Author Topic: Climate Emergency is already here. How much worse it gets is still up to us (?)  (Read 368579 times)

Offline RojoLeón

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I'm opening here with an invitation to all and sundry to state their opinion, and rationale as to where they stand on climate change/global warming etc..

Personally, I think that we need a leaner and more efficient industrial model going forward - there is excessive waste through design and cost driven considerations. Too much disposable consumerist shite. Too many inefficient cars, appliances, civic design issues, etc..

Population drives pollution and demand - currently we have a population related demand that outstrips sustainable supply. The pollution from our population demand overloads most of the natural processes that would otherwise deal with it. We need better recycling and waste processing.

Our planet's ability to deal with CO2 etc.. is provably stretched beyond its buffer: As a result, the carbon cycle is driving ocean acidification and greenhouse effect driving atmospheric rises in temperature. You are a fool if you think this is not going to lead to catastrophe for human beings.

On the upside, I think we are close to exhaustion of cheap and easily obtained oil supply - this should signal a transition towards renewable, huge research funding and a sea change in attitudes and behavior. Unfortunately the collective human organism is going the other way, and with interest. We are spending precious time and energy going after harder and increasingly costly sources of energy to prop up an industrial economy who's currency is 'oil dollars'. This negative feedback loop of increasingly self destructive behavior fascinates me as much as it is depressing. We are ensuring mutual destruction to protect the short term interests of individual component organisms, within the collective.

I think that there are solutions on the table that are demonstrably effective: Blended energy supply, trimming the consumerist waste fat and the corresponding ramping down of wasteful industrial processes and efficiency and recycling drives. We don't need pie in the sky dreams of SciFi technology like fusion power etc.. We have the tools now.

Do we have the gumption and will power? Hold on, the Kardasians is starting, I'll be back when it is over...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/climate-change-is-here--and-worse-th%20an-we-thought/2012/08/03/6ae604c2-dd90-11e1-8e43-4a3c4375504a_story.html

Climate change is here — and worse than we thought

Opinions
Climate change is here — and worse than we thought

By James E. Hansen,

James E. Hansen directs the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

When I testified before the Senate in the hot summer of 1988 , I warned of the kind of future that climate change would bring to us and our planet. I painted a grim picture of the consequences of steadily increasing temperatures, driven by mankind’s use of fossil fuels.

But I have a confession to make: I was too optimistic.

My projections about increasing global temperature have been proved true. But I failed to fully explore how quickly that average rise would drive an increase in extreme weather.

In a new analysis of the past six decades of global temperatures, which will be published Monday, my colleagues and I have revealed a stunning increase in the frequency of extremely hot summers, with deeply troubling ramifications for not only our future but also for our present.

This is not a climate model or a prediction but actual observations of weather events and temperatures that have happened. Our analysis shows that it is no longer enough to say that global warming will increase the likelihood of extreme weather and to repeat the caveat that no individual weather event can be directly linked to climate change. To the contrary, our analysis shows that, for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change.

The deadly European heat wave of 2003, the fiery Russian heat wave of 2010 and catastrophic droughts in Texas and Oklahoma last year can each be attributed to climate change. And once the data are gathered in a few weeks’ time, it’s likely that the same will be true for the extremely hot summer the United States is suffering through right now.

These weather events are not simply an example of what climate change could bring. They are caused by climate change. The odds that natural variability created these extremes are minuscule, vanishingly small. To count on those odds would be like quitting your job and playing the lottery every morning to pay the bills.

Twenty-four years ago, I introduced the concept of “climate dice” to help distinguish the long-term trend of climate change from the natural variability of day-to-day weather. Some summers are hot, some cool. Some winters brutal, some mild. That’s natural variability.

But as the climate warms, natural variability is altered, too. In a normal climate without global warming, two sides of the die would represent cooler-than-normal weather, two sides would be normal weather, and two sides would be warmer-than-normal weather. Rolling the die again and again, or season after season, you would get an equal variation of weather over time.

But loading the die with a warming climate changes the odds. You end up with only one side cooler than normal, one side average, and four sides warmer than normal. Even with climate change, you will occasionally see cooler-than-normal summers or a typically cold winter. Don’t let that fool you.

Our new peer-reviewed study, published by the National Academy of Sciences, makes clear that while average global temperature has been steadily rising due to a warming climate (up about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the past century), the extremes are actually becoming much more frequent and more intense worldwide.

