Hugh Pickens writes "The president of the Maldives and 11 ministers, decked out in scuba gear, held a cabinet meeting 4m underwater to highlight the threat of global warming to the low-lying Indian Ocean nation. While officials said the event itself was light-hearted, the idea is to focus on the plight of the Maldives, where rising sea levels threaten to make the nation uninhabitable by the end of the century. President Mohamed Nasheed and his cabinet spent half an hour on the sea bed, communicating with white boards and hand signals and signed a document calling for global cuts in carbon emissions. The Maldives has already begun to divert a portion of the country's billion-dollar annual tourist revenue to buy a new homeland as an insurance policy against climate change that threatens to turn the 300,000 islanders into environmental refugees. Emerging out of the water, a dripping President Nasheed removed his mask to answer questions from reporters and photographers crowded around on the shore. 'We are trying to send a message to the world about what is happening and what would happen to the Maldives if climate change isn't checked,' he said, bobbing around in the water with his team of ministers. 'If the Maldives is not saved, today we do not feel there is much chance for the rest of the world.'"
More so than you even intended. If Maldives goes under water, 1 billion dollars a YEAR will be lost. Literally, all the tourism "goods" that Maldives can generate will disappear.
While one can feel sorry for the citizens of the Maldives, the simple fact is that it isn't very good long term planning to build permanent domiciles in a place which is 1.5 meters above what the water surface is at the moment. In many places that might leave you with your house submerged after a heavy rainfall. It's not an uncommon mistake, places from London through New Orleans and the Netherlands have been flooded and put partially under water from time to time.
While one can feel sorry for the citizens of the Maldives, the simple fact is that it isn't very good long term planning to build permanent domiciles in a place which is 1.5 meters above what the water surface is at the moment. In many places that might leave you with your house submerged after a heavy rainfall.
They've been living there quite happily for roughly 2000 years; I'd call that doing okay in the long term. Rainfall isn't really a problem, because, see, these are islands, and rain sort of goes down into the ocean. There's no hurricane season, so that's not much of an issue to my knowledge. The occasional tsunami is devastating, but the trade-off is easy access to shipping, a forgiving climate, and lots of seafood, which to many is worth the risk.
In that light I'm not sure it's appropriate to regard it as lost revenue, but rather a limited time opportunity which can and has been exploited.
Can't disagree with you there, except inasmuch as saying it "has been" exploited. Oceans are rising at about 3 mm/year, so while there's cause for concern and planning, I don't think they need to evacuate just yet. As noted in the summary, they're quite wisely diversifying their investment by trying to buy an emergency backup homeland.
All in all, the sea level rise is the same pace for over 150 years.
Nonsense.
http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/sl_hist_few_hundred.html [csiro.au] (The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation is Australia's national science agency and one of the largest and most diverse research agencies in the world.)
Quote: "We have used a combination of historical tide-gauge data and satellite-altimeter data to estimate global averaged sea level change from 1870 to 2004. During this period, global-averag
No one's listening, OK. Perhaps you might considering enriching uranium instead. Squeaky wheel gets the grease and all that. You words might have more urgency if they were backed by NUCLEAR FORCE. That's all I'm saying...
I'm listening, many of the readers on/. are listening, many people around the world are listening. It was clever stunt that got a lot of international attention and it's a good step in the right direction. We can only hope that's it's not a loosing battle. For my part, I support any legislation aimed at CO2 reduction; hopefully after hearing about the Maldives more people will do the same.
People need to be less cynical, even at the expense of a "funny" mod.
Sorry I meant people who could actually do something about the problem. I'm not convinced that anyone they've talked to thus far can, anyway. To be perfectly serious for a moment, it would be a bad idea for Maldives to rely on anyone else to solve this problem or to prevent the potential catastrophe they're facing. The whole "We're going to buy as a new homeland" thing is a good start, but they're talking about moving a nation of people and it's possibly only a couple of decades before things start going downhill.
Have they even scoped out a new homeland yet? If not, may I suggest Utah? No one's using it at the moment, if my last drive through there is any indication...
yeah right they are going to buy a new homeland. that money shall land in the pockets of politicians and the islanders will shake their fists at westerners and make bombs, because brave president whatever his name was, tried to show us.
No amount of CO2 cutbacks is going to stop climate change and the sea levels rising, even if CO2 emissions dropped to zero tomorrow. The relevant time constants are from hundreds to thousands of years.
This pretty much highlights how it's all primarily a media circus and political game. The science is lost entirely in the noise.
Are you suggesting that it's an entirely non-man-made catastrophe, which was in the works long before industrialism? If so, got any citations to back that up? If not, will you clarify?
No, I think he's suggesting that there is no catastrophe. The Maldives are 1 metre above sea-level because they are coral atolls. When the sea-levels rise (as they have done in the past, the coral simply grows upwards - when the sea-level falls, the coral erodes, leaving them constantly about a metre above sea-level.
