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Prepare For Global Temperature Rise of 4C, Warns Top Scientist
Defra's chief adviser says we need strategy to adapt to potential catastrophic increase
The UK should take active steps to prepare for dangerous climate change of perhaps 4C according to one of the government's chief scientific advisers.
In policy areas such as flood protection, agriculture and coastal erosion Professor Bob Watson said the country should plan for the effects of a 4C global average rise on pre-industrial levels. The EU is committed to limiting emissions globally so that temperatures do not rise more than 2C.
"There is no doubt that we should aim to limit changes in the global mean surface temperature to 2C above pre-industrial," Watson, the chief scientific adviser to the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, told the Guardian. "But given this is an ambitious target, and we don't know in detail how to limit greenhouse gas emissions to realise a 2 degree target, we should be prepared to adapt to 4C."
Link to this audio James Randerson: 'Massive shifts in Earth's systems'
Globally, a 4C temperature rise would have a catastrophic impact.
According to the government's 2006 Stern review on the economics of climate change, between 7 million and 300 million more people would be affected by coastal flooding each year, there would be a 30-50% reduction in water availability in Southern Africa and the Mediterranean, agricultural yields would decline 15 to 35% in Africa and 20 to 50% of animal and plant species would face extinction.
In the UK, the most significant impact would be rising sea levels and inland flooding. Climate modellers also predict there would be an increase in heavy rainfall events in winter and drier summers.
Watson's plea to prepare for the worst was backed up by the government's former chief scientific adviser, Sir David King. He said that even with a comprehensive global deal to keep carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere at below 450 parts per million there is a 50% probability that temperatures would exceed 2C and a 20% probability they would exceed 3.5C.
"So even if we get the best possible global agreement to reduce greenhouse gasses on any rational basis you should be preparing for a 20% risk so I think Bob Watson is quite right to put up the figure of 4 degrees," he said.
One big unknown is the stage at which dangerous tipping points would be reached that lead to further warming - for example the release of methane hydrate deposits in the Arctic. "My own feeling is that if we get to a 4 degree rise it is quite possible that we would begin to see a runaway increase," said King.
He said a two-and-half-year analysis by the government's Foresight programme on the implications for coastal defences had more impact in the corridors of power than any other research on the effects of climate change that he presented.
"No other single factor focussed the minds of the cabinet more than the analysis that I produced through that ... We begin to have to talk about ordered retreat from some areas of Britain because it becomes impossible to defend," he said. "There's no choice here between adaptation and mitigation, we have to do both."
Other experts were concerned that Watson's comments might be seen as defeatist and an admission that emissions reductions were impossible to achieve.
"At 4 degrees we are basically into a different climate regime," said Prof Neil Adger, an expert on adaptation to climate change at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in Norwich.
"I think that is a dangerous mindset to be in. Thinking through the implications of 4 degrees of warming shows that the impacts are so significant that the only real adaptation strategy is to avoid that at all cost because of the pain and suffering that is going to cost.
"There is no science on how we are going to adapt to 4 degrees warming. It is actually pretty alarming," he added.
Speaking to the Guardian, Watson, who is a former science adviser to President Clinton and ex-chief scientist at the World Bank, said the UK should take a lead in research on carbon capture and storage (CCS).
Alluding to the US effort in the 1960s to put a man on the moon he advocated an "Apollo-type programme" to introduce 10 to 20 CCS pilot projects - which work by burying carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels underground - among OECD countries to develop the technology.
"This would allow coal-fired power plants that are currently being built to be modular and capable of having carbon capture retrofitted, and would show the world that we take the issue of climate change seriously, thus demonstrating real leadership. Without this technology we have a real problem."
He also said as coal burning is cleaned up to remove harmful sulphur pollution climate change would actually get worse. The sulphur aerosols are actually preventing some warming from taking place currently.
"This offsetting effect, which is equivalent to about 100 parts per million of carbon dioxide, will largely disappear if China and India follow the lead of the US and Europe in limiting sulphur emissions, the cause of acid deposition," he said.
© 2008 The Guardian
87 Comments so far
Show Allhey KEM, the brits have been taking notice of your blogs..........even THEY are talking about methane hydrate release from the arctic.
Here in the midwest, we're seeing earlier blooms, migrations have changed and the praying mantis eggs have actually made it through a few of the past winters. This past winter we had over 100 inches of snow and have had torrential rains, followed by weeks of dry weather. I don't anticipate ever seeing again, the seasons of my youth.
Go see Werner Herzog's documentary "Encounters at the End of the World". Watch carefully the sequence where the lone penguin wanders off into the empty vastness of the Antarctic, heading toward certain death. That's us.
