"Dramatic Decline" Warning For Plants and Animals 696
An anonymous reader writes "Worldwide levels of the chief greenhouse gas that causes global warming have hit a milestone, reaching an amount never before encountered by humans, federal scientists said. Carbon dioxide was measured at 400 parts per million at the oldest monitoring station in Hawaii, which sets the global benchmark. More than half of plants and a third of animal species are likely to see their living space halved by 2080 if current trends continue."
Global Warming is true, and deadly .. (Score:2, Insightful)
for your Grandchildren. Those ignoring or making fun of it don't care about their
descendants. I guess Slashdotters may be clever, but not very respectful of science
itself. Very sad indeed !
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
but not very respectful of science itself.
Science doesn't want respect, it wants you to ask, "How do we know?" As soon as you start believing things because it was said by "the institution of science," that's when it's no longer science anymore.
And there are real scientists, respected climatologists, who are asking "how do we know?" about global warming. And some are coming to different conclusions. So the future is not as clear as some doomologists would have you believe.
Be especially wary of the ones who use global warming as an excuse to tak
Re:Global Warming is true, and deadly .. (Score:5, Insightful)
Name one who isn't Richard Lindzen, and you might have a point. Until then you're pretty much just making stuff up.
Re: (Score:3)
Richard Lindzen is a lead author of the IPCC report, and is actually well respected among everyone except alarmists, so I can tell what propaganda you've been listening to.
Re:Global Warming is true, and deadly .. (Score:4, Funny)
This is slashdot! In order for us to have descendants, we'd have to be able to find women willing to procreate with us. Solving that problem would be much harder than solving the global warming issue itself.
Re:Global Warming is true, and deadly .. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I'm glad we've solved that problem.
Random Slashdotter has said so. No need for the PhD's and such.
Weep for the future, folks.
Re:Global Warming is true, and deadly .. (Score:5, Informative)
Well, I think it would be prudent to widen the field of research to other factors in climate change than only CO2.
You'll find information about solar, methane, cosmic rays, and the full gamut of what *science* knows about climate change in the, wait for it, IPCC 2013 report [www.ipcc.ch].
Re: (Score:2)
Consider this: CO2 lasts 1000s of years in the atmosphere, where-as methane less than a decade. The CO2 is effectively permanent, and it *builds* over time. See the difference?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Gee... an IPCC report will tell you the pretty-exact accounting.
But will it try to tell the truth? People forget that there are massive conflicts of interest present among the sponsors of the IPCC and its reports. And these have resulted in deceptions which exaggerated the extent and impact of AGW in the past.
Consider this: CO2 lasts 1000s of years in the atmosphere
That hasn't been demonstrated.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, they weren't [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:3)
It is possible to be concerned about the impact of environmental changes because of the impact they will have on one's grandchildren
You're saying that you care about the impact the planet has on you, not vice versa. It's time to recognise that 'harm to the Earth' isn't abstract and you (and your grandchildren) are co-dependant upon the Earth for your survival.
The derision at the end of your post does you and the environment a disservice.
Mularkey (Score:5, Funny)
I'm pretty sure some deniers conclusively proved that this is all bunk in the last article. The problem is that 1) the scientists didn't know that the station is on a volcano, 2) they did know it was on a volcano and they still put the CO2 detector inside the volcano right above the liquid-hot magma, 3) there are no ice cores on Hawaii, 4) ice cores are completely unreliable for anything anyway, 5) the CO2 monitored is only applicable to Hawaii, more specifically a few meters around the detector and does not register global CO2 levels, 6) China still exists thereby making all readings void, 7) these readings don't matter, 8) these readings are all faulty because I don't know how they get them, 9) these readings align well with other CO2 stations across the globe, and we all know that repeatable and reliable numbers are a sign of confirmation bias not accuracy, 10) these numbers are void because of Climategate probably, 11) these numbers are valid but don't matter because I don't know why, 12) plants like CO2 therefore any changes in the environment are offset by wonderful new foliage, and 13) these numbers are void because Al Gore still exists.
Why are we still even discussing this? It has been demonstratively proven false.
Re:Mularkey (Score:5, Informative)
You missed three very important points that the global warming denialists have made over the last decade or two:
* Global warming isn't real.
* Global warming *is* real, but it's completely natural and not at all man-made.
* Global warming is real and man-made, but it's good.
Re: (Score:2)
I would respond in more detail, but why bother responding to someone who obviously doesn't even believe what he is saying (Mr AC)? You like the other Alarmists at this point are just global trolls, trying to waste people's time. Pathetic. I Note you didn't yourself bother to address a single point I made which did in fact point out why the basic argument was flawed.
At this point you guys also post AC I think because you are hiding from response, hoping that more reasoned people overlook what you say...
