Climate Change: Sh*t is getting real....and fast.

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#1599292 26-Jul-2016 22:09

kotuku4:

I believe that we should all take responsibility and action to reduce our impact on the earth. I have PV solar power grid tied that exports more power than used overall, upgraded home insulation and double glazed, rode an electric bike to work this morning, don't travel overseas, have a garden and recycle/compost etc.

How much CO2 was emitted from the manufacturing of the PV panels, the bike and the bikes battery?

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tdgeek

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#1599297 26-Jul-2016 22:14

Technofreak:

Hmmm, whenever I see this debate on climate change, I think of the famous quote attributed Sir Winston Churchill. It goes something like this, "There's Lies, Damn Lies, and then there's Statistics".

Climate change has been going on for ever. I'm yet to be convinced that mankind is the principle cause or that mankind can stop climate change. Part of my scepticism is based on the fact that it's very easy to pluck statistics from a period in time to prove your point. Detailed climatic temperature records are very recent with records only beginning around the 1850's. There is no detail prior to this time.

However there's evidence show the earth has been much warmer then it is now, long before the age of fossil fuels.

How was it that the earth was so warm that long ago?

It certainly wasn't mankind burning fossil fuels. The earth also cooled down without human intervention.

While it's good that we use our energy supplies efficiently, I'm not sure it's smart spending vast quantities of money trying to prevent climate change, a change which is yet to be proven mankind can actually stop. Rather we should be spending the money to find ways to mitigate the effect of climate change.

To finish, as I posted on another thread on a similar topic. If we are really serious about reducing CO2 emissions we'd all better be prepared for a vast change in our life style. No overseas travel, (perhaps sailing ships), no imported goods, no more manufactured goods, no more decent roads or upkeep on the ones we have, go back to walking everywhere, subsistence life style, etc, etc. Will that happen? I think not.

Your in the 2.5%. Of which I assume are promoted by the fossil fuel businesses and the high fossil feel burning countries. No one disputes past natural climate change. But the industrial revolution has been a very clear spike. Ok, Earth will sort itself out, but no. Check Venus. Cold house> Put the heater on. Insulate, then keep the heater on. Thats Earth.

The poles reflect a great deal of solar radiation away, that area is declining, water warms, exacerbating heating. The Great Water Tunnel will slow, less nutrients for marine life, causing more methane in the water, less oxygen as more methane and warner water supports less O. Its a vicious cycle caused artificially.

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#1599311 26-Jul-2016 22:32

tdgeek:

.... But the industrial revolution has been a very clear spike...

How can you prove this? Record keeping doesn't predate the industrial revolution?

The industrial revolution was pretty well over by the time accurate climate temperature records were being kept.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but without accurate records that predate the industrial revolution by a significant period it is impossible to say categorically there has been a clear spike caused by the industrial revolution.

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#1599340 27-Jul-2016 07:44

Technofreak:

tdgeek:

.... But the industrial revolution has been a very clear spike...

How can you prove this? Record keeping doesn't predate the industrial revolution?

The industrial revolution was pretty well over by the time accurate climate temperature records were being kept.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but without accurate records that predate the industrial revolution by a significant period it is impossible to say categorically there has been a clear spike caused by the industrial revolution.

I believe they tested ice core samples, which they also do for millennia for past events, such as major volcano eruptions. Taking the smoke particles and trace elements. They can date them

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#1599345 27-Jul-2016 07:55

dickytim:
gzt:

https://www.skepticalscience.com/volcanoes-and-global-warming.htm

Numerous sources including government sources provide the same stats.

Unfortunately a lot of this thread looks like arguing with conspiracy theorists. There is always some other reason and some other reason but essentially there is a belief that it is a large conspiracy.

Also the potential solutions are just overwhelming for some people.

Some people really have trouble believing humans can affect anything at all on a global scale and just retreat into a mental fog la la land.

Where is the diagram showing the comparison to other greenhouse gases produce vs. human caused ones?

What use would such a diagram be?

Let's say the Earth is in a steady state with respect to greenhouse gases....and then people emit the 0.5% extra that pushes the system out of equilibrium.

"But it's only 0.5%! It can't be humans!" (Yet it very well might be - within the context of the example I pose).

What is the point of the diagram you're asking about?

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#1599346 27-Jul-2016 08:00

Smithy100:

As a returned (from Brisbane) Wellingtonian, more please :)

It's an understandable sentiment. Canadians would love to have summer time batches on the shores of the Arctic Ocean (now only 600km north of Edmonton after the seas rose and permafrost melted).