No, I think he's suggesting that there is no catastrophe. The Maldives are 1 metre above sea-level because they are coral atolls. When the sea-levels rise (as they have done in the past, the coral simply grows upwards - when the sea-level falls, the coral erodes, leaving them constantly about a metre above sea-level.
Well shit, maybe you should tell the leaders of the Maldives about that! I mean, they've spent, like, millions of dollars trying to find a solution. I guess if they only thought to ask you the
P.S. Corals worldwide are dying. The two culprits fingered so far are rising oceanic acidity (caused by excessive atmospheric CO2 being gas-exchang'd right into the ocean) and human herpes simplex viruses, which apparently kill off some of the important organisms responsible for helping to build and maintain coral.
The Ocean is not becomming "more acidic". It's still very alkaline.
The car is not going slower, it's going 200 mph! Or in other words, you're an ass. Is this the kind of thing you bring up in ordinary conversation? You must be a hit at parties. I'd hit you twice.
You should say "over the very brief period of time we've been testing the PH of the ocean with any degree of accuracy, it's alkalinity has decreased by a very small amount. We have no way of knowing whether or not this is a natural cycle, or whether or not the measurements we take today, with different instruments from yester-year, account for the difference;
This is extremely disingenuous. It's the same retarded argument as "even though we know CO2 is a greenhouse gas and we put out ten times more CO2 than volcanism every year, and we know volcanism to be a major driver of global CO2, we don't believe that there is a greenhouse effect, and by the way global temperatures have only risen a little over one degree, that's a tiny shift!" But it's a fucking stupid statement because 99% of everything interesting on the planet occurs in a narrow temperature range, and by the same token, the ocean functions in a very small Ph range.
in any case, we're pretty sure life in the Ocean will adapt to such a small change with relative ease,
You are either ignorant or outright lying, since we know that small shifts in Ph have severe ramifications for much ocean life, including all marine mammals, and especially including coral reefs (where most of the ocean's diversity is) and algae (where most of the world's oxygen comes from.) Why don't you stop spreading the lies of the deniers? We're not even in Egypt... although, come to mention it, have you seen the Nile?
There is no link that says that we put out 10 times as much CO2 as volcanoes, because that statement is wrong, but not in the way that you think. The difference is much, much higher.
A 1991 study[1] put the annual volcanic contribution of atmospheric CO2 at 4E12 mol/year, or 176 million tons. Annual worldwide carbon dioxide emissions are around 27 billion metric tons; the US power industry alone produces more than 2.4 billion tons.[2] The factor between worldwide volcanic and human emissions of CO2 is actually around 150.
Absolute nonsense. Scientist have pretty good ideas of what the PH levels have been based on oceanic deposits over time. It may not give the finest granularity but it provides insights into how the ocean chemistry has changed over the planet's history. Tie that into the fossil record and it's not hard to make some decent approximations to how life forms evolved with the oceans over long time scales.
And more to the point, there is no "ideal" anything. There are ideal conditions for humans to survive. T
Troll.
Absolute nonsense. Scientist have pretty good ideas of what the PH levels have been based on oceanic deposits over time. It may not give the finest granularity but it provides insights into how the ocean chemistry has changed over the planet's history. Tie that into the fossil record and it's not hard to make some decent approximations to how life forms evolved with the oceans over long time scales.
Remember, a troll is not someone who disagrees with you. The fact of the matter is that although pH
With respect to credible evidence, here's the problem: there is no credible evidence on the side of those linking man, co2 and temperature.
This is provably false. We have evidence linking CO2 and man, and we have evidence linking CO2 and temperature. We know about how fast suboceanic limestone can remove CO2 from the water (the primary fixer of oceanic CO2) and we know that limit has been exceeded. We can even make a pretty good estimate of how much CO2 is produced by human activities. We also know beyond the shadow of a doubt that human activity has had a negative effect on CO2 fixing; for instance, there's more wooded acres in the USA, but p
Corals grow within very narrow limits of temperature, irradiance, salinity, pH and turbidity; all variables which are influenced by climate and weather. More CO2 means more acidic ocean water, which would retard coral growth. Warmer oceans would also reduce carbonate ion saturation, having the same effect.
While coral does grow like that, upwards in times of higher sea level, they are unable to do so unless the atoll is covered with water. Coral grows on top of an existing coral base, not from the base. There are islands in the West Indies that have coral terraces gaining heights of 60 or 70 meters above sea level. They are not being pushed up, the sea level has dropped by that much since the first (top level) terrace was formed. Kind of puts things in perspective, i.e. how low sea level actually is today.
also temperature shocks (like 1998 el nino) make the coral symbiosis into a parasitic situation and now-harmful zoanthids are expelled from the structure leading to "bleached coral sydrome". This dead coral has nothing to repair the small cracks & so breaks up after the next year or two of storms.
