Global Warming.

[Princess Artemis]

Scientists will get a chance in the future to see for themselves whether or not a Grand Minimum had a strong effect in pushing the climate into a cold snap...although if it did, perhaps all our terrible horribad anthropogenic global warming activities will help make it less bad this time around : )

 

Anyhow, yeah, mitigation isn't a bad thing to do regardless, so long as it's not done in a way that assumes we, as a species, know more than we actually do. Acting when we don't know what we're doing is a very good way to do things like turn Yosemite (and significant portions of California that need regular wildfires to grow) into a tinderbox.

[Tazzay]

Basically what's happening is the world is repeating itself as it did millions of years ago. Pretty soon, it'll start to get cold, and before we know it, it'll be another ice age. Scientists said it has happened before.

[7Deadly$ins]

Basically what's happening is the world is repeating itself as it did millions of years ago. Pretty soon, it'll start to get cold, and before we know it, it'll be another ice age. Scientists said it has happened before.

The concern is about it happening too quickly.

[Tazzay]

The concern is about it happening too quickly.

And what's the problem with it happening too quickly?

[7Deadly$ins]

And what's the problem with it happening too quickly?

Animals, plantlife, etc. not having enough time to adapt to it. Remember that evolution takes years and years, we have to worry about mass extinctions if the planet doesn't have time to behave properly.

[Tazzay]

Animals, plantlife, etc. not having enough time to adapt to it. Remember that evolution takes years and years, we have to worry about mass extinctions if the planet doesn't have time to behave properly.

Very true. Although if it does happen too quickly, i'm sure scientists will find a way to save the most important of plants and animal life, if not all.

 

However, if it is supposed to be an extinction event, i'd just say leave everything. Let the world do what it wants with us.

[7Deadly$ins]

Very true. Although if it does happen too quickly, i'm sure scientists will find a way to save the most important of plants and animal life, if not all.

 

However, if it is supposed to be an extinction event, i'd just say leave everything. Let the world do what it wants with us.

We haven't been able to save most of the species that (were) endangered, and there are plenty of species that are as good as dead even now that we can't really do anything about.

 

Well, most of the debate comes from humanity's involvement already. The reason people think it's going quicker than expected or ever before is often attributed to our involvement and our pollution and CO2 burning and so on.

[zorua9]

In my opinion, even if us humans didn't pollute and make global warming faster, it'll happen eventually, it happened to the dinosaurs(lol), and apparently were also still in the ice age cause there a ice at the north and south pole(which is confusing)

[7Deadly$ins]

In my opinion, even if us humans didn't pollute and make global warming faster, it'll happen eventually, it happened to the dinosaurs(lol), and apparently were also still in the ice age cause there a ice at the north and south pole(which is confusing)

There's no debate about if it'll happen eventually or not. That's not even part of the debate, that's fact.

[Obscure_Trash]

And what's the problem with it happening too quickly?

How about an increase in more extreme events? More droughts, more floods, more storms. Not all countries have the ability to move all people away from coastal cities to save them from tropical storms or when sea level has risen and covered those cities. A major portion of USA'a Florida is expected to disappear even in best case scenario. That's a lot of people to up and move. What are we going to do when more and more places experience more and more drought? Getting water to everyone is already a huge problem. Farmer's are already having to change crops and losing profit. Due to water and temp diffs the agricultural land are shifting - and in places near the border, completely switching countries. Just looking at how humans are effected there are major political, economic, and social changes already happening and they will only get worse. We have and continue to cause rapid and catastrophic events that we do not have time to adapt or recover from.

 

Let the world do what it wants with us.

 

The world doesn't "want" anything and we are causing our own destruction. Might it have happened at some point? Quite likely. But this isn't a circumstance that was beyond our control, hence why it is a big deal. It might be at this point, in which I suppose we should all adopt the attitude of 'we caused our own destruction and now can't fix it - oh well' and let everyone die out from drought and storms (and perhaps war).

[Infinis]

In my opinion, even if us humans didn't pollute and make global warming faster, it'll happen eventually, it happened to the dinosaurs(lol), and apparently were also still in the ice age cause there a ice at the north and south pole(which is confusing)

We are not in an ice age, although I'm not knowledgeable enough to give you any information on why the ice caps formed. Ice ages are characterized by advances of glaciers and ice over large areas of land as well as cold temperatures (and probably other things, but I'm not sure).

 

As for the dinosaurs I think the asteroid killed 'em. u_u

 

It IS however theorized that global warming did happen once before, but it was millions and millions of years ago, between the Permian and the Triassic periods and may have been the cause of the Permian-Triassic Mass Extinction that caused as much as 95% of life on earth at the time to die out (more in the oceans than the land).

