism, etc) also don't have any sort of canon. And of course atheists also know the Earth will end in approximately 5 billion years thanks to the sun's main phase coming to an end.
I am officially gone from
You can charge people taxes for carbon emissions and use the money to plant trees, though. Not that we would.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I fear so too. We have such fools leading our nations and large corporations. Trolls like Rupert Murdoch are deliberately confusing the public, sowing doubts about science itself, not only climate science, and telling outright lie after lie. In 1993, I personally heard a speech from the CEO of Lennox to employees in which he said that 1) he didn't believe in global warming, but 2) if global warming was real, then good, because it would be good for Lennox's business of selling more A/C's! (He also complained that he would have made more money in the stock market than he made having it all tied up in Lennox, implying that the employees didn't work hard enough or something, but for the sake of everyone's jobs, he stayed with the company. What a guy!) They ought to be our best and brightest people. They evidently believe they are, the way they carry on. But they don't seem to understand something basic that separates children from adults, which is that you can't make problems go away by ignoring them. They've done worse. They've actively worked to deny everything, actually spent money that they are so greedy to have, on propaganda dressed up as science. What the hell! We have a huge, huge leadership problem. In Lennox's case, I know that CEO inherited the company. He didn't win his position on any sort of merit at all. He was the son of the previous leader, that's all.
What a bunch of lying, smug, lazy hedonists. Every generation can use a challenge, to keep life from becoming too easy and boring. We ought to embrace this problem. We could solve it. The US didn't go AWOL for WWII, didn't chicken out and let Japan grab half the Pacific, didn't leave the Brits to the Nazis. We demonstrated to the world that democracy is superior to fascism. Now we call them the Greatest Generation. If Rupert Murdoch had been a media mogul then, I can imagine he'd have spewed ridiculous pro-Nazi propaganda, maybe suggest that the US ought to cut a deal to sell Hawaii to Japan in exchange for peace. Solving global warming doesn't require the sacrifice that war did. Yet, we're running away from it. We don't deserve to stay #1 with that attitude. Our parents would be ashamed. All the work and sacrifice they did so we'd have a better life, and this is how we repay that.
So, we won't do enough to address this problem, not until it's far too late. Greenland will melt, and maybe western Antarctica will too, most of Florida and Bangladesh will drown, and the Netherlands may find it impossible to raise the dikes high enough. Then we'll engage in recriminations as we fight over higher ground and food. There will be war, maybe even WWIII and use of nuclear weapons. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Climate change is funded by Canadians. We want to stop having to shovel snow.
Supporter of the +1 Over Dramatic mod option. In memory of apk.
Bacteria cultures propagate until they exhaust all their resources. The the populations collapses. Humans are smarter that this... but they are also arrogant. IMO, the 2 will cancel each other out, and we'll end up at the same destination. North America, AUS & NZ will be fine, as we have an abundance of food & water resources.
Perhaps most scientists agree, but the historians disagree. The historical evidence for a warmer MWP is overwhelming.
Where shall we start? The fact that there was increased agriculture? The fact that Greenland had arable farming settlements on what is permafrost today? The fact that vineyards in Eastern Europe were found at higher altitudes and latitudes than is possible today?
Or how about the hundreds of peer-reviewed proxy studies from the time that show a temperature ranging from .5 to 2 degrees higher than today? A database of those can be found at the Medieval Warm Period Project at http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php
The truth of the matter is that we are right on schedule for a warm period - they happen about once every thousand years. The last one, the MWP, was about .5-2 degrees warmer than today. The one before that, the Roman Warm Period, was about 2-4 degrees higher than today (and during that time, there were passes through the Alps that haven't been usable in close to two millennia). The idea that we're about to enter a climate apocalypse is fear-mongering.
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
Where you get paid hundreds of dollars per month to have a kid, and many generous benefits are heaped on in addition.
I already put 35 solar panels on my house, switched to 100% wind for when I have to buy, and I drive a hybrid (maybe soon an electric). Quite frankly, my family has a CYA on this one. Do your part!
Then stick your head in a bag of non-polluting CO2 for half an hour then tell us what you think - leaving aside that it appears you already did.
A pollutant needn't be a contaminant nor adulterant. The key is in where the harm lies. The harm can be in the nature of the substance (such as plutonium) or in the quantity. A normally benign substance in excess is thus a pollutant.
Politicians, like preachers and cow manure can be wonderful if spread around; but amassed are quite undesirable.
about this and I can have some peace and quiet?
I don't believe it.
so we can put this issue to rest? Let's try for 2 years, please. Crank up the coal fires and smoke out the believers. We can't hear 'em bitch if they're below the water level.
Actually, I just checked that, and you're correct - there is nascent farming again around the vicinity of what was once both Viking settlements. Nice catch, and I stand corrected.
