More Bad News About Global Warming

IZ Reloaded writes "A UK govt report says that greenhouse gases may have more serious impacts that previously thought. Greenhouse gases it says, is causing global warming at a rate that is unsustainable. From BBC: The European Union has adopted a target of preventing a rise in global average temperature of more than two Celsius. That, according to the report, might be too high, with two degrees being enough to trigger melting of the Greenland ice sheet.... A rise of two Celsius, researchers conclude, will be enough to cause: * Decreasing crop yields in the developing and developed world * Tripling of poor harvests in Europe and Russia * Large-scale displacement of people in north Africa from desertification * Up to 2.8bn people at risk of water shortage * 97% loss of coral reefs * Total loss of summer Arctic sea ice causing extinction of the polar bear and the walrus * Spread of malaria in Africa and north America"

Can't Hear You

La La La La LA!!!!

Can't hear you! Not happening! No consensus!

Love,
George

[George W. Bush appears by kind co-operation of Exxon, Inc]

Re:Can't Hear You

Something tells me that increased solar activity has more to do with global warming.

Something may well tell you that. But it isn't science.

Yes Yes

All those problems, but whats on the mind of most people here is - will it affect my WoW ping times?

Sounds inevitable then

Even with the best will in the world (and that is sorely lacking
from certain countries - and thats not just a pop at the US, I'm
talking china, australia, india etc) we can't suddenly all switch
to nuclear and wind/solar/wave power overnight. CO2 will continue
to be released and the temperature is likely to go over the 2C
rise this century. I suspect the writing is on the wall for a
large part of the next generation of people on this planet , and
possibly us too if we live long enough.

Well there you go

It's inevitable, just what we were wanting to hear. Now we don't have to bother changing our ways, we can just sit back and wait for it, with a newly-invigorated sense of nihilism. If you were hesitating to buy that SUV you wanted, well, now, you may as well get it.

For a while I thought there would be the danger that we would have to do something....phew!

Re:Well there you go

I'm not saying we shouldn't do anything about it. But theres a
large percentage of both the general population and governments
who either don't get it or don't care and they won't change their
ways in time for it to make a difference. IMO. Perhaps I'm just
being pessimistic. I certainly hope I'm wrong.

Re:Sounds inevitable then

Nuclear power is cheap, safe, and efficient. Pebble bed reactors, which the Chinese have been playing with for a few years now, are especially safe. So long as a viable method of transporting and storing the waste material is found (many options for which exist now), it's the easiest way of moving away from coal and oil dependency for electrical energy generation on the grid. Admittedly, disposing of the waste from the plant is an issue, but most of the UN's IPCC contributors are big proponents of using nuclear power.

Solar and wind power is great, but you need a lot of space, and continuous wind and sunlight for them to be worthwhile. Wind power gets maligned for the damage it causes to birds, but I'm not really worried about the sparrow, pigeon, and crow populations. There is some interesting wind research being done on Canada's Prince Edward Island, with vertical, horizontal, and variable-incidence and -wind-speed devices.

Hydro power is clean, endlessly renewable, and well understood, but gets bad-mouthed for the impact it has on migrating fish populations. Wave power is an interesting possibility, but more research needs to be done on it.

At the personal - ie non-grid - level, installing better insulation, efficient HVAC systems, and switching to fuel cells for home power supplementation/generation are all things many homeowners can do to improve their personal costs, and reduce their draw from the grid.

Since the world's population is likely to only expand for a while yet, it would be good for the countries that can afford it to move to better sources of power generation to start to clean the air of particulate matter over themselves. It's really a political decision, though, now, and not an economic one. For several years it has been more economically viable (mid- to long-term) to use non-fossil fuel generation, but the political will to do so hasn't been there. Maybe with current oil prices it will begin to appear.

Re:Sounds inevitable then

How much do you we all know about climatology?

About as much as you we grammar about do...

Re:Sounds inevitable then

That is presuming gloabl warming is real and that it's linked to CO2. You may be completely right and it's great for everyone to have an opinion on global warming and carbon dioxide. But is your opinion based on what you got from the media or was it formed through scientific reasoning?

<satire> In other news, Max Born advises people to keep on smoking and eating only McDonalds burgers until they have personally verified and reproduced the scientific data suggesting smoking 20 a day and weighing 30 stone is unhealthy, and taken a degree in cardiology. After all, those suggestions that obesity, smoking, and a lack of exercise aren't good for you were probably heard through the media. </satire>

Re:Sounds inevitable then

Scientific reasoning funnily enough. CO2 contributes
to the greenhouse effect by its absorbtion of infra red wavelengths. Add more CO2 and more infra red gets absorbed and the atmosphere (all other things being equal - though thats not a given) gets warmer. Its not rocket science.

Re:Sounds inevitable then

For anyone who's unsure, may I suggest less BBC and more science.

CO2Science.Org is science? They use anecdotal evidence in an attempt to counter real science being performed by fairly independent labs.

Paraphrase from a front-page article on their website...
This town in Missouri is polluted as hell, and their temperature dropped 2 degrees in the past decade! Global warming? Clearly it doesn't exist!"

Of course, what do you expect from an "environmental" organization who is funded by Exxon and whose founder previously worked for the worlds largest coal company?

http://www.exxonmobil.com/Corporate/files/corporat e/giving_report.pdf [exxonmobil.com]
http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/ab out/chairman.jsp [co2science.org]
http://www.peabodyenergy.com/ [peabodyenergy.com]

Who's still denying it these days?

So, I hear republicans and big oil business folks still call this a theory.

We, north of that country, just barely (and fortunately) elected a government who feels the same way.

We're having a winter heat wave here in Southern Ontario while our summers have been bloody unbearable with bad air days...weeks, high humidity and high temperatures while massive flooding and totally untypical weather hits different parts of the world.

