Atmospheric CO2 now 410 parts per million. Uh oh.....

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#2005332 30-Apr-2018 17:12

tripper1000:

Did those doco's a quant you with previous extreme climatic changes before inciting panic about the next?

For the sake of healthy debate, I propose that we are still warming up from the last ice age.

Sound silly? Well Consider this:

The last ice age started 2.7 million years.

The last ice age finished only 12,000 years ago.

Given we spent 99.55% of the last 2.7 million years pretty much frozen, I vote we've got to get to at least 1 per cent (or 26,000 years) before we finish thawing and we get back to what is "normal" for the earth, acknowledging that the temperature wouldn't be "normal" for humans. Maybe we are accelerating the thawing process - how quickly can you unthaw a planet that has been frozen for 2.7 million years?

Does that make me a sceptic, denier, heretic, agnostic or rationalist?

Yes, they all do go into the extremes the Earth has had. Its never about climate change as that is natural. Earth tilt etc. Its about the extreme pace that has occurred. Just looking at Six Degrees Could Change The World to see if that was the one I watched that went into the effect of each degree. Fascinating.

That's the Pleistocene Period or Epoch. Not the start and end of an ice age."The Pleistocene Epoch is typically defined as the time period that began about 2.6 million years ago and lasted until about 11,700 years ago. The most recent Ice Age occurred then, as glaciers covered huge parts of the planet Earth."

Had there been one ice age that ended 12000 years ago, I would agree. Has it ended then, last year, or in 500 years time?? But thats not the case. The most recent was a lot of coverage but not everywhere. From memory down to the Great Lakes which is why they are there, glacial leftovers. One before that was the entire planet. It was a ball of ice top to bottom. Didnt change, as no heat, it all reflected away. I think it was a tilt that started a thaw. Teeny bit of heat retained, and over what I think was at least 100,000's of years if not more, it recovered. Cant recall when that was, might look it up tonight.

Rikkitic

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#2005371 30-Apr-2018 18:05

I'm not especially worried about living in Waterworld. Those evolving deadly mosquito-borne viruses moving towards us as the planet warms are a far greater concern. How can anyone say that disease is a bigger threat to our existence and not see the link with rising temperatures? This is only one of many, many issues.

I don't think there is ever a bad time to talk about how absurd war is, how old men make decisions and young people die. - George Clooney

MikeAqua

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#2005374 30-Apr-2018 18:24

We need significantly better batteries at a much cheaper price point.

EVs are still too expensive and daily range just isn't there for me even in medium sized passenger vehicle. When I look at either a leaf or an ioniq I see an overpriced POS with limited capability. Wake me when EVs are equal or preferbaly better than ICEs on acceleration, cornering, range and price.

Most houses could generate sufficient energy from solar, but suitable battery storage is large and expensive.

Forget load shifting, the reality is I come home from the gym, raid the fridge, put on the oven, have a shower ... and fire up the heat-pump. Almost none of that can be shifted to high solar times of day. If I had an EV (perish the thought) I would need to charge that POS at night as well.

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#2005380 30-Apr-2018 18:30

Rikkitic:

I'm not especially worried about living in Waterworld. Those evolving deadly mosquito-borne viruses moving towards us as the planet warms are a far greater concern. How can anyone say that disease is a bigger threat to our existence and not see the link with rising temperatures? This is only one of many, many issues.

TBH, apart from arthropod borne diseases like your example (malaria) which may become more widespread due to climate change, the biggest threat IMO is any novel virulent disease plague, as has happened routinely in the past, and this time it'll be simply population density/mobility that'll ensure it's consequences are catastrophic and global. So far IMO we've been only extremely lucky, that likely candidate diseases that are extremely virulent have not been particularly contagious, or have evolved quite rapidly to reduced virulence/increased ease of transmission strains - as they should if they were sentient beings concerned about their own survival. But they aren't - and there's the problem.

MikeB4

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#2005392 30-Apr-2018 19:01

MikeAqua:
We need significantly better batteries at a much cheaper price point.

EVs are still too expensive and daily range just isn't there for me even in medium sized passenger vehicle. When I look at either a leaf or an ioniq I see an overpriced POS with limited capability. Wake me when EVs are equal or preferbaly better than ICEs on acceleration, cornering, range and price.

