[TrashMan]

Can you say chain reaction?

Can you say we're ****ed? Becoause we are...I ain't making no investment plans for hte future...

Alarmist attitudes like that don't help anyone. In fact they tend to polarise people and stunt any constructive discussion, which makes it more difficult for actual progress to be made.

I'd rather call myself a catious realist. Yes, there are things that can be done to minimize the damage, but it can't be avided completely ...not anymore.
CO2 and CH4 (along with steam) heat up our atmosphere, which results in more evaporation.
More avoparation = even more greenhouse gases and even higher temperatures. The melting of large ice surfaces that act like large mirris, deflecting most of Suns radiation hets up things even more..and more ice melts..and more vapor in the atmosphere is released...

Doesn't sound nice, does it? It gets worse..We'll start feeling the effects of all the gases that heat up Earth in a decade or so....Reaction in this case it a bit sluggish when following action, which is even worse for us as it takes us longer to react...and once we do it's allready a bit late.

The best part? If we STOP any and ALL pollution ATM and somehow try to reverse the process by pumpin out O2 and destroying CO2, it will take a 100 years to start feeling the effects of that action...and in the meantime things will continue to get worse and heat up.

You telling me I should happily plan my far future like nothing is happening?

[Mefustae]

You telling me I should happily plan my far future like nothing is happening?

Yes. Just as I am, you are merely one person. Do what you must to contribute to what you believe to be the solution: Take part in initiatives, write letters, or merely spread around the video posted at the beginning of this very thread. These are all constructive ways for you to act, and hence I encourage you to do so.

However, it is not constructive to merely lament over a forlorn future of death and misery. Let me put it this way: Dude, you're a real downer. We've finally got a good-sounding debate going here and you're dragging us all down. Take a pill and relax, man!

[TrashMan]

Who sez I'm not doing anything or not planing to do anything?
The thing is..I'm smart enough not to invest on costal realestate just yet

[IceFire]

Then about the hybrid cars: will not work here. I'm yet to find an electrical system that can withstand temperatures ranging from -40 to 40 degrees of C, including the occasional rain and snowing. I'll again assume this to hold on the countries around the same latitude, meaning that the whole of Canada and Northern part of US, the whole of Scandinavia, half of Russia and northern parts of China cannot make the change. Getting an economic car is not an option if it only works three months of the year. Besides, the manufacturing of the economic car is not that environment friendly as people tend to think, given the complex material processing required. You are effectively transferring the CO2 emission from one place to another, or creating local environmental problems around.

Hybrid cars seem to work just fine here in Canada despite the ridiculous variations in temperature and humidity that we see back and forth although in my area is more from -25 to +35.  What the Toyota Prius doesn't seem to do well on is the slippery back roads...I've heard some stories about some problems with that.  Apparently there's a bulletin out on how to fix them with the Toyota dealerships.   Other hybrids seem to be working out ok too...Civic Hybrid seems fine, I've seen quite a few of the new Camry Hybrids...and the Aura Green Line is due here shortly.  Maybe you mean hydrogen? That IS a problem for the northern latitudes.

[Mika]

Some things regarding water vapour and it's physical properties with the explanations why those properties exist, a must read for anyone who wants to save environment:
http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/16/5/7/3

Personally I found the article quite nice general view article, in which it is mentioned there is actually not much data about the water vapour content in the atmosphere during the years. So all this leads us back to the question we don't know what is going on.

The current temperature could simply be a periodic increase which happens naturally when Earth orbits the sun. This place was once covered with ice, and the sand formations in my country are created by the melting and moving ice. Then, we also have traces of much more hotter climate that has once existed here.

Another study that questions the relationship between Global Warming and increasing CO2 levels [Science]:
http://icebubbles.ucsd.edu/Publications/CaillonTermIII.pdf

It is found that the CO2 concentration is actually lagging 800 years behind the Antarctic glacier temperature. This would suggest that the warming is the reason for more CO2 released in the past (from the sea!), not the other way around. This would be related to the sunspot activity of the sun and the orbital tilting of the Earth, as more Sun energy reaches Earth's surface in places where there is more or less water.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7087/abs/nature04679.html [Nature, something about simulations]

Why CO2 control is a choice of your personal freedoms? Because if you insist US to curb down the CO2 emissions too quickly, they will rapidly bleed of any price advantage over outsourcing countries. Which is because people will buy the cheaper alternative. If US economy goes finally down, all what you consider your personal "freedoms" and "rights" are pretty much over and wont come back. Do you want your grandchildren to live in a future where they are ruled by despotism?

