Posts tagged global warming
The Great Disconnect
Feb 10th
The Great Disconnect: the human disease of which climate change is but one symptom
Posted on 7 February 2013 by John Mason
http://www.skepticalscience.com/the-great-disconnect.html#comments
‘I grieved to think how brief the dream of the human intellect had been. It had committed suicide. It had set itself steadfastly towards comfort and ease, a balanced society with security and permanency as its watchword, it had attained its hopes – to come to this at last…’
‘…It is a law of nature we overlook, that intellectual versatility is the compensation for change, danger, and trouble. An animal perfectly in harmony with its environment is a perfect mechanism. Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no change and no need of change. Only those animals partake of intelligence that have to meet a huge variety of needs and dangers.’
from The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (1895)
“Connectivity. We utterly rely on it. Without connectivity, our civilisation ceases to exist. That’s a big statement to make, but I will argue below how, over the past fifty years, many of us have lost the full understanding of its importance, or in many cases have not developed such an understanding. In a destabilising climate, that detachment becomes all the more problematic.”
John was criticised for posting this essay – +
Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
Feb 5th
Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-scientists-esld.html
Posted on 30 January 2013 by dana1981
“A paper recently published in Global Environmental Change by Brysse et al. (2012)examined a number of past predictions made by climate scientists, and found that that they have tended to be too conservative in their projections of the impacts of climate change. The authors thus suggest that climate scientists are biased toward overly cautious estimates, erring on the side of less rather than more alarming predictions, which they call “erring on the side of least drama” (ESLD).”
“The IPCC is an intergovernmental body. It is open to all member countries of the United Nations (UN) and WMO. Currently 195 countries are members of the IPCC. Governments participate in the review process and the plenary Sessions, where main decisions about the IPCC work programme are taken and reports are accepted, adopted and approved. The IPCC Bureau Members, including the Chair, are also elected during the plenary Sessions.” http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization.shtml#.URDDCqVNVsA
If these governments accept, adopt and approve the IPCC pronouncements, then by definition they are biased. We should not be surprised that they favour the status quo. Anything published that would tend to limit the flow of profits would necessarily be toned down.
It has been like this before
Jan 29th
Major climate changes looming
Carolyn Lochhead
Updated 11:10 pm, Sunday, January 27, 2013
http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Major-climate-changes-looming-4227943.php
I’m so tired of hearing “It has been like this before” Usually this statement is followed by 14 million years, 60 million years or other.
Physical history never repeats itself with Gaia. It just cannot. Atmospheric contents, oceanic contents, soil contents and on and on are different now.
All these absurd statements reveal a failure to realise that Gaia is a living being and self-regulates as James Lovelock revealed. As I’ve said before, knowing how a star expands and gets hotter as it approaches an expansion which will in the end cause its demise, Gaia most probably feels it needs to have regular periods of major cooling to keep global temperatures fit for lifeforms that form Gaia’s outer regions – surface. We will never, never progress in understanding how to work in synchronicity with Gaia until we see that our planet is alive and intelligent. There are heaps of implications and connections that could be made on this subject, but I’ll stop here.
It is what you do that Counts
Jan 26th
“The repercussions of our acts — the constructs we create — endure well past the dissolution of our convictions and desires. Our actions exist as living architecture that surrounds the breathing moment. Future generations will dwell in the world we erect, thought by thought, deed by deed.” Phil Rockstroh
“As an example, the fate of the earth’s biosphere and its capacity to sustain human life is being subjected to an unfolding, desperate campaign — craven as it is noxious — in its intentions, scope, and side affects, by the elite of an arrogant order to maintain their grip on privilege and power. By propaganda and coercion, they proceed, with cult-like conviction, on a course of catastrophic folly involving a race to secure and exploit the remaining resources of our ecologically taxed planet (the only planet available to us). If their agendas remain unchecked, the biosphere will be rendered unviable to our species.”
Phil Rockstroh
http://www.nationofchange.org/great-dismal-what-we-speak-becomes-house-we-live-1359211982
This man has a way with words, doesn’t he?
Half a degree
Jan 16th
5 January 2013
Climate change: Soot’s role underestimated, says study
By Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent, BBC News
Half a degree
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21033078
The research – http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jgrd.50171/abstract
“This new study concludes the dark particles are having a warming effect approximately two thirds that of carbon dioxide, and greater than methane.
‘The large conclusion is that forcing due to black carbon in the atmosphere is larger,’ lead author Sarah Doherty told BBC News.
The value the IPCC gave in their 4th assessment report in 2007 is half of what we are presenting in this report – it’s a little bit shocking,”
This is just one of many instances where the IPCC predictions have been challenged as being far too conservative. One could be quite within the realm of reasonable doubt in concluding that global warming is a far greater threat than governments want their citizens to realize. Polar ice, ocean warming, sea level rises, affect of melting permafrost on methane levels and on and on are just a few examples of instances where the IPCC underestimated.
