Billions Face Risks From Climate Change 659
gollum123 writes with a link to a kind of grim BBC story. According to a report drawn up by 'hundreds of international environmental experts', billions of people face drought and famine, as well as an increase in natural disasters, as a result of climate change. Individuals in the poorest countries face the most danger, due to a lack of infrastructure and geographic location. "The scientific work reviewed by IPCC scientists includes more than 29,000 pieces of data on observed changes in physical and biological aspects of the natural world. Eighty-nine percent of these, it believes, are consistent with a warming world. Several delegations, including the US, Saudi Arabia, China and India, had asked for the final version to reflect less certainty than the draft."
Big mirror (Score:1, Interesting)
When has the climate not changed? (Score:1, Interesting)
II'd say the biggest difference now is that we subsidize people to live on shorelines and flood plains. Before we go crazy on carbon emissions, we should dump federal flood insurance and stop incentivizing people to live in stupid places.
Billions (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.thegeorgiaguidestones.com/Message.htm [thegeorgia...stones.com]
1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
More Hysteria (Score:1, Interesting)
In the 1970's, the worry was Global Cooling, because global temps were on a down swing, so we're all going to die. Now they're tending upwards, so we're all going to die. Oh, and there was an Ozone Hole, so we're all going to die. You get the idea.
The global temps were much warmer than today from the 1300's to 1500's. Greenland was actually green and you could grow grapes in Scotland. The 1600's saw a cool period -- see Maunder Minimum [wikipedia.org]. Around 14,000 years ago, when Europe, northern Asia and North America were under the ice, Egypt and North Africa were grassy plains. Therer were plenty of rivers through the Saraha, and the Qatar Depression was a lake. The ice age ended and the climate changed. Guess what -- animals and people moved along with it. The melted ice cap meant the oceans rose a few hundred feet, so the coastline changed too. Polar bears still know how to swim.
The Carbon Dioxde and temperature pattern are correlated, but from Statistics 101, day 1, Correlation is NOT causation. BTW -- warmer conditions mean more plant growth, so more C02 is a likely RESULT of a temperature rise, not a percussor. WATER VAPOR is the earth's primary "greenhouse" gas, and many times more significant than C02, because Water Vapor forms CLOUDS.
Without the atmosphere, the earth's blackbody temp would be 255K/-18C/0F. The atmosphere [lwr.kth.se] makes the effective temperature 288K/15C/59F, which is why 15C is part of the International Standard Atmosphere [usyd.edu.au].
The point is that warming and cooling are going to come and go because solar cycles come and go. The last 14,000 years or so have been (mostly) warming -- the most recent (of many) ice ages ended. No doubt things will continue to fluctuate, and so what? We'll adapt.
If you were able to watch UK Channel 4's "The Great Global Warming Swindle" [channel4.com], it's been pulled from YouTube for copyright issues. Pity. It was spot on.
Re:When has the climate not changed? (Score:2, Interesting)
Just an interesting little aside... If you took everyone in the world - all 6.5 billion of us, and put us on the land in Texas, we'd be less dense than New York City.
There really IS a lot of land out there...
Re:More Hysteria (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, a small number of cranks were pushing the global cooling story, while the overwhelming consensus of climate scientists was that it was not going to happen.
Now they're tending upwards, so we're all going to die.
See above, but vice-versa.
Oh, and there was an Ozone Hole, so we're all going to die.
Remember how we all stopped using chlorofluorocarbons?
The ice age ended and the climate changed. Guess what -- animals and people moved along with it.
OK, that works for a few thousand cavemen. Now do it with a billion.
If you were able to watch UK Channel 4's "The Great Global Warming Swindle", it's been pulled from YouTube for copyright issues. Pity. It was spot on.
Not according to Carl Wunsch [mit.edu], the oceanographer featured prominently in that show, who says it misrepresented him completely.
Re:MOd this person down (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Big mirror (Score:4, Interesting)
The department of transportation started coating the freeways in the Phoenix metropolitan area with Rubberized Asphalt [azdot.gov] a few years back. At first I was like, "brilliant, dudes, brilliant", as the rubberized freeways are much blacker than they were before, and I assumed that this would increase the urban heat island effect.