Never mind that Bangladesh and a dozen other coastal countries - and many of the world's great cities, not to mention almost all of south Florida - went the way of Atlantis....and a billion people were displaced.....and most of them died. Of course the glaciers disappearing across much of the Himalayas reduced the Ganges to a trickle and much of India ran out of water.

A purely local view of climate change loses sight of the tremendous harm that certainly will be done to vast numbers of people when their lands and homes are flooded for millennia to come.

That will come back on us.....well.....the children, grandchildren and those who follow....(who we don't appear to care very much about).

Of course, we are also assuming the Earth will be habitable overall. That isn't necessarily a valid assumption in many scenarios are ocean acidification and atmospheric recomposition.

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Linuxluver

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#1599347 27-Jul-2016 08:05

Technofreak:

tdgeek:

.... But the industrial revolution has been a very clear spike...

How can you prove this? Record keeping doesn't predate the industrial revolution?

The industrial revolution was pretty well over by the time accurate climate temperature records were being kept.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but without accurate records that predate the industrial revolution by a significant period it is impossible to say categorically there has been a clear spike caused by the industrial revolution.

You must not have been paying attention for several decades now.

Gas composition in ice cores going back as far as 600,000 years shows very clearly what the atmospheric mix has been globally for that entire period.

This isn't new.....It's research that's been going on for decades.

(Churlish unnecessary comment removed).

We're here to help.

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#1599378 27-Jul-2016 09:47

Linuxluver:

Of course the glaciers disappearing across much of the Himalayas reduced the Ganges to a trickle and much of India ran out of water.

Whilst I agree totally with the rest of the post, this one statement is dubious, and may be latched onto by deniers as "proof" that it's *all* lies.

It may be that glaciers disappearing across much of the Himalayas coincides with the Ganges reducing to a trickle, but it isn't the cause.

Glaciers disappearing means ice is melting, and this water would be additional to other sources and would increase the flow of the Ganges.
The Ganges flow will depend mostly on the precipitation in (I guess... I haven't checked the geography) the Himalayas. How that would be affected by climate change I don't know... quite possibly it would be reduced enough that it would reduce the Ganges to a trickle, despite the Himalayan glaciers melting.
There's a lag in the system... Simplistically, glaciers grow when there is increased precipitation at the top end, and decades later this extra ice melts when it gets to the bottom. So a shrinking glacier is a symptom of reduced precipitation in the past. (Unsimplistically, The speed of a glacier also depends on precipitation. So decreased precipitation in recent years makes a glacier shrink, but how much depends on a whole lot of other things).

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#1599397 27-Jul-2016 10:05

tdgeek:

Your in the 2.5%

I'm not sure what you're saying here however I'm pretty sure there's vastly more than 2.5% of the population who would agree with the sentiments in the post of mine that you quoted.

I don't care what percentage I belong in. The debate on climate change isn't a popularity contest. Unlike some people I don't believe something just because it's popular.

The poles reflect a great deal of solar radiation away, that area is declining, water warms, exacerbating heating. The Great Water Tunnel will slow, less nutrients for marine life, causing more methane in the water, less oxygen as more methane and warner water supports less O. Its a vicious cycle caused artificially.

I'm not sure about your claim regarding the poles reflecting a great deal of solar radiation. It's a bit hard to explain the physics in a few sentences. Basically the because of the position of the sun relative to the poles, comparatively little solar radiation gets to the poles to start with. That's why the equatorial regions are so much warmer than the polar areas.

Can you explain why there wasn't an ecological disaster like is predicted in your quote when the earth was much warmer than it is now?

Linuxlover

You must not have been paying attention for several decades now.

I've been paying attention. I've also witnessed many predictions of disaster, which never came to pass.

Do you remember the claim from the 1970's that global cooling was going to cause another ice age by 2000, or the prediction that by 2000 there would be 7 billion people on the earth and this number of people was unsustainable? Well there was no ice age in 2000 and we exceeded 7 billion in 2012 and we're all still here doing OK.

What about the 1970's prediction of wide spread famine in India, China, Pakistan, Africa and South America by 2000. Instead of widespread famine some of these countries are exporters of food.

There's a whole host more, which have proven to be wrong.

No doubt you've heard the long held claims about the negative impact of cholesterol on you health, now scientists are discovering cholesterol is actually good for you. The reason it was though cholesterol was bad was it was always found in larger quantities in people with heart problems ergo it must be the cause of the problem. Now it's been discovered it is the body's way of fighting the problems associated with heart issues. The best analogy I've heard is always seeing a lot of fireman at a fire therefore they must be the cause.