Most houses could generate sufficient energy from solar, but suitable battery storage is large and expensive.

Forget load shifting, the reality is I come home from the gym, raid the fridge, put on the oven, have a shower ... and fire up the heat-pump. Almost none of that can be shifted to high solar times of day. If I had an EV (perish the thought) I would need to charge that POS at night as well.

The areas that EVs have to work on is price and range the other stuff they are equal to or better. I will qualify that with regards to the used stock entering NZ the quality of a lot of them is poor.

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DarthKermit

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#2005395 30-Apr-2018 19:11

Man I'm glad I don't have any children to inherit this mess humans have made of the planet.

MikeB4

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#2005406 30-Apr-2018 19:21

DarthKermit:
Man I'm glad I don't have any children to inherit this mess humans have made of the planet.

Having kids and grandkids gives one more motivation to try and fix this mess.

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shk292

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#2005413 30-Apr-2018 19:37

MikeB4:

Having kids and grandkids gives one more motivation to try and fix this mess.

Everyone having no more than two kids would go a long way to fixing the problems, but it doesn't seem to be politically correct to suggest that

Fred99

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#2005415 30-Apr-2018 19:45

shk292:

MikeB4:

Having kids and grandkids gives one more motivation to try and fix this mess.

Everyone having no more than two kids would go a long way to fixing the problems, but it doesn't seem to be politically correct to suggest that

I think it's politically okay to suggest it, but political suicide to suggest anything which enforces it or penalises fast and furious breeders.

It (negative population growth) is also bad for the economy, apparently.

frednz

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#2005966 1-May-2018 13:15

Guy McPherson, a retired biology and ecology professor says runaway climate change is going to kill us all by the year 2026.

http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2018/03/scientists-secretly-believe-we-re-all-going-to-die-soon-retired-professor.html

"Plant life will be unable to keep up with the repetitive rise in temperature. Plants will die, and we need plants to survive. We don't eat without plants. The water will continue to be fouled, the air will continue to be spoiled," explains Prof McPherson.
"But a primary factor will be starvation as civilisation collapses and the inability to grow grains at scale is one result."

So, is there so much CO2 etc already in the atmosphere that it can't be reversed in time for life on the planet to survive?

Although McPherson's views are probably highly exaggerated, he does have a point, which is, we're already too late to combat the catastrophic effects of climate change, so don't feel too guilty driving your ICE vehicle around and being called an "ICEHOLE" by EV enthusiasts (and fanatics) because it's not going to make any difference to the final outcome which is not all that far away!

kryptonjohn

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#2005973 1-May-2018 13:22

frednz:

Guy McPherson, a retired biology and ecology professor says runaway climate change is going to kill us all by the year 2026.

http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2018/03/scientists-secretly-believe-we-re-all-going-to-die-soon-retired-professor.html

"Plant life will be unable to keep up with the repetitive rise in temperature. Plants will die, and we need plants to survive. We don't eat without plants. The water will continue to be fouled, the air will continue to be spoiled," explains Prof McPherson.
"But a primary factor will be starvation as civilisation collapses and the inability to grow grains at scale is one result."

So, is there so much CO2 etc already in the atmosphere that it can't be reversed in time for life on the planet to survive?

Although McPherson's views are probably highly exaggerated, he does have a point, which is, we're already too late to combat the catastrophic effects of climate change, so don't feel too guilty driving your ICE vehicle around and being called an "ICEHOLE" by EV enthusiasts (and fanatics) because it's not going to make any difference to the final outcome which is not all that far away!

People have been making wild doomsday predictions since well before Al Gore and sea ice free Antarctic by 2007, 20 foot sea level rises, polar bears being wiped out etc. They're attention seeking alarmists.

tdgeek

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#2006046 1-May-2018 15:01

Put AGW aside. it doesn't really matter if the climate change is due to us or due to nature, its happening. So the pro vs anti argument isn't really relevant.

This is problematic, and its not a doomsday article https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2018/04/30/antarctic-glacier-size-britain-threatens-flood-coastal-towns/

Batman

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#2006354 2-May-2018 07:14

tdgeek:

tripper1000:

Climate change and weather it is good, bad or indifferent depends on your reference point in history.