Kem got it right all right - keep putting it out there and people will read it. I've got the website he keeps posting here on my favorites so I can refer to it, and also refer others to it.
Unfortunately, so many people don't want to face the grim possibilities, and prefer to go on as though everything is as it's always been.
Roll a locomotive downhill and who's going to stop it? It'll stop when it's done rolling.
Climate's on the roll now.
"Chief adviser says we need strategy to adapt to potential catastrophic increase"
LOL. I'd like to see that strategy. It probably consists, in large part, of nuclear strikes to keep the unwanted masses from migrating in search of precious food and water. Those who are well armed will survive this coming catastrophe. Those who aren't, well...
This seems like an appropriate time for an up-to-date methane forecast.
The Arctic ocean consists of two sections now--all of the ocean north of 80 degrees latitude and the ocean south of 80 degrees. The ocean south of 80 degrees latitude, including the important continental shelves north of the Yukon, Alaska and all of Siberia's vastness, has been ice-free and warming up for quite a while. That's about half of the Arctic Ocean. Surf's up sometimes. The Northwest passage has been open for a few days now, for all you eco-tourist cruise ship operators who want to survey the damage.
Ah for just one time I would try the Northwest Passage
And find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea
Tracing one warm line through a land so wide and savage...
The ocean north of 80 degrees is still "ice covered", which means the ice is thin and has lots of leads. It absorbs a bit of sun.
The permafrost on land is generally at 1 degree below freezing, and so are the clathrates on the continental shelves. This temperature means that any more heating is going directly into melting. The continental shelves are slowly starting to melt now, although the Arctic Ocean's latency may contribute a 30 year lag to this melting. Not so on land, and the disappearance of the ice contributes directly to adjacent land heating.
I've seen two field reports that the permafrost on land is melting. One report says that for the first time the Yukon permafrost is squishy and "it farts". My translation: it smells like methane. The other is from Alaska, where people have dug frozen cellars, say, 50 years ago by their grandfathers for keeping game frozen and safe from bears, and one man opened the door to his cellar and said "Ooh, it smells!" In the same Fairbanks News-Miner story, other people report that their cellars were flooded for the first time in their history. These reports are in addition to bubbling lakes all over the Arctic where the methane plumes can be seen and tree-sized methane fireballs can be set off with a lighter. Last year, a clear methane rise was first measured in the atmosphere two miles above a Soviet Arctic river delta.
The world-changing question is, how fast is the permafrost currently melting? I don't know, but the melting seems pretty widespread and impressive right now.
I hate to sound alarmist, but nothing is going to force the world's governments, specifically the rich governments, from enacting all possible measures to eliminate carbon emissions. I mean, think about in: the US is fighting one Oil War in Iraq, a war in Afghanistan to provide a foothold in energy rich Central Asia-- wars that are not going to end for some time. Wars that are themselves huge carbon emitters (the Pentagon is the world's largest user of petroleum). Will the US and its client oil corporations be driven from Iraq anytime soon? It is doubtful.
Are the Arab petro-sheikhs going to stop pumping out oil, even as they will be raking in trillions of dollars in the next decades?
Are the leftist regimes in Latin America going to stop exploiting their natural resources-- as much of their populations want, actually-- if they are not compensated to do so?
Are the state capitalist Russian authoritarians, who have direct ties to the state energy monopolies, going to take a pay cut?
Are Western oil corporations going to be led by responsible human beings and take the lead in funding research for carbon-free energy? Actually, it would probably be illegal under US law for them to do so, because US prohibits corporations from spending shareholder dollars on endeavors that won't lead to profits.
Are coal-reliant China and India going to stop development dead in its tracks?
According to many scientists, carbon emissions need to nearly eliminated in the next decade to prevent the worst case, 4 C rise in global temperature. It's quite plain to see that short of a global, democratic, humanistic, compassionate, socialist revolution in the next decade, the latter part of the 21st century is going to be a kind of hell to live in-- mainly for non-North American and -European countries. Rich countries, as this article shows, are going to be able to adapt. Europeans and Americans aren't going to starve to death. But what about the rest of the billions of people?
Personally, I think that there will be a world-changing nuclear war before the worst effects of climate change are realized.
What say you world?
Interestingly, the article gives no time scale for these events.
KEM, once he gets round to reading this article can have a field day with the lack of timeposts. "4C rise in temperature, it's happening now!! We're all going to die!!!!!!" God, no, KEM. :(
I'd say that nuclear war would have to begin within five to eight years ~LAPAZ000~ and a major nuclear war may over time kill off much of humanity, but it will not come close to doing what the "soon to come" release of the ocean's methane will accomplish.