When we plotted the world’s changing temperatures on a bell curve, the extremes of unusually cool and, even more, the extremes of unusually hot are being altered so they are becoming both more common and more severe.

The change is so dramatic that one face of the die must now represent extreme weather to illustrate the greater frequency of extremely hot weather events.

Such events used to be exceedingly rare. Extremely hot temperatures covered about 0.1 percent to 0.2 percent of the globe in the base period of our study, from 1951 to 1980. In the last three decades, while the average temperature has slowly risen, the extremes have soared and now cover about 10 percent of the globe.

This is the world we have changed, and now we have to live in it — the world that caused the 2003 heat wave in Europe that killed more than 50,000 people and the 2011 drought in Texas that caused more than $5 billion in damage. Such events, our data show, will become even more frequent and more severe.

There is still time to act and avoid a worsening climate, but we are wasting precious time. We can solve the challenge of climate change with a gradually rising fee on carbon collected from fossil-fuel companies, with 100 percent of the money rebated to all legal residents on a per capita basis. This would stimulate innovations and create a robust clean-energy economy with millions of new jobs. It is a simple, honest and effective solution.

The future is now. And it is hot.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/neil-wagner/global-warming-has-arrive_b_1777807.html

Global Warming Has Arrived: The Ultimate Unwanted Houseguest

Dr. James E. Hansen -- head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and adjunct professor in Columbia University's Department of Earth -- wrote a August 3 Washington Post op-ed that is a real eye-opener. The title of the piece gives the reader a pretty good idea of what he is trying to say: Climate change is here -- and worse than we thought.

So why should we listen to Hansen as opposed to, say, Sen. James Inhofe or radio personality Rush Limbaugh? For starters, Inhofe and Limbaugh have absolutely no background in climate science. Their (inaccurate) assessments of global warming are based almost entirely on opinion, rather than fact.

Let's compare this to Hansen:

    B.A., & Ph.D. in Physics
    M.S. in Astronomy
    Published for decades in peer-reviewed journals
    Heads a premier institution for climate research

Second, while global warming deniers typically base their arguments on misinformation ("Hey! These are the same scientists who warned us there would be an ice age!"), Hansen's work from thirty years ago is now quantifiably proving to be very accurate, as What on Earth has previously discussed.

Third, Hansen has the support of world-class experts, such as fellow climate guru Michael E. Mann, who says of Hansen:

    Hansen, it turns out, was right, and the critics were wrong. Rather than being reckless, as some of his critics charged, his announcement to the world proved to be prescient -- and his critics were proven overly cautious. Given the prescience of Hansen's science, we would be unwise to ignore his latest, more dire warning.

With that kind of gravitas, why would one doubt the man's assessment of our warming climate? Is he some kind of left-wing extremist with a "very partisan agenda?" Not entirely likely since Hansen is a registered Independent with a solid Republican background.

To wrap up, let's assess the credibility of Mr. Dr. James E. Hansen:

    Time and data-proven accuracy of his work
    Support of world-class experts
    Grandfather (C'mon, what's more trustworthy than a grampa?)
    Strong link to one of television's classic comedies. GISS is located above Tom's Restaurant , which is known to Seinfeld fans as the restaurant where Jerry and the gang hang out. (The diner featured in today's comic strip is based on the Seinfeld set.)

I'm sold! Who wouldn't give this guy a good listen?



(24/7 - for transparency's sake, I changed the title of the thread on 29.06.2021 on the basis of change in direction the discussion is taking - it's no longer just 'climate change' - it categorically is an emergency that threatens to wipe is out...)
« Last Edit: June 29, 2021, 12:02:25 pm by 24∗7 »

Offline Devon Red

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #1 on: August 18, 2012, 05:53:54 pm »
Prof Richard Muller, one of the most high profile sceptics, has now changed his mind and accepts that climate change is happening and "humans are almost entirely the cause".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jul/29/climate-change-sceptics-change-mind

Quote
Prof Richard Muller, a physicist and climate change sceptic who founded the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (Best) project, said he was surprised by the findings. "We were not expecting this, but as scientists, it is our duty to let the evidence change our minds." He added that he now considers himself a "converted sceptic" and his views had undergone a "total turnaround" in a short space of time.

"Our results show that the average temperature of the Earth's land has risen by 2.5F over the past 250 years, including an increase of 1.5 degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases," Muller wrote in an opinion piece for the New York Times.

