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Re: Climate Apocalypse

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2011 9:01 am
by Robert Tulip
Tonight I heard an interview with Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research.

The key points he made were

1. Current trends suggest the world will be four degrees centigrade hotter by the end of this century.
2. This temperature rise may sound small (think difference between Florida and New York), but it is severe.
3. The real comparison is with human fever. Running a temperature of one degree makes you sick. A four degree temperature can be deadly.
4. Sea level rise caused by a four degree rapid rise in global average temperature would be catastrophic.
5. Technology now exists to hold global temperature rise to less than two degrees.
6. Political will does not yet exist to address global warming.
7. He is optimistic this will change.

Re: Climate Apocalypse

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2011 6:17 pm
by DWill
Maybe your slight swipe at the energy companies wasn't ad hominem (whether you understand that term as 'against' the man or 'to' the man). But the comment, "I know it seems fanciful, but any such evolutionary vision is going to seem fanciful to those who are stuck in the mud," was. That is saying that disagreement can have no merit because of the inherent dullness of anyone who's not on board. And from what you've presented, this is all your own idea, not vetted by the science community. It seems unreasonable to expect concurrence with something you concede has a fanciful air to it.

But as well, I fail to see how this vision could come about in the absence of drastic coercion. Humans are a bit attached to their culture, which resides in places and structures, largely. We also aren't enticed by mere survival, when you get down to it, needing to have survival on our own cultural terms. Unless millions of people became suddenly convinced that they would die quickly unless they abandoned their land, they wouldn't care to make such a change. They'd choose the possibility of dying out over a long period over some alternative that promised them long-term safety but cut them off from their culture. The artificial 'land' wouldn't exist anyway, because such a long lead-time would be needed to construct the islands. You'd need to have all that space pre-sold, so to speak, in order to go ahead.

Re: Climate Apocalypse

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2011 7:11 pm
by Robert Tulip
This 'To The Sea' idea can be considered as science fiction, except that I do think it is realistic.

If we have sea level rise, there are tens of millions of people in countries such as Bangladesh, Vietnam and China whose homes will be inundated. As well, there are now tens of millions of refugees and internally displaced persons who cannot find another country to accept them. These people might well be highly interested in moving to new permanent ocean based locations if this can be proven to be feasible, and if it provides a base to manage new agricultural and aquacultural food production systems at sea.

The technological argument is that fresh water floats on sea water. The ocean is very deep, averaging more than three kilometers. A cube of water of size one kilometer (a teralitre) would provide a surface 25 meters above the ocean surface. On this scale, construction of 25 million tonnes in weight could be supported before the structure would be pushed down to the waterline. This is about 50 times the displacement of the largest current vessels. Such a structure located in the Indian Ocean would follow a stable path around the current (see map below), and could be launched on small scale and gradually expanded if successful.

This is all unproven, and needs an incremental starting point. The two technologies that can be used to explore the feasibility of these ideas are fresh water transport through the sea in fabric bags as proposed at www.waterbag.com, and ocean based algae production as proposed by the NASA OMEGA project.

Large scale algae production at sea is possibly the only way to prevent catastrophic global warming, by using the forces of nature (tide, wave, sun, current, wind) to suck carbon out of the air and convert it into food, fuel and fertilizer. My view is that this can be economically managed by using the innovative fact that fresh water floats on salt water, as a way to restore harmony with nature.

Image

Re: Climate Apocalypse

Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2011 10:19 am
by geo
Robert Tulip wrote:Tonight I heard an interview with Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research.

The key points he made were

1. Current trends suggest the world will be four degrees centigrade hotter by the end of this century.
<snip>
These kinds of predictions of x degrees warming by the year xxxx are inherently preposterous. Weather is such a vastly complex process with so many interrelated and interdependent meteorological elements and phenomena. We are not even remotely close to understanding all the many points of data that come in to play. Climatologists cannot even predict a rain event in a specific locale with 100 percent accuracy. And, yet, some guy predicts the world will be four degrees warmer by the end of this century? Ultimately such absurd predictions discredit the scientific process. It may be four degrees warmer by the end of this century (or this decade) or four degrees cooler. We simply don't know.

Re: Climate Apocalypse

Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2011 5:04 pm
by Robert Tulip
Geo, this "some guy" happens to be one of the world's most prestigious climate scientists, and he is talking about observed trends. You should be careful about making such denialist comments, I fear it shows how your media sources have infected you. Black propaganda of the Fox variety has led many people to hold ignorant views about climate denial, which really is as bad as holocaust denial.