Then I read about a group who actually had some numbers. They had an infrared satellite picture of the Valley of the Sun pre- and post-rubberization. In the before photo, you could clearly see where the freeways ran, as they were glowing bright orange. But in the after photo, the freeways were all black. The rubberized asphalt does not conduct heat very well, and while it does get hotter during the day (140+ deg. F, iirc), it cools down much quicker at night.
Rubberized asphalt is only good for freeways, where there won't be any pedestrians...
Re:When has the climate not changed? (Score:3, Interesting)
For food, well, the Vegans (not that I am one - I believe in being an omnivore!) say you can feed a person with 700 square meters of farmland [vegansociety.com]. So that means that 1 square kilometer will feed 1400 people.
Now, the US has approximately 950 million square acres of farmland [nationsencyclopedia.com], which is around 3.9 million square kilometers. That would support 5.4 billion people. Add in a bit more farmland from northern Mexico or Canada, and we have enough space here in North America for the entire population AND the farmland to support it.
Meaning that - if we really wanted to - we could leave the other 6 continents - and a large portion of North America - empty, untouched, unused.
Re:It is almost completely natural phenomena (Score:2, Interesting)
plants are sensitive to temperature and water availability, and also cleanse co2 from the atmosphere.
A lot of solar radiation is reflected back into space and not retained in the atmosphere, though that percentage grows with co2.
so.. the increases in direct solar radiation from the sun's cycles cause greater evaporation rates and therefore large patches of drought, less plants grow, less co2 is absorbed, this persistent co2 holds in more heat.
the sun cycle abates, the direct solar radiation decreases, more water is available and those drought areas shrink.. more plants grow and absorb more co2.
additionally, others have pointed out it's been lab tested, and their previous results with the ozone layer give them more credibility than parties with obvious conflicts of interest trying to inflate anything else as the cause.
so now we have a new force creating co2 and eliminating foliage, human industrialization, and surprise, the global temperature is rising, but this time the co2 is continuing to rise, where do you think the global temperature is going to go as we make the greenhouse blanket thicker.
i really wish gore had shown the R^2 value for the model (or did i simply forget he did), that would have put such arguments to rest already.. if it was high these people would have no leg to stand on.
Re:When has the climate not changed? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a ridiculous argument. The climate is always changing, the fear is that it's going to change very fast, and that it's the result of our actions.
And people living on shorelines has nothing to do with subsidies. Population centers have always formed on shorelines for as long as human civilization has existed. Hint: fishing and shipping. Moving everyone away from shores would be ludicrously more expensive than any emmissions control.
Re:It is almost completely natural phenomena (Score:2, Interesting)
Interesting choice of words. CO2 is not a pollutant, so it should not be verbed as "cleanse".
so now we have a new force creating co2 and eliminating foliage, human industrialization, and surprise, the global temperature is rising, but this time the co2 is continuing to rise, where do you think the global temperature is going to go as we make the greenhouse blanket thicker
Yes mankind is producing more CO2, but still it's insignificant compared to other natural sources such as volcanoes and vegetative decay. Your views on our industrialization, and the slightly increasing temperature is a loose correlation. The planet is warming up a bit because of increased solar flux, and not man-made CO2. That's what the data says.
Other fun facts:
water is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 (by A LOT)
the ocean releases a lot of dissolved CO2 when it gets warmed up! so as solar flux increases, the atmospheric CO2 goes up a bit. atmospheric CO2 is not doing the warming.
no offence but get a fucking clue (Score:4, Interesting)
Consider, over 80% of fish in the oceans are under threat from extinction due to over fishing.
Consider, there is currently a honey bee plague that is killing up to 90% of hive populations in N. America. How fucked up is that?
Ground water is being used up at unsustainable rates in China and India. --- as well as in all developed countries
See, most people in the west don't hear about these disasters that are *happening* right now because they don't effect most of us... yet.
But everything is connected and eventually the shit is really going to hit the fan.
I live and work in Kenya and experienced the drought last here personally. Picture every day thousands of people carrying a small 5 gallon pail on their head, leaving slums in search of a little bit of water. Picture starving cattle --- so thin you can count their ribs, being driven into the city center to graze upon grass in the ditches and in parks. That is if they don't just drop dead on the side of the highway. (during the drought I saw...and smelled dozens of rotting carcases littering along the highway).
