Global warming

[The Double Zero]

The science tells us that if the present rate of greenhouse gas emmissions is maintained, the earths mean temperature will rise by 3 - 4 degrees celsius.
That rise is a fact - and it is incontrovertible.

What pattern any subsequent weather pattern changes are inflicted, as a result of that increase, are largely academic.
What should be concentrating minds is maintaining (or ideally reducing)
current/future temperature increases.
The only way to do this is for the world to cut greenhouse gas emmissions - now.

Surely no one can dispute that global warming is a reality,
Down in Aus we are experiencing the worst drought in history, there has not been any rain of significance for at least 5 years and the official drought situation is over 10 years.
In my town we are on stage 4 water restrictions, water usage for things such as washing cars, watering lawn, hosing gardens etc is banned.
There are bushfires going beserk there has been one burning since Christmas that has burned out millions of hectares.
Farmers are losing their farms as they cant grow anything to make money, it is bad sh*t

 

[limerickman]

Surely no one can dispute that global warming is a reality,

DZ - there are some people who do still deny which is baffling given the evidence before us.

Down in Aus we are experiencing the worst drought in history, there has not been any rain of significance for at least 5 years and the official drought situation is over 10 years.
In my town we are on stage 4 water restrictions, water usage for things such as washing cars, watering lawn, hosing gardens etc is banned.
There are bushfires going beserk there has been one burning since Christmas that has burned out millions of hectares.
Farmers are losing their farms as they cant grow anything to make money, it is bad sh*t

I heard a guy being interviewed on local radio here about the Barrier Reef in Aus.
This scientist has been studying the Reef for the past 15 years and has said that the coral (on the Reef) is literally dying because sea temperatures have risen year on year in that part of the world.

 

[EoinC]

DR was correct - Global warming will not kill Planet Earth - but it'll make it a mite uncomfy for those species who are affected directly, or indirectly, by small climate changes. Some may be worse off (eg humans) and some may be better off (eg non-coastal dwelling ants).
Many of these effects may be hard to quantify - eg Antarctica is a breeding ground for oceanic life. A small change in temperature there has a large effect upon the pace of the local ecosystem (no more penguin pies, fella's). This, in turn, means less availabe food for marine species that feed upon polar marine species. Following the trail, the tuna schools that head South to bulk up may find that McFish's Great Southern 24hr Fast Food Restaurant is closed for business.
OK, so tuna becomes rare and the price goes up. Now the biped tuna-eaters turn their hungry gaze on some other species. Now some species that has not been directly affected by rising sea temperatures has gone from 2nd-rate on the trawler target chart to 1st-rate. Etc, etc.
Humans may think that they are very adaptable (and they are, relatively), but they also like to be comfortable. They can live at under -40º Celsius (but they like to have heating) and they can live at over 40º Celsius (but they like to have airconditioning).
Over the last 150 years, we have not only achieved the release of enormous quantities of greenhouse gases, but we have also managed to significantly deforest large areas of the planet's land masses. Whilst man-made effects may not be the only causes of the current climatic movement, they must at least be a contributing factor.
I can see that I, as a person living in the 20th and 21st Centuries, have had, through my daily life, a larger net impact on the environment than my equivalent would have 150 years ago. I'm guessing that this would apply to a significant proportion of those of us who, through our lifestyles, have access to read and discuss such things.
If you spend any time outside your backyard, you will know that not all of the people of the World enjoy the levels of comfort that we do. If we continue to bask in this comfort without taking some responsibility for its byproducts, our children may find themselves being squeezed out of such comfort.
Strangely, I don't require a scientist to tell me that chopping down a forest, or burning fossil fuels has an effect on the environment - I managed to work that one out all by myself.

 

[Lanc_arm_strong]

Surely no one can dispute that global warming is a reality,
Down in Aus we are experiencing the worst drought in history, there has not been any rain of significance for at least 5 years and the official drought situation is over 10 years.
In my town we are on stage 4 water restrictions, water usage for things such as washing cars, watering lawn, hosing gardens etc is banned.
There are bushfires going beserk there has been one burning since Christmas that has burned out millions of hectares.
Farmers are losing their farms as they cant grow anything to make money, it is bad sh*t

-It is Australia's worst draught in record NOT history.