And ~PAULk's~ post here is very important and everyone who cares should heed what he offered.
ANY, any, ANY ___ who ignore, or brush off, or deny climate change, which is the DIRECT RESULT of "global warming", are either obtuse or stupid, or horribly ignorant about the issue, or have a monetary interest to continue burning coal.
Those who post denying comments are in my opinion, among the worst of the worst and deserve absolutly NO respect what-so-ever. I think of them in the same light as selfish, cruel, souless killers. The scum of the earth.
Those who are not sure if humanity is responsible for global warming are not the same as the outright scum-bag deniers, who attempt to corrupt threads such as this with their detracting lies and sly word usage designed to confuse the issue.
If any have young children or grand children and love them and wish they have ANY hope for a future, they should be doing all they possibly can, to get the messsage out to their elected and our world leaders, and urge them to initiate sensible programs to stop burning coal and then phase out burning all fossil fuels. And the time to act is running out.
Hi~ COCO~ "Happy birthday" to you kid.
The Brits should have been fully aware of methane releaes long ago, you ever see the food they eat?? ___ LOL.
Yes,
The need for immediate change in industrial human activities and associated consumerism has been clear to me since 1970, when i was 11 years old. For whatever it is worth, i've never driven a car, and i flew on an airplane only once, just to prove that i'm not avoiding it out of personal fear. Somehow, my "lack" of driving and flying has not ruined my life... but clearly, the driving and flying of so much stuff and so many people IS ruining our Earth.
Hopefully the need for IMMEDIATE change is becoming crystal-clear to millions of people, and soon we will reach the "critical mass" analogy where the social reaction takes on a life of its own and becomes rapid and unstoppable.
Each of us has choices - we can dream of a technical, governmental, or corporate "fix" that will enable us to continue to live in a consumerist orgasm of industrial production...
Or we can stop buying ANYTHING that we do not literally NEED.
Produce as much food and living diversity as we can on the land that we have access to.
And learn the skills of TAKING CARE OF ONE ANOTHER, and MAKING DECISIONS TOGETHER. These are the "technologies" that we need.
NOT the "clean coal" technologies that the scientist in the article is pushing for.
To answer the "alarmist" questions posed by lapaz000 at 2:13 p.m. - well you pretty much answered it yourself, "short of a global, democratic, humanistic, compassionate, socialist revolution in the next decade, the latter part of the 21st century is going to be a kind of hell to live in". Not sure i would use all the same specific adjectives you use, but we need POPULAR MOVEMENTS and UPRISINGS. Not only "against" processes and institutions that produce more atmospheric carbon, but "for" democracy, life, and our common humanity, and "against" all war machines, state and corporate domination, patriotism and fascism, and consumerism.
Who's gonna give up consumerism today in the face of the looming crises we see? Who's gonna reject state and corporate domination? Who's gonna recognize our common humanity? Who's gonna organize to resist the war machine in your part of the world? Who's gonna reject patriotism? Who's willing to fight and die for what is good and true, in the face of terrible odds? Who's willing to face the obvious crises that are no longer "in the future" but beginning to play out in real time? At what point does an individual drop their "normal" life and step into the dangerous truth?
At what point does public consciousness achieve "critical mass" and dramatically shift the direction of social forces?
What steps can individuals, families, and communities attempt, that might help move the larger social consciousness toward "critical mass"?
maybe this is the kind of something we can look forward to when the methane is realeased from the arctic:
http://www.sveurop.org/gb/articles/Lake%20Nyos.htm
and for a bit of 'light' entertainment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmysVoRBgyA
PAULK
thanks for the methane update. but i bet he said something stonger than 'ooh it smells'.............
Actually, methane gas is a colorless and odorless gas, it's the decaying plant life where methane is produced that smells like a sewer. Now farts are a slightly differnt matter, there the gas also allows the odor of the digesting food in the guts to escape. Try a few hard boiled eggs and popcorn with beer.
On a more SERIOUS note: Once again, for any who have never had the pleasure of reading this three minute time to read, and very important article. The warnings of the highly qualified author to write such information, are coming to pass.
Also, try to find the book titled, ___ "When Life Nearly Died,___ penned by the distinguished paleontologist, Michael J. Benton.
http://www.energybulletin.net/3647.html
And,
To echo what Kem says above about the deniers:
Even if the deniers "successfully" turn this thread into a long confusing mess...
Every person reading this has their own life and their own choices. Our lives and our choices (mostly) do not take place in the Common Dreams comment area. When we log off and leave the idiotic morass of the deniers behind, we can live our lives and make choices that actually address the real crises we live in.
