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Post by BNC Moderator on Apr 29, 2012 19:55:35 GMT 9.5
How far do we have to go over planetary boundaries blinded by greed, ideology and ignorance before those who can initiate emergency action recognize the emergency? What will it take to persuade governments of the urgency of the climate change crisis and to take unilateral action rid the world of fossil fuels?
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Post by anonposter on Apr 29, 2012 20:47:28 GMT 9.5
Probably some major disasters which can be directly attributed to climate change (which is a bit of a challenge because it is really hard to tell the difference between something caused by global warming or something really rare that would've happened anyway).
We'll probably also need for (non-hydro) renewable energy to be completely discredited in the publics' eye for any attempt to actually succeed (otherwise all we'll end up doing is wasting a lot of money on nothing).
It might also be an idea not to panic, we humans have a known habit of doing stupid things when we're panicking.
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Post by davidm on Jun 24, 2012 8:21:00 GMT 9.5
How far do we have to go over planetary boundaries blinded by greed, ideology and ignorance before those who can initiate emergency action recognize the emergency? What will it take to persuade governments of the urgency of the climate change crisis and to take unilateral action [to] rid the world of fossil fuels?Good question if you don't just limit it to fossil fuels. What would it take? probably post dieoff, whether initiated by man or Mother Nature. If there is anybody left around no doubt that would concentrate their minds. Maybe we should get cracking with some plans on how to approach a post dieoff future so survivors who would not be in the best state of mind to figure it all out would have some blueprint to work from. Maybe some thoughts about family planning might be included so we don't have to over-grow ourselves again into these disasters.
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Post by gordon on Jun 25, 2012 14:15:48 GMT 9.5
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Post by davidm on Jun 27, 2012 10:11:29 GMT 9.5
In any case the Godfather bit is way off the mark given Lovelock's lack of expertise on the matter. Now say that about James Hansen and you might have a point.
If you read further in the article he endorses fracking for natural gas. I think that's appalling. Is this a case of his enjoying his maverick status?
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Post by gordon on Jun 27, 2012 11:51:54 GMT 9.5
Unfortunately, events in the coming months may necessitate fracking on far larger scale than we are seeing today.
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Post by davidm on Jun 27, 2012 12:11:01 GMT 9.5
Unfortunately, events in the coming months may necessitate fracking on far larger scale than we are seeing today. What events would those be?
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Post by gordon on Jun 27, 2012 14:14:03 GMT 9.5
The fallout as a result of the ongoing democratisation of the ME. Stock up your pantry :-)
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Post by davidm on Aug 3, 2012 8:32:24 GMT 9.5
It would appear that storm driven ocean surges accompanying ocean rise would be an emergency to many populated areas along the various sea coasts. New York City is a case in point.
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Post by moguitar7 on Sept 5, 2012 4:24:11 GMT 9.5
It has been an emergency situation since the vast majority of climate scientists agreed continued emissions of HGHGs would result in CAGW back in 1992. It has become clear since then that it is going toward worse than the worst case scenarios envisioned by most. The IPCC is being PC and has their blinders on to this, but Hansen hasn't. Basically, he thinks that we need to turn all of the coal fired power plants into Gen IV nuclear waste using power as per designs destroyed in 1994 to appease the anti-any nuclear crowd. It would be nice if solar and wind , tidal and wave, could do it all, but he doesn't think it can. He set the time limit on 90% reduction at a decade in 2006 on his TV special. Later reports put an 80% reduction by 2020 for 50% chance of NOT crossing the tipping point of tundra methane self-release. The population emergency is too late to stop, but this one, which leads to AETM and the completion of an ELE if emissions are not reduced enough in time, is ecocide.
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Post by eclipse on Sept 6, 2012 21:55:02 GMT 9.5
Is it already too late? For a while now I've been saying "It's nuclear power or it's climate change" and this has been driving a friend crazy, mainly because he thinks it's a false dichotomy. This is what he said in response to my argument that ONLY nuclear power can prevent CATASTROPHIC climate change. No it can't. It is not sufficient even for that (though it may contribute to doing so). And even so, unavoidable disastrous climate change could still be enough to make the widespread distribution... of such infrastructure deeply problematic. Crunch the numbers. The level of climate change and ecological disruption already baked in due to inertia in geophysical and human systems is sufficient, (*even* with war-scale implementation of "all of the above", including nuclear) to have a decent chance of seeing off (or at least majorly disrupting) the present globalised industrial society. That is, even with a war-scale implementation of nuclear power, we're still very likely to sail past 2ºC, perhaps even 3ºC, this century. And when combined with the raft of other issues mentioned above, there's no guarantee that even a nuclear-powered society is going to get through the next century without major upheavals, disruptions and discontinuities.
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Post by David B. Benson on Sept 7, 2012 7:10:18 GMT 9.5
Keep trying. A combination of NPPs and massive afforestation (plus other things) will do what is required.