It's thought that a six degree Celsius rise in temperature over a lot of years caused likely by volcanic activity (likely caused primarily by the Siberian Traps) throwing a lot of CO2 (and whatever other gases were in those eruptions) into the atmosphere, eventually causing a runaway greenhouse effect, is what caused that extinction. There was probably also a large-scale methane release from the oceans, and methane also contributes to global warming.

Sources:

http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/Essays/wipeout/default.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80...xtinction_event

http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0829-permian_triassic.html

http://books.google.com/books?id=F0LFIdaao...warming&f=false

http://www.pnas.org/content/109/1/59.full.pdf+html

http://globalwarming-arclein.blogspot.com/...rian-traps.html

 

We've already risen roughly 0.8 degree Celsius since like the 1880s with most of that rise occuring since the 1970s - Source

 

And what's the problem with it happening too quickly?

 

A lot of things.

 

It's been all over the news in recent years that the northern ice cap is melting at high levels. Remember that the polar ice caps are largely freshwater ice. If large scales of freshwater are dumped into the ocean it will screw over the salinity of the ocean; it's worth noting that organisms that live in the water are extremely sensitive to their environment and desalination on the scale the melting of an ice cap would cause would more than likely cause quite a bit of sea life to die.

 

Not to mention that it would cause a huge rise in sea level and coastal areas would be rapidly inundated - we're talking MILLIONS of lives. Millions of people cannot be moved quickly without prior notice on the order of days, if not weeks.

 

Global warming also causes a rise in temperature. Living things can only adapt so quickly to rapid rises in temperature before succumbing to things like heatstroke and dying from metabolic issues caused by such extremity. Humans may be a highly adaptable species, but there are some things even we can't get past. (And think about the long term effects on the economy from such a rise - think about what it would do to the electrical grid and electricity prices if a whole lot more people suddenly started using their ACs at once.)

 

Adaptation is a problem with it happening too quickly as well. Evolution isn't generally a fast moving phenomenon.

 

Let the world do what it wants with us.

 

This is not the planet's fault. This is something we are doing to us.

[RWyvern]

We are not in an ice age, although I'm not knowledgeable enough to give you any information on why the ice caps formed. Ice ages are characterized by advances of glaciers and ice over large areas of land as well as cold temperatures (and probably other things, but I'm not sure).

 

[...]

 

It IS however theorized that global warming did happen once before, but it was millions and millions of years ago, between the Permian and the Triassic periods and may have been the cause of the Permian-Triassic Mass Extinction that caused as much as 95% of life on earth at the time to die out (more in the oceans than the land).

It's thought that a six degree Celsius rise in temperature over a lot of years caused likely by volcanic activity (likely caused primarily by the Siberian Traps) throwing a lot of CO2 (and whatever other gases were in those eruptions) into the atmosphere, eventually causing a runaway greenhouse effect, is what caused that extinction. There was probably also a large-scale methane release from the oceans, and methane also contributes to global warming.

Sources:

http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/Essays/wipeout/default.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80...xtinction_event

http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0829-permian_triassic.html

http://books.google.com/books?id=F0LFIdaao...warming&f=false

http://www.pnas.org/content/109/1/59.full.pdf+html

http://globalwarming-arclein.blogspot.com/...rian-traps.html

 

We've already risen roughly 0.8 degree Celsius since like the 1880s with most of that rise occuring since the 1970s - Source

 

We are just coming out of an ice age. It seems to me that the earth goes through temperature patterns - it was noticably warmer during the dinosaur's time, cooled down in the last ice age, and it's warming up again. Speculative guess = global warming is natural and people are making a big hullabaloo about cute fluffy animals dying out (e.g. the polar bear) because they don't want to believe that the earth can and will change and not every species will change with it.

 

That is not to say that mankind isn't making an impact. We did, after all, inadvertently open a hole in the earth's protective ozone layer.

 

It might be worth noting that there has been considerably more volcanic activity in recent years, primarily around the ring of fire. Although a lot of it doesn't involve much in the way of volcanos literally blowing up, weak points in faultlines are shifting a lot more frequently, indicating activity below the crust. In '11 alone, New Zealand was the victim of several big earthquakes, Japan was nearly taken under by several earthquakes along with a tsunami and it is a good guess that America may be next, possibly in line for the worst out of the lot seeing that the faultline runs inland. As a small note, people (including me) here in Adelaide, a place not known for much seismic activity, experienced two earthquakes not many weeks apart in '12, but that happens everywhere in the world

 

The pacific earthquakes mentioned above also all seem to be part of a chain reaction, possibly started by a New Zealand quake and running clockwise around the ring. I could find more details on that, but it's starting to head off the topic of global warming.

[Obscure_Trash]

As for the dinosaurs I think the asteroid killed 'em. u_u

Basically. Prevailing theory (that I was taught, anyway) is the Chicxulub crater from a meteor that really wrecked extreme havoc, had a whole bunch of consequences, and was at least the straw that broke the camels back in dinosaur extinction.