That is what will make us feel like we can do something - by actually struggling to do something. Not by "winning" an on-line "argument" against people who are either fools or evil.
And, as a terrible cynic myself, i'm afraid this also applies to the much more common theme here of "it's hopeless, no one can do anything, just look at the obvious array of historical and social forces lined up against us, we're doomed...".
Yes we are probably doomed to witness (or die in) the fundamental disruption of life and human civilization, with the short-term die-off of at least a big chunk of present humanity, but y'know, each of us is born to die anyway, and the Earth itself has a finite life span, and the entire amazing experience of life here is an astonishing gift and a blessing, and no matter how clear everything appears the fact always remains that we do not actually know how the future will play out until it is actually playing out, and we do not know what we can accomplish, and history has repeatedly brought shocking surprises that went against what all the smart people and cynics "knew", and in any event, what the hell else are we going to do but fight?
We're at a crossroad and there are two options to choose from - one good, one bad. The bad option is to place the burden of climate change mitigation on the people. The good option is to place the burden of claim change on the elites who created it. Yes, we have to point fingers. Yes, we have to coerce a change of behavior. Yes, many people believe that coercion accomplishes nothing. This is the basis behind the anti-torture laws, and widely held beliefs about human relations in general. Children are turned into rebellious misfits by coercion.
But it really depends on power relations. An authority with power over the child must be restrained from coercion. The rebellion occurs when the child perceives the authority as wrong. But when the balance of power is more even, e.g. when a child is actively challenging the parent's authority without regard to fairness, then reasonable people understand that coercion becomes the only choice. Only when a person is trying to do the right thing does one have a right to free will. When a person does the wrong thing deliberately or in willful ignorance, then one forfeits the right to free will. This distinction hasn't been considered in the public dialog on the behavior of elites and its omission compromises our ability to gain widespread support for anti-corruption, anti-imperialism, anti-oppression rules.
The elites are deviously exploiting our confusion on this matter, so let's clear up the confusion. Elites have to face the fact that the people will not tolerate oppression, imperialism, corruption. Those who put selfish, zero-sum interests ahead of the public interests will pay for climate change mitigation, or will be ostracized from the society, or both.
Thank you ~WEBWALK and RTDRURY~
If any deniers show up here and deny the Arctic is thawing after reading ~Paulk's~ post, I'll shit in my pants.
rtdrury 3:24 p.m.
Yes, thanks for the additional perspective, i hope my focus on each of our individual actions does not give the impression that i think we should ignore political and economic institutions. We should FORCE CHANGES in "our" political and economic institutions, and hold the "leaders" directly accountable.
webwalk-you make a good point about consumerism. It's a tough current to fight against for most people.
My feeling has always been that if we want mass change in belief systems/government/culture-it has to start with the wee children. Don't just schlep them to lessons/sports/organized activities; educate them in the ways of the world. Don't leave that education up to schools, churches or whatever.
My girls have been composting, recycling, gardening, reusing, etc. since they were small. It's "normal" for them and they talk to their peers about it. My sixteen year old activiely engages her peers, at school, in discussions about politics. She's led letter writing campaigns. No help from me, she doesn't need it because she's been raised around it. It's "normal".
Her 12 year old sister has been known to collect compostable food from her friends' homes and bring it here after finding out they do not have a compost bin. One of her friend's parents asked us where to get one because of it.
Our 9 year old can join right in with adults in conversations about current events and the environment. She's super concerned about global warming and is a little "electricity nazi" at our home and her friends. He rbest friend's mom switched to CFLs after a discussion they had.
I think that if we continue to make our children aware of what is going on and how it affects them and make it clear that no matter how old they are, they MATTER and can do something, then we'll see some real change.
KEM PATRICK
yes, i do know what those brits eat..........that's why i left there 25 years ago. and thanks for the birthday greeting. we're having an 'inner peace, global peace' 24 hour sit in meditation here for 3 days starting tomorrow with all kinds of activities/music/international cuisine etc. (hope there's no british food.) so will have a look at that.
little drops of water make a mighty ocean................
What isn't revealed is this: 2 or 4 degrees above what? What is the starting point, the base temp used as the "norm"?
Because:
"The global land surface temperature was the warmest on record for March (2008), 3.3°F above the 20th century mean of 40.8°F."
That's nearly 4 degrees up, yes?
"The monthly temperature for Alaska was an average 3.8°F above the 1971-2000 mean."
That's nearly 4 degrees up, too, yes?
So - are we already just half-a-degree shy of the 4 degree mark or not???