Regardless, there is something that could be done. If actions are taken, US might be able to lower the emissions close to the level of EU (15.3%). Would this save us then? And when you look at the CO2 output statistics, US has had a very controlled output of CO2 for a long time. While China and India managed to grow the output by 50% during last twenty years and combined they rival the US output. And are not likely to slow down pushing out CO2.

There are some necessary CO2 emissions related to the production of energy and transportation in Northern hemisphere. As these are major factors on the northern areas and requiring these to be dropped simply means to abandon the country and seek living from the southern areas. This inevitably leads to an forced influx of people, all because of the possible threat of a Global Warming, of which we can't even be sure if these actions would have any effect. No sane people will decide to move towards southern areas on these grounds. You would have to force them. And then no sane land owner would accept the refugees of possible Global Warming avoidance action, of which we cannot even be sure if it would work. You would have to force them also.

So are there more feasible ideas to decrease CO2 emissions?

The problem with the new land created by the incoming sea is that the water is salty and cannot be used to cultivate the land without using loads of energy to remove the salt. Also, rising sea level will not happen in a fortnight.

Mika

[vyper]

The only problem I can see with the Prius is that it has a piss-poor 1.5L petrol engine in it, so the minute you leave the city it's like there was no point in buying the damned thing because your fuel consumptions sky rockets.

[Ghostavo]

Regardless, there is something that could be done. If actions are taken, US might be able to lower the emissions close to the level of EU (15.3%). Would this save us then? And when you look at the CO2 output statistics, US has had a very controlled output of CO2 for a long time. While China and India managed to grow the output by 50% during last twenty years and combined they rival the US output. And are not likely to slow down pushing out CO2.

Not to be a pain in the ass, but saying that over a third of the population on the planet rivals the US output is not exactly something to be proud of.

[IceFire]

The only problem I can see with the Prius is that it has a piss-poor 1.5L petrol engine in it, so the minute you leave the city it's like there was no point in buying the damned thing because your fuel consumptions sky rockets.

Prius gets 4.9 city and 5.2 highway.  I don't see the skyrocketing fuel consumption?  The electrical engine augments the gasoline engine as well.  Its not engineered to be a hot performing vehicle but I know of a few people that own them and they feel pretty good about the car on the highway.  Its the back roads with the snow that they worry about...and thats about it.

[TrashMan]

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report directly links the temperature rise with increase CO2 concetration... so that crap about solar cycles or some system-wide heat wave is rubbish (the solar cycle has been on the downside sine 1950 and the temperature rise has only been spotted on 4 planets in Sol...not to mention we know very little about those planets climate changes and cycles, so it's a moot point)

[jr2]

I've heard of this before; We used to be a lot warmer than we are now... so what's the big deal?

Washington, Nov. 12.
Two Smithsonian scientists, Charles Schuchert and David White, have just returned from the wilds of west Greenland, bringing back valuable collections. In a region of everlasting ice and snow they have been exploring luxuriant tropical forests. Far to the north of the Arctic circle they have been studying a flora consisting of palms, tree ferns, and other plants belonging properly to the neighborhood of the equator. These forests, however, and the trees and varied forms of plant life which compose them are exceedingly ancient. In fact, they disappeared from the face of the earth several millions of years ago, and only their fossil remains are found buried in the strata of the rocks. It was these remains that Messrs, Schuchert and White went to investigate. They wanted to get specimens for the National Museum, and other objects of a geological nature were in view.

Greenland was once upon a time a tropical country. That is proved absolutely by the remains of an extensive tropical flora which are found there. Where now a sheet of solid ice over a mile thick covers mountain and valley, and mighty frozen rivers called glaciers make their way to the sea and hatch icebergs, there was in earlier days a verdure-clad wilderness of luxuriant vegetation. Together with the palms and tree ferns, there were trees related to the giant sequoias of our own west coast; also representatives of the "gingko," the sacred tree of Japan and of the Eucalyptus family, which today is restricted to Australia. Climbing vines festooned the trunks of these monarchs of an ancient forest with draperies of foliage, while close to the ground grew those curious dwarf trees called "cycads," somewhat resembling palms in miniature, in the midst of a tangled undergrowth of ferns and other flowerless plants that carpted the densely wooded areas.

[MarkN]

The answer is in the sentence 'Greenland was once upon a time a tropical country' according to current plate tectonic theory, Greenland is moving north, having once actually been in the tropics.

[Mefustae]

Indeed, by the same logic I could scream that much of Australia was covered in jungles at one point, but has now been turned to desert. Thus, global warming is happening!

See how silly that sounds?

