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UN Report: Climate Changes Overwhelming
iONiUM (530420) writes "'The impacts of global warming are likely to be "severe, pervasive and irreversible", a major report by the UN has warned.' A document was released by the IPCC outlining the current affects on climate change, and they are not good. For specific effects on humans: 'Food security is highlighted as an area of significant concern. Crop yields for maize, rice and wheat are all hit in the period up to 2050, with around a tenth of projections showing losses over 25%.'"
we're all effed. even if we do an aggressive CO2 reduction in emissions, we won't get emissions down to sustainable levels by 2050. Then, it will take decades for the CO2 air concentration to reach sustainable levels. and this assumes we don't get an explosion in emissions from developing countries.
So we have 80 years of unmitigated climate change ahead of us. pretty much everybody reading this will die before there's a possibility of things improving. sorry to be a debbie downer, but these are no longer dire warnings of what might happen unless we take action, they're explanations of what will happen due to past inaction. hide yo wife, hide yo kids, hide yo husbands, cuz things are gonna start changing.
Wow, the climate deniers are out in force on Slashdot today. Out of curiousity, are you paid? Do you all get instant alerts whenever the subject of climate is posted on Slashdot, like the Digg Patriots? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...
I have always found it interesting that a lot of folks would prefer that such problems didn't exist when even simple logic seems to point to the fact that it is human caused. Common sense tells you that if a billion of us start to burn things it might have some negative effects. Heck, I remember as a kid we use to dig holes in a riverbank for fun and over time with a few sticks we managed to amazingly reshape the entire riverbank. Granted maybe I shouldn't be so hard on folks who refuse to believe in it. After all if it doesn't directly affect me and I can't do anything about it, it doesn't exist right?
The real problem is what to do about it. It probably isn't all gloom and doom. The UN is making a huge deal of it because let's face it there's a LOT of third world and poor countries out there where even a small shift in climate would kill millions. The UN represents ALL countries. For us richer nations it will probably be uncomfortable, maybe an inconvenience at worst so long as serious world war doesn't break out. Still I wonder how morally bad we would feel if we knew that say saving a little now could save millions in another country. Sadly I suspect in the end greed will win out and we'll likely take the difficult road in life. It seems to sadly be what we do best. Wait until things get bad or someone dies, then try to fix it if we can.
Yeah! The motto of the UN and any world leaders should be "Hope for the best and prepare only for the best!" Because planning for the worst-case scenario is just ASKING for trouble. Who are these people with their negative thinking about the worlds food supply? Why, that's downright irresponsible to be pessimistic like that, according to "The Secret."
Sarcasm aside, I do sorta agree with you. They know it's going to be a problem. They don't really seem to be pointing fingers which would be the next step. I realize the top carbon emitting nations run the show at the UN, so even a toothless resolution telling the US and China to fucking stop tinkering with the atmosphere is never going to get anywhere, but it doesn't seem like anyone is trying. Furthermore, the UN is against the next logical step of cleaning it up. They seem resistant to finding out if iron fertilization in the oceans could solve it.
So they won't make moves to prevent it and they won't make moves to allow it to be reduced. They come up with suggestions, but they're all basically "deal with the problems." For instance it encourages economic diversification in response to problems with the economy. Oh, great. Cause that's not something anyone thought to do before hand. MUCH easier than causing algal blooms in the ocean to soak up the carbon.
In my view the answer is yes, but much in the same way that anti-tobacco lobbyists had propaganda machines supporting that tobacco was harmful against an onslaught of well funded research and arguments trying to questioning it.
Except that they're the ones outspending the evil oil companies propaganda machine. For example, there are major government agencies such as US's NASA and the UK's MET supporting climate change propaganda. Vast sums of public funds are burned on climate change issues such as roughly 30 billion euros per year by the EU.
And a number of private NGOs are on the gravy train such as the World Wildlife Fund which gets over $30 million per year just in public funds for its copious propaganda exercises. That's alone is well over any amounts alleged to be put into skepticism groups and propaganda.
Sure, the funding battle is uneven, but it's uneven in favor of climate change advocacy. It doesn't mean that climate change is wrong or even exaggerated, but I think it's healthy to consider all conflicts of interest, not merely assume they exist only for opponents.