-Its definatly not the worst bushfires ever recored.

-Farmers have always been losing there farms, in Aus, here, and everywhere else, for a very long time. A lot due to economics, some due to bad buisness management, some due to bad luck. But a lot of buisnesses go bad. So, should the Aus Automotive industry blame Climate Change for its loss of buisness recently? Or is climate change responsible for Aus mining boom?

Climate change may or may not be happening, no scientist actually knows, so how the F*** do some dumb bike riders like us know! My guess is that faced with such uncertainty we are better to address global warming as if it is happening, as its better to be safe then sorry.

But please, no misrepresented faux facts in threads!

 

[EoinC]

...Climate change may or may not be happening, no scientist actually knows...

If we're dealing with semantics, climate change IS happening. Climate change has always happened, as long as there has been a climate to change. I haven't seen any scientific debate on that. The debate is on whether any current change is affected to a small or large degree by human behaviours.
And yes, if no-one can prove empirically one way or the other, erring on the side of caution strikes me as being a sensible and realisable path to follow, particularly when (depending upon how it is managed) it can have several benefits outside of those related to climatic influence.

 

[The Double Zero]

-It is Australia's worst draught in record NOT history.

-Its definatly not the worst bushfires ever recored.

-Farmers have always been losing there farms, in Aus, here, and everywhere else, for a very long time. A lot due to economics, some due to bad buisness management, some due to bad luck. But a lot of buisnesses go bad. So, should the Aus Automotive industry blame Climate Change for its loss of buisness recently? Or is climate change responsible for Aus mining boom?

Climate change may or may not be happening, no scientist actually knows, so how the F*** do some dumb bike riders like us know! My guess is that faced with such uncertainty we are better to address global warming as if it is happening, as its better to be safe then sorry.

But please, no misrepresented faux facts in threads!

Im not here to argue how to save the world, Im looking out the window and saying how things are down here.
This is the worst drought in Australia's recorded history,
Never mentioned that this was the worst bushfire in our history, but its bloody bad, Government has stated that our fire season has started 2 months earlier than normal.
Farmers have been suffering due to significant lack of rain = no crop growth. No business tricks required for that one.

 

[Lanc_arm_strong]

Im not here to argue how to save the world, Im looking out the window and saying how things are down here.
This is the worst drought in Australia's recorded history,
Never mentioned that this was the worst bushfire in our history, but its bloody bad, Government has stated that our fire season has started 2 months earlier than normal.
Farmers have been suffering due to significant lack of rain = no crop growth. No business tricks required for that one.

Drought: But you must understand that the present drought in Australia is not much worse then many in Australias record. Lack of water is caused by a lot of things. One is bad luck, rain justr might not fall in the right places. But population growth coupled with a lack of investment in water supply is actually the main reason. And some parts of Australia, mainly in the north, have experienced GAINS in rainfall!

Farmers: Some parts of Australias farming industry used to be ridiculous, protection, subsidies as well as government handouts during tough times to help inefficient farmers to get through their bad partches in the past. But luckly this attidude has dwindled, so farmers are losing their farms because the Government is not giving them handouts during droughts as it used to! So you see, it is just economics thats behind it!

Bushfires: Less loging of mainland forrests in recent years= Less fire breaks=Worse fires (Also could it be that there are just more lunitics deliberatly lighting fires?)

As an aside its so stupid the way no one really adddress how bad fires are for green house gases?? It seems to me that the easiest, cheapest and quickest way to reduce GHG is to just put fires out quicker?? Perhaps there is more to it, what do you all think?

 

[EoinC]

...It seems to me that the easiest, cheapest and quickest way to reduce GHG is to just put fires out quicker?? Perhaps there is more to it, what do you all think?

Might be difficult if you don't have any water?