That said, you are wrong about the permafrost being long gone - this appears to be a development in the last five years or so (compared to the centuries of permafrost). Considering the Vikings were farming there for about 500 years before the settlements were confirmed abandoned, what we have here remains evidence of the commencement of a warm period - which, as I mentioned, is right on schedule.
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
And if this weren't ironical enough, they can do so because they're not a democratic system, but a totalitarian one where the leaders simply need to state "Make it so!"
Consider it a small rebellion. I'm tired of the topic and I suspect I'm not alone.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Quick, paint everyone with healthy skepticism with the false accusation that they are on the pay roll of some fossil fuel company, because there is no possible way that people trying model the entire earth and all its climate systems could possibly be in error.
I mean, after all, every single one of their predictions have come true right? RIGHT???
This is pretty basic stuff, if you have a multi-variate function like w(t) = c(t) + y(t), where w(t) represents the temperature at time t, c represents the climate at time t and y(t) is a bounded random function that represents weather variability. If the value of c(t) is increasing over time and the range of y(t) remains constant you will consistently see more highs from w(t) than lows, because as c(t) increases new high values become reachable and some previous low values will no longer be reachable.
This is a gross simplification, but it explains why you should expect to see more warm events while the climate is warming. In other words, it's easily observable evidence that we should expect to see and it is something that we are seeing. If there were more cold records occurring it would evidence against global warming.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
This "scam" continues. In the history of the world, it has been MUCH warmer & MUCH cooler than it has been recently. This is just more scare tactics, to get the big economies to pony up money to the "poor" countries.
...I thought we passed the "irreversible" point back in 1999? At least that's what Hadley Centre said back in 2000:
http://www.21stcenturyradio.com/climatechange-11.12.00.htm
Oh wait...maybe I'm confusing this with the 2009 "it's now irreversible" proclamation?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7852628.stm
That one came from NOAA.
Or maybe it was all the "this is *absolutely* our LAST CHANCE to do something!" declarations at the last couple of IPC meetings (each of each have experienced record cold/snow/rain)?
All of these "sky is falling" cries are getting a bit hard to believe....especially when there's no evidence for the claims.
Ferretman
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
This is a gross simplification
LOL ! Indeed. That would be the silly kind of formula everyone would have in mind instinctively. Is this real "scientist" bullshit, or just you explaining your (not proven) feelings?
Even, let's attempt to believe that your formula could be right. If it was, then variation of c(t) in a so small amount of time (sorry, how old are you exactly?), and your human memory so weak (you aren't special are you? Your memory is mixed with emotions, right?), that it would be too small for you to feel the difference of w(t). At least never enough to be able to say:
It was 71 degrees the other day on November 1st.
and then over-over-over simplify things and say:
We've already done more damage than we can reverse.
I could say "there was so much snow last winter in my country, your theory of global warming is stupid". That would be equally non-scientific and full of weak human perceptions like above, so I don't write it. Do you need an other one of the same style? Well, by the way, "the other day on November 1st" it was so cold in here, so your theory of global warming must be shit. Is this enough, or should I add a car analogy?
My brain hurts a lot
CO2 isn't a simple count of parts per million; it's got a sustained impact. The forests that died due to beetles swarming outside of their usual range won't come back right away, and the soil there will not just stay put waiting for them to come back. The methane hydrates at the bottom of the ocean that are melting and multiplying the greenhouse effect won't re-freeze. We're looking at positive feedback loops here.
Rises and falls of CO2 in the geological timeline take place over thousands of years and give some species a chance to adapt in time to survive the mass extinction events that usually go along with it. The only sign we have of something this drastic was a meteor impact in Siberia where large coal reserves once were; we have the evidence now that resulting volcanic activity burned that coal and released its carbon into the atmosphere. That's the only natural analogue I can think of for the massive industrial extraction of hundreds of millions of years worth of sequestered carbon dioxide and releasing it into the atmosphere, and while it was natural, the result was the Permian/Triassic extinction which killed over 90% of the extent species worldwide. The ecosystems took millenia to recover.
We have to change course soon. The previous recovery was from a natural disaster, not an industrial civilization that stops at nothing to fuel its growth and destroys habitat and releases large amounts of pollution while doing it. This is unprecedented. Y2K had the IT industry hauling ass to prevent serious problems, but this requires an unprecedented effort; otherwise, our generation will see the end of great many beautiful things, and most of us will perish for the lack of healthy ecosystems that we didn't assign a dollar value to.
umm hello! USSR == Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
By that argument the DPRK == Democratic People's Republic of Korea is democratic.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
That would be the silly kind of formula everyone would have in mind instinctively. Is this real "scientist" bullshit, or just you explaining your (not proven) feelings?
I'm sorry, I thought you were asking for a statistical reason why setting high temperature records is correlated to a warming trend. Instead you wanted something like this. For the article about twice as many warm records were set in the 2000s as cold records.
