Climate Change: Worse than we feared?

[bascule]

So says the science editor of Newsweek:

 

http://www.newsweek.com/id/208164?1

 

I find it ironic the climate science denier crowd keeps trying to insist the opposite is true... in many regards detrimental climate change is happening faster than the model projections.

[iNow]

I think I hate humans.

 

This comment was poignant:

 

Jim Watson of the University of Sussex wrote that "a new breed of climate sceptic is becoming more common": someone who doubts not the science but the policy response. Given the pathetic (non)action on global warming at the G8 summit, and the fact that the energy/climate bill passed by the House of Representatives is so full of holes and escape hatches that it has barely a prayer of averting dangerous climate change, skepticism that the world will get its act together seems appropriate.

[StringJunky]

I think if more lay people (especially climate change deniers) were made to read James Lovelock's "The Revenge of Gaia" they would take climate change and its consequences much more seriously.

 

I am a layman on this subject myself but I found his illustrations of the various Earth mechanisms, how they interact and where they are heading (which seems to be borne out by the news reports now) to be so lucid as to seem like commonsense.

 

Various friends who I have lent this book to have remarked that everybody should read it.

 

The problem of spreading the idea of anthropogenic climate change is one of communication....there aren't enough people, like Lovelock. than can understand the science AND communicate it to the Average Joe, like me, without losing him in technical jargon and apparently obscure science.

 

Scientists often don't/can't speak in the language of the listener. .

 

It is not the facts that Lovelock uses that convinces me...it's the logical path he takes me through that does it. The time frame for certain climate related events, he predicts to occur, does not matter...they will happen eventually...because more and more people are coming into existence all the time, draining the Earth's resources and producing their share of the increasing pollution.

 

I think the continued growth of the human population will continually negate any positive moves that concerned countries make towards reversing the projected atmospheric trends.

 

Human population growth is the real problem behind climate change....the social, moral and political implications of putting together a strategy to contain it are so complex and difficult I don't think anybody of any intellectual or political stature will contemplate it publically....ever.

 

Ultimately, I think, The Earth System will sort it/us out one way or the other.

 

I have no optimism in this subject or our ability, collectively, to do anything about it significantly.

[bascule]

I think the continued growth of the human population will continually negate any positive moves that concerned countries make towards reversing the projected atmospheric trends.

 

I think any public policy moves taken in response to the deleterious effects of climate change need to be mitigation (not prevention) strategies aimed at the most dire of problems resulting from climate changes, such as water vulnerabilities.

[Tolmosoff]

Maybe what we need is a hot ocean but fish will die or migrate to Actic and Antactic colder water.

A hot ocean will make glasiers melt and oceans to rise , but a hot ocean like in Noahs day with worldwide cloud cover blocked off our suns light and threw our world into a deep freeze that made our north and south poles with a mile thick glasier on USA that made our grand canyon.

 

After a thick worldwide cloud cover we'll see storms we never saw in mans history.

After blocking off our sun and earth goes back into a deep freeze the oceans will lower and the USA and Russia land bridge will be dry land.

 

Our earth has a way of recycleing its self.

[iNow]

The Earth will be fine. Nobody here challenges that. The question at hand is how significant a toll humanity will be forced to pay for our recklessness.

[dr432]

well i think its better to be reckless today and suffer in 20 years then to not have cool gasoline engines. do you realize how much the world has progressed in the last 80 years thanks to gasoline? people forget this sometimes. without gasoline we'll be so unindrialized right now. they wouldn't even have gasolien cars.

Edited August 7, 2009 by dr432

[Tolmosoff]

I think i'll start a mort>:Dchuary business and back hoe business for all the dead people that died from starvation and plage deaths.

 

Our food growing farmland will have sky scrapers and no water to bring up our crops that can be sold to the highest bidder.

 

Before we run out of food we'll need to start a world war 3.

[dr432]

world war 3... now that's a great idea. i've never seen a nuclear bomb explode in real life. it will be like a fireworks display.

 

can't wait.

[StringJunky]

I think any public policy moves taken in response to the deleterious effects of climate change need to be mitigation (not prevention) strategies aimed at the most dire of problems resulting from climate changes, such as water vulnerabilities.

 

If my memory of Lovelock's book serves me correctly, mitigation is the only option that we have...prevention, according to him, is not an option because the time it would take to reverse the process is much too long and we have already passed certain tipping points.

 

He is of the belief, I read somewhere recently, that we should not try to fix the weather system with technology, as and when it becomes available. This would mean we would have to take control of the weather for all time thereafter when Nature has handled it very well for all of Earth's history 'til now. He advocates leaving it alone to sort itself out.

 

This leaves us to mitigate it's present and future effects on the population, so his attitude is in line with your thoughts.

 

Despite the negative tone of my previous post I do not promote the idea of sitting on our hands and doing nothing.

