Arthur Gilroy is worried about a civil war in America. I’m not. Not yet anyway. I am far more worried about this worst case scenario playing out (which appears ever more likely), however, and what it will mean for humanity’s survival:
The world’s best efforts at combating climate change are likely to offer no more than a 50-50 chance of keeping temperature rises below the threshold of disaster, according to research from the UK Met Office. […]
The chilling forecast from the supercomputer climate model of the Met Office’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research will provide a sobering wake-up call for governments around the world, who will begin formally negotiating three weeks today the new international treaty on tackling global warming, which is due to be signed in Copenhagen in December. […]
If action is sluggish or non-existent, the model suggests that climate change is likely to cause almost unthinkable damage to the world; under a “business-as-usual” scenario, with no action taken at all and emissions increasing by more than 100 per cent by 2050, the end-of-the-century rise in global average temperatures is likely to be 5.5C, with a worst-case outcome of 7.1C – which would make much of life on earth impossible. “Even with drastic cuts in emissions in the next 10 years, our results project that there will only be a 50 per cent chance of keeping global temperatures rises below 2C,” said Dr Vicky Pope, the Met Office’s Head of Climate Change Advice.
“This idealised emissions scenario is based on emissions peaking in 2015 and changing from an increase of 2-3 per cent per year to a decrease of 3 per cent per year. For every 10 years we delay this action another 0.5C will be added to the most likely temperature rise. If the world fails to make the required reductions, it will be faced with adapting not just to a 2C rise in temperature but to 4C or more by the end of the century.”
Banks come and go. Economic disasters can be overcome. No Nothings like Limbaugh rise and fall. But what we are doing to our climate will last a millennium or more, and risks the extinction of humanity. I think that’s far more serious than any imagined scenario where wingnuts in the exurbs and small towns rise up to foment war against urban areas.
Michelle Obama- sleeves or no-sleeves?
I’d take her either way…
As long as she’s in purple, it doesn’t matter.
That’s all I can say.
Without question it is crunch time for the human species and, no doubt, many other species as well. It is really an evolutionary challenge. Can we overcome our indulgent and selfish life style with its tremendous emphasis on pleasure and consumption or do we succumb to these oh so human frailties?
Blogs like this one are the cutting edge of reform and determination to apply our reason to solving the problems caused by our culture of abundance. We do what we have to do, we cut back, we agitate, we militate. We survive. We do it for our posterity, for all other species, for the planet itself. We are the salt of the earth for which we will sacrifice everything.
If we succeed, we shall never be forgotten.
As an urban resident I would take a slightly different view, kind of like during the Cold War when American strategists talked about a “limited nuclear exchange” – looked pretty “total” from Bonn…
On the other hand, perhaps the downslope ride on Peak Oil will slow the buildup of CO2 and thus global warming — it’s a guess as to whether it will happen soon enough.
http://www.theoildrum.com/
Whole new meaning to the term “underwater mortgage”.
All this is going to make me take up drinking or fireworks building.
But what we are doing to our climate will last a millennium or more, and risks the extinction of humanity.
StevenD, on what basis do you arrive at this conclusion?
The jury is out. The debate rages in the extreme on both sides of the argument.
Nature goes through cycles and mankind adjusted. I fear this global warning debate is a scam in a guise for more government control and more tax impositions. The proponents for global warming have become shrill, demagogic to shut up dissenters – now labeled “deniers.” The average Joe and Jill are not schooled in botany, biology or geography so its very easy to brainwash.
We’re told global warning is on; we’ve only 100 months before extinction — based on super computer modeling. Yeah, Right! Did the modelling include the Pacific and Atlantic oscillators; the 30 year cycles, the 500 year cycles – that influences temperatures, – the fishing records going back to the 1700s or the fact that the sun has been very inactive. The scientific data in support of global warming is skewed.
How is it we’ve ceased discussion on the Artic’s ice cap melting? Because it no longer is — and no one wants to talk about it. The Artic ice cap grew to the size of France, Germany and Poland. Foremost climatologists agree “Temperatures have shifted — we’re now in a COOLING period for the next 25 to 30 years.” We’re down from high temperatures since 1998.
Also worth noting, dioxin and mercury may be good for you!
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?article_id=1062&PHPSESSID=fa90650a02b422e075c1827b20a9bac3
Those damned scientists just want more governmental control.
Yes, funny how right wing think tanks always find a way to claim that evil government scientists are the bad guys biased against the good guys: multinational corporations and other businesses that pump chemicals like Polychlorinated dibenzodioxins into the environment. Naturally, such chemicals are completely harmless and have little if any effect on human health.
Please stop spreading the drivel of the sceptics.