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Mularkey (Score:4, Insightful)
That is it in a nut shell. Al invented the internet. Al just saved us from rebellion. Al flies in his private jet to GW conferences yet tells everyone they need to do without. Al is not your best front man if you didnt know already.
Yeah, Al is just this *horrible* guy, you see, and since he is for something, then we should be against it. 'Cause that's how us republicans roll.
FACE-PALM.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Al invented the internet.
Of course he did. Why else would we program computers using "Al Gore"-ithms?
neverending FUDery (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems that the 'talking point' of the eco-marxists today "unprecedented" levels of CO2...was actually disproven in 2008:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/08_Beck-2.pdf [icecap.us] (from 2008)
"The record clearly demonstrates that [CO2 levels were] significantly higher than usually reported for the Last [Glacial] Termination, with levels of up to ~425 ppm about 12,750 years ago, which exceeds the present CO2 concentration of 395 ppm."
This explains thoroughly that
a) it's fundamentally a fallacy to compare Vostok data with Mauna Loa CO2 results (from 3000+ m altitude), and
b) that CO2 values frequently exceeded 400 in both this and the last centuries (as high as 480 depending on how you look at it).
FUDery indeed (Score:5, Informative)
For those who are interested, you can read about Beck 2008 here [blogspot.com], here [blogspot.com], and here [realclimate.org].
For the full effect, make sure you actually read through Beck 2008.
Proof that you only need a few bits of junk our there, and that's enough for politics.
Re: (Score:3)
As an engineer and laymen in climatology, I remain skeptical of the entire act. It is not that I do not think that man made C02 emissions can and will change the climate. The problem is that in many cases they it is very boldly stated, like the entire 395 ppm ordeal. The problem that I have with most climate science, is that not one single model was able to predict the near term, how am I to belie that they are able to predict long term with any reasonable certainty. It is and remains a complex problem. The
Re: (Score:2)
The amount of CO2 in the "carbon cycle" is massive. The current trend of rising atmospheric CO2 is less than 1% off balance.
These predictions (Score:2)
By the year 2081, more than half of these types of predictions are likely to be shown to be more than half true.
Timeframes (Score:5, Insightful)
Or perhaps, it is something a little simpler in the human psyche. Whilst we bemoan politicians who have no more future vision than the end of their current term, it seems that we too are particularly short-sighted about the future of this planet. I suspect that the majority of us look little further than how we're going to satisfy the physical aspects of Maslow's Heirarchy of needs.
When our life expectancies are extended to 1000 years (or more), and we face the very real prospect of living on the planet we are currently terraforming, we may take a slightly different view. Somehow, I doubt it. Most of the people alive today will live to see an increase of 4-6 degrees C... and yet, we're far more interested in gun control and the Kardashians.
I feel sad for our children (and their children) when I think about the world they will inherit from us.
Re:Timeframes (Score:5, Insightful)
Bah. You have it wrong. If you have kids you're biologically required to be optimistic. Cognitive dissonance trumps reality every time.
Re:Timeframes (Score:4, Interesting)
Seems we're suffering from a bit of Climate Change Fatigue... which suggests that the less than 1% of credible scientists who doubt AGW have managed to sow enough seeds of dramatic dissent for the rest of us to lose interest.
...and the media, seeing their advertising revenue flagging from the loss of interest in the continued "death, doom, and destruction from global warming due to rise in CO2 levels" news 'reporting' in the face of a 17-year stall in global temperature change (can't jack up the price of commercials if people yawn and change the channel when your newscasters announce another 'global warming' crisis), are starting to flock to a new crisis -- pollution causes global cooling [washingtontimes.com].
Re:Timeframes (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is (a) you are no-where near proving we'll see that kind of temperature rise, and (b) you also apparently have no clue what effects a rise would actually have. People like you were saying London would never see another snow, then after many brutal winters claiming that London was equally doomed to suffer harsh winters. Yes weather is not climate but you and your fellow cultists can't even predict how warming modifies weather, therefore you have no reason to validly claim there's really any reason for humanity as a whole to fear temperature increases.
That's why people aren't excited. Not because they are tired of you telling them to be scared (boy that never gets old!), but because every single time (yes EVERY time) you give them some specific as to why they should be frightened with specifics and predictions, your guesses turn out to be wrong or backwards!
If you cry wolf fifty million times, and every result ranges from bunny rabbits to benevolent aliens giving us hologram technology, it really should not take a genius to see why people become more skeptical of your fear-mongering.
