Report Says Climate Change Already Evident, Emissions Gap Growing 623
Dupple writes "Following on from a world bank report of 4 degree C warmer world comes this story from the BBC. 'The effects of climate change are already evident in Europe and the situation is set to get worse, the European Environment Agency has warned. "Every indicator we have in terms of giving us an early warning of climate change and increasing vulnerability is giving us a very strong signal," observed EEA executive director Jacqueline McGlade.'"
Here's the report in question. There also comes news we've hit record levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Really that short on page space for the graph? (Score:2, Informative)
I prefer mine with some context. Like this one. [ucr.edu]
Re:Is there enough data (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, because everyone knows that global plant coverage is increasing at an enormous rate and will continue to do so as the global population expands.[/sarcasm] All the plant growth of a decade wouldn't soak up the CO2 from a single year of our emissions, not to mention the fact that in 100 years when those plants die they'll release all that CO2 right back into the atmosphere.
Re:Is there enough data (Score:2, Informative)
Oh, right, of course, because after all the number of plants on Earth is increasing!
Re:Is there enough data (Score:4, Informative)
Myth: Busted! [google.es]
Re:Is there enough data (Score:5, Informative)
There is no way to gather a significant amount of data to suggest that we're doing anything "bad" or that anything "good" we do is working without comparing to some 10,000+ year cycle that we've never observed. Best records for such things go back a few hundred years, and beyond that the data is very sketchy and specific only to specific areas (e.g. ice cores, etc.).
Paleoclimatology is not exactly "sketchy". It studies global trends over millennia, and provides far more information than just a book of thermometer readings from the measly few years humans have been recording such things. There is indeed a large body of data. They use ice core data to determine temperatures and atmospheric composition. They have calibrated those readings based on the few hundred years of written records available. They also corroborate the data with other evidence, such as archaeological and fossil data, and even historical accounts of weather related events. No one piece of data tells the whole story, which is why they have gone to such great lengths to collect as much as possible from a wide variety of sources. Put together, the current body of evidence is scientifically acceptable.
The data is available, it's validated, and it's significant. Instead of continuing to deny climate change is happening, and appearing foolish to people who know better, why not put forth some plausible hypotheses about why you think the climate change that is happening now has natural causes at its core, and offer some tests to validate your theories?
So very WRONG (Score:2, Informative)
December 1990 was one of the coldest months since records were first kept in the Silver State more than a century ago. In fact, it shares the podium with the coldest month of all, January 1937. The other winners in the "Top Ten" coldest months include January 1890, January 1913, January 1917, December 1924, December 1932, January 1949, December 1972, and February 1989. During the brutal cold snap of December 1990, at least 16 locations, with between 30 and 113 years of record, set new low temperatures for any month, with 2 to 3 times that many just missing all-time lows but establishing new minima for December. The State's long-standing December low of minus 45, set in 1924 in San Jacinto was broken, as minus 46 was recorded at Mountain City during the peak of the pre-Christmas cold snap. (The – 46 at Mountain City ranks second only to the minus 50 set in January 1937 as Nevada's all-time lowest temperature.)
I could find many, many more examples...
The question is wrong! (Score:5, Informative)
Localization is not the question, and in fact most climate discussion I find frustrating because it's the wrong argument. The argument should not be "Is man changing the climate?" but rather "Are we fucking things up?"
If we look at the suggested question, the answer is absolutely "yes". First, we know for a fact that Oil is not sustainable with the current population. Even if we all recycled plastics Oil vanishes faster than the earth is producing new Oil. Second, we are polluting everything. That pollution has not gotten better recently, but rather worse since we are arguing "Climate" instead of addressing our impact. This in turn has resulted in reduced controls, higher acceptable levels of pollution, and deregulation. Our pollution rate is not sustainable. Lastly, are we rendering portions of the Earth inhabitable and useless? The obvious answer to that question is also yes. Numerous studies show how we have rendered at least 10% of the Earths farming area useless for at least 100 years and that number is increasing. The same goes for Oceans and dead zones in them.
Look at it this way. It does not take a rocket scientist to realize that coal power is bad for people's health. Both the powdering process for the coal, and the burning of the coal pollute the environment something fierce. We do so knowing it's bad because it makes some people a whole lot of money regardless of the impact. The excuse to continue has nothing to do with "is it bad" but rather "it's cheaper than wind power (which could be argued rather heavily from the angle of wind not being as profitable to the same people making money from fossil fuels)".
We need to get back to the real issue, which by the way was prominent in the 70s and 80s by the way.
Re:Cap and Trade solves everything! (Score:4, Informative)
A cap and trade program on sulfur emissions led to substantial reductions in acid rain, so it's one approach with real-world evidence that it can work. Because it provides a financial incentive for reducing emissions, the "invisible hand" directs resources to just those areas that are most efficient, and stimulates innovation to develop new ways of reducing emissions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_Rain_Program [wikipedia.org]
Re:Not only in Europe (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Nothing will change until China does. (Score:5, Informative)
Seriously, everybody likes to point to America, yet, our emissions continue to go downwards. OTOH, ALL of the decreases in emissions are overcome by China ALONE.
You serious? Well, if you are serious, how about some facts? To make it easier for you, I'll start
- About 17 percent [wikipedia.org] of China's electricity came from renewable sources in 2007, led by the world's largest number of hydroelectric generators. China had a total installed capacity of hydropower of 197 GW in 2009.
- China leads the world in renewable energy [guardian.co.uk]
- China Sets New Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Goals [china-briefing.com] - The newly released Plan aims to reduce China’s carbon intensity – the amount of carbon emitted per unit of GDP – by 17 percent by 2015, compared with 2010 levels.
Your turn now, if you please (hint: start with Renewable energy in the United States accounted for 14.3 percent of the domestically produced electricity [wikipedia.org])