Posted: Feb 17, 2012 7:58 pm
Acetone wrote:FACT-MAN-2 wrote:Spearthrower wrote:Alan B wrote:That's understandable. The BBC, like any other member of the media circus, hasn't got the science trained staff to really appreciate what the scientists are talking about.
So, since they are in the business of selling news, they opt-out of having to think, and instead they pander to the more 'news-worthy' loud-mouthed illiterati - especially those with money behind them.
But I would like to think better of the BBC.
Sorry, I gave the wrong impression there. I don't mean that Richard Black (the environmental journalist) is to blame, but rather that all his articles are followed by numerous BBC members - membership allows you to comment on articles - who are the most ardent reality-deniers I've ever seen.
Look down to the comments:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17048991
He has a serious following. It doesn't matter if he's writing about tuna stock depletion, these people will write dozens of comments on 'climate alarmism'.
I'd rather expect that many of them are paid to write comments in such venues, yunno, like a nickle a word or something. This is a well known fact of life on many US sites that run a positive line on climate change, they are sometimes overwhelmed with comment posts which are little more than Heartland Institute talking points, the same old blather.
The government's failure to step up to the plate on this and do something about emissions will in future be seen as having been a monstrous crime and a fundamental bit of utter irresponsibility, and the not too distant future, either.
I fully expect the question of GHG emissions to rise to the forefront and become a defining issue for America's future, probably the singlemost defining issue of our time. The pot is just beginning to bubble, in three or fours year it could become a seething cauldron.
Indeed, the question is by that time will any changes we make even matter?
By saying matter I mean to humans. This isn't about taking care of the planet or protecting the planet. The planet is fine and is going to be fine, it's us that are screwed. We've also been screwing up other species of animals on the planet but life on Earth isn't in danger because of us... WE'RE in danger because of us not the planet, not life, not water, not the resources of Earth just us.
So I guess my point is, everything is going to work out in the end, but is it going to work out with humans around or not? Will we face a significant drop in population? I think the only way we can gurantee our survival as a species is acting NOW. Unfortunately I think that we won't change a damn thing until it's too late. At that point any changes we make won't alter the course of humanity's extinction.
Which is normal (extinction events on Earth)... it's just that we've probably had the shortest amount of time as the dominant species on the planet before facing an extinction event which was entirely created by us. So much for intelligence.
As mcgruff notes, the species will survive, although that notion is beginning to look somewhat questionable given recent findings in the behavior of food crop plants in temperatures of 40C and up, wherein photosynthesis is slowed to a crawl or stops altogether and these plants start emitting C02 instead of oxygen, and when you look at a projection of how much of the world will be at 40C or above (on average) in the coming decades, you can't escape the conclusion that food supplies will dwindle and probably even plummet to such low levels that the species will indeed be threatened.
If we managed somehow to completely stop GHG emissions tomorrow, the planet would continue to warm for many decades, probably for a hundred years, before beginning a decline, which would be a slow decline. This of course owes to the tremendous load of GHGs we've already emitted into the atmosphere, which has pushed the concentration of C02 about 45 per cent above its preindustrial norm (270ppm versus 390ppm). This alone would push the global mean average temperature up by at least 2C over the preindustrial norm come the year 2100.
But of course we're not going to stop emitting GHGs any time soon and their concentration in the atmosphere will continue to increase as time passes and this will continue pushing global temps ever upward. The IPCC's worst case scenario shows a 6C increase over the preindustrial norm by the year 2100, and that's simply intolerable to most human life and certainly would bring an end to civilization as we know it. And whether any remnant human population could survive on a desiccated planet with most of its biodiversity gone is a remarkably open question.
And in this, it's unwise to think of humans in isolation from the biosphere. What we need is a Holocene climate with the kind and degree of biodiversity that has existed over the past many hundreds of millennia, the physical context which gave rise to our species in the first place. If the web of life becomes frayed and disheveled and fractured and reduced to any notable degree, our chances of survival are diminished, even greatly diminished. And so we have to pay attention to the entire skein of things and do whatever we can to sustain biodiversity at least at its present level and degree.
This is what we've been ignoring:
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The most significant recent climate change findings are:
Surging greenhouse gas emissions: Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels in 2008 were nearly 40% higher than those in 1990. Even if global emission rates are stabilized at present –day levels, just 20 more years of emissions would give a 25% probability that warming exceeds 2ºC. Even with zero emissions after 2030. Every year of delayed action increase the chances of exceeding 2ºC warming.
Recent global temperatures demonstrate human-based warming: Over the past 25 years temperatures have increased at a rate of 0.19ºC per decade, in every good agreement with predictions based on greenhouse gas inccreases. Even over the past ten years, despite a decrease in solar forcing, the trend continues to be one of warming. Natural, short- term fluctuations are occurring as usual but there have been no significant changes in the underlying
warming trend.
Acceleration of melting of ice-sheets, glaciers and ice-caps: A wide array of satellite and ice measurements now demonstrate beyond doubt that both the Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheets are losing mass at an increasing rate. Melting of glaciers and ice-caps in other parts of the world has also accelerated since 1990.
Rapid Arctic sea-ice decline: Summer-time melting of Arctic sea-ice has accelerated far beyond the expectations of climate models. This area of sea-ice melt during 2007-2009 was about 40% greater than the average prediction from IPCC AR4 climate models.
Current sea-level rise underestimates: [Satellites show great global average sea-level rise (3.4 mm/yr over the past 15 years) to be 80% above past IPCC predictions. This acceleration in sea-level rise is consistent with a doubling in contribution from melting of glaciers, ice caps and the Greenland and West-Antarctic ice-sheets.
Sea-level prediction revised: By 2100, global sea-level is likely to rise at least twice as much as projected by Working Group 1 of the IPCC AR4, for unmitigated emissions it may well exceed 1 meter. The upper limit has been estimated as – 2 meters sea-level rise by 2100. Sea-level will continue to rise for centuries after global temperature have been stabilized and several meters of sea level rise must be expected over the next few centuries.
Delay in action risks irreversible damage: Several vulnerable elements in the climate system (e.g. continental icesheets. Amazon rainforest, West African monsoon and others) could be pushed towards abrupt or irreversible change if warming continues in a business-as-usual way throughout this century. The risk of transgressing critical thresholds (“tipping points”) increase strongly with ongoing climate change. Thus waiting for higher levels of scientific certainty could mean that some tipping points will be crossed before they are recognized.
The turning point must come soon: If global warming is to be limited to a maximum of 2ºC above pre-industrial values, global emissions need to peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline rapidly. To stabilize climate, a decarbonized global society – with near-zero emissions of CO2 and other long-lived greenhouse gases – need to be reached well within this century. More specifically, the average annual per-capita emissions will have to shrink to well under 1 metric ton CO2 by 2050. This is 80-95% below the per-capita emissions in developed nations in 2000.
This is from "The Copenhagan Diagnosis," published in 2010 by the Climate Center at the University of New South Wales in Australia as an update to the IPCC's AR4, published in 2007.
"The turning point must come soon" is the key line here obviously.
We'll never be able to say we weren't warned!