The skinny on climate change (Score:2)
I just ran across Kevin Anderson's lecture again. Watch it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RInrvSjW90U [youtube.com]
More FUD. It was much higher 450 million years ago (Score:3, Informative)
Re:More FUD. It was much higher 450 million years (Score:2, Insightful)
CO2 levels of more than 4000 parts per million (ppm) occurred during the Ordovician-Silurian (450 million years ago). There is also evidence of a glacial event occurring during this period.
from: http://www.climatechange.gov.au/climate-change/understanding-climate-change/understand-cc-long-term.aspx [climatechange.gov.au]
And how were mammals handling those environmental conditions? What's that? They didn't exist yet? I'm sorry, what? Yes, apology accepted. No, no, it's okay, we put up with demonstrations of subpar intelligence around here all the time. All is forgiven. :)
Re:More FUD. It was much higher 450 million years (Score:5, Informative)
TFS:
[...]reaching an amount never before encountered by humans, federal scientists said.
There weren't any humans around 450 million years ago.
Furthermore, you copy-and-pasted directly but left out the rest of the paragraph
CO2 levels of more than 4000 parts per million (ppm) occurred during the Ordovician-Silurian (450 million years ago). There is also evidence of a glacial event occurring during this period. This has been used by some to attempt to disprove the link between temperature and CO2. Royer et al. (2006) considered the CO2 forced climate thresholds over the Phanerozoic eon (the last 545 million years). It was found that there is insufficient proxy data to determine that a high CO2 event coincided with the Ordovician-Silurian glacial event. The only proxy CO2 data near this glacial event could be up to five million years younger than the event. Further, the Earth was a very different place during this period including differences in solar luminosity, albedo, distribution of continents and vegetation, orbital parameters and other greenhouse gases.
You should try to think more, brah. It can actually save you from embarrasment.
and... (Score:2)
How many plants and animals are going to see their living spaces increase?
Different range? (Score:4, Insightful)
An international team of researchers looked at the impacts of rising temperatures on nearly 50,000 common species of plants and animals.
They looked at both temperature and rainfall records for the habitats that these species now live in and mapped the areas that would remain suitable for them under a number of different climate change scenarios.
The scientists projected that if no significant efforts were made to limit greenhouse gas emissions, 2100 global temperatures would be 4C above pre-industrial levels.
In this model, some 34% of animal species and 57% of plants would lose more than half of their current habitat ranges.
The interesting part is that they looked at the "habitats that these species now live in". They did not look at habitats that are not currently suitable for the species to live in. For all we know there could be more area that species could live in when the climate changed. By concentrating on current species ranges the scientists are skewing the results. One should look at the whole system before coming to a conclusion.
Re:What will replace Maize in 50 years? (Score:4, Insightful)
I am not talking about evolution but that other areas will support plants and animals that it currently can not. There are areas where it is currently to cold to support Maize. When it warms up it will be hot enough. The point is the old area will be unsuitable but other areas will be suitable. Since this study did not look into new areas that can support the plants it only shows part of the picture. I live in Canada and global warming will lengthen our growing season and broaden the kinds of food we can grow here. The study concentrated on decreased suitability of current ranges and ignores increased suitability of currently unsuitable ranges.
It's not just CO2 (Score:2)
If you burn all the methane in the atmosphere you'd lower the greenhouse effect.
Methane is 72x better at trapping heat.
CH4 + 2(O2) = CO2 + 2(H2O)
There are other compounds worse than CO2 too. Like nitrous oxides produced by plants fed with high nitrogen fertiliser.
What about the other half (Score:2)
Climate change will cause one half of species to decline, but the other half will take their place, that's how nature works. Question is, which half will we belong to?
Get off my lawn! (Score:2)
pesky plants and animals be gone.
you win (Score:2)
Re:350ppm (Score:5, Informative)
Re:350ppm (Score:4, Insightful)
I had put this as an article but it was declined.
2-3 million years ago 300km inside the arctic circle CO2 levels were 400 ppm and temps were 8C above present. This according to an article published last week in the journal Science covered by Scientific American [scientificamerican.com] (link to journal in that article). Lake sediments find 7 varieties of fir tree pollen. This verdant period doubtless had countless bacteria, plants, insects, mammals now extinct because between then and now have been a whole lot of very cold years interspersed with some brief 10-15000 year periods of temperatures like the current. These species failed to adapt to the climate that is our current day. Firs don't grow there now. Humans are not to blame for that - there weren't any. This condition had likely persisted for millions of years prior, though intermittent rapid cold/hot spells did punctuate the climate cycles and cause widespread extinctions.
Life adapts. That's what it does. Life is a plague that cannot be stopped short of a supernova or the impact of something the size of Mars that sterilizes the entire surface by turning it to magma to 4km depth - and I'm not even sure about the latter as such an impact will kick the life off to circle the sun to land again when the planet has cooled enough to accept it. Species go extinct all the time and new species are born every minute. Every corner that has any form of energy will be populated by forms of life that use that energy and higher forms that feed on those, ultimately capturing carbon in stable forms. That is another thing that life-as-we-know-it does that has led to our current bitterly cold climate.