In the Climate Change Science Compendium from 2009,
the United Nations Secretary General wrote:The science has become more irrevocable than ever: Climate change is happening. The evidence is all around us. And unless we act, we will see catastrophic consequences including rising sea levels, droughts and famine, and the loss of up to a third of the world’s plant and animal species. We need a new global agreement to tackle climate change, and this must be based on the soundest, most robust and up-to-date science available. Through its overview of the latest definitive science, this Climate Change Science Compendium reaffirms the strong evidence outlined in the IPCC’s 4th Assessment Report that climate change is continuing apace. In fact, this report shows that climate change is accelerating at a much faster pace than was previously thought by scientists. New scientific evidence suggests important tipping points, leading to irreversible changes in major Earth systems and ecosystems, may already have been reached or even overtaken. Climate change, more than any other challenge facing the world today, is a planetary crisis that will require strong, focused global action.
Perhaps Geo, you may care to read some of this book, available for free online, or watch the lecture linked at the opening post, unless you find the truth too painful.

Re: Climate Apocalypse

Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2011 7:55 am
by DWill
But geo didn't make a 'denialist' claim. He simply said that given the emergent complexity of climate, specific figures such as that given by this authority are an estimate, greatly subject to revision.

Re: Climate Apocalypse

Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2011 8:43 am
by Robert Tulip
To say, as Geo did, that a comment by a leading climate scientist is "inherently preposterous" and an "absurd prediction" denies that it is possible for climate science to extrapolate current global trends. Maybe you are splitting hairs and say that these extreme condemnations of climate science are not denying that climate change is occurring, but Geo certainly is denying that science can observe it when he denigrates the considered consensus opinion of a leading climate scientist as the opinion of "some guy".

And then for Geo to bring out the canard that "Climatologists cannot even predict a rain event in a specific locale with 100 percent accuracy" is one of the oldest and weakest lines in the denialist playbook. Weather is not climate. Of course we cannot predict weather with complete accuracy. But the fact is that climate impacts have been faster than IPCC predictions, for example with loss of Arctic sea ice, as you would understand if you followed the science.

I get the impression, DWill, that you did not bother to look at the material linked at the opening post, such as this slide show. It has charts showing the steady rise in global temperature over the last century. It quotes a 2009 MIT Study saying there is "95% chance that “Business-as-usual” temperature increase will exceed 3.5ºC (6.3ºF) in 2095." Now, you can just agree with Geo that this is alarmist rubbish and ignore it with the denialists, rejecting science, or you can take it seriously. You can take a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

From that slide show, here is an interesting comment.
Winston Churchill wrote:“They go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent… Owing to past neglect, in the face of the plainest warnings, we have entered upon a period of danger. The era of procrastination, of half measures, of soothing and baffling expedience of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences…. We cannot avoid this period, we are in it now…”
November 12, 1936

Re: Climate Apocalypse

Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2011 5:51 pm
by geo
Robert Tulip wrote:Geo, this "some guy" happens to be one of the world's most prestigious climate scientists, and he is talking about observed trends. You should be careful about making such denialist comments, I fear it shows how your media sources have infected you. Black propaganda of the Fox variety has led many people to hold ignorant views about climate denial, which really is as bad as holocaust denial.

In the Climate Change Science Compendium from 2009,
the United Nations Secretary General wrote:The science has become more irrevocable than ever: Climate change is happening. The evidence is all around us. And unless we act, we will see catastrophic consequences including rising sea levels, droughts and famine, and the loss of up to a third of the world’s plant and animal species. We need a new global agreement to tackle climate change, and this must be based on the soundest, most robust and up-to-date science available. Through its overview of the latest definitive science, this Climate Change Science Compendium reaffirms the strong evidence outlined in the IPCC’s 4th Assessment Report that climate change is continuing apace. In fact, this report shows that climate change is accelerating at a much faster pace than was previously thought by scientists. New scientific evidence suggests important tipping points, leading to irreversible changes in major Earth systems and ecosystems, may already have been reached or even overtaken. Climate change, more than any other challenge facing the world today, is a planetary crisis that will require strong, focused global action.
Perhaps Geo, you may care to read some of this book, available for free online, or watch the lecture linked at the opening post, unless you find the truth too painful.
On the contrary, Robert, I don't doubt anthropogenic causes for climate change nor have I fallen prey to FoxNews propaganda since I don't watch FoxNews (or any other television news for that matter). I am merely observing the absurdity of specific claims that the world will increase by x degrees. Given the complex nature of climatology, such predictions are highly speculative at best. As for taking a page out of the "denialist's playbook," I will reassert my own observation that the fact that we cannot predict local weather events is a good indicator that any kind of specific claims for x degrees by xxxx are inherently absurd.