Basically the coral can't adapt fast enough and it may be 1000 years before it's back on track. By which time it has sunk far enough below the exponential decay of underwater sunlight not to regenerate back up to the surface with any great pace. Wave energy probably doesn't get below 100m depth, while the smallest amount of sunlight may make it down that far, so there is some hope for eventual regeneration.
Your source is not evidence at all. McIntyre and McKitrick published their article, it had statistical mistakes in it, and the mistakes were never corrected.
I applaud McIntyre and McKitrick for making pretty much the only skeptic argument within the scientific discourse. You see, skeptics don't actually practice science, but rather, they write articles like the one above. They sound impressive, but if you dig beneath the surface, you'll find nothing but echoes of already discredited arguments. I highly r
I totally agree. I loved it when I watched a Dutch talkshow about a year ago where some 'experts' were talking about global warming and one guy said: "Look guys, I have two graphs here. In the first graph you can see the global warming measured per year. In the second paragraph you can see the carbondioxide emissions meassured per year. Now let's fold these two together, shall we?" And they totally did not match. Man that guy made my fucking day!
Under what mathematical law does the fact that two graphs don't look the same mean that they are not related? This is really sad: Experts spend years analyzing the data, come to an extremely complicated conclusion based on mountains of evidence, and then someone who has not the slightest fucking clue about science or mathematics walks in and says "But those graphs look different!" and decides those experts are all wrong. And worse, other people who share this guy's lack of clue believe his argument because it's the only one simple enough for them to understand.
Roughly speaking, more CO2 in the atmosphere causes the temperature to rise faster, and yearly CO2 emissions are adding to what is already there. So the CO2 emissions graph is something like the second derivative of the temperature graph. That means that if we keep emitting CO2 at a constant rate (flat graph) then temperatures will rise faster and faster over time (quadratic curve). Yeah, the graphs don't look the same, but they are related. (And in reality it's much more complicated than this.)
extra tree growth (which will come to haunt us later when those trees decay and the limit of extra tree growth caused by higher CO2 levels is reached) You're right! lets cut down all the rain forests to prevent that disaster from happening.
It is certainly true that climate change due to anthropogenic causes is now inevitable - it's already happening, and, as you say, even if we went straight to zero (net) emissions, the imbalance we have created will take a long time to rebalance. The temperature has already risen by 0.75 degrees - 2 degrees is in the zone which scientists call 'dangerous' climate change - we are nearly half way there already.
However, drastic cutbacks in our emissions are inevitable. Option 1 is to make those cutbacks now.
This is the argument of the Stern review [wikipedia.org] conducted by the UK government.
The problem is that the cost of reducing CO2 is largely unknown, as is the damage caused to the global economy. So this trade off between now and later is largely based on which made-up numbers you put into the balance.
One thing is pretty clear; if we want to reduce carbon emissions, we need to put a price on CO2, and it needs to rise fast. And it will be painful. Will it be more painful than the consequences of global warming? Who know
yeah, it's better if we do nothing but get really drunk and mock the folks who are trying to do something to save your sorry ass.
It's the can-do attitude which made America what it is today!
We may not be able to alter the momentum for 50 years from now at this point, but we can do a lot to affect it 500 years from now, probably no less than saving civilization in the process. One thing is for sure, if you never try you'll never achieve anything.
by Anonymous Coward
on Sunday October 18, @05:53AM (#29783117)
I have no sympathy for a country that forces its people to convert to islam and subjects almost 1/3 of the population to a form of serfdom. In addition if you are not a muslim and a native then you are either executed, imprisoned or expelled. Finally the country is extremely racist when it comes to non-muslims. I've had the unfortunate pleasure of being sent to the main island a few times for work. While the country is very pretty the people are not with the exception of the lowly peasants.
The following interview Dr. Nils-Axel Morner, a Swedisch expert on sea-level geophysics, explains how the data has been misrepresented to feed the global warming scare http://www.climatechangefacts.info/ClimateChangeDocuments/NilsAxelMornerinterview.pdf [climatechangefacts.info]. The reality is that little has happened to the sea level over the past decades.
The reality is that little has happened to the sea level over the past decades.
Just as a quick math problem, why don't you figure out how many gallons of water are represented by a one inch rise in sea level. Now calculate how many gallons of water will be added to the ocean when the ice on top of Alaska and Greenland finishes melting. A small delta can be extremely relevant.
P.S. It doesn't matter if the floating ice masses grow during this time, for the same reason that ocean level rise can't be driven by floating ice melting. Don't forget to forget to take that into account.
A rather discredited expert. Anyone want to take his course on dowsing?
The site (ClimateChangeFacts) reads like any other number of "skeptic" sites. Lots of speculation backed by bogus claims and zero peer reviewed research to back up their claims.
I want a model, skeptics. I want a scientifically valid atmospheric dynamics model that shows that increasing the amount of CO2 does not impact global climate and yet still explains our observational data. Go ahead. I'll wait.