Humans use intelligence and common effort to surmount environmental challenges - that's what we do. There are humans that live on Antarctica and in the furthest terrestrial reaches of the arctic circle. If the Arctic Circle rises in temperatures by 8C again - or even 16C - then Mankind gets more arable land and living space, not less, because polar temps increase disproportionately to equatorial temps. Plants and animals move north quite rapidly. The vast Alaskan, Canadian and Russian permafrost becomes cropland. We move freight over the poles year-round, opening ports and resorts on the northern shores. And we lose Florida, New Orleans and South Texas. That's inconvenient. People have to move. The US probably has to annex Canada. I'm not buying the whole coral reef thing since those reefs are over 3 million years old and have survived the descent into the cold and back again very many times. That means they evolved in a climate that wasn't as crisp as our current era and should thrive when their natural habitat is restored.
You can complain about this if you want to but you cannot change the outcome. For every person on Earth who cares enough to act to reverse climate are fifty who either stand to benefit from climate change or have too many more pressing issues to care, and their efforts are more than enough to counteract any green movement that could occur short of a world government with levels of control that is not to be wish'd. Do you think Canadians and Russians live in fear of global warming? Do you think if the US converts entirely to hydro, nuclear, geothermal, solar and gas that we will stop digging up the coal? No. We will just export it to absolve ourselves of the guilt of burning it and the CO2 will still happen someplace where our clean burning regulations don't apply. Those coal mines have debts to pay. Same with high-sulfur oil.
These cycles are how nature motivates humans to evacuate equatorial regions and inhabit a wider world. It's what drove us out of Africa time and again. And the relapses to the cold drive local populations to equatorial regions for long times, increasing differentiation in the isolation periods, which leads to competition and strife when warmth and commerce resumes and finds a winner amongs
Re: 350ppm (Score:5, Interesting)
"The US probably has to annex Canada."
Speaking as a Canadian, on behalf of Canadians, you can go fuck yourself.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
That's not what our intelligence tells us.
Our intelligence tells us that if we were to annex Canada, most Canadians would welcome us with open arms.
Re: (Score:2)
But: The Internet.
Re:350ppm (Score:5, Insightful)
"Life adapts. That's what it does."
Actually the fossil record suggests otherwise, if the amount of change is too abrupt. In that case most higher life forms go extinct because they are too dependent upon specific lower forms of life that often can not adapt. Most organisms have very specific environmental requirements. Go outside of those physiological limits and they die. Humans aren't much different in many respects. We do a lot of things, but seldom do we really get too far out of our physiological comfort zone. A world that in 80-100 years has temperatures of 130-140 degrees F in the shade for weeks on end will be a whole experience.
Keep in mind that this time its totally different, because of the rate at which CO2 is rising. Its going up more than 26 times faster than during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal maximum, which changed the forests of what is now northern Wyoming from redwoods to palm trees in a couple of thousand years. It will be hard to imagine many organisms surviving that kind of change over the course of a few hundred, much less most of their pollinators.
"Do you think Canadians and Russians live in fear of global warming?"
They should. The vast bulk of the warming that will be seen is occurring in the Arctic and generally speaking even Russians and Canadians need to eat. With food crops under threat, they may well find themselves stressed as well. Some 56,000 Russians died in the heat wave in 2010. Some 40,000-50,000 Europeans died from a similar heat wave in 2003. If the Lake El’gygytgyn results are a direct indication that the global climate sensitivity is 8 degrees Celsius which it appears to, rather than what people have been indirectly inferring and using in their climate models, then its pretty clear that we can expect many more to die as we now move into the Arctic amplification phase of global warming.
As for the high latitude North providing more arable land, don't count on it for several reasons. 1) Arctic soils are very poor, 2) few commercial plants can tolerate the long winters so most crops that require more than one year to produce, such as fruit trees won't be among them, 3) just because the Arctic is warming doesn't mean that it may not yet see many days with freezing temperatures, so most plants adapted to more southern latitudes simply won't be able to adapt to growing conditions which are interrupted by severe frost in an unpredictable way, 4) it may be almost impossible to take pollinators with them given the different wind and percipitation/abruptly changing temperature regimes. Keep in mind many plants used for human consumption, such as corn, rice, coffee are tropical or tropical highland species, 5) many others such as wheat are highly susceptible to rusts and fungi and will likely fare poorly as there is too much moisture in the atmosphere such as in early spring, and 6) simply because you have high latitude does not mean that abundant, year around sources of freshwater will be uniformly available throughout the entire landscape.
Obviously, a lot depends on how fast the change.
