'Clear' human impact on climate

[Beawulf]

'Clear' human impact on climate

 

A scientific report commissioned by the US government has concluded there is "clear evidence" of climate change caused by human activities.

 

The report, from the federal Climate Change Science Program, said trends seen over the last 50 years "cannot be explained by natural processes alone".

 

It found that temperatures have increased in the lower atmosphere as well as at the Earth's surface.

 

 

Now their own scientists are telling them something is happening, I wonder if they will start acting acordingly?

 

Personally I doubt it, not while it will cost money to change, and people are still able to say "this data doesnt go back far enough" or "there is no evidence it wont change back". Personally I dont think there will be concensus until the sea level rises, half the planet turns into a desert or the gulf stream stops triggering an ice age...... even then I'm sure it will be blamed on 'natural cycles' ;) heh

[Steveo]

That study has a lot of flaws, and I'll post a reasonable analysis in the morning.

[TetsuoShima]

I have no idea of whether this is actually happening or not, but when humanity is on the line, I'd imagine we'd like to err on the safe side and assume these rapports hold at least some truth and act accordingly untill somebody can prove for a fact that they don't. Even if this one, or even all of them have flaws, I would think we'd at least do something, like try to prove for a fact that it isn't happening... If somebody were to do that, then Id say, okay go ahead with it all, but since nobody has done something like this either, I'd rather be safe than sorry. But in view of a poll I did last year, it would seem that half the people (at least on this forum) would gladly participate in Russian roulette (half the people voted against 'better safe than sorry'). So with that in mind, it doesn't come as a surprise to me, that nothing is done about the situation, and that this will remain so untill it is to late. Ah, well, at least I can be relatively confident, that in my own lifetime the effects (if there are any :p ) will not be too drastic. (how selfish is that!, riiiiight) ;)

[bones2097]

think about it back in the day when dinosors ruled the earth millions of years ago the climate was tropical.. and hot... ever since then co2 has been locked away in place (coal & oil....)..

 

now wwe relases it again the planet would go back to the old climate....

[GorunNova]

My thought is... if so many independant climatologists are all saying the same thing, odds are there may be something to what they say. This is just one addition to the chorus...

 

I'm not saying to blindly trust whatever they say, but when the experts in a particular field seem to agree on something, there's something up. Given that we're talking about science, if the theories and models are seriously flawed, there won't be such a consensus behind it.

[Tenebrae]

I forget but ITV news has done some items about this... it was some island group... was it Seychelles?

 

They're evacuating islands because they're flooding.

[Antipodean]

I forget but ITV news has done some items about this... it was some island group... was it Seychelles?

 

They're evacuating islands because they're flooding.

 

 

Yeah, and the nation of Tuvalu (of .tv fame) has lost significant parts of its land mass (its a VERY low lying country.)

[Guest c4evap]

Isn't Venis Italy suffering rising waters as well? Think I recall seeing something to that effect on the Discovery channel not too long ago. And didn't Holland build (or is building) some type of massive "water-gate" to hold back the rising tides?

 

c4 :thinking:

[Antipodean]

None the less, the economies of this world remain instranigently carbon adicted... Because it really would have DIRE economic consequences to restructure the way we operate to bring carbon emissions down to more environmentally friendly levels. Mind you, if the consequences of global warming turn out to be as full on as some models have suggested, then our economies are all stuffed anyhow...

 

 

*shrugs*

 

 

Anybody got any ideas?

[Tenebrae]

Time to euthanise a big percentage of the world's population.

 

That's my solution to everything though.

[Antipodean]

Time to euthanise a big percentage of the world's population.

 

That's my solution to everything though.

 

 

This too would screw the our economies - they depend on growth.

[Tenebrae]

Let's face it - the economy is going to get screwed whatever happens.

 

At least with my plan, you get rid of social detritus and avoid imminent global catastrophe.

 

Mass genocide aside - though, it is generally one of my favoured solutions to the world's ills - the economic situation is rather analogous to post-Soviet countries.

 

Basically, you've got an economic model that has failed. You either try and slowly ween yourself off it (like Russia) to soften the economic hardship. Or you take the plunge and just switch over (like Poland et al).

 

BOTH these approaches are going to cause economic problems in the short term but with the short sharp shock, you're at least getting it out the way. With the other, it goes on and on and on.

[Antipodean]

The ideal solution would be the development of nuclear fusion reactors - imagine that, energy that would be for all intensive purposes, cleap clean and unlimited. THAT would rock the world.

[Tenebrae]

They're supposed to be building one in France sometime.

 

If you read Peter F . Hamilton though, he suggests that you'd just be trading one problem for another. All the heat generated by all the cheap energy doing as much damage as the CO2 in the long term. Not sure how scientifically valid that would be but most of his work is pretty grounded in fact.