 

Climate change and the growth of the human population are mankind's biggest challenges that I hope we can rise to.

 

 

Inow: I think the toll on the human population, at some indeterminate time in the future, will run into the billions eventually as resources and habitable landmass dwindles. The size and distribution of the global population will probably change out of all recognition in the next century or so, as the heat rises from the equator pushing us north and south.

[dr432]

i don't think you guys understand. the sun gives off energy. that right there is how many people can be supported.

 

lets migrate to the moon. it's nice and cool over there. better yet, neptune.

 

or then we can just import groceries from other planets. idk. I mean right now we're only using the resources of one planet. Why don't we use resources from other planets. idk.

 

they promised us we;ll have flying cars by now. and i still haven't seen antigravity.

[iNow]

Climate change and the growth of the human population are mankind's biggest challenges that I hope we can rise to.

That remains to be seen. We as a collective seem to be struggling right now with some serious behavioral inertia (not to mention promulgation of misinformation).

 

 

INow: I think the toll on the human population, at some indeterminate time in the future, will run into the billions eventually as resources and habitable landmass dwindles. The size and distribution of the global population will probably change out of all recognition in the next century or so, as the heat rises from the equator pushing us north and south.

Yeah. Lots of death. Lots of sickness. Lots of fighting over disappearing resources. Lots of kicking ourselves for not removing our craniums from our colons sooner.

[dr432]

welll you know so far i haven't even noticed the climate change. maybe it doesn't even exist/

Edited August 7, 2009 by dr432

[Psycho]

I fail to see why people don't adapt to the idea of climate change, it isn't really bad for them, it is stuff that will normally save them money such as making there house more energy efficient or doing more miles to the gallon, it just seems they are fighting against it for the sake of it we are going to run out of oil at some point in the future so why not use less if it, nothing to do with saving the environment, it is just common sense, but I suppose that is above some.

[iNow]

It's counter to our evolved tendencies. Millions of years of evolution shaping behavior is hard to overcome. We focus almost solely on short term gain. Long term considerations are not as easy to come by.

 

Case in point:

(short term) Ooh! Yummy! Hot dog with chili and a Twinkie on the side!

(long term) My arteries are clogged, and I just suffered a massive heart attack.

 

Short term wins nearly every time.

 

 

 

As per the OP, it's rather disconcerting that as scary as the predictions were, they were themselves too conservative and things are actually worse than we expected and we continue to do practically nothing about it except lie and argue about whether or not it's happening. Yay us! Go humanity!

[StringJunky]

welll you know so far i haven't even noticed the climate change. maybe it doesn't even exist/

 

Dr432: I have read around enough and extrapolated from this information, as has Inow and Bascule, that serious problems for the human population will probably start manifesting in the latter half of this century. Its not a case of if it's when.

 

Inow: Your view of the future and assessment of the human race, with it's collective intransigence globally, is not dissimilar to mine

 

Bearing in mind what you've just said Inow, I don't think anything will be done seriously until we reach an official State of Emergency worldwide

 

You are right, this is the fundamental problem with us, we can't collectively behave responsibly because we are still bound by our most primal urges, as you have just so elegantly demonstrated with your example!

 

"Case in point:

(short term) Ooh! Yummy! Hot dog with chili and a Twinkie on the side!

(long term) My arteries are clogged, and I just suffered a massive heart attack."

[bascule]

welll you know so far i haven't even noticed the climate change. maybe it doesn't even exist/

 

Your statement is an example of an argument from ignorance. Just because you haven't noticed it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. You don't notice gluons or neutrinos either, but I'll trust the quantum physicists who say they exist.

[coreview2]

I've followed this hypothesis in some depth for over 20 years now and the New Ice Age before that. Fortunately beyond the political scientists, journalists and crisis junkies, when I dig into the real background papers and studies, I find a lot of very healthy skepticism even among most of those whose field it is and who support the AWG theory.

 

As an old semi-famous rocker once said, "When I was 17 it was so easy to know, but not it is not so easy."

[bascule]

I've followed this hypothesis in some depth for over 20 years now

 

...and you're relegating the predominant theories of mainstream climate science to a mere "hypothesis". You're certainly wearing your bias on your sleeve.

 

and the New Ice Age before that.

 

Yes, I'm sure you were intimately and contemporaneously familiar with '70s climate science before it was retroactively strawmanned by the modern climate science denial movement. </sarcasm>

 

Fortunately beyond the political scientists, journalists and crisis junkies, when I dig into the real background papers and studies, I find a lot of very healthy skepticism even among most of those whose field it is and who support the AWG theory.

 

Did you mean AGW? Care to cite a case example of a peer reviewed scientific paper which you would consider demonstrates "very healthy skepticism"? The opinions of political scientists, journalists, and crisis junkies are irrelevant. The opinions of climate scientists are what matter.

[coreview2]

.