It amazes me that you would resort to calling me a 'denialist' when I have already acknowledged that global climate change is only one of many dire problems the human species faces. To claim that we have to take drastic steps to address global climate change seems rather simplistic and presumes that we fully understand the problem enough to formulate an effective response. I would challenge you on taking this particular divisive tact. You are basically saying that those who disagree with you are part of the problem and then you liken them to Nazi holocaust deniers.

If it helps, I was responding primarily to your summary of Schellnhuber's findings and especially your number one which asserts that "current trends suggest the world will be four degrees centigrade hotter by the end of this century." I find this statement to be so spurious and vague that we can reasonably dismiss the entire post as malarkey. You know damned well that the actual science behind global climate change is much too complex to make such simplistic assertions.

Re: Climate Apocalypse

Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2011 6:53 pm
by Robert Tulip
Geo, it amazes me that someone so intelligent and rational as you can be so badly misinformed.

Schellnhuber was a keynote speaker at a major international conference in the series "Four Degrees and Beyond". This material should be front page news but it is buried by spurious so-called skepticism in the media. Fox is just the extreme end of the popular emotional resistance to facts.

I stand by my description of your "preposterous" statement as constituting climate denial that is as morally bad as holocaust denial. Four degrees warming in this century is a consensus scientific extrapolation of current trends. Calling it "preposterous" is climate change denial. People who say the Nazis did not kill six million Jews are flatly denying massive scientific evidence. With global warming, we face equally strong massive scientific evidence of the prospect of cataclysmic planetary change that will kill far more people than the Nazis did unless we take decisive global action. If you take the time to look at the links I have provided in this thread, you will find that you should retract your criticisms.

My statements reflect scientific consensus. They are not "malarkey". It is far from "simplistic" to say we have to do something about it. DWill introduced the idea that I am suggesting 'drastic' response. I am not. If the USA diverted 5% of its bloated military budget to the real security threat of global warming, by funding research and development of sustainable commercial technology for energy supply, the problem could be fixed.

It is a bad psychological syndrome that ignorance of science is so pervasive even among people who respect science. It seems people want to bury their heads in the sand and pretend the problem will go away. It will not, it will just get worse.

Re: Climate Apocalypse

Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2011 7:37 pm
by geo
Robert Tulip wrote:Geo, it amazes me that someone so intelligent and rational as you can be so badly misinformed.

Schellnhuber was a keynote speaker at a major international conference in the series "Four Degrees and Beyond". This material should be front page news but it is buried by spurious so-called skepticism in the media. Fox is just the extreme end of the popular emotional resistance to facts.

I stand by my description of your "preposterous" statement as constituting climate denial that is as morally bad as holocaust denial. Four degrees warming in this century is a consensus scientific extrapolation of current trends. Calling it "preposterous" is climate change denial. People who say the Nazis did not kill six million Jews are flatly denying massive scientific evidence. With global warming, we face equally strong massive scientific evidence of the prospect of cataclysmic planetary change that will kill far more people than the Nazis did unless we take decisive global action. If you take the time to look at the links I have provided in this thread, you will find that you should retract your criticisms.

My statements reflect scientific consensus. They are not "malarkey". It is far from "simplistic" to say we have to do something about it. DWill introduced the idea that I am suggesting 'drastic' response. I am not. If the USA diverted 5% of its bloated military budget to the real security threat of global warming, by funding research and development of sustainable commercial technology for energy supply, the problem could be fixed.

It is a bad psychological syndrome that ignorance of science is so pervasive even among people who respect science. It seems people want to bury their heads in the sand and pretend the problem will go away. It will not, it will just get worse.
The sentence above (in bold) is the kind of unfounded assertion that I'm challenging. It's far from conclusive that we can do anything to change the path we're on (not that we shouldn't try.) It would be nice if the world could come together as a single community and address global climate change. I've never said we should ignore the problem or not address it. But honestly, I don't think I need to say any more because you keep putting words in my mouth.

Assertions that the earth is going to be 4 degrees warmer by the end of the century only furthers the pervasive disrespect of science and widens the divide that exists. The scientific data cannot make such exact predictions at this point in time and probably never will.