 

It IS however theorized that global warming did happen once before, but it was millions and millions of years ago, between the Permian and the Triassic periods and may have been the cause of the Permian-Triassic Mass Extinction that caused as much as 95% of life on earth at the time to die out (more in the oceans than the land).

 

Well, if we consider global warming at its base, technical definition to just be a global rise in temperature, the Permian-Triassic is certainly a period of global warming (and a large one), but I don't believe it would technically be the only one. =p

 

We are just coming out of an ice age.

 

The whole Ice Age thing is sticky. The last glacial period was during the Pleistocene Epoch and we are now in the Holocene Epoch, but it's a bit messy to consider where the end of an age ends when we're still so close to the event, considering geologic time. x3

 

Speculative guess = global warming is natural and people are making a big hullabaloo about cute fluffy animals dying out (e.g. the polar bear) because they don't want to believe that the earth can and will change and not every species will change with it.

 

Scientific fact = global warming may be (and is) natural but the global warming we are experiencing now is majority, if not completely, due to anthropogenic effects and is a problem because the rate at which we are causing it to happen is faster than any warming period the Earth has ever experienced before and brings about catastrophic events for all animals and other life

 

You're right, the Earth will go on. The issue is that this warming is not natural and has absolutely devastating consequences for us and other species. And this isn't something that will be thousands of years down the road. It's something we are already suffering the effects of (some of which you described).

[TikindiDragon]

I'm always terribly amused that during debates like this no one ever seems to want to adress the population problem. There's a lot of talk that goes on (not here, in other debates) about the need to reduce carbon emissions. Which is great and all, except the rate of reduction in emissions is going to be eaten up by the population growth and more people producing carbon.

 

What we really, really need is for the human race to stop growing beyond the means of our environment to support us. But almost everything in every culture is obsessed with the idea that growth is good. Look at the businesses that can't be happy when they're at the break-even point, or on marginal growth. Look at all the analysts that have a coniption whenever the economy isn't growing. Look at all the new, improved ways we have of bringing yet more children into the world, and extending the lives of those that are already here. More humans = more carbon emissions. Personally I think one of the most important things we could do to help reduce our impact on the environment would be to start educating people about having fewer children.

[7Deadly$ins]

I'm always terribly amused that during debates like this no one ever seems to want to adress the population problem. There's a lot of talk that goes on (not here, in other debates) about the need to reduce carbon emissions. Which is great and all, except the rate of reduction in emissions is going to be eaten up by the population growth and more people producing carbon.

 

What we really, really need is for the human race to stop growing beyond the means of our environment to support us. But almost everything in every culture is obsessed with the idea that growth is good. Look at the businesses that can't be happy when they're at the break-even point, or on marginal growth. Look at all the analysts that have a coniption whenever the economy isn't growing. Look at all the new, improved ways we have of bringing yet more children into the world, and extending the lives of those that are already here. More humans = more carbon emissions. Personally I think one of the most important things we could do to help reduce our impact on the environment would be to start educating people about having fewer children.

I actually think China has the right idea in terms of population.

[Fuzzbucket]

I actually think China has the right idea in terms of population.

Me too.

[Obscure_Trash]

I actually think China has the right idea in terms of population.

I think Iran is a better model. Offering family planning, free contraceptives, educating women, and having involvement of religious leaders they went from an average of 7 kids per family to 3/less than 3. (I believe there's been recent backlash on these due to crappy political leaders, but it was working at least, to aim more for stable/steady than growth). Effectively lowers the birth rate but isn't so controlling (especially when you bring in problematic political and sexist issues that are intertwined in such a thing as the China restriction).

 

~

 

I do completely agree with you, TikindiDragon. It's an excellent point.

[Fuzzbucket]

I think Iran is a better model. Offering family planning, free contraceptives, educating women, and having involvement of religious leaders they went from an average of 7 kids per family to 3/less than 3. (I believe there's been recent backlash on these due to crappy political leaders, but it was working at least, to aim more for stable/steady than growth). Effectively lowers the birth rate but isn't so controlling (especially when you bring in problematic political and sexist issues that are intertwined in such a thing as the China restriction).

 

~

 

I do completely agree with you, TikindiDragon. It's an excellent point.

Yes - but we NEED to reduce the population of this planet. We REALLY do. And soon.

 

Any other UK viewers here watch the recent conspiracy theory drama serial Utopia ?

 

It - wasn't that bad an idea !

[TikindiDragon]

Yes - but we NEED to reduce the population of this planet. We REALLY do. And soon.

 

Any other UK viewers here watch the recent conspiracy theory drama serial Utopia ?

 

It - wasn't that bad an idea !

Sadly I missed that, fuzz. Although it sounds like I should try and catch it on iPlayer.