Warmer: With a little more CO2 in the air, the planet will be warm enough to support dinosaur again and surely dinosaur are natural and therefore good? So does that mean the planet is un-naturally cold right now?

Cooler: At several points in history, through not fault of humans, ice covered a lot of the planet, sometimes all the way to the equator - almost all defrosted long before the industrial revolution, so is the planet still recovering from the last ice age?

Rising sea levels: You can find seashells up mountains in New Zealand from when the place was mostly underwater - surely that was a natural and normal thing.

Climate change is as old as the planet. Species have been wiped out by weather changes for as long as life existed on this planet. We know from fossils that many more species lived in the past than are currently alive, or were alive before man took their habitat. Looking at evidence from the Ice Ages we know that the climate goes through million year cycles. A 150 to 300 year sample of data is too short to deduce where we are and where we should be in a million year cycle. The initial evidence the spurned the creation of the theory of global warm was long ago debunked because the sample size used (growth rate of some trees in France) was from a singe geographic region and subject to micro-climates. Before it was debunked it became a cash-cow for scientists to get money out of government. Once it was debunked, they clamoured to find new data to jam into the old model to support the disproven theory/model and keep the cash rolling in.

Humans and civilisation has only existed as you and I would recognise it for approx. the last 15,000 years. That is our climate-change reference point. 15,000 years is a short time when you are talking about a million year cycle. The perception that humans have of the ways things are/should be, is a mere snapshot (and a very biased snapshot) in a very long and changeable time line.

Anti-climate change is all about preserving the planet for human kind, not preserving the planet for mother nature. I am certain mother nature will make us extinct when she feels like it, and there won't be much we can do about it. She has a crack at us every so often with plagues that have almost done the trick and sooner or later one will work (antibiotic resistance will shortly bring down population levels) - I think climate change, if it turns out to be true, won't make a lot of difference to humans.

Edit: spelling.

In other words you dont believe in human caused climate change? There is no dispute how the Earth has been in the past. The 15000 years you refer to is actually closer to 200. While there are many examples of past natural climate change, there is a clear spike from the Industrial revolution. Should the Earth evolve over a million years and get much warmer or much cooler we will adapt. If it happens by another 2 or 3 degrees over the next 50+ years we will be toast. Its not just us, its the global water cycle system that will deliver the killer blow. Being warmer, wetter, wilder weather, moving inland are just annoyances. We can shift our agriculture North or South, 500 to 1000km, but the sea water is the final blow. Over a million years, I imagine nature will evolve, and the ice caps wont disappear overnight as they are now.

I believe in Science.

Involuntary autocorrect in operation on mobile device. Apologies in advance.

frednz

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#2006387 2-May-2018 09:04

tdgeek:

Put AGW aside. it doesn't really matter if the climate change is due to us or due to nature, its happening. So the pro vs anti argument isn't really relevant.

This is problematic, and its not a doomsday article https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2018/04/30/antarctic-glacier-size-britain-threatens-flood-coastal-towns/

If climate change is solely "due to nature", then we can all relax a little and, for example, only buy an electric car when it actually suits our needs and is better than our existing petrol vehicles.

But if climate change "is due to us" or even partly "due to us", then we all need to buy electric vehicles this year, stop all air travel, stop going on cruises, sink all huge ships, get rid of all farm animals, and close down all natural gas and coal-fired power stations immediately.

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#2006389 2-May-2018 09:09

frednz:

tdgeek:

Put AGW aside. it doesn't really matter if the climate change is due to us or due to nature, its happening. So the pro vs anti argument isn't really relevant.

This is problematic, and its not a doomsday article https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2018/04/30/antarctic-glacier-size-britain-threatens-flood-coastal-towns/

If climate change is solely "due to nature", then we can all relax a little and, for example, only buy an electric car when it actually suits our needs and is better than our existing petrol vehicles.

But if climate change "is due to us" or even partly "due to us", then we all need to buy electric vehicles this year, stop all air travel, stop going on cruises, sink all huge ships, get rid of all farm animals, and close down all natural gas and coal-fired power stations immediately.

How is the lithium going to get the into the car and how is the car going to get to New Zealand?

Involuntary autocorrect in operation on mobile device. Apologies in advance.

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