Carbon Emissions Reached Record High In 2010

iONiUM writes "Last year, greenhouse gas emissions rose to a record amount of 30.6 gigatons, according to estimates from the International Energy Agency. From an article at the Guardian: 'Professor Lord Stern of the London School of Economics, the author of the influential Stern Report into the economics of climate change for the Treasury in 2006, warned that if the pattern continued, the results would be dire. "These figures indicate that [emissions] are now close to being back on a 'business as usual' path. According to the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's] projections, such a path... would mean around a 50% chance of a rise in global average temperature of more than 4C by 2100," he said.'" jamie points out a recent report that the cost of solar cells has dropped about 21 percent this year, leading to predictions that solar power may become cheaper than nuclear and fossil power within five years.

50% Chance

[KermodeBear]

> a 50% chance of a rise in global average temperature of more than 4C by 2100

And a 50% chance of it not rising by more than 4C degrees by 2100.

Re:50% Chance

[wjousts]

But rising by 3.9C is almost as bad. It's not 50% chance temps rise 4C or 50% chance it doesn't rise at all.

Re:Immediately followed by killer tornadoes

[wjousts]

I believe the climate change deniers logic goes something like this:

1. 1) It ain't happening
2. 2) It's happening, but it ain't our fault
3. 3) It's happening, it's our fault, but it's too expensive to fix
4. 4) It's happening, it's our fault, not fixing it is more expensive but now it's too late
5. 5) ?????
6. 6) Rapture

Re:There is a simple solution

[tgatliff]

I personally think this is overplayed... The worst we can do is to put the CO2 levels back to what they were in the dinosaur days... Yes, I agree that the atmosphere this time is much thinner, and I also agree that it will create a different equilibrium of weather patterns. As always, we will get by, however...

Nuclear power - irrational fear

[vmaldia]

Its really simple. People are stupid in analyzing risk. They tend to underplay risk that is common or that they control and exagerrate risk that is out of their control or is unusual. If eating say garlic hamburgers gave you a 10% risk of death by heart attack, they wont bat an eye. But if there was a 1% chance of death from vampires, then they would gladly eat garlic hamburgers. Death by vampiric attack is more attention getting than heart attack. Is nuclear power risky? yes but the consequences are arguably less severe than global warming + peak oil. However people still irrationally fear nuclear power more since the dangers of nuclear power are more attention getting and unusual This is thinking irraitonally.

Again with this...

[Anonymous Coward]

How long to we have to listen to endless stories on the need for "Climate Control" measures? I've been hearing dire forecast for 20 years, none of which has ever even remotely come true. Let's face it Climate control is not about Climate, it's about control.

Re:There is a simple solution

[erroneus]

Oh my frikken god. Are you out of your mind?

People have died of cancer from the earliest of times -- they just called it something else, and quite often "a curse."

Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring gas that is even generated by the human body. We exhale it all day long! "Taking in CO2" also happens all day long unless you can somehow magically clear it from the atmosphere prior to inhaling. (At which point, you will get amazingly high from having too much O2)

GO TO SCHOOL or something. Your snake oil is simply disgusting here.

Increasing water intake is good for most of us unless you are already taking in a proper amount each day. But did you know that taking in too much can cause problems too? Some people have even died from it. So doling out advice like "drink plenty of water" is potentially dangerous as there is no specification as to what "plenty" means and is potentially subject to misinterpretation.

It's lovely that you sprinkle in some "good advice" with your quackery. But that's how religion and other lies get spread and become believable.

At the dawn of the industrial revolution, people did get sick and die of all sorts of terrible things INCLUDING cancer and now treatable conditions. They did die of "old age" when it was considered natural for people to lose their teeth in their 30's and to die before 50. Deaths of the sort that were experienced in those days were considered "natural causes" back then. So when your assertions are wrong from the start, your conclusions are unquestionably broken at the end.

You are probably the most dangerous sort of pseudo-intellectual. You actually don't know what you don't know.

Re:Immediately followed by killer tornadoes

[Curunir_wolf]

I believe the global warmist argument goes like this:

1. 1. The environmental needs protection and too much carbon emission is one of the problems.
2. 2. Reducing carbon emissions is the #1 most important environmental issue.
3. 3. We need a global governance solution that reduces carbon emissions and population.
4. 4. 3rd world countries need lots of carbon credits so they can catch up. We need significant amounts of wealth redistribution.
5. 5. ??????
6. 6. Global Communist Government.

Re:Immediately followed by killer tornadoes

[wjousts]

To entertain your strawman for a moment, so for you, global communism is worse that the destruction of the globe? You'd rather see the state of Florida under water before, god forbid, we share even a little bit of the wealth of the industrialized world? Better dead than red I guess?

Re:Immediately followed by killer tornadoes

[Attila Dimedici]

Actually most of the people who question the need to do something about global warming have logic that works like this:
1.) Person A says that we must give the government greater powers in order to prevent disaster from global warming.
2.) Person A lives an extravagant lifestyle that results in more CO2 emissions in a week than the average person generates in a year.
3.) Conclusion, person A does not really believe in global warming, they just want to increase government power (and perhaps make some money off of it).
If the people who are preaching about the need to reduce CO2 emissions are not doing anything to reduce their carbon emissions, why should I?

Re:Immediately followed by killer tornadoes

[0123456]

You forgot the part where they take temperature records wihch show no trend and create a warming trend by 'adjusting' it, then average that new trend out across large areas of the planet so that a few results from New Zealand which showed no warming become a warming trend over a significant part of the Pacific.

Basilcally the data is garbage, the models are garbage and the 'science' has been totally politicised.

Re:Immediately followed by killer tornadoes

[wjousts]

I thought conservatives were all about personal responsibility? Funny how that only lasts up until the point where they are asked to take personal responsibility.

Re:50% Chance

[kpoole55]

Let's see, the early IPCC reports warned us of 50 million climate refugees from flooded coastlines but 2010. I set up a couple of cots in my basement to help out but no one's come knocking at my door yet. In fact, as far as I've seen, no one's really displaced yet. There's a country in the south Pacific that leased a big chunk of Australia for just such and emergency but I haven't heard that they've moved there yet.

There's been a big problem with weather (i know, in know, weather and climate aren't supposed to be mentioned in the same article but you did already.) but that seem to the connected to a short period cooling and warming of the Pacific ocean called La Nina and El Nino.

Re:Immediately followed by killer tornadoes

[russotto]

I soooo wish we could put the AGW deniers on the record so that *when* this shit hits the fan we can summarily take their $$$ to pay for it.

Step one would be to make some concrete, testable predictions.

Seriously, if deniers are wrong we're screwed. If environmentalists and the vast majority of scientists are wrong, we're, what? oh yeah, we're better off....

Pascal's wager isn't science.

Re:Immediately followed by killer tornadoes

[Attila Dimedici]

I believe in personal responsibility. I exercise personal responsibility. The problem is, none of the people who are telling me that I should worry about CO2 act as if they believe that I should worry about CO2. Until Global Warming Alarmists start acting as if they believe that global warming is a serious problem that requires them to take whatever actions they can to reduce their own CO2 emissions, don't expect me to take it seriously.