I have an idea. Let's do the same in Australia. The way our politicians carry on booing, jeering, calling each other names and such is disgraceful. (Actually I'm resisting the urge to suggest a 1 hour meeting under water WITHOUT the scuba gear). I guess it's similar the world over. No wonder we're in the economic, social and environmental crapper.
Right now, everybody is after the west (including the west) to address Climage change and help little nations deal with this. Mostly by putting cap/trad on OUR energy to address this. But will it work?
it would work if all else remains static. Sadly, that is not the case. China is adding 1-2 NEW COAL PLANTS EACH WEEK. These are.5GW size plants. Worse, the coal is inferior coal. It is very low grade coal with heavy pollutants. Then add in the new cars and oil based transportation that is happening in China.
Even with the growth in hydro and wind and Solar and Nukes that China is planning, if they continue this course, they will exceed ALL OF AMERICA's emission by 2015. By 2018, they will exceed ALL OF America's AND Western EU. By 2020 (11 very short years), they will account for slightly more than 1/2 of all of the CO2 that man has emitted through history. IOW, all of the cuts that we do, will be worthless.
But it still get worse. In particular, once we push Cap/trade, other nations will have a strong incentive to grab our manufacturing. And who will be pushing "cheap" coal plants? GE coal and other companies. Many companies will work to take advantage of the difference in prices (labor and energy).
So, with knowing the above, how do drop the emissions and solve the climate change issues?
Here is my idea.
All western countries need to cap their single point emissions right away. IOW, no increase in emissions from Coal, Cement, etc. Obviously, emissions from transportation (which is diffuse emissions and difficult to control). Ideally, other nations would join, but that is not likely. But the west CAN and should cap it.
Put a sliding tax on ALL GOODS at point of retail sale. It must be based on CO2 emissions FROM THE COUNTRY of main assembly AND the main material AND the transportation of item. Base the CO2 emissions from satellite. The tax needs to be applied as a percentage based on the above items.
For example, assume something is assembled in Canada, from Canadian oil. Canada has one of the lower emissions in terms of size as well as high efficiency in terms of GDP. In addition, the transportation costs are extremely low, assuming rail. As such, they may have to pay only 5% of whatever the tax is.
OTH, China has moderate amount of emissions based on size, HOWEVER, is one of the lowest efficiency in emissions/GDP. In addition, it has extremely high transportation costs (rail in China, then boat to here, and then rail around). As such, they would have 90-100% of the tax.
American goods made here have a moderate emissions per land and moderate efficient emissions. OTH, our transportation emissions are minor. As such, we might see 30-40% of the tax.
Several points on this:
This must be applied to ALL GOODS. If we apply it only to imported goods, then it will be illegal per WTO. Likewise, if we apply it only to local goods, it would simply be the same as the Dem's Cap/Trade; Worthless.
It really needs to be a sliding scale to reward those nations that clean up their act.
the base tax MUST start low to not kill economies and then INCREASE over time. If a business knows that the tax will increase, it gives them time to adjust their plans. If we hit it fast with high taxes, it will destroy economies.
Ideally, this same approach is used for a number of pollutants. For example, Mercury is one that is screaming to be controlled. China is the largest polluter of it and it will continue to increase with the coal. Likewise, the same is true of their SO* emissions. By applying a slowly increasing tax on nations based on their emissions, we can encourage ALL NATIONS to change.
One last point. Many nations will scream that they should be exempt because they are Developing nations. If that is done, it will simply encourage them to have lower costs goods by cheating. In addition, nearly all of the smaller developing nations HAVE low emissions. They would be at the low end of the tax.
As evidence mounts that catastrophic anthropogenic global warming isn't the disaster the chicken littles have been preaching for the last 2 decades, the more dramatic, outlandish, and shrill the commentary will become. Expect to see more of these stunts from both countries and entities expecting to receive a big pay day from the industrialized nations, while the evidence points to a theory that needs serious revising and models that aren't very accurate at the most basic of predictions.
To date a lot of the proxy data [climateaudit.org] used to bolster the claim that the observed warming trend was "unprecedented" turns out to be extremely poorly put together. The recent Briffa revelations are so bad and Briffa so resistant to releasing his data (which is contrary to scientific methodology) that one has to wonder if there was deliberate fraud. In climate research this has happened before. The original, discredited Mann hockey stick was another example where a researcher refused to release both data and methodology, and when forced to told the world that data was lost (until it was found by accident on his FTP server [climateaudit.org]). Both examples are indications that peer review in some fields is nothing more than a cliquish acceptance of a forgone conclusion.
Perhaps this stunt will bring attention to the matter that current understanding of AGW is poor at best and that current climate models are woafully inadequate (and perhaps a tad overly dramatic). More research is needed and more importantly the people conducting that research need to strictly adhere to scientific method if we are to have a clear view of the mechanisms that shape our climate and what the human population effect on it.