It looks like the climate change sceptics might be the first major extinction of the global warming era, there are less and less of them every day  ;)

Offline Bioluminescence

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #2 on: August 18, 2012, 06:41:16 pm »

It looks like the climate change sceptics might be the first major extinction of the global warming era, there are less and less of them every day  ;)

I wish I could share your optimism - it seems to me the denialist faction is like a Lernaean Hydra  :-\ All Muller seems to have achieved is to annoy those who support ACC and made enemies of the deniers. I spend too much time debating the issue and I see no progress.

Online redbyrdz

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #3 on: August 18, 2012, 08:26:14 pm »
Who the fuck in this day and age is still denying climate change?
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Offline Devon Red

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #4 on: August 18, 2012, 08:27:05 pm »
I wish I could share your optimism - it seems to me the denialist faction is like a Lernaean Hydra  :-\ All Muller seems to have achieved is to annoy those who support ACC and made enemies of the deniers. I spend too much time debating the issue and I see no progress.

It is frustrating when the same arguments keep coming up again and again even though they've been debunked long ago.

Do you think it comes down to politics? Sometimes I wonder if Al Gore did more harm than good with his film, so many people in America and even Europe have been happy to dismiss ACC as Gore's personal invention.

I used to think the internet would make it harder to hide the truth from people, now I realise its exactly the opposite. Anyone can make a website with a few cherry picked graphs and convince those who want to be convinced. Thats the great missed opportunity of the internet, people don't really go looking for truth, they go looking for validation of their prejudices and ideologies.

Offline lfcderek

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #5 on: August 18, 2012, 08:36:56 pm »
Who the fuck in this day and age is still denying climate change?

My reply to a similar question earlier today.

jonjosuso,

I think you misunderstand the basic position of the majority of sceptics.
Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming.

Global Warming - most certainly. The planet has been warming for the past 150 years as we come out of the 'Little Ice Age'.

Anthropogenic - most certainly. Man has been pumping CO2 into the atmoshere and this, of its self, will give a temp rise of ~ 1°C for each doubling.

Catastrophic - Highly sceptical. This comes from the high positive feedbacks within the computer climate models. Those models make predictions. See above for an example of those predictions.

There is plenty of discussion in published papers and in the blogs about feedbacks. Read and make up your own mind.

Good luck with the MSc dissertation by the way.



When measurements don't match the predictions of models?

The models are wrong.
"Don't let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what's right."
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Offline Bioluminescence

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #6 on: August 18, 2012, 08:51:22 pm »
It is frustrating when the same arguments keep coming up again and again even though they've been debunked long ago.

Do you think it comes down to politics? Sometimes I wonder if Al Gore did more harm than good with his film, so many people in America and even Europe have been happy to dismiss ACC as Gore's personal invention.

I used to think the internet would make it harder to hide the truth from people, now I realise its exactly the opposite. Anyone can make a website with a few cherry picked graphs and convince those who want to be convinced. Thats the great missed opportunity of the internet, people don't really go looking for truth, they go looking for validation of their prejudices and ideologies.

It's a tough question. I place the blame mainly at the feet of those who want to create confusion because they twist things to suit their agenda and act as an echo chamber, spreading lies and misinformation on a daily basis. The fact that Mann et al.'s 1998 and 1999 papers are still being used to try and discredit the hockey stick is a perfect example of that. Not only do deniers misrepresent the papers, they also ignore all the subsequent papers that have reached the same overall conclusion using different proxies and methodologies.

These early hockey stick papers, looking at hemispheric temperature reconstructions, were some of the first of their kind. Methodologies and datasets were always going to be improved, and these improvements are not evidence of fraud or manipulation. It's just how science works. But while deniers froth at the mouth at the hockey stick, they gladly ignore all the mistakes coming from their side, some of which have been pretty poor. This means that many 'ordinary' people believe climate change science is all about manipulation and fraud without being aware of the problems coming from the side of deniers.

Am I making any sense? You're right about the internet - what we're seeing is confirmation bias. And that's something I struggle with - why are some people simply unable to accept that the climate is changing and that humans are mostly responsible for this change? I just don't get it.

Offline Bioluminescence

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #7 on: August 18, 2012, 08:56:43 pm »
My reply to a similar question earlier today.

When measurements don't match the predictions of models?

The models are wrong.

Except that they aren't. They predicted warming, and it's warming. They predicted that the stratosphere would cool, and it's cooling. They predicted a pattern of ocean warming, and this warming has been observed. They predicted a rise in atmospheric water levels, and these are rising. They predicted polar amplification, and this is being observed. Are the models 100% accurate on short timescales? No, but that's not what climate change is about. Tweaking will always be necessary in such a complex system but it doesn't mean the models are wrong.