So after years and years of medical science telling us to keep cholesterol down now we're seeing the message cholesterol can be good for us.

Yes, I've been paying attention, but I've also learned not to panic and believe every bit of "scientific fact".

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Linuxluver

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#1599401 27-Jul-2016 10:12

frankv:

Linuxluver:

Of course the glaciers disappearing across much of the Himalayas reduced the Ganges to a trickle and much of India ran out of water.

Whilst I agree totally with the rest of the post, this one statement is dubious, and may be latched onto by deniers as "proof" that it's *all* lies.

It may be that glaciers disappearing across much of the Himalayas coincides with the Ganges reducing to a trickle, but it isn't the cause.

Glaciers disappearing means ice is melting, and this water would be additional to other sources and would increase the flow of the Ganges.
The Ganges flow will depend mostly on the precipitation in (I guess... I haven't checked the geography) the Himalayas. How that would be affected by climate change I don't know... quite possibly it would be reduced enough that it would reduce the Ganges to a trickle, despite the Himalayan glaciers melting.
There's a lag in the system... Simplistically, glaciers grow when there is increased precipitation at the top end, and decades later this extra ice melts when it gets to the bottom. So a shrinking glacier is a symptom of reduced precipitation in the past. (Unsimplistically, The speed of a glacier also depends on precipitation. So decreased precipitation in recent years makes a glacier shrink, but how much depends on a whole lot of other things).

Well aware of the lag. When the glaciers are severely reduced there won't be melt water and it will fall to rain to fill rivers.....which in that part of the world is notoriously seasonal even on current weather patterns. Monsoon. Maybe.

I had hoped readers would realise I was looking at a scenario on a longer time scale.....but one that may well be inevitable as of now (certainly if we do nothing or not enough) as CO2 remains in the atmosphere for millennia once released.

This is why we should be VERY concerned about apparent steady, incremental global temperature changes on a scale of single or a pair of years. In climate terms that is like jumping off the cliff without a parachute. You go real fast until something stops you.

The CO2 we release in the next two years (or the last two years) or some other imminent period may well lock in the lack of meltwater that would dry up a major river like the Ganges for several months each year during the dry season.....50 or 100 or 150 years from. But it may become inevitable based on what we do now.

Most people have no real experience thinking on these time scales.

I used to own kunekune pigs. Pigs love to eat. They ate the grass. Then they ate the grubs under the grass...and killed all the grass. They loved the grubs. But then the grass and grubs were both gone.

Poor pigs.

OK...I fed them.

Analogy (literalists have a nap): The planet doesn't have an "Ok, I fed them" option. We're eating the grass and digging up the grubs. No thought for what comes next....and the grass cutters and grub hunters don't want us to think about it too much. Some pigs are saying "Hey....if we keep going like this, we're going to have a problem." Most other pigs respond with "Are you going to eat that or can I have it?"

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#1599403 27-Jul-2016 10:22

We are not going to see plagues of Locusts, seas running red etc in the next couple of years that is what Stuff and like would have you believe. Climate change is a creeping disaster, we will see increasing incidents of more intense storms, droughts, heat waves. Intense snow and ice storms. Changes to vegetation, increasing rates of fauna change. Hot years and cooler years but gradually the extremes will become more and more extreme.

Water tables will change as rising sea levels alter river flow and underground water. The oceans will change and the base of our food chain with it.

This event is not a mini series it's an epic.

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#1599407 27-Jul-2016 10:43

MikeB4:

We are not going to see plagues of Locusts, seas running red etc in the next couple of years that is what Stuff and like would have you believe. Climate change is a creeping disaster, we will see increasing incidents of more intense storms, droughts, heat waves. Intense snow and ice storms. Changes to vegetation, increasing rates of fauna change. Hot years and cooler years but gradually the extremes will become more and more extreme.

Water tables will change as rising sea levels alter river flow and underground water. The oceans will change and the base of our food chain with it.

This event is not a mini series it's an epic.

Agreed.

Sea levels will rise. They already are: 3mm each year. Major areas of population will be inundated. Looking at you Miami....and south Dunedin....both now flooded regularly.

Weather events will be more energetic and destructive...they already are.

Past patterns of rain and drought will change....and all the evidence to date suggests this will hurt a lot of people.

Epic....true.

Yet our government is almost silent on it. The media (well....NZME and Fairfax, you can all them "media" anymore) convey no sense of urgency whatever.