Final Thought : Having researchers act like a group of 14 year old girls that decide who is "in" and who is "out" isn't science - it's dogma. It does little to advance the course of science - but it makes great reading. Better drama than day time TV.
That's right. But a lot of the Netherlands is below sea level whereas the Maldives are above sea-level. So who has most to fear?
The Maledives, because their ratio of land area to coast line (yes, I know, a natural coast line is infinitely long, but we are talking dikes here, which have a minimum size) is much worse than that of the Netherlands. And you forget that all dutch land that is below sealevel is artificial anyway and won by closing off vast areas from the Northern Sea with large embankments, which in turn are built to be as short as possible for a maximum of land gain. Whoever suggests that this is a feasible way for the Male
Just to give you a better picture: Less than 5% of all Dutch people live within walking distance to the coast, but all of the Maledivians do. The largest island is Malé, with just about a square mile (2.7 sq km). So while 95% of all Netherlands can hide behind several layers of dikes, none of the Maledivians can. Or for some other numbers: The whole of the Maledives covers 298 sq km of land, stretched over 823 km x 150 km of ocean, completely different than the Netherlands with more than 41000 sq km of land stretched over 360 km x 280 km.
The whole length of the Dutch dikes is about 3000 km, so if we estimate that an average dike is 30 m wide, a similar construction would amount to 30% of the whole maledives used for the dikes, while less than 0,25% of the Netherlands are actual dikes.
Cue the puns... (Score:5, Funny)
Apparently they were under a lot of pressure.
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Don't worry (Score:4, Funny)
Darling it's better, down where it's wetter, take it from me.
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More so than you even intended. If Maldives goes under water, 1 billion dollars a YEAR will be lost. Literally, all the tourism "goods" that Maldives can generate will disappear.
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While one can feel sorry for the citizens of the Maldives, the simple fact is that it isn't very good long term planning to build permanent domiciles in a place which is 1.5 meters above what the water surface is at the moment. In many places that might leave you with your house submerged after a heavy rainfall. It's not an uncommon mistake, places from London through New Orleans and the Netherlands have been flooded and put partially under water from time to time.
In that light I'm not sure it's appropriate
Re:Cue the puns... (Score:4, Insightful)
While one can feel sorry for the citizens of the Maldives, the simple fact is that it isn't very good long term planning to build permanent domiciles in a place which is 1.5 meters above what the water surface is at the moment. In many places that might leave you with your house submerged after a heavy rainfall.
They've been living there quite happily for roughly 2000 years; I'd call that doing okay in the long term. Rainfall isn't really a problem, because, see, these are islands, and rain sort of goes down into the ocean. There's no hurricane season, so that's not much of an issue to my knowledge. The occasional tsunami is devastating, but the trade-off is easy access to shipping, a forgiving climate, and lots of seafood, which to many is worth the risk.
In that light I'm not sure it's appropriate to regard it as lost revenue, but rather a limited time opportunity which can and has been exploited.
Can't disagree with you there, except inasmuch as saying it "has been" exploited. Oceans are rising at about 3 mm/year, so while there's cause for concern and planning, I don't think they need to evacuate just yet. As noted in the summary, they're quite wisely diversifying their investment by trying to buy an emergency backup homeland.
Parent
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Nonsense.
http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/sl_hist_few_hundred.html [csiro.au] (The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation is Australia's national science agency and one of the largest and most diverse research agencies in the world.)
Quote: "We have used a combination of historical tide-gauge data and satellite-altimeter data to estimate global averaged sea level change from 1870 to 2004. During this period, global-averag
Yeah, Um, Maldives... (Score:5, Funny)
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I'm listening, many of the readers on /. are listening, many people around the world are listening. It was clever stunt that got a lot of international attention and it's a good step in the right direction. We can only hope that's it's not a loosing battle. For my part, I support any legislation aimed at CO2 reduction; hopefully after hearing about the Maldives more people will do the same.
People need to be less cynical, even at the expense of a "funny" mod.
Re:Yeah, Um, Maldives... (Score:4, Interesting)
Have they even scoped out a new homeland yet? If not, may I suggest Utah? No one's using it at the moment, if my last drive through there is any indication...
Parent
cash cow (Score:3, Insightful)
underwater cabinet? Sounds familiar... (Score:5, Funny)
Davey Jones' Locker?
CO2 cutbacks cannot stop climate change (Score:4, Insightful)
No amount of CO2 cutbacks is going to stop climate change and the sea levels rising, even if CO2 emissions dropped to zero tomorrow. The relevant time constants are from hundreds to thousands of years.
This pretty much highlights how it's all primarily a media circus and political game. The science is lost entirely in the noise.
Re:CO2 cutbacks cannot stop climate change (Score:4, Interesting)
Are you suggesting that it's an entirely non-man-made catastrophe, which was in the works long before industrialism? If so, got any citations to back that up? If not, will you clarify?
Parent
Re:CO2 cutbacks cannot stop climate change (Score:5, Informative)
Its the same with coral atolls everywhere.