The NYT article you link to is a report on a recent conference:
The keynote speaker, Professor Lindzen, is living high on the hog from Exxon fees:
You unabashedly state: How is it we’ve ceased discussion on the Artic’s ice cap melting? Because it no longer is — and no one wants to talk about it. The Artic ice cap grew to the size of France, Germany and Poland. Foremost climatologists agree “Temperatures have shifted — we’re now in a COOLING period for the next 25 to 30 years.” We’re down from high temperatures since 1998.
I have not noticed that ‘we’ have stopped talking about it, and you have to tell us who these ‘foremost climatologists’ are. They (if they exist) are very wrong.
A recent article in New Scientist:
Arctic melt 20 years ahead of climate models
Drivel when it suits. How convenient!
I suppose you join those who seek to classify global warming skeptics as now a mental disorder.
How far will you go and to what extreme lengths?
Last week Prince Charles, the sitter, cited the experts who warned ‘we only have 100 months to extinction.’
With what certainty, 100 months?
Ten years ago we were told; only five years left to correct global warming. Now, it’s so inconvenient that we’re in a cooling period.
Oh, come on!
Don’t argue with straw men. Can you address what I actually posted?
show me you credentials and your studies. Do you understand how the various ocean currents and seabed volcanoes impact surface temperatures?
Since when has free speech and contrarian views to scientific papers been forever banned? You simply cannot ban all scientists’ contrarian views as wackos. Closed minds impede resolutions. Planet earth has undergone various periods of warming and cooling — long before man inhabited or cars and industrial plants were introduced.
Just dig in your heels and dismiss credible scientific published research on the other side. I hope you enjoy the movement!
Bloomberg reports on the conference – Global Warming, Was it Ever Really A Crisis?
…Lindzen said. Scientists who endorse global warming are “richly rewarded for doing so,” he said.
Richly rewarded, indeed. The man has no credibility. Bought and paid for.
Ross Gelbspan reported in 1995 that Lindzen “charges oil and coal interests $2,500 a day for his consulting services; his 1991 trip to testify before a Senate committee was paid for by Western Fuels, and a speech he wrote, entitled ‘Global Warming: the Origin and Nature of Alleged Scientific Consensus,’ was underwritten by OPEC.”
Oh, lots of places. Here are a few Links for you to visit:
A compendium of Climate Science Links
Real Climate a blog run by the climate scientists who have participated in the IPCC reports and who have published numerous studies and papers on climate change. Probably the best blog on the internet for pure climate science geeks. They also have a Real Climate wiki site which has numerous links to sites which debunk the arguments of Climate Change skeptics and Deniers of that global warming is the result anthropogenic activity (i.e., greenhouse gas emissions and other human activities that release carbon into the environment).
A Climate Model site, Climateprediction.net which actually recruits non scientists to use your home computer to improve existing climate models.
A link to common climate change myths promoted by skeptics, and a link to frequently asked questions about climate change from the UK government’s Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, the source of the climate model referred to in the article I linked above.
Link to an Oxford University tutorial on the basics of climate change and climate change predictions through the use of computer modeling.
The link to the American Meteorological Society’s Information Statement on Climate Change.
That should get you started.
Those of us deeply concerned about global climate instability now know full well how Cassandra must have felt. I don’t believe anything will be done. Consideration will go first to the expenses involved, the impact on business.
But we will miss the water when the well runs dry.
I’ve half joked that if I were to have twin daughters I might name them Cassandra & Pollyanna…
Good one, Oscar.
But at least it will likely be acceptable to wear white after Labor Day.
Some of the same people who can understand that an extra 100 calories of food consumed in a day will lead to the eater’s weight gain cannot get their heads around the function of carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas and the consequences of hundreds of millions of gasoline powered vehicles, lawn mowers, generators, etc with thousands of coal burning power plants. Perhaps Idredit and his/her ilk can meditate on the example of the planet Venus, with an average orbit twice as distant to the Sun as Mercury’s but with twice the the surface temperature. The problem with scientific literacy re climate change seems to be a tendency of many to let their short term economic interests be their conscience, plus the undeniable fact that many just are not raised to be truthful.
The wonderful thing about science is that just as soon as you think one way you find evidence pointing towards another. The world is definitely getting warmer, generally, the fundamental cause of which is an increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This is not good for a lot of reasons.
However, we are on a globe that does periodically have ice ages, which are nothing to sneeze at either. I suspect in the future that the human race will be able to figure out ways to moderate various temperature shifts. We know that a well-placed meteor or a few vigorous volcanoes can drop the world’s temperature pretty quickly. These events can be imitated, either by, say, a nuclear war or a more controlled series of events.
Unlike Arthur, I don’t think that our climate change will necessarily lead to any revolution in the U.S., and I think that we can still change things for the better.