I dunno ~FRANK~. All I know is, the Arctic is thawing at an alarming rate with no letup in sight and it is now projected to be ice free within five years or LESS. I personally believe we humans are in VERY serious trouble, due to that unarguable with any credence, fact.
OK, there is a gazillion cubic feet of methane in the Arctic and another gazillion cubic feet else where in the world. Now I know they use methane from the staten Island land fill in place of natural gas in parts of NYC. We can drill for natural gas, liquify natural gas and ship natural gas, WHY can't we do the same for methane which if there is as much as predicted it will last 1000 years or more. Save what oil we have for plastics (like the keyboard you and I are typing on) and all the other uses (besides power) we use it for. Propane fuels cars and buses here in Az WHY not methane? Replace coal and nuclear powered electrical generating plants with methane fired plants. Kem says we can't, I don't want to say he's wrong BUT the only thing I know that is impossible is to (physically) live forever.
~WOLF~ If you can picture methane hydrates spaced out across the entire Arctic ocean and the perma-frost of the Arctic, including much of Siberia, the upper portions of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, how are you going to gather even one percent of the methane?
It isn't like a natural gas well or the old Staten Island garbage dumps, where they collect SOME of the methane in special pipes as it rises to the surface areas.
It would be similar to someone asking you to collect all of the grains of sand that were discolored, from every ocean beach in the world. I cannot think of a better example for an anology.
Anyway forget it, because it is not possible to collect the ocean's and arctic's methane and put it into storage tanks. There isn't enough metal availabe to mankind to make enough tanks. It's (millions times billions) of tons of methane.
No one is going to live forever either WOLF, but we do not have to commit suicide. And continuing to burn "coal" is suicide the slow way. It's gonna get faster pretty damn soon unless we stop burning it.
All right, since everyone's talking about this now. Kem, I was thinking of asking you this. I picked up that book you mention even before hearing hear about it. I didn't finish it, but I do remember the first chapter. A real interesting time travel chapter about an individual dying animal and a dying world - at least thats how I remember it, which may be all screwed up.
Even then I just can't understand the methane storage under the oceans mechanism. I tryed reading up on it in Wikipedia, I think it explained it well, but I don't get it.
The methane is down there in ice deposits? Why did the methane originally go into the ice? Ice floats, how would it get to the bottom of the ocean? Then the methane ice got covered with sediment and buried?
I can't get a mental picture of what's being described.
A lot of news on global warming scenarios surprising no one here. I think the energy providers want to minimize oil production because they know the dollar can only devalue and make oil more valuable (although not in real terms.)
Despite the current Administration's ties to oil (and the big run-up in its price,) the sooner Peak Oil arrives, the need for change will be more apparent. Rising prices mean oil alternatives become more attractive, a key secondary benefit to higher oil prices.
Now about Iraq: our government never really intended to drain Iraq dry (as their $80b surplus attests.) US policy was to prevent the Chinese and others from taking it, or letting Saddam sell his in Euros. The Carter doctrine says the US will not tolerate any other power from interfering with the flow of oil from the Mideast. This is for obvious reasons: our entire US economy is dependent on oil. We need to get away from it. Bush is using market forces--a euphemism for doing nothing to lead and hoping prices will force people to consume less (while making his sheik friends and cronies some large cash...)
Methane is the product of anaerobic conversion (decomposition of carbon-based matter with no oxygen) over time. The decomposing vegetation which grew on the sea floor dies and the methane gas it produces stays underwater, due the pressure and temperature difference between the water below and above. Should the ocean temperatures increase, the conveyor-belt type effect might slow down (like the currents running from the Gulf of Mexico to Europe as described in Gore's documentary.)
Methane gas is held in the ocean in what is called a giant sink. Temperatures can radically affect the currents, and the ability of the ocean to hold the methane gas. Forests act in a similar way, grabbing huge amounts of CO2 out of the air. Rainforests are especially good, as they contain so many plants (hungry for CO2). That's why PALM OIL plantations are a dire threat--this was a product of the "no transfats" effort :(.
Now there are also these huge peat bogs in formerly colder regions that have massive amounts of methane from all the decomposition processes from millions of years. The methane is twenty times worse than CO2 as a greenhouse gas and is BUBBLING up in arctic areas where ice has warmed the permafrost, allowing the gas to escape. This is the runaway freight train scenario--how long can we have temps go up before momentum is unstoppable and methane (hydrate) emerges from the sea floor and thawing bogs?
~DARRELL~ I'm not a scientist or even very smart, but I'll attempt to explain it in "stupid" terms if you cannot understand the technical jargon, which I have a problem with also, but I do understand stupid. ___ So does my wife.