 

[Bro Deal]

Ideally, we need to develop a strategy to obtain energy without resorting to fossil fuel sources.

But the core of the green movement is made up of ex- or would-be hippies who believe in fairy tales of economic simplification, like we should all grow organic vegetables and wear clothes made of hemp. When you bring up the obvious solution to the energy problem, which is nuclear power, they freak out.

Kyoto is a fantasy. It's never going to happen in the U.S. Our standard of living is intrinsicly linked to our energy consumption, and there is no way people will voluntarily reduce their standard of living. If you want carbon emissions reduced then you had better have a viable way to substitute for not only the energy that you give up by burning less hydrocarbons but also for the energy growth that is inevitable in the future. Currently nuclear power is the only option.

ndbiker also pointed out a continuing problem with the greens and that is the presence of whackos and chicken littles like Dr. Paul Ehrlich. Ehrlich and his wife have been promoting themselves with tales of doomsday since the late 60s. They went from certain starvation causing the deaths of hundreds of millions to a pollution triggered ice age to nuclear winter. Once global warming came into the public's consciousness they were right at the forefront. Ehrlich was once quoted as saying that the consequences of global warming should be exaggerated so the public would become alarmed enough to do something. Bozos like Ehrlich have done untold harm to the acceptance of global warming.

 

[bikeguy]

But the core of the green movement is made up of ex- or would-be hippies who believe in fairy tales of economic simplification, like we should all grow organic vegetables and wear clothes made of hemp. When you bring up the obvious solution to the energy problem, which is nuclear power, they freak out.

Kyoto is a fantasy. It's never going to happen in the U.S. Our standard of living is intrinsicly linked to our energy consumption, and there is no way people will voluntarily reduce their standard of living. If you want carbon emissions reduced then you had better have a viable way to substitute for not only the energy that you give up by burning less hydrocarbons but also for the energy growth that is inevitable in the future. Currently nuclear power is the only option.

ndbiker also pointed out a continuing problem with the greens and that is the presence of whackos and chicken littles like Dr. Paul Ehrlich. Ehrlich and his wife have been promoting themselves with tales of doomsday since the late 60s. They went from certain starvation causing the deaths of hundreds of millions to a pollution triggered ice age to nuclear winter. Once global warming came into the public's consciousness they were right at the forefront. Ehrlich was once quoted as saying that the consequences of global warming should be exaggerated so the public would become alarmed enough to do something. Bozos like Ehrlich have done untold harm to the acceptance of global warming.

Since I read some of the global weather forums I picked this up:

The complete IPCC report summary is now available: http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

I snipped the following from the .pdf.

Key points:
reprinted without permission, IPCC report summary, Climate Change 2007 : The Physical Science Basis

• Carbon dioxide is the most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas (see Figure SPM-2). The global atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has increased from a pre-industrial value of about 280 ppm to 379 ppm in 2005. The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide in 2005 exceeds by far the natural range over the last 650,000 years (180 to 300 ppm) as determined from ice cores. The annual carbon dioxide concentration growth-rate was larger during the last 10 years (1995 – 2005 average: 1.9 ppm per
year), than it has been since the beginning of continuous direct atmospheric measurements (1960–2005 average: 1.4 ppm per year) although there is year-to-year variability in growth rates.
• The primary source of the increased atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide since the pre-industrial period results from fossil fuel use, with land use change providing another significant but smaller contribution.

year 2099, expected average surface temperature rise globally:

B1 scenario 1.8 +1.1 – +2.9 C
A1T scenario 2.4 +1.4 – +3.8 C
B2 scenario 2.4 +1.4 – +3.8 C
A1B scenario 2.8 +1.7 – +4.4 C
A2 scenario 3.4 +2.0 – +5.4 C
A1FI scenario 4.0 +2.4 – +6.4 C

A1. The A1 storyline and scenario family describes a future world of very rapid economic growth, global population that peaks in mid-century and declines thereafter, and the rapid introduction of new and more efficient technologies.
Major underlying themes are convergence among regions, capacity building and increased cultural and social interactions, with a substantial reduction in regional differences in per capita income. The A1 scenario family develops into three groups that describe alternative directions of technological change in the energy system. The three A1 groups are distinguished by their technological emphasis: fossil intensive (A1FI), non-fossil energy sources
(A1T), or a balance across all sources (A1B) (where balanced is defined as not relying too heavily on one particular energy source, on the assumption that similar improvement rates apply to all energy supply and end use
technologies).