It was 71 degrees the other day on November 1st.
and then over-over-over simplify things and say:
We've already done more damage than we can reverse.
Of course, neither of those statements are things I wrote and they further more have no bearing on what I wrote. I was talking about the trend in record setting temperatures above. I'm sorry I overestimate how informed you are about the trend and your ability to look it up for yourself. I was unaware that you were ignorant and incompetent.
I could say "there was so much snow last winter in my country, your theory of global warming is stupid".
Snow fall may either decrease or increase because of global warming, it will commonly depend on whether or not you're on the leeward side of a sufficiently large body of water. Paradoxically a region could experience both more flooding and more droughts because of global warming because when the wind is dry the area with become drying, but when it's wet it will get wetter. A perfect example is Australia's drought that was broken by a record setting flood. The area is drying because it's normally a dry wind which carries more of the moisture out of the area, but when it finally gets wind in the right direction it gets a lot more water and the prolonged drought has left the land less able to handle the extra water.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
How many times have we heard this before? From the same people who push electric cars.
I guess they dont see how many oil/coal/nuke plants would have to be built to match the draw on the grid(s) from the masses charging their cars..
But hey, what the hell; facts no longer matter.
For the last 13 years the Earths temperature has dropped and it looks like the planet continues to cool.
CO2 continues to raise.
I think this whole article is stupid. Irreversable? Please. The Earth's climate has been in flux for thousands of years. If the planet wanted to stay at one temperature it would be ice-age like temperatures.
And what period are we in anyways? An Iceage!! Does the IEA want the planet to be in an iceage forever?
This is another example of climate change hysteria and Slashdot, again, has taken the walk down the Primerose path to Alarmism when there is absolutely nothing to worry about.
Some say we don't inherit the Earth from our parents, we borrow it from our grandchildren.
Wouldn't this lead to Americans consuming much less (goal), which would then lead to even worse worldwide economic turmoil? So are we drawing a line between economy vs. climate now?
You're confusing consuming less energy or other resources with consuming fewer goods and services. A CO2 tax can lead to an outcome where Americans consume the same amount of goods and services, but in a more energy- and resource-efficient manner. (Though yes, it can also lead to an outcome where technology and production doesn't catch up, and the economy suffers from it.)
Are you adequate?
You don't need to charge people taxes to plant trees. You need to look at the processes that are cutting the trees down and businesses need to incorporate that into their cost of product.
You don't want government involved in any part of the environment because as you say, they won't do it. (Plant Trees).
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
First they said X amount at worse in 100 years. Now they claim irreversible change in five years. This presumes first of all that there is any such thing as irreversible change in a dynamic system using any possible means including ones not yet inventent. Second of all it implies the changes are utterly horrific without sufficient evidence. Third of all it presumes there is a workable remedy within 5 years which there clearly is not. If we stopped all human CO2 producing activities, for instance, on a dime (of course we can't), it still would not reduce CO2 already in the air even a single percentage point. So this is alarmist crap - not science and sure as hell not engineering.
AllIndustrial economies are pyramid schemes. They depend on growth. First they did it with empires, then they did it with inflation. Now that growth is no longer possible the morons responsible don't seem to understand that the GFC and its ongoing consequences are simply what happens to a pyramid scheme when growth slows.
What will happen is neofeudalism. Feudalism only failed when the Black Death culled the population, making expansion possible. Now that growth is once again no longer the norm, conditions favouring feudalism are returning. The middle classes will soon be extinct.
If you want the good times to roll again, there are only two options.
Bonus question: What is the proven co2 ppm we need to be at right now that would save the world?
Anything under 350 ppmv would probably be tolerable.
BTW, the science the deniers put forward is even more full of holes and uncertainty so why should we pay attention to that?
China also happens to be developing their long term energy solution, and it is carbon neutral. So is India, Russia, Korea, France. But not the USA, not the UK...
Hah! World Climate Report is part of the oil industry's propaganda machine to deny that there is any problem. Without even looking at their so-called data, I could tell they weren't interested in real science. Consider this gem from WCR's about us page:
a concise, hard-hitting and scientifically correct response
Says who? Those sort of claims ought to be made by independent experts. They sure are over the top! "Hard-hitting", yeah right. The whole thing is absolutely packed with hot air. "nation's leading publication", "exhaustively researched", "impeccably referenced", "definitive and unimpeachable", "acclaimed by those on both sides". If you can't see what utter trash that is, I feel sorry for you. Anybody can say that crap about themselves. And speaking of "impeccably" referenced, fine, who are these guys? Who says all that about them, and why? They don't say! So much for references! Looking a bit more, I see 4 names listed on the staff page. No credentials. No degrees in meteorology, climatology, or any kind of science. For all they say, they might not have even graduated from high school! They're just cheap salesmen. And we should believe these guys? Checking around a bit more, I learned that the editor, this Patrick Michaels, is from the Cato Institute, which has close ties with none other than the notorious Koch brothers. WCR was published by the so called "Greening Earth Society", a name which screams with propaganda. That in turn is backed by the Western Fuels Association. Yep, oil industry propaganda. Before that, Michaels was a research professor in climatology. Has a PhD in ecological climatology. Aha! Why doesn't WCR mention this? And why isn't he still a professor? Did they fire him? Oh right, of course he left voluntarily. There's more yet. Seems Michaels is a bad scientist, and has published papers about the climate that misrepresent and mislead. Roy Spencer, another crackpot climate change denier with a few scientific credentials and papers, likes Michaels' work.