But of course focusing on models ignores the research that relies on datasets and observations, and which corroborates the findings of models. So again, only by carefully cherry picking things can you reject the consensus.
« Last Edit: August 18, 2012, 08:58:26 pm by Bioluminescence »

Offline lfcderek

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #8 on: August 18, 2012, 09:13:54 pm »
It's a tough question. I place the blame mainly at the feet of those who want to create confusion because they twist things to suit their agenda and act as an echo chamber, spreading lies and misinformation on a daily basis. The fact that Mann et al.'s 1998 and 1999 papers are still being used to try and discredit the hockey stick is a perfect example of that. Not only do deniers misrepresent the papers, they also ignore all the subsequent papers that have reached the same overall conclusion using different proxies and methodologies.

These early hockey stick papers, looking at hemispheric temperature reconstructions, were some of the first of their kind. Methodologies and datasets were always going to be improved, and these improvements are not evidence of fraud or manipulation. It's just how science works. But while deniers froth at the mouth at the hockey stick, they gladly ignore all the mistakes coming from their side, some of which have been pretty poor. This means that many 'ordinary' people believe climate change science is all about manipulation and fraud without being aware of the problems coming from the side of deniers.

Am I making any sense? You're right about the internet - what we're seeing is confirmation bias. And that's something I struggle with - why are some people simply unable to accept that the climate is changing and that humans are mostly responsible for this change? I just don't get it.

Can you not answer my basic point. When computer models don't match measured values this means the models are wrong. It's on the basis of these models (with their 3X positive feedbacks) that we are spending hundreds of billions of pounds on building wind farms etc.

Many moons ago I went into a lab and measured the spectral lines of the hydrogen atom. After some hitting of calculator keys I verified that these matched those predicted by Bohr's model of the atom.

Bohr's model was correct?

When you do the same for anything other than hydrogen you get the wrong answers. The model was wrong.

Bohr (Heisenberg/Dirac et al) went back to the drawing board and got a better model.

Climate models don't match predictions.
They are wrong.
"Don't let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what's right."
"True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing."
"I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn`t learn something from him."
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Offline Bioluminescence

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #9 on: August 18, 2012, 09:24:36 pm »
Can you not answer my basic point. When computer models don't match measured values this means the models are wrong. It's on the basis of these models (with their 3X positive feedbacks) that we are spending hundreds of billions of pounds on building wind farms etc.

Many moons ago I went into a lab and measured the spectral lines of the hydrogen atom. After some hitting of calculator keys I verified that these matched those predicted by Bohr's model of the atom.

Bohr's model was correct?

When you do the same for anything other than hydrogen you get the wrong answers. The model was wrong.

Bohr (Heisenberg/Dirac et al) went back to the drawing board and got a better model.

Climate models don't match predictions.
They are wrong.

I've given you a list of predictions that have been verified but you choose to ignore that. From material you've posted in the other thread, you choose relatively short timescales to make your point. Climate science requires longer timescales, about 30 years at least, because of the noise in the system. The things you have posted don't show the models to be wrong. At best, they show that some tweaking is necessary. As for the question of sensitivity, paleoclimate analyses and analyses of recent events, such as volcanic eruptions, find the same results as models. Most importantly, you simply cannot explain past climate change if your climate sensitivity is 1ºC for a doubling of CO2. So it's very unlikely that such a low sensitivity is the norm.

Offline lfcderek

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #10 on: August 18, 2012, 09:33:51 pm »


Are the models 100% accurate on short timescales? No, but that's not what climate change is about. Tweaking will always be necessary in such a complex system but it doesn't mean the models are wrong.



Tweaking?

This is deviation of the order of 3 or 4 times.

Fundamental elements are missing. Large negative cloud feebacks maybe. The sun's magnetic activity increasing cloud formation possibly. Whatever the causes are - they are resulting in the deviation.

In short - the models are wrong.

 
"Don't let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what's right."
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Offline Bioluminescence

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #11 on: August 18, 2012, 09:51:25 pm »

Tweaking?

This is deviation of the order of 3 or 4 times.

Fundamental elements are missing. Large negative cloud feebacks maybe. The sun's magnetic activity increasing cloud formation possibly. Whatever the causes are - they are resulting in the deviation.

In short - the models are wrong.

