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Post by Vene on Dec 6, 2011 0:28:29 GMT -5
I found a really awesome post at ThinkProgress today filled with all sorts of lovely graphs and quotes from scientific writing on climate change. Long story short, we're fucked. thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/09/28/330109/science-of-global-warming-impacts/Some of the pictures: And some highlights: By century’s end, extreme temperatures of up to 122°F would threaten most of the central, southern, and western U.S. Even worse, Houston and Washington, DC could experience temperatures exceeding 98°F for some 60 days a year. Much of Arizona would be subjected to temperatures of 105°F or more for 98 days out of the year–14 full weeks.
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In 2007, Science (subs. req’d) published research that “predicted a permanent drought by 2050 throughout the Southwest” “” levels of aridity comparable to the 1930s Dust Bowl would stretch from Kansas to California. And they were also only looking at a 720 ppm case.
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The serious hydrological changes and impacts known to have occurred in both historic and prehistoric times over North America reflect large-scale changes in the climate system that can develop in a matter of years and, in the case of the more severe past megadroughts, persist for decades. Such hydrological changes fit the definition of abrupt change because they occur faster than the time scales needed for human and natural systems to adapt, leading to substantial disruptions in those systems. In the Southwest, for example, the models project a permanent drying by the mid-21st century that reaches the level of aridity seen in historical droughts, and a quarter of the projections may reach this level of aridity much earlier.
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In 2007, the IPCC warned that as global average temperature increase exceeds about 3.5°C [relative to 1980 to 1999], model projections suggest significant extinctions (40-70% of species assessed) around the globe. That is a temperature rise over pre-industrial levels of a bit more than 4.0°C. So a 5.5°C rise would likely put extinctions beyond the high end of that range.
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A 2010 Nature Geoscience study found that Oceans are acidifying 10 times faster today than 55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred.
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One analysis just of the impact of temperature rise on food finds “Half of world’s population could face climate-driven food crisis by 2100.” And this is just a 700 ppm analysis with no discussion of the impact of soil drying up or other well-understood climate impacts.
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Post by MaybeNever on Dec 6, 2011 0:39:10 GMT -5
Hmm. This looks really upsetting and like something that would take a lot of work to fix, or even to remotely influence. I'm pretty sure it's lies.
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Post by Yla on Dec 6, 2011 7:34:06 GMT -5
Yup, exactly. (referring to Vene, not MN)
The 28th(or so) century will be nice, when the climate stabilizes again.
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Post by Vene on Dec 6, 2011 10:25:36 GMT -5
I'm honestly wondering if humans will make it through the event.
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Post by brendanrizzo on Dec 6, 2011 12:15:56 GMT -5
Uh, the first circular graphs are kinda hard to read; can you explain them?
Also, not to sound overly optimistic, but those arrows starting with "Action begun in 2010" don't seem so bad. We still have a chance here.
I don't think that global warming will lead to the extinction of humanity. We've made it through worse before. But I do believe that if action is not taken, the world will be a really sucky place to live in and we'll probably technologically regress a great deal.
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Post by Old Viking on Dec 6, 2011 14:46:57 GMT -5
I have maintained for some years that it is delusional to think we can do anything at this point. It's way too late. Just hang on and enjoy the ride.
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Post by Vene on Dec 6, 2011 16:00:37 GMT -5
Uh, the first circular graphs are kinda hard to read; can you explain them? Also, not to sound overly optimistic, but those arrows starting with "Action begun in 2010" don't seem so bad. We still have a chance here. Action didn't begin and even the worst case scenario presented assumed we at least wouldn't be continuing to increase carbon dioxide output (which we are totally doing). Don't look at the low ones as a realistic possibility, the high ones are actually the optimistic possibility. It depends on what we do, if we continue to act as we have been, we're pretty much fucked. We're going to wipe out our food sources as well as our oxygen sources. I have maintained for some years that it is delusional to think we can do anything at this point. It's way too late. Just hang on and enjoy the ride. Oh, we can still do something about it, we can still reduce the overall impact and adapt our society in order to cope. We definitely can't stop it, though.
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Post by brendanrizzo on Dec 6, 2011 18:00:44 GMT -5
Well, the attitude of the general public is very (and I do mean VERY) slowly coming round to realize that this is a problem. Of course, there are two reasons why that is no consolation whatsoever.
Number one, it is too little too late.
Number two, it doesn't matter if 99% of Americans think that something must be done, if Congress is in the hands of oil companies nothing will happen.
So since there is absolutely no chance of coming out of this with modern civilization intact, why are we even trying to have positive changes if, after all, modern civilization will be destroyed by climate change?
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bfdd
Junior Member
Posts: 58
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Post by bfdd on Dec 6, 2011 20:44:10 GMT -5
From the looks of the graphs "we" don't have anything to worry about, its the next generation that has a problem. By the time things hit dangerous levels the people currently able to fix it will either be dead or to old to care. So we should just party and trash the place. I'm sure our children won't mind.