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Well shit, maybe you should tell the leaders of the Maldives about that! I mean, they've spent, like, millions of dollars trying to find a solution. I guess if they only thought to ask you the
Re:CO2 cutbacks cannot stop climate change (Score:5, Informative)
The catastrophe is not for nature, it's for man.
P.S. Corals worldwide are dying. The two culprits fingered so far are rising oceanic acidity (caused by excessive atmospheric CO2 being gas-exchang'd right into the ocean) and human herpes simplex viruses, which apparently kill off some of the important organisms responsible for helping to build and maintain coral.
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Re:CO2 cutbacks cannot stop climate change (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:CO2 cutbacks cannot stop climate change (Score:5, Informative)
The Ocean is not becomming "more acidic". It's still very alkaline.
The car is not going slower, it's going 200 mph! Or in other words, you're an ass. Is this the kind of thing you bring up in ordinary conversation? You must be a hit at parties. I'd hit you twice.
You should say "over the very brief period of time we've been testing the PH of the ocean with any degree of accuracy, it's alkalinity has decreased by a very small amount. We have no way of knowing whether or not this is a natural cycle, or whether or not the measurements we take today, with different instruments from yester-year, account for the difference;
This is extremely disingenuous. It's the same retarded argument as "even though we know CO2 is a greenhouse gas and we put out ten times more CO2 than volcanism every year, and we know volcanism to be a major driver of global CO2, we don't believe that there is a greenhouse effect, and by the way global temperatures have only risen a little over one degree, that's a tiny shift!" But it's a fucking stupid statement because 99% of everything interesting on the planet occurs in a narrow temperature range, and by the same token, the ocean functions in a very small Ph range.
in any case, we're pretty sure life in the Ocean will adapt to such a small change with relative ease,
You are either ignorant or outright lying, since we know that small shifts in Ph have severe ramifications for much ocean life, including all marine mammals, and especially including coral reefs (where most of the ocean's diversity is) and algae (where most of the world's oxygen comes from.) Why don't you stop spreading the lies of the deniers? We're not even in Egypt... although, come to mention it, have you seen the Nile?
Parent
Re:CO2 cutbacks cannot stop climate change (Score:5, Informative)
There is no link that says that we put out 10 times as much CO2 as volcanoes, because that statement is wrong, but not in the way that you think. The difference is much, much higher.
A 1991 study[1] put the annual volcanic contribution of atmospheric CO2 at 4E12 mol/year, or 176 million tons. Annual worldwide carbon dioxide emissions are around 27 billion metric tons; the US power industry alone produces more than 2.4 billion tons.[2] The factor between worldwide volcanic and human emissions of CO2 is actually around 150.
[1] Gerlach, T.M., 1991, Present-day CO2 emissions from volcanoes: Transactions of the American Geophysical Union (EOS))
[2] http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggrpt/carbon.html [doe.gov]
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Troll.
Absolute nonsense. Scientist have pretty good ideas of what the PH levels have been based on oceanic deposits over time. It may not give the finest granularity but it provides insights into how the ocean chemistry has changed over the planet's history. Tie that into the fossil record and it's not hard to make some decent approximations to how life forms evolved with the oceans over long time scales.
And more to the point, there is no "ideal" anything. There are ideal conditions for humans to survive. T
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Remember, a troll is not someone who disagrees with you. The fact of the matter is that although pH
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With respect to credible evidence, here's the problem: there is no credible evidence on the side of those linking man, co2 and temperature.
This is provably false. We have evidence linking CO2 and man, and we have evidence linking CO2 and temperature. We know about how fast suboceanic limestone can remove CO2 from the water (the primary fixer of oceanic CO2) and we know that limit has been exceeded. We can even make a pretty good estimate of how much CO2 is produced by human activities. We also know beyond the shadow of a doubt that human activity has had a negative effect on CO2 fixing; for instance, there's more wooded acres in the USA, but p
Re:CO2 cutbacks cannot stop climate change (Score:5, Informative)
Corals grow within very narrow limits of temperature, irradiance, salinity, pH and turbidity; all variables which are influenced by climate and weather. More CO2 means more acidic ocean water, which would retard coral growth. Warmer oceans would also reduce carbonate ion saturation, having the same effect.
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Re:CO2 cutbacks cannot stop climate change (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:CO2 cutbacks cannot stop climate change (Score:4, Informative)
also temperature shocks (like 1998 el nino) make the coral symbiosis into a parasitic situation and now-harmful zoanthids are expelled from the structure leading to "bleached coral sydrome". This dead coral has nothing to repair the small cracks & so breaks up after the next year or two of storms.
Basically the coral can't adapt fast enough and it may be 1000 years before it's back on track. By which time it has sunk far enough below the exponential decay of underwater sunlight not to regenerate back up to the surface with any great pace. Wave energy probably doesn't get below 100m depth, while the smallest amount of sunlight may make it down that far, so there is some hope for eventual regeneration.