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#1599468 27-Jul-2016 12:43

Linuxluver:

dickytim:
gzt:

https://www.skepticalscience.com/volcanoes-and-global-warming.htm

Numerous sources including government sources provide the same stats.

Unfortunately a lot of this thread looks like arguing with conspiracy theorists. There is always some other reason and some other reason but essentially there is a belief that it is a large conspiracy.

Also the potential solutions are just overwhelming for some people.

Some people really have trouble believing humans can affect anything at all on a global scale and just retreat into a mental fog la la land.

Where is the diagram showing the comparison to other greenhouse gases produce vs. human caused ones?

What use would such a diagram be?

Let's say the Earth is in a steady state with respect to greenhouse gases....and then people emit the 0.5% extra that pushes the system out of equilibrium.

"But it's only 0.5%! It can't be humans!" (Yet it very well might be - within the context of the example I pose).

What is the point of the diagram you're asking about?

You have used the diagram to disprove a theory, but not provided one to prove your theory, pretty typical of the "world is going to end brigade"

Would the diagram I have suggested put the issue in perspective?

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#1599483 27-Jul-2016 13:13

I posted that diagram/picture above. I posted that to answer something along the lines of 'because volcanos'. It appears the context has moved on since then. Please continue.

tdgeek

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#1599629 27-Jul-2016 16:49

Technofreak:

tdgeek:
Your in the 2.5%

I'm not sure what you're saying here however I'm pretty sure there's vastly more than 2.5% of the population who would agree with the sentiments in the post of mine that you quoted.

I don't care what percentage I belong in. The debate on climate change isn't a popularity contest. Unlike some people I don't believe something just because it's popular.

The poles reflect a great deal of solar radiation away, that area is declining, water warms, exacerbating heating. The Great Water Tunnel will slow, less nutrients for marine life, causing more methane in the water, less oxygen as more methane and warner water supports less O. Its a vicious cycle caused artificially.

I'm not sure about your claim regarding the poles reflecting a great deal of solar radiation. It's a bit hard to explain the physics in a few sentences. Basically the because of the position of the sun relative to the poles, comparatively little solar radiation gets to the poles to start with. That's why the equatorial regions are so much warmer than the polar areas.

Can you explain why there wasn't an ecological disaster like is predicted in your quote when the earth was much warmer than it is now?

Linuxlover
You must not have been paying attention for several decades now.

I've been paying attention. I've also witnessed many predictions of disaster, which never came to pass.

Do you remember the claim from the 1970's that global cooling was going to cause another ice age by 2000, or the prediction that by 2000 there would be 7 billion people on the earth and this number of people was unsustainable? Well there was no ice age in 2000 and we exceeded 7 billion in 2012 and we're all still here doing OK.

What about the 1970's prediction of wide spread famine in India, China, Pakistan, Africa and South America by 2000. Instead of widespread famine some of these countries are exporters of food.

There's a whole host more, which have proven to be wrong.

No doubt you've heard the long held claims about the negative impact of cholesterol on you health, now scientists are discovering cholesterol is actually good for you. The reason it was though cholesterol was bad was it was always found in larger quantities in people with heart problems ergo it must be the cause of the problem. Now it's been discovered it is the body's way of fighting the problems associated with heart issues. The best analogy I've heard is always seeing a lot of fireman at a fire therefore they must be the cause.

So after years and years of medical science telling us to keep cholesterol down now we're seeing the message cholesterol can be good for us.

Yes, I've been paying attention, but I've also learned not to panic and believe every bit of "scientific fact".

The 2.5% was the scientists who don't believe . I agree its not a popularity issue, to me, after watching many docos on it, and against it, its the science.

The poles are exposed and they are large, so they do reflect an amount of radiation away, thats the fact as far as the science is concerned. The amount of solar that the earth absorbs is less for that reason

There have been warmer periods and colder periods. Cycles, its natural. But we are adding massive amounts on insulation, thats not natural. We are on a natural rise, and science shows the spike that started in the Industrial Revolution.

Global Cooling, thats an issue. Clouds diffuse solar radiation. Clouds are made up of dust each of which holds water. Smoke particles are large, they hold more water, equals more cooling. So, what heating we are going through now is less than what it could have been if we only emitted gas and not smoke.

Scientific facts, yes I hear you. but its become so overwhelming, its not a 60/40 either way belief, its now taken to be real science. Wh are the 2.5% that don't accept this? Conspiracy tells me oil company lobbies, and those countries that use excessive fossil fuels, particularly for power. China is a massive polluter, but its only a recent entrant into that.

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