2012 US record breaking hottest annual surface temperature
Jan 15th
2012 Shatters the US Temperature Record. Fox, Watts, and Spencer Respond by Denying Reality
Posted on 14 January 2013 by dana1981
http://www.skepticalscience.com/2012-us-temp-record-fox-denial.html#89622
“Big oil will loose trillions of dollars in unusable reserves if climate change is accepted, so it’s not surprising they will use any weapon to discredit AGM.”
I had not considered oil reserves and their value.
Update of Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Loss
Jan 14th
Update of Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Loss: Exponential?
26 December 2012
James Hansen and Makiko Sato
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2012/20121226_GreenlandIceSheetUpdate.pdf
In this paper, Hansen and Sato point out that the IPCC rise in sea level projections need updating. As I understand it, the models used in the past did not take into consideration the possible – Hansen and Sato suggest that it is probable- non-linear increase in ice sheet loss due to human contributions to the rising global temperature due the greenhouse effect. Sea level rises will most probably be far greater than the 1 meter mentioned by the IPCC. Sadly, it will be too late to do anything about it when enough data is collected to convince reluctant sceptics. I suggest that powers that refuse to change the status quo understand this and will at that time just shrug their shoulders and say, in effect, “Too late to do anything now, so let’s just keep on keeping on the way we have been and enjoy what we have while we have it.” Of course, only the 1%ers will be enjoying their lives whilst the rest of us waste away in cold and hunger. You don’t think this can happen?
Of course, what has not been mentioned is the question: How will Gaia maintain stable, life enabling global temperature without glaciers and ice sheets? The Gaia Theory plainly points out that the earth should be a lot warmer due to the expanding heat from an expanding sun over the last 5 billion years. We need to work hard to understand how Gaia operates and cooperate rather than destroy her enabling structures and global health measures.
“A crucial question is how rapidly the Greenland (or Antarctic) ice sheet can disintegrate in response to global warming. Earth’s history makes it clear that burning all fossil fuels would cause eventual sea level rise of tens of meters, thus practically wiping out thousands of cities located on global coast lines. However, there seems to be little political or public interest in what happens next century and beyond, so reports of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) focus on sea level change by 2100, i.e., during the next 87 years.”
“…future sea level rise of greatest concern is that from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, which has the potential to reach many meters. Hansen (2005) argues that, if business-as-usual increase of greenhouse gases continue throughout this century, the climate forcing will be so large that non-linear ice sheet disintegration should be expected and multi-meter sea level rise not only possible but likely.”
“Perceived authority2 in the case of ice sheets stems from ice sheet models used to simulate paleoclimate sea level change. However, paleoclimate ice sheet changes were initiated by weak climate forcings changing slowly over thousands of years, not by a forcing as large or rapid as human-made forcing this century.”
“The increasing Greenland mass loss in Fig. 1 can be fit just as well by exponentially increasing annual mass loss, a behavior that Hansen (2005, 2007) argues could occur because of multiple amplifying feedbacks as an ice sheet begins to disintegrate. A 10-year doubling time would lead to 1 meter sea level rise by 2067 and 5 meters by 2090. The dates are 2045 and 2057 for 5-year doubling time and 2055 and 2071 for a 7-year doubling time.”
A race to see who gets to the Apocalypse first
Nov 29th
By Michael T. Klare
This article was published at NationofChange at: http://www.nationofchange.org/world-energy-report-2012-1354118005. All rights are reserved.
No Hope for Averting Catastrophic Climate Change
“Of all the findings in the 2012 edition of the World Energy Outlook, the one that merits the greatest international attention is the one that received the least. Even if governments take vigorous steps to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the report concluded, the continuing increase in fossil fuel consumption will result in “a long-term average global temperature increase of 3.6 degrees C.”
This should stop everyone in their tracks. Most scientists believe that an increase of 2 degrees Celsius is about all the planet can accommodate without unimaginably catastrophic consequences: sea-level increases that will wipe out many coastal cities, persistent droughts that will destroy farmland on which hundreds of millions of people depend for their survival, the collapse of vital ecosystems, and far more. An increase of 3.6 degrees C essentially suggests the end of human civilization as we know it.
To put this in context, human activity has already warmed the planet by about 0.8 degrees C — enough to produce severe droughts around the world, trigger or intensify intense storms like Hurricane Sandy, and drastically reduce the Arctic ice cap. “Given those impacts,” writes noted environmental author and activist Bill McKibben, “many scientists have come to think that two degrees is far too lenient a target.” Among those cited by McKibben is Kerry Emanuel of MIT, a leading authority on hurricanes. “Any number much above one degree involves a gamble,” Emanuel writes, “and the odds become less and less favorable as the temperature goes up.” Thomas Lovejoy, once the World Bank’s chief biodiversity adviser, puts it this way: “If we’re seeing what we’re seeing today at 0.8 degrees Celsius, two degrees is simply too much.”
