"Climate scientists often bemoan the imperfect data with which they have to work, particularly when it comes to building pictures of climates past.
If only Homo erectus had invented the weather station and distributed its invention evenly as the species expanded its footprint across Africa and then the world... "
B.B.C. article.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17160660

Homo Britannicus by Christopher Stringer was a nice read about past climates in Britain and its effects on human settlement.

I found the described evidence of practically instant climate shifts (within a 10 years span) rather unsettling.

mindhack wrote:Homo Britannicus by Christopher Stringer was a nice read about past climates in Britain and its effects on human settlement.

I found the described evidence of practically instant climate shifts (within a 10 years span) rather unsettling.

Interesting. I'll look it up. As your Dutch (from your little flag), I understand why climate change would be a worry. The most terrifying thing I ever saw with my own eyes was in Amsterdam town hall. A glass column, about 1m in diamiter reaching several floors in hight, with water in it about six meters above my head.

"What do you think that is?" said my host.
"Errm, modern art?" said I.
"No, thats the hight of the sea."

Shit.
You people are a lot braver than we give you credit for, truely the new Atlanteans!
The Netherlands. Only place in Europe where its a capital crime to joke "Do you here water running?".

haha, no bravery involved I assure you, only skilled engineers and people paying their water-management tax (currently 270 E annually per household ).

One day we'll lose the fight if sea levels would continue to rise. We're already conceding actually. Polders in less populated areas have recently been assigned to be flooded in case excessive rain and thus rivers threaten the Randstad. It's not what worries me though. It's the threat of global fresh water shortage that gets me (and all the climate refugees and social tensions that follow from it)

Besides, if you were to read my suggested book you'd also worry about climates changing. Assuming you're british you might be visited by a giant ice sheet one day

mindhack wrote:haha, no bravery involved I assure you, only skilled engineers and people paying their water-management tax (currently 270 E annually per household ).

One day we'll lose the fight if sea levels would continue to rise. We're already conceding actually. Polders in less populated areas have recently been assigned to be flooded in case excessive rain and thus rivers threaten the Randstad. It's not what worries me though. It's the threat of global fresh water shortage that gets me (and all the climate refugees and social tensions that follow from it)

Besides, if you were to read my suggested book you'd also worry about climates changing. Assuming you're british you might be visited by a giant ice sheet one day

Every last human on the planet should be worried about climate change, which has already started and will keep steadily coming and become progressively worse as time passes, there doesn't seem to be much doubt about this. We've but a very small window remaining before it will be too late to prevent a temperature rise by the year 2080 or 2090 that humans will find very difficult to deal with, a 4 to 6C increase over the preindustrial norm.

Many have been lulled to sleep on this and because the action required to bend the curve down a little and keep warming below a 4 to 6C rise involves burning fewer fossil fuels, and that's a $10 trillion a year industry with enormous clout, they are seeing to it that we do nothing. Anything for a buck, eh?

Holland's gonna be unrecognizeable come the year 2150, if it doesn't become so before that time. Ditto Britain. Ditto the Globe.

Regardless of where they may live, humans are in for a very rough road ahead as we leave the comforts of the Holocene and enter the ravages of the Anthropocene.

Buckle up!