Re: (Score:3)
He's not getting anything you're trying to say, so you might as well give up on him now.
Life adapts but you may not (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, it does. Life will survive this as it survived worse things than that.
But our societies and economies as they are will not. That's the point. You can have "life" adapt perfectly well in the long run and still have global mayhem happening while it is adapting.
Also, "life will adapt" just ignores the fact that changes that happen over thousands of years are easier to adapt to than changes that happen within decades. There's no time for slow migration, ecosystems and economies gradually changing and adapting. Fast changes are incredibly hard to adapt to and the changes we're looking at are happening really quick.
It's the typical jump from "nothing is happening" to "life will adapt" while totally ignoring all the major shit happening to real people and real economies that makes me wonder about the will to face reality in many people. First they close their eyes while pretending "it's a lie, nothing is really happening", then they jump to "life will adapt". Yeah, but life may adapt by you and your children starving.
Re:350ppm (Score:4, Insightful)
Life adapts, but only given the opportunity. There are 5 massive epochal die-offs that prove your point. They also prove that you're not thinking this through very well. Many of the humans you're talking about adapt using rather violent tactics. It's called war. If you believe that the geopolitical considerations will just sort themselves out, then you haven't read much history. The logical limits to growth are also the logical variables that lead to armed conflict if and when diplomacy fails.
Currently a good portion of the cause for the success of the world's dominant economic powers revolves around the development of technology, but it's also predated by the accident of unimpeded access to abundant natural resources. Accidental in the sense that water, arable land, lumber and minerals existed as those political powers developed their technologies. The modern construct of ownership has always been enforced through warfare.
What do you think will happen when climate challenges the ability of the current geopolitical regimes? It's not going to be orderly or pretty if, "humans (attempt) to evacuate equatorial regions and inhabit a wider world." The Maldives and other island populations are the first to confront such a reality, but they'll easily be able to integrate into other areas. What do you think will happen if most of the existing population below 30 degress latitude in both hemispheres is forced to evacuate?
Re: (Score:2)
I knew I was going to get the AC with the Reality Drop [realitydrop.org] when I posted that.
Frankly, you could represent your crew better than this frenetic and fragmented post but I will try my best to address it anyway.
If life hasn't adapted to live in the desert in millions of years, how will it adapt now, in just 50-100 years? I don't believe evolution can save us.
There is no place on Earth that we know of: not the fiercest desert, not the deepest depths of the Mariana Trench, not in the deepest borehole ever made, nor even in the insanely radioactive core of active boiling water reactors - where life does not thrive.
And you'll be losing the big food producing areas including across the USA:
I believe I mentioned that this local increase i
Re: (Score:3)
I'm struggling to understand how evidence that some extreme bacteria can survive in extreme circumstances in any way helps your case unless your suggestion is that it doesn't matter if all complex life dies, at least there will still be bacteria?
You do realise that just because extremophobes have adapted to far reaching circumstances doesn't mean that anything more complex can right?
Re: (Score:2)
so I dont see how more co2 will harm plants
Don't say it so loudly, you'll provoke someone to write a paper on it!
Try reading the article (Score:5, Informative)
"so I dont see how more co2 will harm plants". Yes you do, you just wanted to do a quick denial thing. From the article:
"An international team of researchers looked at the impacts of rising temperatures on nearly 50,000 common species of plants and animals."
"They looked at both temperature and rainfall records for the habitats that these species now live in and mapped the areas that would remain suitable for them under a number of different climate change scenarios."
"The scientists projected that if no significant efforts were made to limit greenhouse gas emissions, 2100 global temperatures would be 4C above pre-industrial levels."
"In this model, some 34% of animal species and 57% of plants would lose more than half of their current habitat ranges. "
So the models very much in line with the UN one at 4 degrees, it will expand the dessert along the equators and push species north into a smaller area presumably. But hey, if you deny it, it won't happen right?
Re: (Score:3)
"The scientists projected that if no significant efforts were made to limit greenhouse gas emissions, 2100 global temperatures would be 4C above pre-industrial levels."
And if that is way exaggerated, then the rest of their paper is pretty much a waste.
it will expand the dessert along the equators and push species north into a smaller area presumably
The presumption would be incorrect. There is a lot of land in the northern latitudes.
It's also interesting how AGW is being blamed for the more significant problem of habitat destruction. Back at the end of the last glacial period, there was a large shift of ecosystems towards the poles. We didn't see a massive extinction of species.
Re:350ppm (Score:5, Insightful)
No, "they" didn't 400 ppm has always been the big concerning level, after which positive feed back systems may be triggered. The truth is nobody really knows - although we are about to.
The statement that 'plants breath CO2 so extra CO2 is good' indicates that you've been smoking way too much of your ganga to understand that an ecosystem is a bit more complex than your hydroponics setup.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
plants "breath" co2 so I dont see how more co2 will harm plants.