“In a report that leads with the “good news” of impending U.S. oil supremacy, to calmly suggest that the world is headed for that 3.6 degree C mark is like placing a thermonuclear bomb in a gaudily-wrapped Christmas present. In fact, the “good news” is really the bad news: the energy industry’s ability to boost production of oil, coal, and natural gas in North America is feeding a global surge in demand for these commodities, ensuring ever higher levels of carbon emissions. As long as these trends persist — and the IEA report provides no evidence that they will be reversed in the coming years — we are all in a race to see who gets to the Apocalypse first.”
“ A new World Bank report indicates that a rise of 4 degrees Celsius is possible by century’s end, a prospect that bank president Jim Yong Kim termed a “doomsday scenario.”
In the meantime, the most comprehensive study to date of how humans have affected the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere predicts that the planet’s temperature could rise by an unimaginable 6 degrees Celsius by 2100. These days, it increasingly looks like we’ve entered the lottery from hell when it comes to Earth’s ultimate temperature — especially now that a recent report from the United Nations Environment Program suggests carbon in the atmosphere has increased by 20% since 2000 and that “there are few signs of global emissions falling.”
Tom Engelhardt http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175621/tomgram%3A_michael_klare%2C_a_thermonuclear_energy_bomb_in_christmas_wrappings/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tomdispatch%2FesUU+%28TomDispatch%3A+The+latest+Tomgram%29
This is the first instance in recorded history that so few are responsible for such misery for so many. We so desperately need a world government that nourishes the welfare of the governed. We have a uniting principle before us and so obvious. We are first and foremost Earthlings. An eco-centric worldview that loves and cares for the sustaining factor in all beings is not outrageous. Perhaps we all need to look deeply into just what is causing the greed and disdain for the beautiful and intelligent world around us and within us.
How much more evidence do you need?
Nov 28th
Nation of Change
28/11/2012
Chris Hedges
http://www.nationofchange.org/stand-still-apocalypse-1354008355
“Humans must immediately implement a series of radical measures to halt carbon emissions or prepare for the collapse of entire ecosystems and the displacement, suffering and death of hundreds of millions of the globe’s inhabitants, according to a report commissioned by the World Bank. The continued failure to respond aggressively to climate change, the report warns, will mean that the planet will inevitably warm by at least 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, ushering in an apocalypse.
The 84-page document, “Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must Be Avoided,” was written for the World Bank by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics and published last week. The picture it paints of a world convulsed by rising temperatures is a mixture of mass chaos, systems collapse and medical suffering like that of the worst of the Black Plague, which in the 14th century killed 30 to 60 percent of Europe’s population. The report comes as the annual United Nations Conference on Climate Change begins this Monday [Nov. 26] in Doha, Qatar.”
“The political and corporate elites in the industrialized world continue, in spite of overwhelming scientific data, to place short-term corporate profit and expediency before the protection of human life and the ecosystem. The fossil fuel industry is permitted to determine our relationship to the natural world, dooming future generations. Carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas, increased from its pre-industrial concentration of about 278 parts per million (ppm) to more than 391 ppm in September 2012, with the rate of rise now at 1.8 ppm per year. We have already passed the tipping point of 350 ppm; above that level, life as we have known it cannot be sustained. The CO2 concentration is higher now than at any time in the last 15 million years. The emissions of CO2, currently about 35 billion metric tons per year, are projected to climb to 41 billion metric tons per year by 2020.”
Be persuasive. Be brave.
Nov 17th
Be persuasive. Be brave
Financiar Jeremy Grantham
http://www.nature.com/polopoly_fs/1.11796!/menu/main/topColumns/topLeftColumn/pdf/491303a.pdf
“I have yet to meet a climate scientist who does not believe that global warming is a worse problem than they thought a few years ago. The seriousness of this change is not appreciated by politicians and the public. The scientific world carefully measures the speed with which we approach the cliff and will, no doubt, carefully measure our rate of fall. But it is not doing enough to stop it. I am a specialist in investment bubbles, not climate science. But the effects of climate change can only exacerbate the ecological trouble I see reflected in the financial markets — soaring commodity prices and impending shortages.”
“It is crucial that scientists take more career risks and sound a more realistic, more desperate, note on the global-warming problem. Younger scientists are obsessed by thoughts of tenure, so it is probably up to older, senior and retired scientists to do the heavy lifting. Be arrested if necessary. This is not only the crisis of your lives — it is also the crisis of our species’ existence. I implore you to be brave.”
We need more establishment people with the courage to speak out.