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Re:CO2 cutbacks cannot stop climate change (Score:4, Informative)
Your source sucks. [scienceblogs.com]
Here's a better one. [climateprogress.org]
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I applaud McIntyre and McKitrick for making pretty much the only skeptic argument within the scientific discourse. You see, skeptics don't actually practice science, but rather, they write articles like the one above. They sound impressive, but if you dig beneath the surface, you'll find nothing but echoes of already discredited arguments. I highly r
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Of course its a political game. People of the Maldives are going to ask for land and money.
And I don't blame them.
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Re:CO2 cutbacks cannot stop climate change (Score:5, Informative)
Under what mathematical law does the fact that two graphs don't look the same mean that they are not related? This is really sad: Experts spend years analyzing the data, come to an extremely complicated conclusion based on mountains of evidence, and then someone who has not the slightest fucking clue about science or mathematics walks in and says "But those graphs look different!" and decides those experts are all wrong. And worse, other people who share this guy's lack of clue believe his argument because it's the only one simple enough for them to understand.
Roughly speaking, more CO2 in the atmosphere causes the temperature to rise faster, and yearly CO2 emissions are adding to what is already there. So the CO2 emissions graph is something like the second derivative of the temperature graph. That means that if we keep emitting CO2 at a constant rate (flat graph) then temperatures will rise faster and faster over time (quadratic curve). Yeah, the graphs don't look the same, but they are related. (And in reality it's much more complicated than this.)
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Re:CO2 cutbacks cannot stop climate change (Score:5, Funny)
You're right! lets cut down all the rain forests to prevent that disaster from happening.
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really because venice is fucking underwater (Score:3, Funny)
i guess its gods punishment for being them being gay? or european? or something.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This is the argument of the Stern review [wikipedia.org] conducted by the UK government.
The problem is that the cost of reducing CO2 is largely unknown, as is the damage caused to the global economy. So this trade off between now and later is largely based on which made-up numbers you put into the balance.
One thing is pretty clear; if we want to reduce carbon emissions, we need to put a price on CO2, and it needs to rise fast. And it will be painful. Will it be more painful than the consequences of global warming? Who know
Re:CO2 cutbacks cannot stop climate change (Score:5, Insightful)
yeah, it's better if we do nothing but get really drunk and mock the folks who are trying to do something to save your sorry ass.
It's the can-do attitude which made America what it is today!
We may not be able to alter the momentum for 50 years from now at this point, but we can do a lot to affect it 500 years from now, probably no less than saving civilization in the process. One thing is for sure, if you never try you'll never achieve anything.
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New homeland? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:New homeland? (Score:4, Insightful)
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No sympathy here... (Score:3, Informative)
I have no sympathy for a country that forces its people to convert to islam and subjects almost 1/3 of the population to a form of serfdom. In addition if you are not a muslim and a native then you are either executed, imprisoned or expelled. Finally the country is extremely racist when it comes to non-muslims. I've had the unfortunate pleasure of being sent to the main island a few times for work. While the country is very pretty the people are not with the exception of the lowly peasants.
Sea level has NOT been rising (Score:4, Informative)
The following interview Dr. Nils-Axel Morner, a Swedisch expert on sea-level geophysics, explains how the data has been misrepresented to feed the global warming scare http://www.climatechangefacts.info/ClimateChangeDocuments/NilsAxelMornerinterview.pdf [climatechangefacts.info]. The reality is that little has happened to the sea level over the past decades.
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The reality is that little has happened to the sea level over the past decades.
Just as a quick math problem, why don't you figure out how many gallons of water are represented by a one inch rise in sea level. Now calculate how many gallons of water will be added to the ocean when the ice on top of Alaska and Greenland finishes melting. A small delta can be extremely relevant.
P.S. It doesn't matter if the floating ice masses grow during this time, for the same reason that ocean level rise can't be driven by floating ice melting. Don't forget to forget to take that into account.
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A rather discredited expert. Anyone want to take his course on dowsing?
The site (ClimateChangeFacts) reads like any other number of "skeptic" sites. Lots of speculation backed by bogus claims and zero peer reviewed research to back up their claims.
I want a model, skeptics. I want a scientifically valid atmospheric dynamics model that shows that increasing the amount of CO2 does not impact global climate and yet still explains our observational data. Go ahead. I'll wait.
~X~
Photo Gallery (Score:3, Informative)
Can we do it in Aus. Perhaps cut down swearing? (Score:3, Insightful)
I have an idea. Let's do the same in Australia. The way our politicians carry on booing, jeering, calling each other names and such is disgraceful. (Actually I'm resisting the urge to suggest a 1 hour meeting under water WITHOUT the scuba gear). I guess it's similar the world over. No wonder we're in the economic, social and environmental crapper.