 

Yes, tweaking. Your graph is a picture from Spencer's blog - how do you know he's got it right? This is a man who has made plenty of incorrect statements and who has been unable to show conclusively that climate sensitivity is about 1.2ºC for CO2 doubling. The scientific literature predicts a warming of around 20ºC per decade, and we're observing a warming of 19ºC per decade - that's pretty spot on, especially when you consider the impact on ENSO in the past decade as well as a deep solar minimum and probably aerosols, all of which have had an overall cooling effect on temperatures. Actually, when you take all of these into account, you see that CO2 has produced the amount of warming predicted. The only problem for scientists is working out the impact of irregular cycles, such as ENSO, or volcanic eruptions. But overall, the models have nailed it. The Earth is warming, sea levels are rising (at the higher end of IPCC predictions), the ice is melting (and in the Arctic, it is shrinking at a greater rate than expected), the upper atmosphere is cooling and shrinking, species are shifting, etc.

Your obsession with models makes no sense, and your reliance on graphs found on blogs rather than data analyses in the scientific literature perhaps highlights the fact that the figures don't back your position.

Offline RojoLeón

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #12 on: August 18, 2012, 09:51:30 pm »
Deggsie, you keep putting these graphs up with none of the research paper context to back them up, or any scientific support for the narrative you claim they describe.

Did you ever watch Brass Eye? This form of 'bow to the graph', argument puts me in mind of the fox hunting episode: dazzle the plebes with a professional looking graph which actually says nothing at all


Offline Bioluminescence

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #13 on: August 18, 2012, 10:23:26 pm »
Here are what some models show.

From Hansen et al. (2005):



Not bad I'd say. From the IPCC AR4:



Again, not too far off. Now this is an interesting one: if people think Hansen is well off, what to make of Lindzen and other so-called sceptics?

« Last Edit: August 18, 2012, 10:28:19 pm by Bioluminescence »

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #14 on: August 19, 2012, 01:06:30 am »
My reply to a similar question earlier today.

When measurements don't match the predictions of models?

The models are wrong.
So you're not denying there's excess warming caused by us? That's all I was asking.
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Offline Bioluminescence

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #15 on: August 19, 2012, 11:52:09 am »
Who the fuck in this day and age is still denying climate change?

There seem to be several levels of denial. There is still a minority of people who claim that climate change isn't happening and that's it's cooling/we're heading into an ice age.  Then there are those who accept the climate is changing but believe it's mainly a natural phenomenon. But mostly I think they've moved onto claiming that climate sensitivity is low so there's nothing to worry about.

Offline Corkboy

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #16 on: August 19, 2012, 02:42:22 pm »
There seem to be several levels of denial. There is still a minority of people who claim that climate change isn't happening and that's it's cooling/we're heading into an ice age.  Then there are those who accept the climate is changing but believe it's mainly a natural phenomenon. But mostly I think they've moved onto claiming that climate sensitivity is low so there's nothing to worry about.

One of the biggest climate change affectors is the United States, almost half of whose population believe the Earth was built about 6,500 years ago specifically for them to exploit and plunder. Another huge one is China, who along with their neighbours feel they are entitled to their industrial stage like everyone else and therefore don't really give a shit. Finally, you have roughly half the planet living in such poverty that they can't affect the debate. Climate change doesn't really appear on their radar, other than perhaps as drought. The only people who really worry about climate change are western liberal democracies.

Offline andy in warrington

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #17 on: August 19, 2012, 07:20:32 pm »
Climate change is a natural phenomenon; since the start of the earth there have been massive variations. The differences in our climate are just part of this cycle.

Offline rusty-la

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #18 on: August 19, 2012, 07:27:46 pm »
Isn't climate change the new 'Aids'

Catastrophic, the culling of the Human Race, will bring civilization to a knee....then we'll all forget it and move on because nothing really changes.

Just asking like?





Offline Corkboy

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #19 on: August 19, 2012, 07:34:41 pm »
Isn't climate change the new 'Aids'

Catastrophic, the culling of the Human Race, will bring civilization to a knee....then we'll all forget it and move on because nothing really changes.

Just asking like?

I think the answer is that something did really change in relation to AIDS in that a lot of work means it's now treatable and even more work has been done in making it preventable. It didn't just disappear.

Offline rusty-la

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #20 on: August 19, 2012, 07:38:57 pm »
I think the answer is that something did really change in relation to AIDS in that a lot of work means it's now treatable and even more work has been done in making it preventable. It didn't just disappear.