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Post by anonposter on Sept 7, 2012 11:46:50 GMT 9.5
There is still geoengineering if we can't reduce our emission in time. There's also the fact that rich countries will likely be able to adapt to the higher temperatures (and hopefully help the poor countries out as well).
BTW: Please use the real degree sign, not the masculine ordinal indicator (degree signs should never be underlined).
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Post by lawrence on Sept 7, 2012 13:29:12 GMT 9.5
How can anybody with a brain not think it's an emergency. Compare the IPCC predictions for Arctic Sea Ice loss with what has actually happened. Compare almost anyone's predictions with what has actually happened. The scientific predictions are so much less than what has happened that it tests the 3-6 level std devs. Personally, I think the energy imbalance and the associated forcing is now so large we may not be able to come back from it. Think of the total accumulated energy. Then think of what will happen if global dimming goes away from reduced fossil fuel use. How many nuclear reactors does it take to work against that? My guess is we have to replace fossil fuel aerosols for at least 50 years, plus we have to pull 2ppm CO2 out of the atmosphere for the next 50 years, to have any chance of keeping any kind of representative level of biodiversity from the holocene, and all the 4 billion years of natural selection that produced the Holocene.
So tell me (deleted expletive) how do we do that.
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Post by gordon on Sept 7, 2012 15:59:43 GMT 9.5
EMERGENCY - a situation that poses an immediate risk to life, property, health, environment.
Climate Change is NOT an emergency and thankfully the Gillard Government is coming to understand that.
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Post by moguitar7 on Sept 9, 2012 0:55:24 GMT 9.5
It IS an emergency by the sheer magnitude and time it takes to get on a course back to normalcy. It is like a runaway train that will hit where a bridge is out over a gorge in say 7 hours. With your definition, the emergency would not start until 5 minutes or so before the train hits the gorge. "Immediacy" all depends on scale and reaction times of systems, and must take in implementation time for the change. Anthropogenic climate change this year surpassed all historical records in its effects. Many have died in beyond historic heat, drought, and floods. The resulting crop loss will kill more. The emergency is, and has been, upon humanity. Insufficient action has us very near the crossing of tipping points of positive feedback loops in nature.
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Post by David B. Benson on Oct 7, 2012 13:45:53 GMT 9.5
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Post by gordon on Oct 22, 2012 12:09:46 GMT 9.5
Less emergency: New global temperature trend data released by the Hadley Centre and the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in Britain find essentially no upward trend in global average temperatures since 1997. Professor Phil Jones admits the data does suggest a plateau. Prof Jones also admitted that the climate models were imperfect. reason.com/blog/2012/10/15/a-16-year-pause-in-global-warming
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Post by David B. Benson on Oct 23, 2012 11:39:44 GMT 9.5
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Post by Nucular on Nov 3, 2012 19:12:48 GMT 9.5
It would appear that storm driven ocean surges accompanying ocean rise would be an emergency to many populated areas along the various sea coasts. New York City is a case in point.Sandy.
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Post by eclipse on Nov 14, 2012 12:29:46 GMT 9.5
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Post by edireland on Nov 14, 2012 18:55:29 GMT 9.5
If these figures are accurate.... we need a crash nuclear programme now (to the point of a significant percentage of total global GDP devoted to reactor construction), seawater greenhouses in all areas likely to be desertified and lots and lots of geoengineering. (The fact that atmospheric capture of carbon dioxide and conversion to syngas with off peak electrolysis may now be commercially viable is significant I think).
Sulfur use has some issues unfortunately, but I don't think there is that much choice at this point.
If those figures are accurate.
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Post by Nucular on Nov 14, 2012 21:56:42 GMT 9.5
Really? Would a 4°C - 6°C rise in the average global temperature lead to large areas becoming uninhabitable to humans? By what standards? Physically, such in peak daytime temperatures in exceeding 60°C, which would be quite deadly to most creates fast?
Wouldn't crop growing areas simply shift towards the poles on a hotter and wetter planet? The US midwest might turn into a desert, for example, but large areas in Canada and Russia with fertile soils might become major grain producing regions.
I'm convinced that it is more economical to prevent climate change rather than to adapt to the effects, but I'm not buying the "it will be the end of civilisation" narrative. Human socities exist and prosper under diverse climatic conditions, from the Arctic to the deserts and tropics.
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Post by edireland on Nov 15, 2012 0:58:03 GMT 9.5
Yields at higher latitudes are drastically reduced on account of the reduced insolation over the course of the year.
Sun never gets high in the sky.
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Post by Nucular on Nov 15, 2012 3:05:54 GMT 9.5
Are you sure this is really a factor? During the other half of the year, high latitude locations receive more sunshine overall.