Yes, I'm sure you were intimately and contemporaneously familiar with '70s climate science before it was retroactively strawmanned by the modern climate science denial movement. </sarcasm>

 

 

Since I was in college in the late 1960's, the "strawman" notion looks to me like something you have read from RealClimate.com or something from some other site. Certainly it would be truthful to say that fear of an impending new ice age didn't have the kind of strum and drang that goes on today over "antropogenic global warming," but for those curious and interested a new ice age coming was a concern. Of course there were all those paleoclimate studies coming from ice cores then to feed the presumptions.

 

I still favor the real history of paleoclimate which shows that a great deal of Earth's history has been spent in ice ages over that which people in labs with computer models and imperfect knowledge can cook up. Computer models look like reading tea-leaves to see the future as compared to paleoclimate history itself.

 

I can't help but notice that there have been much hotter times in climate and that they were fecund in life while ice ages brought real death, famine and massive population declines (no drum beating or scary scenarios needed).

[Tolmosoff]

What are you guys worried about ?.

 

Before Noahs Arc was built the oceans became pretty hot that melted huge Glasiers of the Arctic and Antarctic. Well you know that fable that mite have really happened.

 

Earths polar caps melted because they also had no freash water or plants to eat.

In those days Glasiers were a lot bigger that the last ice age that gave the oceans level to cover our earth.

A hot ocean gave a very thick cloud cover that blocked off our suns warmth and threw the earth into a deep freeze and after the oceans lowered and Alaska's land bridge became dry that people from the middle east and russia of chinese origin was able to cross to populate the America's north and south america where we got the mian indians and the indians that settled in arizonas cliff dwelling indians untill we ( POPED ) them off for target practice.

 

I am one of those that believe the Noah Arc theory a world wide flood.

 

The last Ice age was a small one compared to the one after the Dinosaur extincion because of the asteroid that threw the earth into a deepfreeze.

 

After Noah was a lot less smaller that covered our earth.

 

Do you guys want our earth to get back to normal ??? ( We then need a HOT OCEAN ) to cause heavy cloud cover worldwide to block off our sun for a year.

 

But don't believe me for I have always thought up senarios that can happen and no scientific models because we weren' there in there time or rocks to prove it.

There was an worldwide flood and fossils high in our mountains prove that our world was a water world because of ( Global Warming ) before noahs day.

 

So lets heat up our world and polute it with more hidrocaon and wars and our oceans will ( RECYCLE our Earth0 back to a deep freeze and a cooler earth.

 

Our earth has a way to recycle itself by ( Mother Nature ).

 

Also for our ocean to cover vast amount of land we live on for then we have plenty of ( Cruise Ships Worldwide ) to float for 40:eek: days untill land will apear again.

[iNow]

I am one of those that believe the Noah Arc theory a world wide flood.

Well, I'm not, and I hope you don't mind when I ignore your post for that reason.

[Tolmosoff]

Thats OK bud. You probably have definate proof in some book ?.

 

Scenarios can some time hit the nail on its head.

[bascule]

Since I was in college in the late 1960's, the "strawman" notion looks to me like something you have read from RealClimate.com or something from some other site.

 

For the record, I worked alongside scientists in a climate research group for 5 years, but thanks for playing.

 

Certainly it would be truthful to say that fear of an impending new ice age didn't have the kind of strum and drang that goes on today over "antropogenic global warming," but for those curious and interested a new ice age coming was a concern.

 

No, it wasn't, and it was never mainstream climate science. What you are describing is a strawman of the climate science community's reaction to increasing sulfate aerosols caused by pollution, which altered earth's albedo and caused more solar radiation to be reflected back into space. The mainstream climate science community at the time was not afraid that the earth was about to go into a new "ice age".

 

Computer models look like reading tea-leaves to see the future as compared to paleoclimate history itself.

 

*facepalm*

 

No, this is what a general circulation model looks like:

 

tbXwRP0CQNA

 

Climate scientists have meticulously reconstructed the earth's climate system in computer simulations and you compare it to reading tea leaves. I suppose the standard model of particle physics looks like reading tarot cards?

 

I can't help but notice that there have been much hotter times in climate and that they were fecund in life while ice ages brought real death, famine and massive population declines (no drum beating or scary scenarios needed).

 

That doesn't change the fact that if the present warming trend continues people in third world countries who already have trouble obtaining safe water for both drinking and irrigation are going to die.

[swansont]

Computer models look like reading tea-leaves to see the future as compared to paleoclimate history itself.

 

Please present something scientifically-based to buttress your position, rather than an appeal to ridicule and handwaving.

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I am one of those that believe the Noah Arc theory a world wide flood.

 

We are not going to go down this path. You can get a pretty thorough treatise on many lines of evidence showing a worldwide flood never happening (not the least of which being the numerous civilizations that didn't seem to notice that they were submerged) at talkorigins.org

 

Please restrict your discussion to science, not myth.