Thanks Corkboy, I was having a little trip on a boat there.

Just wondering if Climate Change is the new big issue or we over complicate this and its not as bad as some perceive.


Offline Corkboy

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #21 on: August 19, 2012, 07:45:59 pm »
Here's a cheap and easy solution to climate change. If it doesn't fuck us all up in some Black Swan type outcome.

Offline Bioluminescence

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #22 on: August 19, 2012, 08:04:46 pm »
One of the biggest climate change affectors is the United States, almost half of whose population believe the Earth was built about 6,500 years ago specifically for them to exploit and plunder. Another huge one is China, who along with their neighbours feel they are entitled to their industrial stage like everyone else and therefore don't really give a shit. Finally, you have roughly half the planet living in such poverty that they can't affect the debate. Climate change doesn't really appear on their radar, other than perhaps as drought. The only people who really worry about climate change are western liberal democracies.

Yeah, the USA are a bit of an enigma in that respect - they carry out some of the best scientific research there,  yet many believe the Earth is only a few thousand years old. It does perplex me at times.

It definitely is a complex issue to address. In an ideal world, those countries that have become rich through the use of cheap fossil fuels would help poorer nations industrialise using other forms of energy. That's just not going to happen though, so we're left with a stalemate. A big problem for me is that those who have contributed little historically to the rise in CO2 will probably be the hardest hit as they won't have the resources to address the problems they're facing. It's a mess, and peak oil can't come soon enough.

Offline Bioluminescence

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #23 on: August 19, 2012, 08:09:38 pm »
Climate change is a natural phenomenon; since the start of the earth there have been massive variations. The differences in our climate are just part of this cycle.


You see, the problem for me here is that this argument doesn't make sense. The climate change naturally in the past because of a number of reasons - the Milankovitch cyles, changes in solar output, volcanic eruptions, changes in atmospheric composition, etc.  In this case, simply stating that it's a natural phenomenon is pretty meaningless. Something must be causing the change, so what is the driver in this case? Don't you think this question needs to be answered?

Also, it's a bit like saying that wildfires in the past were caused by natural factors so humans can't possibly be responsible for some of the wildfires we observe.

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #24 on: August 20, 2012, 06:26:08 am »
Here are what some models show.

From Hansen et al. (2005):



Not bad I'd say. From the IPCC AR4:



Again, not too far off. Now this is an interesting one: if people think Hansen is well off, what to make of Lindzen and other so-called sceptics?




OR, in other words:



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Offline Bioluminescence

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #25 on: August 20, 2012, 10:52:02 am »

OR, in other words:





I take it you haven't been in the UK these past few summers? :wave
« Last Edit: August 20, 2012, 11:04:06 am by Bioluminescence »

Offline MHLC

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #26 on: August 21, 2012, 06:05:06 pm »
I used to think the internet would make it harder to hide the truth from people, now I realise its exactly the opposite. Anyone can make a website with a few cherry picked graphs and convince those who want to be convinced. Thats the great missed opportunity of the internet, people don't really go looking for truth, they go looking for validation of their prejudices and ideologies.

Wow. There's so much RIGHT with that statement. Entirely agree with you.

As for man made climate change I was convinced 5 or 6 years ago that if it was genuine then, slowly but surely, the diverse data driven evidence collected around the world would prove it far more convincingly than climate modelling could. This author of the article in the OP touches on that:

This is not a climate model or a prediction but actual observations of weather events and temperatures that have happened.

I believe in the ingenuity of mankind to solve (or at least mitigate) highly complex problems such as this, but have absolutely no faith that the political will exists to work together globally, let alone for us as individuals in the developed and developing world to change our consumption habits.

Offline TepidT2O

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #27 on: August 21, 2012, 07:36:24 pm »
Don't know the point in trying to control emissions.....

The US consumption is so massive compared to everyone's else's (comparatively) and shows no signs of diminishing.
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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #28 on: August 22, 2012, 09:49:20 am »


Well Bio, I must say that graph is very impressive.

If the climate scientists back in 1993 can run a computer model which predicts ocean heat, with that degree of accuracy, for the following 10 years - it makes my comments about the models being wrong look a bit iffy.

These are predictions from 1993 right?
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Offline gordonchas

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #29 on: August 22, 2012, 10:27:48 am »

 I believe in the ingenuity of mankind to solve (or at least mitigate) highly complex problems such as this, but have absolutely no faith that the political will exists to work together globally, let alone for us as individuals in the developed and developing world to change our consumption habits.