Well, you breath oxygen, so breathing 100% pure oxygen is no problem, right? Well, actually, it is a problem if you breathe it for any prolonged period of time. Read up on hyperoxia.
It just doesn't follow that because plants need CO2 that more CO2 is better for plants... or at least the plants you want growing.
Re: (Score:3)
Um, we're killing off plant cover, while increasing CO2. So there IS a problem.
HOWEVER, I fail to see how being fixated on a single source of CO2 measurements (Mauna Loa) is helping the issue.
I was on the island which houses the Mauna Loa observatory last month. There has been a recent (since the last 2-3 years) rise in emissions from volcanoes some miles adjacent to the observatory (so much so, there is an issue with 'vog' -- volcanic smog -- on the island).
Now, I've read about techniques the observatory
Re: (Score:2)
[citation needed]
Re: (Score:2)
CO2 levels have fluctuated a *lot* in our planet's history [wikipedia.org]. The amount of time we've spent measuring these concentrations is tiny by comparison. The long term trend for our planet, human influence aside, appears likely to be a virtual elimination of atmospheric CO2 as it becomes trapped in landmasses. This of course would result in the elimination of most terrestrial life on Earth as we know it, and won't be a concern for billions of years, but it is the likely trajectory nonetheless.
Re: (Score:3)
At some point, a guy starts to ask himself if there might not be something else going on.
You're absolutely right. People love to complain about Big Industry concerns related to fossil fuel production and consumption, but they don't seem so inclined to talk about the sprawling industries built around various forms of alternative energy production (with all their spectacular fiscal abuses, corruption, and failures of other sorts), climate change studies, government programs to research and produce reams of new legislation every few years, etc. Meanwhile, our society continues to be okay with curr
Re:350ppm (Score:5, Informative)
But I'm sure that's a *spectacular* fiscal abuse, and just forking $4 billion a year over to big carbon, because otherwise the the most profitable industry in history wouldn't have enough money to line the pockets of conservative think-tanks and politicians.
Do you see the double-standard there?
Re: (Score:3)
Like the IPCC, the RGGI [rggi.org] make up all of their data, for Agenda 21 purposes. OBVIOUSLY we cannot believe that this has any impact on reducing peoples energy bills whilst reducing carbon usage.
You're really that guy, aren't you.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
And NYC was supposed to be 3 feed underwater by 2015.
It was, briefly.
Re: (Score:2)
"And NYC was supposed to be 3 feed underwater by 2015. "
2015 hasn't happened yet - its still 2013 where I live.
Re:Hysteria! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hysteria! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Carbon dioxide is a green house gas, this is a scientific fact. We have more and its getting hotter, its not hard to deduce whats going on. The arguments always make it more complex then it is, bringing up this or that, but the fact remains, the more Carbon Dioxide we got in the air the hotter it gets, because Carbon dioxide traps more heat, like the laws of physics state that it will. If you don't believe that carbon dioxide is not a green house gas then that is one thing, but you would need science to bac
Re:Hysteria! (Score:4, Insightful)
Therefore in effect our civilization is RETURNING the carbon into the air. Therefore, when the fossil fuels were formed it must've been much warmer than today, but not warm enough to harm life on earth. Most living things generally do better in warmth that in freezing cold. Therefore if mankind managed to liberate ALL carbon now stored as fossil fuels, the cycle would repeat itself.
You are completely ignoring the speed this change happened in the past (geological scale, millions of years) and the speed global warming is moving now (tens or hundreds of years). Yes, in the past earth was indeed warmer. Antarctica was a green continent full of life but also areas around equator were dry deserts without life.
Note that there were also periods of time when earth was much colder then today. Even equator was frozen and life survived only in oceans. See Snowballl earth [wikipedia.org] on wiki.
Whenever in the past, there was sudden change of temperature like we are seeing today, it was accompanied by massive extinction of species (90%+ of species died, generally everything larger then mouse). Sure, live will probably prevail but if we don't prepare for this change it will cause big problems. Large areas of the earth will become uninhabitable, nations will move, territorial wars will erupt, seaside cities will be slowly flooded etc.
In my opinion it is very reasonable to study climate changes, the implications they will have on life on earth and try to adapt to them or prevent the biggest problems if possible.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
so is yours. the forests of the world have been torn to shreds over the last 100 years, science says trees are the planet's lungs, and yet skyrocketing carbon has nothing to do with it? -_-
Re:Yep (Score:5, Insightful)
IIRC, science says algae are (to use your expression) the planet's lungs, not trees.
Re:Yep (Score:5, Insightful)
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Trees don't hold a candle in oxygen production compared to sea plants. It is not even close ...