A2. The A2 storyline and scenario family describes a very heterogeneous world. The underlying theme is self reliance and preservation of local identities. Fertility patterns across regions converge very slowly, which results in continuously increasing population. Economic development is primarily regionally oriented and per capita economic growth and technological change more fragmented and slower than other storylines.

B1. The B1 storyline and scenario family describes a convergent world with the same global population, that peaks in mid-century and declines thereafter, as in the A1 storyline, but with rapid change in economic structures toward a service and information economy, with reductions in material intensity and the introduction of clean and resource efficient technologies. The emphasis is on global solutions to economic, social and environmental sustainability,including improved equity, but without additional climate initiatives.

B2. The B2 storyline and scenario family describes a world in which the emphasis is on local solutions to economic, social and environmental sustainability. It is a world with continuously increasing global population, at a rate lower than A2, intermediate levels of economic development, and less rapid and more diverse technological change than in the B1 and A1 storylines. While the scenario is also oriented towards environmental protection and social equity, it focuses on local and regional levels.

An illustrative scenario was chosen for each of the six scenario groups A1B, A1FI, A1T, A2, B1 and B2. All should be considered equally sound.
The SRES scenarios do not include additional climate initiatives, which means that no scenarios are included that explicitly assume implementation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change or the emissions
targets of the Kyoto Protocol.

I'd go with slightly worse than scenario A1B excepting a possible quick fix solution to get rid of the heat.

-bikeguy

 

[Bargearse]

Drought: But you must understand that the present drought in Australia is not much worse then many in Australias record. Lack of water is caused by a lot of things. One is bad luck, rain justr might not fall in the right places. But population growth coupled with a lack of investment in water supply is actually the main reason. And some parts of Australia, mainly in the north, have experienced GAINS in rainfall!

Farmers: Some parts of Australias farming industry used to be ridiculous, protection, subsidies as well as government handouts during tough times to help inefficient farmers to get through their bad partches in the past. But luckly this attidude has dwindled, so farmers are losing their farms because the Government is not giving them handouts during droughts as it used to! So you see, it is just economics thats behind it!

Bushfires: Less loging of mainland forrests in recent years= Less fire breaks=Worse fires (Also could it be that there are just more lunitics deliberatly lighting fires?)

As an aside its so stupid the way no one really adddress how bad fires are for green house gases?? It seems to me that the easiest, cheapest and quickest way to reduce GHG is to just put fires out quicker?? Perhaps there is more to it, what do you all think?

An American giving lectures about subsidies to Australia's farmers? Look in your own backyard!

 

[lumpy]

An American giving lectures about subsidies to Australia's farmers? Look in your own backyard!

Good point

I saw this and thought you Aussies would find it interesting
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/10/story.cfm?c_id=104&objectid=10421763

and this for the rest
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6321351.stm

 

[Lanc_arm_strong]

An American giving lectures about subsidies to Australia's farmers? Look in your own backyard!

I'm part Australian, not by citizenship, but I have spent a few years in Australia. So don't be so assuming In fact I know that that Bargearse was a dubbed old cop show by the Late Show (Working Dog)!!! But yes, American Farmers are just as bad!

 

[Billsworld]

Although local temperatures fluctuate naturally, over the past 50 years the average global temperature has increased at the fastest rate in recorded history. And experts think the trend is accelerating: the 10 hottest years on record have all occurred since 1990. Scientists say that unless we curb global warming emissions, average U.S. temperatures could be 3 to 9 degrees higher by the end of the century.
Global warming is already causing damage in many parts of the United States. In 2002, Colorado, Arizona and Oregon endured their worst wildfire seasons ever. The same year, drought created severe dust storms in Montana, Colorado and Kansas, and floods caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage in Texas, Montana and North Dakota. Since the early 1950s, snow accumulation has declined 60 percent and winter seasons have shortened in some areas of the Cascade Range in Oregon and Washington.