[jr2]

Well, in that case, obviously global climate change isn't caused by us. 

[Mika]

I'll try to be brief this time:

Hybrid cars are problematic here for three reasons: as said earlier, I'm yet to find an electrical system that will surely work in -30 degrees of Celsius. I would think that the army has the most reliable and tested stuff and even there I encountered problems with the cold. So I find it quite hard to believe there would be a working electrical system in continous -30 degrees (Celsius) of cold that lasts a month. Including the humidity caused by the autumn. The second reason is that there might easily get something like 10 cm of snow on the road. With a petrol engine this is not a problem, but I'm not so sure about electrical / petrol combination. How much torque does the thing output and at what RPMs? Third, what is the working radius (pardon me the term but couldn't figure a better one) of the car? The distance between villages might get quite long in Northern Scandinavia (100 km). Lastly, doesn't anyone else find it at least curious that there were cars in 1985 whose fuel consumption rivalled current "economy" -class cars?

The Greenland has been named around 800 A.D. by the Vikings. I would suspect they had a reason for that. So it has been warmer much more recently, no need to go digging some 20 million years old things. Yesterday I also read that the wood line in Siberia was once at the shore of the Arctic Ocean. Nowadays it has receeded 100 km.

And yes, it indeed seems that the CO2 has lagged the glacier temperature by 800 years before the industrial age - this means it actually has been solar and orbital changes that have caused the climate changes in the past. The article cannot be explained away simply by referring to the UN publication because they don't match in time. As curious as it is, this time the UN publication is claiming that within 90% probability it is the CO2 that is causing the warming this time. Well, the roles might have been reversed, although I'm interested to know why.

However, the reported measurement results of CO2 concentration on the Northern hemisphere would imply that it is indeed Western Countries that have caused it this time. I'm somewhat disappointed I couldn't find a plot that would show the natural output of CO2 in the same graph with the human output for a reference. But that might not be relevant, as the climate is a chaotic system where everything affects everything. Yet life on Earth has survived multiple collisions with asteroids. The effect of those impacts surely exceed those that the human has ever caused. Including the released dust and CO2.

In the UN publication it is also clearly mentioned that both the solar activity and water vapour content have actually increased during this time, but they state that the increase in the solar irradiance on sea level is unlikely to be the cause of the warming. However, indirect forcing effects are actually unknown, and there seem to be a lot of recent publications ranging from 2003-2007 who are actually claiming that the indirect forcing effects are working through UV and have a significant effect which must be taken account. Also in the beginning of the report, I noted that most of the parts that describe the level of scientific understanding is quite low (which is strange considering the 90 % confidence on current theory).

The problem as I understand it, is not that the Earth would not have been warmer before. It has and there has not been that big problems with rising sea levels - or maybe there has been, but the change is comparatively slow so that there has been time to adjust. The problem is that they are predicting that the global temperature would continue to rise. The link I provided last claims that with high probability there would maximally be a 6.2 K rise in the global temperature. Too bad I can only read the abstract, so don't take that as an official truth.

Regarding the combined China and India CO2 output and US CO2 output, here comes the question:
Given the statistically proven values of the current emission levels and the current growth rate of those emissions, where exactly should you be directing your efforts to curb those emissions down to achieve the maximal effect? And how could you do it?

Mika

[Wobble73]

What I'd like to know is why civilisations across the world have the Great Flood story somewhere in their history, be it in their legends, myths or whatever. I see correlations with the scientists of today and Noah, where the people wish to stick their head in the sand and disbelieve!

[TrashMan]

"There's no way we can have that big of a impact on Earth"...I find that argument funny...

It might have been true 100, 200 years ago...but not anymore. Technology does it's thing and we can now influence our own planet more than ever. And that has to have consequences.

[karajorma]

"There's no way we can have that big of a impact on Earth"

Obviously these people have never heard of the term nuclear winter. Yes the cause is different but lets face it, if humans can cause a major climactic change in 30 minutes of nuclear war then it's surely not as big of a stretch to imagine that we can affect it with hundreds of years of more gradual change.

I'd also love to hear their explanations of what the **** global dimming was if not a global climate change caused by humans?

[Colonol Dekker]

*puts a 50p in the leccy' meter*

Global dimming solved.....



Global dimming,? i assume thats a smog based global thing?

[karajorma]

Yep. Particulate matter altering weather patterns and making the world somewhat colder. Ironically it has the effect of slowing down global warming but we've actually taken steps to reduce it cause it causes acid rain.

[Desert Tyrant]

What ever happened to 'better safe than sorry'?

Carpe Diem happened to it.