Okay, picture a twelve square foot of ground. Over millions of years, tree leaves fall onto the soil, weeds grow and die, over time the mulch gets thicker and it sinks deeper into the ground and naturally it decays. That decaying process causes methane gas, or Ch4 to form and it seeps out of the ground and enters our atmophere where over time it becomes Co2.
We need a certain amount of Co2 in our atmosphere, but not too much. Right now from humanity burning fossil fuels for the past 200+ years, it's too much. Nature cannot handle it. Humanty annually is putting excess Co2 into the atmosphere, which is equivelant to 17,000 volcanos. Refrence the link I posted.
Now the same thing happens in the oceans, where seaweed and dead plankton sink to the ocean's floors and the decaying of that matter begins over time and Ch4 forms. It will also seep into the atmosphere, UNLESS, unless the water is both deep and cold.
Then the methane just clings to the decaying organic matter. Over billions of years in time there is a lot of decaying matter and a lot of methane. It's not ice there in the ocean's floor beds, it is the cold water and water pressure that keeps that massive accumulation of Ch4 safely locked up.
In the Arctic, the same thing happens. In the summer, there are plants that live and die, or at some period of time in the long ago past, the Arctic area was all ocean. At one time the entire globe was totally covered with water. That lasted for millions of years. Ch4 was developing in the oceans floors then.
At some time in Earth's history, the Arctic region became covered with ice and then it thawed a lot and it is now as it has been for several million years and there is perma- frost, which is icy cold all year round. That's why it's called perma-frost. That perma-frost is actully mostly decaying organic matter and is full of Ch4. As long as it stays cold, the methane stays right there in the perma-frost safe and sound. When the perma-frost thaws, the once trapped methane gas will escape into the atmosphere.
Now methane is 25 times as potent as a Greenhouse gas as Co2 is. So a large amount of methane suddenly escaping into the atmosphere will cause more global warming and then the feed back phenom begins and it get warmer and more methane escapes, which causes further warming. A vicious cycle.
Then when the oceans get warm enough, their methane escapes and then we are not talking about deep methane, we are talking "deep shit" and we will be in it.
I do hope that answers your question ~Darrell~. But you really should read that book you bought for a better much and more technical explination. Or, just read the link I posted. That says it all. And it ain't funny.
Oops, I see JB alreadhy answered while I was typing my bullshit.
couple references above,in posts, about nuclear war. Oddly enough, maybe that and a resulting NUCLEAR WINTER is our only hope of stopping this roller coaster? Or, is that just too too crazy!!
frank1569,
The difference is F vs. C. You are quoting F degrees but the article is talking about C degrees. Five degrees C equals 9 degrees F, so the 2008 global surface difference you reference of 3.3 degrees F is about 1.9 degrees C.
IF you would LIKE to hear a little truth and reason:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/nasa-urged-to-debunk-the-current-hysteria-over-global-warming.html
DarrellM,
Here are some good sites to help you understand it better.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_Gun_Hypothesis
This is another great site http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080528140255.htm
If you want even more good info, a tedious but informative read "Under a Green Sky" by Peter Ward.
Hope this gives you a better idea.
No hope here. Sorry to interrupt the congregation.
Those looking to escape the consensus reality that we are all doomed, may go here.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9763
Those who want to know about the delphi technique practiced by your facilitator, you know who he his. You may read this link.
http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/1998/nov98/focus.html
Technology will not resolve the climate crisis, and people are incapable, to date, of changing rapidly enough to mitigate it.
Dramatic life changes will result. The choice is still life or death, and people are choosing death.
"The rebellion occurs when the child perceives the authority as wrong."
Well said, rtdrury. Not to quibble, but I think the rebellion occurs when the child says "No, I won't!"
However, let's be clear - we are not children. In reality, children have little choice - they are captive and dependent on their elders. Again - we are not children. We see that authority is wrong and we have the power to do something about it, we just don't know what.
Protesting is one way of saying, "No, I won't!," however, it rarely accomplishes much, other than releasing energy and emotions. It has its place, but times are getting more desperate by the day. We, not being children, must find another way of rebelling. We must find a place where authority is vulnerable and then hit it hard.
Well, let's consider this: Questions: Since we live in a corporate/capitalist/money-based system, where do we have the most leverage for rebellion? What is the one way we can affect the most pressure on the whole system? What action is not yet illegal and would work, and has, 100 percent of the time? Answer: Withholding as much money from the system as we possibly can. Money is the life-blood of this system, and withholding it from the market, especially the distant, corporate market, is the major way that we have left to rebel successfully.