Exactly, what are these folks not seeing when it comes to denying global warming?

Some government-sponsored sensationalism, anyone?

Er ... if you read TFA closely, the report doesn't actually say what the headline seems to imply -- i.e., that greenhouse gases have been demonstrated to be more effective in causing global warming than previously thought. It says that the effects of global warming have been modeled to be more drastic than previously thought.

This is a subtle but vitally important distinction that the writers of the article themselves don't seem to grasp. To quote from TFA:

But Miles Allen, a lecturer on atmospheric physics at Oxford University, said assessing a "safe level" of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was "a bit like asking a doctor what's a safe number of cigarettes to smoke per day".

"There isn't one but at the same time people do smoke and live until they're 90," he told Today.

"It's one of those difficult areas where we're talking about changing degrees of risk rather than a very definite number after which we can say with absolute certainty that certain things will happen."

Given that CO2 is naturally found in the atmosphere, and was so long before humanity came on the scene, and is essential for the continuation of plant life on this planet, Allen's comparison of it to an external disease-causing agent is a very odd statement.

I'm waiting to see a study on global warming that actually takes into account the fact that we are still coming out of the last ice age (or out of the Little Ice Age); that the planet (and our species) has survived far more drastic climate change in the past; and that such climate change had nothing to do with human action. When those facts (and they are facts) are taken into account, how much actual evidence is there that the current climate change is due to human causes? Is there any at all?

I don't intend this as a troll. Seriously, if anyone can link to studies that take those facts into account, I'd very much like to read them.

Re:Some government-sponsored sensationalism, anyon

try RealClimate.org [realclimate.org] and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [www.ipcc.ch] (IPCC).

I've read all the papers (a few in summary form only) from the conference on which this report is based. The BBC report accurately reflects what I have read.
 

Re:Some government-sponsored sensationalism, anyon

The question is not whether or not the Earth will survive. It is whether or not my future grandchildren will survive. It is not whether or not life will continue, it is whether or not our lives will continue. It's not a question of whether or not global warming causes are natural or not. It's whether we can do anything about it.

Reply

"Theres lots of studies and they all say different things, so we're going to listen to the one which makes us the most profit".

I'm not sure if I feel sorry for these people or myself. These people will be dead in 30-40 years so not see the worse of it, I on the other hand have another 50-60 if I keep myself in a good condition. If the current models are correct I should exprience quite extreme weather by the time I get old enough for a brisk cold to be quite risky for my heatlh..

Profit comes before damage if you're not going to live to see the damage it's self.

So DO something about it

Here in New York (USA), the energy sector has been decentralized, so we can choose our suppliers for electricity. I've chosen one that is entirely based on wind and hydro power. Sure, it costs me an extra $10-$20/month, but it is one small thing that _I_ can do.

We keep looking to governments to impose a change on us, but what are we doing about it for ourselves?

Re:I've heard worse

"If they had to resort to "extinction of the polar bear and walrus" for a seven-item list of "what could happen if there's global warming," we're not in such bad shape"

You moron. The extinction of large mammals is a pretty damn serious effect. Go off and play with your toys and leave the talking to the adults.

Re:I've heard worse

No doubt. The penguin population would explode in such a situation. And believe me, the last thing this world needs is more penguins!

Re:I've heard worse

Perhaps the loss of Krill [wikipedia.org] is far more worrying, close to the bottom rung on many food chains (phytoplankton an algae are below them) many species rely directally and indirectally upon these tiny crustaceans. The lost of such an important species would be far reaching, and its effects would be felt in all the worlds oceans.

Re:Wake up Americans

"You have no right to damage the Earth! It's not yours."

[joke]

The hell it isn't. We paid for it.

[joke]

Re:Wake up Americans

Oh no! You didn't close the [joke] tag properly! Everything you've said or typed since you wrote this post has been a joke!
  Close it quick!

Re:Wake up Americans

Citizens of the US: It's time to make your government take actions to stop global warming. You, the US, are the biggest contributor to global warming. In spite of this fact, the US does nothing. Join the EU and the rest of the world.

I'm going to ignore your silly troll, that got modded up, and provide some truth admist the $EMOTION-mongering:

Here is the data (mostly from 2002): Greenhouse gas emissions [un.org]. As a point of information, while the US totally dominates total greenhouse emissions, we aren't #1 per capita, we are just #6. We are behind Paraguay, Luxembourg, Jamacia, Belize, and Australia. And before Canada gets all high and mighty, we are at 23.35, and you are at 23.11. And, for the record, the US has done alot to cut back on its GHG emissions, despite the fact that it is not part of Kyoto. Therefore, the quote "In spite of this fact, the US does nothing." is catagorically false. You may decide we haven't done enough, and I'd probably agree.

You have no right to damage the Earth! It's not yours.

Tell that to Luxembourg. Har har.

Re:Wake up Americans

Do something about Chinese coal fires, then.

"Some estimates suggest the Chinese fires could be accounting for as much as 2-3% of the annual world emissions of CO2 from burning fossil fuels."

Link [bbc.co.uk]

Fact is, if you clamp down on US carbon emissions, the manufacturing sector will only accelerate its moves to other countries that have no such limits. If you make it so every KWH of electricity costs $100, then suddenly it becomes economically viable to build transmission lines from China. Without very harsh controls on everything, the economy will simply ooze into another direction that is not so heavily taxed or controlled.

Re:Global Cooling is more of a concern to me...

I'm still out on what's happening, but it seems as is some of these people believe the earth has never been warmer than it was last week. Where are the predictions that we'll once again have huge grape vineyards in England like we did 500 years ago but don't now because it is too cold?