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Post by edireland on Nov 15, 2012 10:34:32 GMT 9.5
Are you sure this is really a factor? During the other half of the year, high latitude locations receive more sunshine overall. If that was true, the average temperature in high lattitudes could be expected to exceed that in the lower latitudes during the summer. There would be no significant near-sea level year round polar ice in that case, it could never have accumulated in a repeated freeze-thaw scenario Once you get up to 60 degrees latitude you get half the light output per square metre as the equator (at the equinox). Even assuming the light output remains constant all the time you only just compete with what you get at the equator, and it doesn't do that.
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Post by Nucular on Nov 15, 2012 21:01:26 GMT 9.5
There will be plenty of light during the growing season, and global warming will lead to higher temperatures in most of the subarctic. Crop growth is limited by temperature, water and soil conditions, not solar insolation. As the US midwest turns into a dustbowl, Canada (and Siberia) could turn into an agricultural powerhouse. www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-15/corn-belt-shifts-north-with-climate-as-kansas-crop-dies.htmlDuring the Middle Ages, they used to grow wine in England and barley in Greenland. During the Cretaceous, forests reached as far north and south as the poles. planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/news/story.aspx?id=1170[...] As well as mapping the fossil forests, the team gathered measurements of tree rings – which indicate annual growth rate – from samples of fossil trees and from earlier studies.
They found that Cretaceous trees grew twice as fast as their modern counterparts, particularly nearer to the poles.
'Some fossil trees from Antarctica had rings more than two millimetres wide on average. Such a rate of growth is usually only seen in trees growing in temperate climates. It tells us that, during the age of the dinosaurs, polar regions had a climate similar to Britain today', explains co-author Dr Howard Falcon-Lang.
The reason for this baking hot climate seems to have been extremely high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere - at least 1000 parts per million (ppm) compared to 393 ppm today.
'If carbon dioxide concentrations continue to rise unabated, we will hit Cretaceous levels in less than 250 years,' explains Falcon-Lang. 'If that happens, we could see forests return to Antarctica.'I'm not trying to play down the effects of global warming. I think it's a major catastrohpy and it could lead to the extermination of loads of species because it happens very quickly on a geological timescale. But as I said before, I don't buy the "civilization will collapse and we will all starve" narrative. It will be a very disruptive and costly process, but of all the species around, modern humanity is the most capable in adapting to a changing climate.
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Post by edireland on Nov 15, 2012 21:26:44 GMT 9.5
The west won't starve, SCP will make sure of that.
But before you go on about how Siberia and the like will be agricultural powerhouses, you have to note that there is rather less land at higher latitudes than lower latitudes (indeed, short of Antarctica, which is likely to remain cold, there is effectively no land south of 54 degrees south).
You essentially loose Africa and most of South America and don't gain a similar land area back again, Siberia and northern canada is nowhere near as large as you seem to think it is.
Also Siberia's climate is rather unstable even now, 50 degree celsius temperature swings are not considered particularily unusual and it wouldn't take much to cause massive heat death in crops located there.
And this is all assuming that figures for wild plants, which are indeed nutrient and sometimes carbon dioxide limited, can be applied to farmed plants which may in some cases be insolation limited now.
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Post by Nuclear on Nov 15, 2012 22:15:48 GMT 9.5
I'm not an expert on agriculture, so I can't comment on how big a factor insolation is in food crop yield. All I know is that plant life prospered at high latitudes before (until 1400, the Vikings grew barley on Greenland), so I see no reason why this should not be the case again on a warmer planet.
Yes, the extreme temperature swings in Central Siberia will be a huge problem. That's why I'm assuming that on a sufficiently warm planet, major crop growing areas will exist in close proximity to the moderating influence of the Arctic ocean. The crucial question is whether food crops are indeed insolation limited. It seems hard to find relevant information on that question. Perhaps it is indeed a factor which would lead to significantly lower yields at high latitudes, but the main limiting factors seem to be temperature, water and nutrients. Anecdotal evidence: Overall solar insolation is also reduced in cloudy Western / Central Europe, yet grain and even maize seem to be doing fine.
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Post by eclipse on Nov 16, 2012 11:58:54 GMT 9.5
Hi Nuclear, "until 1400, the Vikings grew barley on Greenland" Where do you get that idea? Are you kidding me? They might have grown a tiny bit, but as Australia's Dr Karl says, "The landscape is (and was then) about 80 per cent ice, 19 per cent bare rock, and just one per cent green. The little soil that was present had been built up over millions of years." In other words, nothing's changed in Greenland. This 'Vikings settled a Green Greenland' meme is a Denialist myth based on wishful thinking and fantasies. They WANT you to think that even if the climate changes, there's no problem! They WANT you to doubt all the fuss, because they are sponsored by vested interests in today's energy infrastructure. Hundreds of billions of dollars are at stake. They WANT you to get taken in. Have a long, slow, careful read of both this Dr Karl link, and even try the Greenland wikipedia entry, and then tell us if you get any evidence that Greenland was ever (in human history!) actually a 'Green-land'! www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/10/21/2396921.htm
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