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Morale of the story, planet gets hotter, planet gets colder. Everything else sorts its self out.
Yes, but this time we're doing it deliberately and we have a lot of people/cities on the coasts.
Does that seem smart to you?
Living on the coast might have its benefits but it certainly also have its drawbacks. I'm constantly amazed at the countless number of people that keep coming back to areas repeatedly hit by massive flooding. Unless you have gills you really should stay out of the path of massive amounts of water.
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The jury is still out how much is natural and how much is man made.
If the jury is still out, it's because someone put Anthony Watts on it. Turns out, the natural component is about -5% of the warming, and the man-made component is about 105% [skepticalscience.com]. Seriously it doesn't get much clearer than that.
The planet was already warming anyway (kinda occurs after ice ages) remember.
Actually, we were on a long term cooling trend and we're still in the ice age. Never the less, the warming after a glacial period occurs immediately after that period ends and then a slow decline begins that eventually leads into another glacial period.
As for the people on the coast, we are talking about 50 - 100 year time frames. No house is going under tomorrow.
It's not usually a matter of se
Re:Yep (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides, I think it would be a good idea to get out of this ice age before another glaciation comes along. Yes, we're still in "the ice age" look it up, we're near the end of an interglacial period. I'd rather give warming a shot than let the ice come back.
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Here's the evidence you're looking for (Score:5, Interesting)
Allan Savory [wikipedia.org] gave a really good Ted Talk [ted.com] a few months ago backing up that claim with a substantial amount of science and experience. I hope you're not too lazy to watch all twenty-two minutes of it, but if you are, let me give you a quick synopsis. Dr. Savory states that the majority of our global warming issues are due to desertification (the destruction of grasslands and their transformation into desert areas), and he claims that 50% of the CO2 in the atmosphere can be removed simply by ceasing unsustainable agriculture practices and converting these lands into grasslands for grazing.
Re:Here's the evidence you're looking for (Score:4, Insightful)
majority of our global warming issues
Except he didn't say that. He believes that global warming has something to do with desertification, but doesn't have a model that explains the data -- just something that he thinks is worth looking into. Besides, he is an expert in other fields.
I hope you're not too lazy to watch all twenty-two minutes of it
Ain't it true that a man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest.
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I believe I've shown you how we can work with nature at very low cost to reverse all this. We are already doing so on about 15 million hectares on five continents, and people who understand far more about carbon than I do calculate that, for illustrative purposes, if we do what I am showing you here, we can take enough carbon out of the atmosphere and safely store it in the grassland soils for thousands of years, and if we just do that on about half the world's grasslands that I've shown you, we can take us back to pre-industrial levels(emphasis mine), while feeding people. I can think of almost nothing that offers more hope for our planet, for your children, and their children, and all of humanity.
This is the last part of the speech. Notice the bolded text? Wouldn't taking carbon dioxide levels back to pre-industrial levels solve most of the global warming issues?
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Allan Savory has been torn to shreds. His speech was blatant advertising for his private advertisement and real scientists wrote papers that took him down.
Re:Hysteria! (Score:4, Informative)
The "greenhouse effect" of CO2 is dwarfed by the effect of water vapor
Yes, yes it is. It's what's called a Feedback Loop. Take a balanced seesaw with 1 lb on one side and 10 lbs on the other at distances that make the forces equal.
Now move the 1lb weight outward a bit or add a some weight. Once the 10lb ball starts rolling it's going to be 10x harder to stop.
Now multiply by the scale of an atmosphere and it's *really* a bad idea to play chicken with that type of situation.
If we nudge water vapor to increase more heat, it keeps getting stronger as more water evaporates due to the higher temps...
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I would add that this is only one of the ways we are screwing up various critical equilibriums of the planet. A year back, New Scientist published an article indicating 7 different ways we are destroying the planet. But if you can't get the population on board with the simplest of them, we are far more screwed than previously thought.
And you better believe the scientists will be the first against the wall when it is all inevitably and irretrievably obvious.
Re:Climate change? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm surprised about how Slashdot seems so overwhelmingly anti-science on this issue. Only a few posts in and I've already won ""idiotic anti-global warming arguments bingo".
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Re:Climate change? (Score:5, Insightful)
A more recent poll showed that 2/3rd of statistics are made up.
How about you get labeled a Climate Hysteric? There are too many of those for my liking.
People who don't care one way or the other are not 'denialists' they just might have diferent priorities, and not consider GW the MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER, as opposed to, keeping their job, keeping their house, not getting cancer, etc.
"With us, or Against us" has been used many times in history; but it's not always true.