Don't know the point in trying to control emissions.....

The US consumption is so massive compared to everyone's else's (comparatively) and shows no signs of diminishing.

Taking those entirely separate posts together...

US emissions are at a 20 year low. That's due to fracking, though, and is entirely market-driven. It has nothing whatsoever to do with political will. Though it won't be long before politicians claim the credit.

But it's not the US but the Chinese who are the biggest CO2 emitters in any case, theirs are more than the US and Canada combined.

So, if you think it's critical to control CO2 emissions, you should be asking the Chinese to take measures. And good luck with that.

Offline MHLC

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #30 on: August 22, 2012, 10:29:47 am »
Many moons ago I went into a lab and measured the spectral lines of the hydrogen atom. After some hitting of calculator keys I verified that these matched those predicted by Bohr's model of the atom.

Comparing simulations run on arrays of mult-million $ super-computers to a calculator? That's quite humorous. Not to mention facile.

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #31 on: August 22, 2012, 10:35:29 am »
climate change sceptics are now converting.

Now all we need is for people to also accept 'natural selection' and not try to save every soul. Human population is the main factor for climate change. This won't happen of course, we'll just continue to fuck nature over until we fuck our children/grandchildren/et al over.
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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #32 on: August 22, 2012, 10:50:50 am »
Taking those entirely separate posts together...

US emissions are at a 20 year low. That's due to fracking, though, and is entirely market-driven. It has nothing whatsoever to do with political will. Though it won't be long before politicians claim the credit.

But it's not the US but the Chinese who are the biggest CO2 emitters in any case, theirs are more than the US and Canada combined.

So, if you think it's critical to control CO2 emissions, you should be asking the Chinese to take measures. And good luck with that.
Errr US emissions at a 20 year low?

That's of course completely ignoring that the huge migration of US manufacturing (and this CO2) production has been shifted to china...
And guess what?  Chinas emissions have gone up.

Shifting the emissions doesn't mean they're not US emissions.
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Offline MHLC

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #33 on: August 22, 2012, 11:16:43 am »
Taking those entirely separate posts together...

US emissions are at a 20 year low. That's due to fracking, though, and is entirely market-driven. It has nothing whatsoever to do with political will. Though it won't be long before politicians claim the credit.

But it's not the US but the Chinese who are the biggest CO2 emitters in any case, theirs are more than the US and Canada combined.

So, if you think it's critical to control CO2 emissions, you should be asking the Chinese to take measures. And good luck with that.

Ummm.. why? I've made mention of emissions, or the US. Personally I agree more with scatman when he says population levels are the key. We're at 7BN now, so what impact we'll be having on the planets natural resources/systems when it reaches 9BN or 10BN is a question that needs answering.

What I mean by collective political will refers to issues like the US refusing to ratify the Kyoto protocol, or China committing to binding emission cuts only if past emissions from the likes of US/Europe are taken into account,  or the wasted opportunity of Durban in 2011, where governments agreed action was needed and proceeded to kick the can down the road until 2015....

Offline Bioluminescence

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #34 on: August 22, 2012, 11:23:38 am »
Well Bio, I must say that graph is very impressive.

If the climate scientists back in 1993 can run a computer model which predicts ocean heat, with that degree of accuracy, for the following 10 years - it makes my comments about the models being wrong look a bit iffy.

These are predictions from 1993 right?

Oh, I see what you're doing here Derek - impossible expectations of proof and certainty. Not when it comes to the work of so-called sceptics of course - I see you have nothing to say about the work of Lindzen, Easterbrook and others, which is far less accurate than Hansen's 1988 projections.

But this is not how science progresses, is it? Models have come a long way since 1993, not least due to substantial improvements in processing power and better observations. There are still difficulties because of the sun's unpredictable behaviour and the difficulty in modelling the ENSO cycle and volcanic eruption. On top of that, scientists also have to make assumptions on the levels of CO2 emissions, which vary according to a number of factors. So let's look at Hansen's 1988 projections now.