Home gardens, sustainability groups, permaculture classes, lending groups, barter chapters, and more are all ways of taking back power and exerting the maximum influence on the system. If we each do what we can to cut back, to buy less and buy local (and organic) when we can, to grow and make and mend our own, the system will change - it will have no choice but to change. And not just change, but change in the direction that we are pointing it in.
If we think that it's too late, that only the big shots and the pols can do anything, then, in my opinion, we are doomed. They are part and parcel of the system, the authority. On the other hand, if we finally step into adulthood and realize that we've had the power all along (shhh, the elite don't want you to know this - just keep shopping), we begin to win.
MiMiCcS: Thanks for the link about the Delphi Technique, one can certainly see the parallels here with all the mind games played by THE ONE WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED. In this case, however, I think we are experiencing the effects of a singular pathology. It would be interesting to try to find the psychological description of an individual who pursues this "facilitator" role as a function of personal obsession or need and not, certainly in this case, by occupation.
I'm sure there are examples of this type of personality in literature and film. Here is a link to the top 50 Dystopian films, although I'm thinking specifically of an oldie: Things to Come (1936) with Ralph Richardson's portrayal of The Boss, "Their city Everytown--obviously London-- becomes wrecked by a war featuring tanks, a magnificent war march by Bliss, and the end of civilization. The second portion finds people living in the wreckage of what had been the city under a "Boss", played with bravura by Ralph Richardson, whose woman, lovely Margaretta Scott, is as fascinating a dreamer as he is a concrete-bound dictator type. He is trying to rebuild old WWI airplanes so he can attack a nearby hill tribe to complete his petty kingdom."
Of course, H.G. Wells did not, to my knowledge, envision an internet cyberspace in which almost any bully with a powerful inferiority complex can attempt to subvert free speech and the free thinking that might grow in that fertile soil.
MiMiCcS,
Thanks for the eagleforum piece....very interesting and worth saving, referring to and sharing with my thoughtful friends.
re: Methane I am reminded of Egg Salad and Tang from Saturday Night Live, many moons ago.
re: Nuclear War and Nuclear winter and the near destruction of all life, US = being the biggest parasite on the planet...kinda biblical, like the flood. In spite of any natural extreme fluctuations in climate/weather, we ignore or even just doubt the signs and our part in it, and WHOOSH...we're outa here! If it goes that way, maybe Earth can heal herself and life will re-establish itself. If some of Mankind survives to reproduce, will they finally get the message? Will they be mutated or have to live underground like the Troglodites?
For geo522 at 7:26pm
Your link for the article by Marc Morano......
Here's a little background
Marc Morano is communications director for the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Morano commenced work with the committe under Senator James Inhofe, who was majority chairman of the committee until January 2007. In December 2006 Morano launched a blog on the committee's website that largely promotes the views of climate change sceptics."
Well, there went any shred of credibility you may have had
.
I observe that in my own lifetime I can watch the attitude go from complete obliviousness (the 50's), to callousness, to denial, to "Oh, shit"!
From ~frank1569~ (August 7th, 2008 4:33 pm):
---------------------------- START QUOTE:
What isn't revealed is this: 2 or 4 degrees above what? What is the starting point, the base temp used as the "norm"?
Because:
"The global land surface temperature was the warmest on record for March (2008), 3.3°F above the 20th century mean of 40.8°F."
That's nearly 4 degrees up, yes?
"The monthly temperature for Alaska was an average 3.8°F above the 1971-2000 mean."
That's nearly 4 degrees up, too, yes?
So - are we already just half-a-degree shy of the 4 degree mark or not???
---------------------------- END QUOTE
Hi Frank - first of all, I almost ALWAYS love reading your posts here on CD. Extremely lucid, especially about politics - so many thanks for being here. You are right on 99% of the time, IMO.
To your questions: as someone subsequently mentioned, these are Fahrenheit vs. Celsius. ALSO - according to the quote you provided, they are talking about *land* surface temperatures, not all surfaces. When you average all surfaces, including oceans and lakes, you wind up with a much lower number - which as I recall is around 0.9C or so over pre-industrial global average surface temperature. ("The average global air temperature near the Earth's surface increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F) during the 100 years ending in 2005," according to the wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming.) Land, of course, tends to warm at a faster rate than water.
The 4C increase mentioned in the article is 4 times the overall warming seen to date, and very close to the 5C of warming between the last ice age and the present interglacial period. As said in the article, that puts us into a totally different climate regime. We have NO IDEA how - or if - we will be able to survive the yet-unknown consequences of that size a global change.
I want to take issue with the following part of the article:
"In the UK, the most significant impact would be rising sea levels and inland flooding. Climate modellers also predict there would be an increase in heavy rainfall events in winter and drier summers."