I"m an optimist at heart. Human can solve their problems, but MOST people have no FUCKING clue of what is happening and how it will get MUCH worse.
I'll tell you what though, democracy as we know will change. Governments WILL ration what we eat, drink, and manage the energy we consume. In developing countries this is the NORM. Soon it will be the norm everywhere. Doom and gloom??? No, just REALITY.
The simple truth is that most people are greedy bastards and will do all they can to enrich themselves and damn everyone else. I mean WTF, we are only on this earth for 60 odd years, so who cares right?
This is the world we have made for ourselves, we all have to educate ourselves and everyone needs to make better choices. However, I think increasingly we will need to rely on our governments to carry out responsible mandates if FREEDOM as well as EQUITY are to survive what is coming.
As a Canadian I have to DISAGREE (Score:4, Interesting)
Lets start with the great lakes...polluted mess. They are full of non-native species that are killing off all those beautiful fish that used to be there, not that it matters with all the toxic runnoff from factories and pulp and paper mills.
Speaking of pulp and paper mills, have you ever taken a plane trip over the coast of British Columbia? Its a mighty depressing sight to see the checkered landscape from all the clear cutting. Where do you think all that wood comes from that gets dumped on the US market? Sure...some is being replanted. Just come back in a century or two when it grows back ;(
What about Alberta...yikes they are strip mining the whole province as fast as they can to get at all that oil. DO I even dare mention the ENORMOUS quantities of water they are using in the process? It might just make you sick. (I grew up in Alberta)
I'll tell ya something else about Canada...we are getting pretty damn selective about who can emigrate. Not that I agree with it mind you. But Unless you are educated and have a good amount of money, chances are you will have difficulty in getting into the country...let alone getting a job or buying land. Ha! Homesteading? What is this the 19th century? There are no small time farmers left in the prairies --- they have all gone corporate long ago. Planting vast tracts of genetically altered sunflower seeds and other USELESS products so we can eat our fast food and become even more obese.
I'll tell ya though, I lived in the northwest territories (north of 60) for several years and THAT my friend is what I call untouched wilderness, complete with killer bears, herds of buffalo, and northern lights so close to the ground that you can almost touch them. But its damn cold.
Anyway, in summary,
Canada has a poor environmental record. Its just that we are such a FREAKIN huge country that most people don't notice. But trust me, our giga corps are doing their best to rape our land as they are yours.
Re:Big mirror (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:And the upsides? (Score:3, Interesting)
Defrosting Siberia is the last thing you want to do.
Some estimates say that 70 billion metric tons of methane will be released into the atmosphere when/if the siberian permafrost melts. This equals approx. 1500 billion tons of CO2, or 55 years of emissions at current rate.
Google for "global warming feedback loops" for more info.
HAND
Boa
Re:There was an article in the Oregonian about thi (Score:3, Interesting)
If the resource changes, we may well end up adding more infrastructure to use it more efficiently. Also, census data show several eastern (desert) counties losing population, while Willamette Valley populations are growing rapidly.
*Nothing* Marxist Hacker 42 posted was trollish.
The elevation of Florida (Score:3, Interesting)
The highest point in Florida according to this page [netstate.com] is Britton Hill, at 345 Ft. According to this page [maps-n-stats.com] the highest city is 500 feet. The average elevation of the entire state is 100 feet.
From the Army Corps of Engineers: hot topic [army.mil]
Today the lake is at 10.166 Feet above NGVD29. Historically, the elevation of this fourth largest lake inside the US has been as little as 10 feet above NGVD29 (mean sea level as measured in 1929). Review the part above about "very low levels" again.
From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
Now do the math. Even if your "one foot in the next 50 years" is accurate, one foot is very significant when high tide and storm surge is already enough to put a 150 mile wide swath of your home state under seven feet of seawater. The numbers I've been reading are not one foot. I'm hearing a meter or two. At that rate one good hurricane could remove the part of southern florida that survives from the mainland entirely. None of this considers an Atlantic Tsunami, which has happened and is predicted to happen again and would just wash right over central florida barely slowing down.
If you're reading this from south Florida, you should consider carefully your choice to stay where you are.