I'd say that's not a bad effort, but it was a 2005 update so we need something more up to date. So let's find something more recent:



Clearly there's still some discrepancy, with Hansen overestimating the warming by about 0.07ºC per decade. The question to ask now is what caused this discrepancy. There are three factors involved here: Hansen overestimated CO2 levels by 5-10%, his climate sensitivity was too high, and he was only looking at greenhouse gas forcing (with the occasional volcanic eruption), i.e. he didn't include the impacts caused by changes in solar activity or the ENSO cycle. When you adjust observations by removing the impact of natural factors, so that you're no longer comparing apples with oranges, and by reducing greenhouse gas forcing to match CO2 levels, Hansen's trend is 0.22ºC per decade and observations are 0.18ºC per decade. This is better, though obviously not absolutely accurate. But it now enables us to look at climate sensitivity. With all this taken into account, it turns out that climate sensitivity is between 3.4 and 3.6ºC for a doubling of CO2, and not the 4.2ºC used by Hansen.

So Hansen's paper looked at the impact of greenhouse gases on global temperatures and didn't include other factors. Therefore his results can't directly be compared with actual observations since this is not what he was estimating. When you remove the effect of natural factors (sun, ENSO and volcanic eruptions), the match between projections and observations improves, and enables us to estimate climate sensitivity. Does this mean Hansen's model was wrong? No. It means the model had to be refined, by reducing the climate sensitivity and greenhouse gas forcing parameters, which we could do because of actual observations of CO2 levels.



Offline gordonchas

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #35 on: August 22, 2012, 11:38:31 am »
Errr US emissions at a 20 year low?

That's of course completely ignoring that the huge migration of US manufacturing (and this CO2) production has been shifted to china...
And guess what?  Chinas emissions have gone up.

Shifting the emissions doesn't mean they're not US emissions.

Of course it does, the energy used in the manufacture comes from power plants in China, therefore it's the Chinese who you need to persuade to use power plants you approve of. Nobody is forcing the Chinese to industrialize, so if they want the benefits of manufacturing they also have to accept the responsiblity (and the costs) of the emissions. Naturally, they don't want to.  You seem to want to put all the blame on the consumer?

Offline Bioluminescence

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #36 on: August 22, 2012, 12:02:48 pm »
Of course it does, the energy used in the manufacture comes from power plants in China, therefore it's the Chinese who you need to persuade to use power plants you approve of. Nobody is forcing the Chinese to industrialize, so if they want the benefits of manufacturing they also have to accept the responsiblity (and the costs) of the emissions. Naturally, they don't want to.  You seem to want to put all the blame on the consumer?

Why should they accept the responsibility and costs when industrialised nations haven't and don't? Historically, the responsibility for the problems we're facing now and in the future doesn't lie with China, it lies predominantly with industrialised nations. Now China is going to make the problem worse, that goes without saying, but why should their development stall because of a problem essentially caused by others? Shouldn't the countries which caused the problem bear the costs of any solution?

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #37 on: August 22, 2012, 12:20:16 pm »
So are we gonna tell the poor of Africa they cant have light in their huts because they cant burn the coal they have?

Do you think they are or should be concerned about long term climate change when they have no electricity today?

It's ok for the west, we have already sorted ourselves out. Bit fucking rich to deny them the basics like because our summers are a bit wetter.
From here on in its all FSG's doing. Good or bad they will stand or fall by the decisions they have made in the summer of 2012. Lets hope they have gotten it right.

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #38 on: August 22, 2012, 12:24:20 pm »
So are we gonna tell the poor of Africa they cant have light in their huts because they cant burn the coal they have?

Do you think they are or should be concerned about long term climate change when they have no electricity today?

It's ok for the west, we have already sorted ourselves out. Bit fucking rich to deny them the basics like because our summers are a bit wetter.
I feel they should be allowed to burn however so much coal they want. As long as they dont expect us to help them to do that and help them raise kids they couldnt afford to have.
China's consumption of fossil fuels is probably on par with their population (which they are trying to curb the growth of), it's western countries who's consumption of fossil fuels over the years has been over proportionate to their population sizes. But what's done is done, it's better to try changing now to anticipate what will happen.
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Offline bleedsred1978

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Re: Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss
« Reply #39 on: August 22, 2012, 12:39:05 pm »
Maybe if they were allowed to develop properly they could afford to have a big family. Don't think the US or UK or any other European countries stop you from having a bit family.

The west imo are trying to say how and when the rest of the world develops and are doing so under the guise of “preserving biodiversity” and “sustainability”.

We burnt and plundered to get where we are and yet we have the cheek to try and stop the rest of the developing world the chance to get up to speed because its affecting our cushy lifestyles.

It fucking stinks to high heaven mate.


From here on in its all FSG's doing. Good or bad they will stand or fall by the decisions they have made in the summer of 2012. Lets hope they have gotten it right.