Global Warming

[Paul Arden]

So the question then is what will happen? Higher tides, more severe weather, loss of habitat, droughts. Why is 4C a tipping point?

I liked this sign in the Philippines. I suppose if another intelligent species evolves again they'll be digging up plastic jugs and vinyl records.

[Galah]

Personally, I don't believe anything substantial will be done about it while there are still huge short-term profits to be made by not doing anything about it. This is how the capitalist system works. And it works well for a lot of things. Not very well for things like this, which basically equate to spending money now (or at-least not making money hand-over-fist) for the sake of some vague long term benefit. On the other hand, if there was short term cash to be made by the fistful by preventing climate change and protecting our natural environment, the problem would be solved already (which makes many "climate deniers" claim than global warming is a "hoax" designed to make money at the expense of them multi-national oil and coal trades even more ludicrous).

There's no serious scientific debate about whether humans are having a huge influence on the climate or not. We are. But there is some serious scientific debate about how the natural environment will respond and adapt. My personal hope is that it will surprise us. Mother Nature will prevail. The ecosystem will be able to adapt as it has done countless times in the past with natural (albeit nowhere near as rapid) climate change. That's my hope, because I don't hold out any hope that we're actually going to take the substantial type of action required to mitigate it at this stage.

[Graeme H]

Mother nature will indeed deal with it.

That means we're farked, because mother nature doesn't muck around when it comes to wiping out the problem. We're in her sights.

[Galah]

I doubt it mate. We're not going anywhere for a long while unless we blow ourselves up first. As much as I'd welcome a huge decrease in the human population on this planet, I'd prefer it to be a natural one (i.e. people stop having so many bloody babies) than either mass starvation caused by environmental destruction or nuclear warfare.

[Graeme H]

Oh, I agree: in an ideal world, we'd find a way to quarter our population without a nightmare solution.

But really, how can that happen? Even if we decide today - globally - that no more children will be born for the next 30 years, we will still have more than 6 billion people alive at the end of that time.

We also must stop increasing CO2 from fossil fuels immediately to avoid the 4-5 C temperature increase we're heading for. Instead, we are currently producing it faster now than we ever have. We're not even close to levelling the output, let alone reducing emissions ....

4-5 C will see our population plummet back to sustainable levels, but it'll be catastrophic in nature. We'll still be here, but our civilisation as we know it won't be.

Sorry for the gloom. I'd rather be fishing and forget about it too.

Cheers,
Graeme

[Graeme H]

Here's the current graphs of the big three greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. Remember there's a lag between the concentrations of these gasses and the trapped heat (like getting into a cold bed - it takes a while to get warm.)

(Click on the image to see the full size graphs)



(Link to the article this came from: https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/04/20 ... 2-ch4-n2o/ )

[Galah]

Yes, it's very sobering stuff.

I am however, unconvinced that it's going to kill off humanity any time in the not-too-distant future. But I'm no expert. I'd like to think not anyway!

The big problem as I see it is that it's going to screw up the natural environment. But we parasites will find a way to survive. Even if what was once huge swaths of pristine wilderness is replaced by fields of GM crops just to feed us all.

[Galah]

P.S. I have no big problem with GM crops. I have a problem with disappearing pristine wilderness.

[piffilus]

I have kind of a big problem with GMO crops since for example MonSanto acts as follows: They sell their seeds to farmer A and in the bargain aquires all the land they grow on. The crops are developed to not be affected with Glyphosate so they bomb the fields with it to kill all weeds and pollute the Shit out of it and of course they have to use their fertilizer too just to be able to grow the crops. Well, that's an agreement between MonSanto and farmer A and (good) for them. Now, the bigger problem is for farmer B who happen to have his fields close to farmer A's. Some GMO seeds are spread to these fields and grow there. Then MonSanto can claim farmer B's land because their crops are growing on B's fields, even though he haven't sown them there himself. But how can they know that you may wonder. It's easy folks: MonSanto just puts up planes and spray B's fields with Roundup (Glyphosate) and if anything survives it's their seeds and they take ownership over the land. I saw this in a documentary about 10 years or so ago about Canadian farmers where exactly this shit was happening. Then think what they do to third world farmers. It's seriously sickening!

[piffilus]

Here's a link to what I talk about
https://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/17/ ... _the_story