The west can help by killing Kyoto (Score:3, Interesting)
it would work if all else remains static. Sadly, that is not the case. China is adding 1-2 NEW COAL PLANTS EACH WEEK. These are
Even with the growth in hydro and wind and Solar and Nukes that China is planning, if they continue this course, they will exceed ALL OF AMERICA's emission by 2015. By 2018, they will exceed ALL OF America's AND Western EU. By 2020 (11 very short years), they will account for slightly more than 1/2 of all of the CO2 that man has emitted through history. IOW, all of the cuts that we do, will be worthless.
But it still get worse. In particular, once we push Cap/trade, other nations will have a strong incentive to grab our manufacturing. And who will be pushing "cheap" coal plants? GE coal and other companies. Many companies will work to take advantage of the difference in prices (labor and energy).
So, with knowing the above, how do drop the emissions and solve the climate change issues? Here is my idea.
OTH, China has moderate amount of emissions based on size, HOWEVER, is one of the lowest efficiency in emissions/GDP. In addition, it has extremely high transportation costs (rail in China, then boat to here, and then rail around). As such, they would have 90-100% of the tax.
American goods made here have a moderate emissions per land and moderate efficient emissions. OTH, our transportation emissions are minor. As such, we might see 30-40% of the tax.
Several points on this:
Ideally, this same approach is used for a number of pollutants. For example, Mercury is one that is screaming to be controlled. China is the largest polluter of it and it will continue to increase with the coal. Likewise, the same is true of their SO* emissions. By applying a slowly increasing tax on nations based on their emissions, we can encourage ALL NATIONS to change.
One last point. Many nations will scream that they should be exempt because they are Developing nations. If that is done, it will simply encourage them to have lower costs goods by cheating. In addition, nearly all of the smaller developing nations HAVE low emissions. They would be at the low end of the tax.
Expect to see more stunts (Score:3, Insightful)
As evidence mounts that catastrophic anthropogenic global warming isn't the disaster the chicken littles have been preaching for the last 2 decades, the more dramatic, outlandish, and shrill the commentary will become. Expect to see more of these stunts from both countries and entities expecting to receive a big pay day from the industrialized nations, while the evidence points to a theory that needs serious revising and models that aren't very accurate at the most basic of predictions.
To date a lot of the proxy data [climateaudit.org] used to bolster the claim that the observed warming trend was "unprecedented" turns out to be extremely poorly put together. The recent Briffa revelations are so bad and Briffa so resistant to releasing his data (which is contrary to scientific methodology) that one has to wonder if there was deliberate fraud. In climate research this has happened before. The original, discredited Mann hockey stick was another example where a researcher refused to release both data and methodology, and when forced to told the world that data was lost (until it was found by accident on his FTP server [climateaudit.org]). Both examples are indications that peer review in some fields is nothing more than a cliquish acceptance of a forgone conclusion.
Perhaps this stunt will bring attention to the matter that current understanding of AGW is poor at best and that current climate models are woafully inadequate (and perhaps a tad overly dramatic). More research is needed and more importantly the people conducting that research need to strictly adhere to scientific method if we are to have a clear view of the mechanisms that shape our climate and what the human population effect on it.
Final Thought : Having researchers act like a group of 14 year old girls that decide who is "in" and who is "out" isn't science - it's dogma. It does little to advance the course of science - but it makes great reading. Better drama than day time TV.
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Really? Intensive construction projects seem more "sane" than purchasing real estate?
Re:Well, good for them. (Score:5, Interesting)
Around 1970 the sea level dropped by 20-30 cms and since then there has been no sea-level rise: http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/inqu/finalprogram/abstract_54486.htm [confex.com]
But don't let scientific and historical facts get in the way of a good piece of hysteria.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That's right. But a lot of the Netherlands is below sea level whereas the Maldives are above sea-level. So who has most to fear?
The Maledives, because their ratio of land area to coast line (yes, I know, a natural coast line is infinitely long, but we are talking dikes here, which have a minimum size) is much worse than that of the Netherlands.
And you forget that all dutch land that is below sealevel is artificial anyway and won by closing off vast areas from the Northern Sea with large embankments, which in turn are built to be as short as possible for a maximum of land gain.
Whoever suggests that this is a feasible way for the Male
Re:Well, good for them. (Score:5, Interesting)
Just to give you a better picture: Less than 5% of all Dutch people live within walking distance to the coast, but all of the Maledivians do. The largest island is Malé, with just about a square mile (2.7 sq km). So while 95% of all Netherlands can hide behind several layers of dikes, none of the Maledivians can. Or for some other numbers: The whole of the Maledives covers 298 sq km of land, stretched over 823 km x 150 km of ocean, completely different than the Netherlands with more than 41000 sq km of land stretched over 360 km x 280 km.
The whole length of the Dutch dikes is about 3000 km, so if we estimate that an average dike is 30 m wide, a similar construction would amount to 30% of the whole maledives used for the dikes, while less than 0,25% of the Netherlands are actual dikes.
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