Of course, the impacts of global warming are not limited to the United States. In 2003, extreme heat waves caused more than 20,000 deaths in Europe and more than 1,500 deaths in India. And in what scientists regard as an alarming sign of events to come, the area of the Arctic's perennial polar ice cap is declining at the rate of 9 percent per decade.

# Melting glaciers, early snowmelt and severe droughts will cause more dramatic water shortages in the American West.

# Rising sea levels will lead to coastal flooding on the Eastern seaboard, in Florida, and in other areas, such as the Gulf of Mexico.

# Warmer sea surface temperatures will fuel more intense hurricanes in the southeastern Atlantic and Gulf coasts.

# Forests, farms and cities will face troublesome new pests and more mosquito-borne diseases.

# Disruption of habitats such as coral reefs and alpine meadows could drive many plant and animal species to extinction.



I got that here: http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/f101.asp#2

although you might like this site better: http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/kids/

George Bush is officially the most powerful man in the history of the Universe to cause all that in 6 years. The U.S is evil, the U.S. is evil, the U.S. is evil, the U.S. is evil.......................................bla bla bla

 

[stevebaby]

George Bush is officially the most powerful man in the history of the Universe to cause all that in 6 years. The U.S is evil, the U.S. is evil, the U.S. is evil, the U.S. is evil.......................................bla bla bla

The penny dropped at last....
Well done Bill!
You'll be meeting Ann Coulter before you can say 'Bill's a commie pinko'!

 

[lyotard]

bush is, above all, a **** for his billionaire friends 'n families exploitative agenda, of course this is at the expense of the environment and humanity, a partial list of the former...
www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200409/bush_record_print.asp

The penny dropped at last....
Well done Bill!
You'll be meeting Ann Coulter before you can say 'Bill's a commie pinko'!

 

[Piotr]

Small correction: Science doesn't tell us squat. It's the scientists who depend on government funding that tell us those things. As to science, well, let's find a lone dessenter, because those have historically been right.

Isn't it convenient to predict things 50-100 years in the future where there will be no one to be held liable for that error. If those alarmists are so educated on "global warming" perhaps they could throw us a bone and predict something for the next, say 10 years. Ah wait, they have done that in the past. Unfortunately, they've been so laughably wrong that they thought better of it.

The science tells us that if the present rate of greenhouse gas emmissions is maintained, the earths mean temperature will rise by 3 - 4 degrees celsius.
That rise is a fact - and it is incontrovertible.

What pattern any subsequent weather pattern changes are inflicted, as a result of that increase, are largely academic.
What should be concentrating minds is maintaining (or ideally reducing)
current/future temperature increases.
The only way to do this is for the world to cut greenhouse gas emmissions - now.

 

[Piotr]

This fellow is a bit more eloquent than I:

http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote04.html

 

[steve_18798]

You bet it's real. Look at Windsor Ontario and you'll see a weather pattern thats never been here before as also some places are also getting record snowfalls in just a couple of hours and they say that the world will flood over time. This is also true as the polar ice caps will melt due to climate change that is unusually warm in the north and south poles as huge chunks of ice are breaking off and melting. The Day After Tomorrow anybody?

 

[Piotr]

You bet it's real. Look at Windsor Ontario and you'll see a weather pattern thats never been here before as also some places are also getting record snowfalls in just a couple of hours and they say that the world will flood over time. This is also true as the polar ice caps will melt due to climate change that is unusually warm in the north and south poles as huge chunks of ice are breaking off and melting. The Day After Tomorrow anybody?

Never been there before?! You must've been around a loooong time.

Reminds me of (paraphrasing): The sun will turn dark, the moon will turn into blood, and the stars will fall from the sky in the terrible day of the Lord.

It's time to get biblical people!