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People who don't care one way or the other are not 'denialists'
Indeed; people who don't care one way or another are people who don't care one way or another, and people who don't care one way or another don't generally bother posting. People who post endless screeching copypasta rants denying overwhelming scientific evidence, on the other hand, are best described as denialists.
and not consider GW the MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER, as opposed to, keeping their job, keeping their house, not getting cancer, etc.
All of these are important things. So is global warming. See, it's actually possible for many things to be important at the same time. Welcome to reality--take a look around, and be warned t
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How about you get labeled a Climate Hysteric?
About the only hysterics I hear are those who claim the sky will fall in on the economy if carbon pollution is taxed. The audacity of calling scientists alarmists. GOP post-modern projection.
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I've seen so many studies in the last 2 years debunking the co2 theory that there's no way the premise could be true. Yet we still see this special interest group 'science' coming out and widely promoted by the mass media. If the facts don't fit the theory, it's not the facts which are wrong.
The whole co2 climate change field is just being used to promote fear as a distraction from the truth.
Sorry, got to call bullshit on that one.
(Quality argument adapted from here [slashdot.org]; I'd have simply modded down but I didn't have points).
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I'd have simply modded down but I didn't have points
Response is always better than modding down because if one person said it, other people are thinking it, and your response will help educate all of them (unless it's GNAA, mod them down). That's why there's no "-1 Wrong" mod.
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there's not one D thing that we can do about it anyway. Stop burning fossil fuel? Sure, if you want to kill millions of humans
This is just simply wrong. A carbon tax would (in part) account for the cost of pollution, and encourage the search of alternatives. Works overseas. Works in the USA. Don't be so glum. The only thing stopping change is the stranglehold of big carbon on republican politics.
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You mean like elevated temperatures, arid conditions, or being underwater?
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Which side has real hyperbole... (Score:3)
Matching the right's hyperbole with bigger hyperbole makes the right look more sane as a result.
And what hyperbole on the "right" is that exactly?
It's easy enough to find older papers saying that the tip off point was a time that was in the future then but is now in the past.
Proclaiming the tip-off points were no-where near those points before the time had past, WAS considered hyperbole - before it was shown to be wrong.
Was is so wrong about wanting careful scientific study or merely wanting to open data-s
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And yet.... your insurance company IS taking this seriously. THEY have access to a whole pile a data too showing how often floods, tornados, storm surges etc etc occur and they see a trend of them happening more often which is why insurance premiums are increasing.
You can deny all you want, they will on the other hand look after themselves and charge accordingly , and if they decide large parts of the populated USA are too high a risk they WILL pull out or make the premiums so expensive that it amounts to t
More AC alarm from the warming cultists (Score:2)
your insurance company IS taking this seriously. THEY have access to a whole pile a data too showing how often floods, tornados, storm surges etc etc occur and they see a trend of them happening more often which is why insurance premiums are increasing.
Wow, that sounds really scary!!!
Except my house insurance premiums have not gone up. In fact, I don't remember any news stories whatsoever about premiums overall being on the rise across the globe.
But really any issue with premiums going up in one area is no
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And yet.... your insurance company IS taking this seriously.
Your insurance company found an excuse to charge you more? Do you really take this as evidence of......anything?
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Yet we make decisions based on predictions constantly. When someone had a tumor identified, it is predicted that unless treated it will kill them. We don't sit around waiting to find out if we're right; we commence treatment.
Your argument is no more convincing than 'but evolution is just a theory'.
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Guess who are developing their prediction models? The same people who make global warming predictions. It's no surprise they support each other.
You think you know that, but if you think about it, you don't know that they are the same people at all. Acturies calculate risk for insurance companies. They aren't authors in IPCC reports.
Birds and plants aren't authors either, and they're moving/changing. So are glaciers. That's one hell of a conspiracy you got to explain there.
But yeah, some guys working for "big-eco" are making the models deciding the fate of the world and you're fighting the good fight, right?
Crony capitalism in action. (Score:5, Insightful)
Back in 1975 we were supposed to be freezing by now. Anyone remember that?
As in some scientists asked the question, studied it, and rejected the theory after 5 or so years. There was never consensus, but the story was too good not to run in major newspapers.
Do YOU remember it?
More Big Scare tactics. These articles belong in the Science Fiction category so far. We don't know what's going to happen, we've never been there before, but we're assured that it's going to be bad and only by taking and transferring hundreds of billions of our tax dollars to someone else who is more Progressive than ourselves can we save us all.
The only big scare tactics I see are those who preach that the economy was crash if we tax pollution. It is baloney of course. There is empirical data that shows that the effect on the economy is * negligible*. The effect on the Koch brother's political influence will be non-negligible, but that's crony capitalism for you.
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Except that life rarely responds to toxic exposure linearly. At some point it will become increasingly difficult for radically larger percentages of the population to breath. Of course, summers will be 65C by then..