WUWT would seem to be more reputable, but it too has problems.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Not cutting down trees isn't enough, we need to plant more trees, and then cut them down, and then plant more trees, which is bad for the soil so we have to bring in some poop. When you make stuff out of trees you sequester carbon... The energy for milling the lumber needs to be carbon-neutral too of course, but that's not impossible.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Climate engineering. It's just a matter of time. And it will be a disaster. But I'll survive with or without it. As for the rest of you... good luck with that.
We have change the way our economy operates to prevent climate change that will change the way our economy operates. What am I missing here?
We sense that the public is losing faith with global warming alarmism and we need a crisis to keep the money spigots flowing. The 'consensus' is that five years is about right: short enough to cause some panic, long enough to get funding for awhile longer.
/// Not a super-genius . . . yet. ///
I mean, the earth has had several major "irreversible" climate changes, but it seemed to correct itself. I am not worried about "earth", it will be around and thriving long after mankind is gone.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
The windmills only push the hot air to less developed countries. It depends where you measure your temperatures. The USA will be the first to introduce outdoor air conditioning, heck half the stores in California keep their front doors open to draw people into their cooler interiors.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Just look at all the historical examples. One of the best times to be a European peasant before the Industrial Revolution was right after the Black Death. Lots of vacant land, lots of demand for labor, etc.
5 years to irreversible change seems oddly precise, on the timescale of the global climate.
Is this like in films where the hero is asphyxiating, drowning, dying of poison or a disease, or the ship's computer is counting down to "failure of life support systems", and if they are rescued 5 seconds before the deadline they are *completely fine* but 5 seconds later they would be *completely screwed*?
'Cause like, I think that word "irreversible" is representing a continuum of changes with varying consequences, durations and costs to either returning the system to a state we like or more likely adapting ourselves to it.
Unless they mean we have 5 years left before peak oil fucks the economy so hard that all possible technological countermeasures will be out of reach, and we just have to wait a couple of centuries until the coal is gone too and half of us have starved, when things will start getting back to normal.
Yeah, fuck that.
-- What do you need?
-- Gnus. Lots of Gnus.
Ok. So you've posted the same copy and pasted reply here, here, here, here, here and here. Both to threads you've been signing in as APK, and those where you were pretending to be some random AC with a grudge against me and a massive admiration for you and sympathy for your goals. Thankfully, this seems to cap off this mess. I'm posting this reply (also copy and pasted) to each of those posts to focus things again. Just in case you feel you need to post again, no need to carry on each of these frayed ends, just reply to this post.
Why should you have an aggressive plan for a transition after peak oil? Isn't the most economically sound thing to do is make a gradual transition, so as to save opportunity costs? Wait until the market for oil becomes expensive enough to incent the pursuit of other technologies (say, nuclear), and then pay the price, and in the meantime, do the best you can to exploit all the cheap energy we have to provide for a higher quality of life for humanity.
I mean, assume 45 is "peak" age for a human - should we be preparing for our eventual decline due to aging by practicing to use a wheelchair, or walker, or trifocals at age 46? Age 35? Peak oil (or peak anything, by its definition) isn't an *urgent* problem, it's a gradual one.
Artificially increasing the price of energy only slows technological advance, and human welfare.
Really? The earth's global average temperature increased say, .8C from 1900 - 2000. We spent zero on mitigation. How much did we spend on adaptation? How much would mitigation have costed, to say, have an entirely carbon free society in 1900?
Adaptation is far less expensive, and you can see why just by looking at the past century.
Really? The earth's global average temperature increased say, .8C from 1900 - 2000. We spent zero on mitigation. How much did we spend on adaptation?
I'd estimate the cost at approximately half a trillion dollars - including a component of money not yet spent, but that would need to be spent, even if the climate did not change any further.
Adaptation is far less expensive, and you can see why just by looking at the past century.
You model assumes that the cost of adaptation increase linearly as a function of increased emissions, and that emissions themselves have increased linearly as a function of time since 1900. Neither assumption is true, so your model can be safely ignored.