I think this is drastically oversimplifying the potential consequences of a 4C rise in global average temperature. People continue to focus on the physical ramifications of climate change, such as weather events and extremes. What we do not know, and cannot predict, is what happens as the current balance (relative equilibrium) of species is upset. There may be enormous disruptions in the food chain. There may be mind-boggling explosions of disease. As one climate expert I saw back in the mid-'90s said, it's the bugs and microbes that will win when change happens. They have much shorter life cycles and therefore can adapt to these changes much faster than more complex species with longer lifespans and generation cycles - especially humans. That is the *really* scary part. And what about ancient pathogens long locked up in frozen ice and tundra that may be released in the process? Once again, we have no idea how these will play out in the scheme of things (which, by the way, is another reason why we should not be experimenting with genetics and GMO's).
As for me, it seems that Earth has gone through gazillions of climate changes over the eons, and as a planet, has every right to do so. Are we humans adding to the current phase of that process by doing stupid stuff (burning fossil fuels, etc.)? No doubt.
But, I'm guessing maybe if we stopped doing stupid stuff tomorrow - everybody, everywhere on the face of the Earth -the old lady will continue to warm gradually, before she decides to cool down in the next two or three millenia.
Maybe my great grandchildren will get to die for my ecological sins (which, compared to those of many "deniers" are rather miniscule). Maybe not. I'm pretty sure that if everyone who reads and posts on CD plants a garden and holds hands to sing kum-ba-ya we'll be able to keep that temp steady at an increase of only 4C degrees. And, we'll be saved. - Until The Rapture!!
I see our favorite deniers did show up here, had little to say except post links that deny things such as this article states is not
factual and or that ~PAULK~ is wrong etc. I am very thankful they say that I, ("the person who shall not be named"), is wierd.
For if they believe that of me, where does it place them?
Frak 1569: 4deg. centigrade above pre-industrial levels. Globally.
Here's my question: Why deny global warming?
Even if it turns out to be false, the result of responding to global warming (i.e. shifting away from hydrocarbons) is all good. At a minimum, it will improve air quality and alleviate those suffering from asthma. Also, coping with global warming will stimulate development of new lifestyles and technologies, thereby stimulating the economy.
Frankly, global warming looks like another good example of Pascal's paradox*. If it turns out to be a hoax, then no harm done and possibly some good. If it turns out to be true, then we've the satisfaction of knowing we've done all we could to to mitigate things.
So, I'm trying to understand how people benefit (and their kids and grand kids benefit) by denying global warming. All this fuss and denial cannot just be because people are addicted to their cars.
*Pascal's paradox was originally about God. Pascal decided that he may as well believe in God as not. If there is no God, then what he believed did not matter. If there is a God, then he's in the good.
I see lots of evidence that there is no man-made global warming. I see no evidence that there is. Al Gore presents conjectures, not evidence.
Shokulan: Science is not about bad and good, it is about approaching the truth. The discussion is about what the truth is, not what is better for humans. Pollution is bad for us and for the planet. Nobody advocates polluting.
Today is like this: We are in a crowded theater and someone hollers fire. We look around and see that the flames have consumed ten percent of the people yet we just sit there and do nothing. Crisis no longer motivates people to action.
You do? ___ Not me G and D. I'm gettin my ass outta that theatre. .... LOL
I got your good point however. We often don't act on serious issues until it's too late.
Go read a book Lizard, you are incredibly ignorant about the issue.
How many of the global-warming naysayers are scientists? Astonishingly few.
How many people are scientists? Surprisingly few.
So, for most people, it boils down to what they hear (usually from the telly) and whether they think it is good or bad (which the telly tries to tell them).
This gets back to my original question--what are the benefits of denying global warming?
So, you diehard global warming deniers here on the list, tell me: why is it so important to you?
Here is one global warming proponent who is willing to listen to you. Don't send me links and evidence, what I want are your personal reasons for why you reject global warming and how this rejection benefits you and yours.
Lizard,
Then much of our disagreement must be about the definition of pollution. Pollution, essentially, is an excess. In the case of the planet, CO2 is pollution because there is definitely an excess of CO2 (not to mention SOx, NOx, all sorts of heavy metals, human waste, garbage, etc. etc.)
Within our bodies and on our planet, too much of something is just as bad as too little. Aspirin in small doses can alleviate pain. In large doses, it can alleviate pain permanently--it kills. We've got the same thing going on at a planetary level. We humans are pooping in our drinking water and spewing exhaust into our air and it's now having longer effects than elementary school kids dying of asthma attacks, it may well just permanently eliminate asthma attacks by eliminating kids and elementary schools.