On a more serious note, is denial a worldwide thing or just in the US? I don't see the US changing for the better anytime soon, but I don't really know about politics outside the US. What would those graphs look like if everyone other than the US tried to fix the problem?
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Post by brendanrizzo on Dec 7, 2011 11:06:32 GMT -5
From the looks of the graphs "we" don't have anything to worry about, its the next generation that has a problem. By the time things hit dangerous levels the people currently able to fix it will either be dead or to old to care. So we should just party and trash the place. I'm sure our children won't mind. On a more serious note, is denial a worldwide thing or just in the US? I don't see the US changing for the better anytime soon, but I don't really know about politics outside the US. What would those graphs look like if everyone other than the US tried to fix the problem? Well, all the countries which accept the reality of climate change are trying to stop it. The problem with that is that they emit so little pollution anyway that nothing they do will make a dent compared with both America and China.
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Post by Her3tiK on Dec 7, 2011 16:59:50 GMT -5
Because I have nothing substantial to add:
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Post by Random Guy on Dec 8, 2011 3:22:54 GMT -5
*sigh*
Just what do you say to somebody who insists that global warming is just a natural phenomenon and explains it as "We've had several ice ages and the earth has warmed up to higher levels than this in the past?"
Seriously, this guy showed me some website with a bunch of graphs that attempted to show two things: the warming trend hasn't exceeded the Medieval Optimum yet (why this "proves" it's nothing to worry about is beyond me) and sunspot activity correlates to the warming trend somehow.
Oh, and he also denied carbon emissions were harmful, claiming "that's why we have trees, not to mention what all the plankton do in the oceans." When I objected and said that atmospheric CO2 had shot up exponentially starting with the Industrial Revolution, he claimed that oxygen was a harmful gas as well, that nitrogen was also a greenhouse gas, and that methane, another greenhouse gas, is produced by natural sources all the time (specifically mentioning cows whenever he had the chance and claiming they produced more methane than cars.)
Just what am I supposed to say to someone like this? It's like talking to a creationist.
(note: If you're wondering how this got started, we were working on a persuasive speech together and had chosen to discuss why riding a bike to school is better than driving a car. This argument started in response to my attempt at including a bit on why bikes are better for the environment.)
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Post by the sandman on Dec 8, 2011 8:59:14 GMT -5
What frustrates me is that people don't understand that it isn't climate change per se that's the problem, that is, after all, a natural process as the Earth goes through warming and cooling cycles, and the planet has survived them all just fine so far.
The problem is human accelerated climate change. Imagine waves on a lake on a calm summer day. The water level goes up and down subtly at the shoreline and nature has accommodated this variation in the ecosystem. But along comes a human in a bigass powerboat, kicking up huge waves at a much higher frequency than the normal process, and the shoreline is swamped and possibly destroyed.
We are taking the normal process of climate change and strapping a NOS booster to its arse. We are kicking it into such high gear that the natural processes at work will not be able to slow the change to an acceptable level, and climate change is far more like a huge boat than a car. There are no brakes. Even if we stop all this silly shit right now, it's still going to take a shockingly long time to slow the rate of change back to normal levels. We will blast right on through and out the other side into territory neither we nor the Earth can recover from.
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Post by Vene on Dec 8, 2011 9:59:30 GMT -5
He claimed nitrogen is a greenhouse gas? The fuck is this shit? I'll accept that oxygen can be harmful, but not due to any warming properties. It's also a harmful all life on Earth is currently evolved to handle. As for the bullshit on carbon dioxide being food for trees or phytoplankton, he clearly doesn't understand the concept of limiting nutrients (which are not carbon dioxide, but often nitrogen terrestrially and in marine environments and phosphorous for fresh water). There's also the whole thing about carbon dioxide concentrations have not been this high in 650,000 years, the ocean is getting acidic enough to destroy shells,* and this is warming is happening far faster than it ever has in the past. Rapid environmental changes are pretty much the textbook cause of mass extinctions (which are totally happening as I type this). * Marine chemist Richard Feely, a senior scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration, has been collecting water samples in the North Pacific for over 30 years. He’s observed a decrease in pH at the upper part of the water column, notably the region where carbon dioxide from automobile exhaust, coal-fired power plants, and other human activities has collected. This surface water is now acidic enough to dissolve the shells of some marine animals such as corals, plankton, and mollusks in laboratory experiments. Feely’s findings are just one sign of a troubling global phenomenon called ocean acidification. thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/09/24/319739/were-poisoning-the-oceans-and-it-threatens-our-food/Oh, on methane, that is a natural greenhouse gas, but it's skyrocketed since the industrial revolution, from about 750 ppb to ~1700 ppb. Sunspots, that's thoroughly debunked bullshit. Here's why: It looked like there could have been a connection, until the 1980s. Now it's clear there can't be one. Old fucking talking point is fucking old.
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Post by Mlle Antéchrist on Dec 12, 2011 21:20:59 GMT -5
Christ, people are still using the sun spot argument?
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