 

I'm just amazed that it's something most Western governments simply refuse to talk about. It's a *major* issue, and it's one we *can* adress - with education, with free access to contraceptives, with free family planning advice. And, yes, by refusing to support people to have more than two children (which is the nil growth state).

 

But you so rarely see anmything that even suggest population may be an issue. Except by right-wing extremists (in this country at least) who are more concerned about immigration than birth rates.

 

We're educating our young people now to recycle more, to drive less, and to grow their own food. Those are all really, really good things. But *why* aren't we educating them on the global impact of their choices about having kids? I'm not saying people shouldn't have kids - just that the education out there about the implications of having them isn't great. People should be able to make informed choices, and I'm sure that the green concious people of my generation (and, yes, that of the generation below me now) might choose to have smaller families if only they had an idea of the global population problem. And that's not even touching on education about contraceptives etc in the developing world.

[Fuzzbucket]

Sadly I missed that, fuzz. Although it sounds like I should try and catch it on iPlayer.

 

I'm just amazed that it's something most Western governments simply refuse to talk about. It's a *major* issue, and it's one we *can* adress - with education, with free access to contraceptives, with free family planning advice. And, yes, by refusing to support people to have more than two children (which is the nil growth state).

 

But you so rarely see anmything that even suggest population may be an issue. Except by right-wing extremists (in this country at least) who are more concerned about immigration than birth rates.

 

We're educating our young people now to recycle more, to drive less, and to grow their own food. Those are all really, really good things. But *why* aren't we educating them on the global impact of their choices about having kids? I'm not saying people shouldn't have kids - just that the education out there about the implications of having them isn't great. People should be able to make informed choices, and I'm sure that the green concious people of my generation (and, yes, that of the generation below me now) might choose to have smaller families if only they had an idea of the global population problem. And that's not even touching on education about contraceptives etc in the developing world.

Channel 4. It was brilliant. SPOILER ALERT - here's the synopsis of all 6 episodes.

 

DO NOT READ it if you are going to be able to watch it. REALLY - DON'T !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_%28TV_series%29

 

Only if you CAN'T watch ! (and I am sure it will show up on DVD - in fact I think I will go look now !)

 

You can still watch on 4oD, but I don't know if that works in other countries unless you use a proxy server.

 

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/utopia/...-guide/series-1

 

DO SO ! You WILL like it (I mean you personally; I have no idea about others here except I know Socky would like it too....)

 

The warnings for violence and language are RICHLY deserved; it WAS shown after 10 pm and that is a damn good thing !

[TikindiDragon]

Channel 4. It was brilliant. SPOILER ALERT - here's the synopsis of all 6 episodes.

 

DO NOT READ it if you are going to be able to watch it. REALLY - DON'T !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_%28TV_series%29

 

Only if you CAN'T watch ! (and I am sure it will show up on DVD - in fact I think I will go look now !)

 

You can still watch on 4oD, but I don't know if that works in other countries unless you use a proxy server.

 

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/utopia/...-guide/series-1

 

DO SO ! You WILL like it (I mean you personally; I have no idea about others here except I know Socky would like it too....)

 

The warnings for violence and language are RICHLY deserved; it WAS shown after 10 pm and that is a damn good thing !

Oh, that'll be why I missed it. We go to bed at 9. I'll try having a look, though (and I'll avoid the spoilers).

 

Staying slightly more on topic I'd be interested to know people's opinions of nuclear energy as an alternative to carbon-heavy fossil fuel plants.

 

(Small incidental - that always gets me about the push to make vehicles electric. They're not really any greener as the carbon cost of making them is huge, and the electricity they run on, by and large, also comes from heavily-polluting power stations. You actually create less carbon by buying a properly old car and keeping it on the road.)

[Fuzzbucket]

Indeed you do. But cars can run on water; that's what I hope to see. It could be done on a huge scale with the will of the big names.

 

Nuclear. Tough one. The waste is always the issue (I live too close to Sellafield for comfort.) That said - while we get on and develop a LOT more in the way of wind and hydro/wave power, not to mention geothermal (Iceland could supply the whole of Europe, given a cable connection !!!!) nuclear is the only short term solution in the UK. EXCEPT that - they may have left to late to get new plants up and running in time. That's the kind of thing the UK is so spectacularly bad at. Last-minuteism, brought about by pendulum politics and a perceived need not to agree with/follow up on a single thing the last government did, just because THEY did it ...

Edited February 22, 2013 by fuzzbucket

[Infinis]

I'm always terribly amused that during debates like this no one ever seems to want to adress the population problem. There's a lot of talk that goes on (not here, in other debates) about the need to reduce carbon emissions. Which is great and all, except the rate of reduction in emissions is going to be eaten up by the population growth and more people producing carbon.

 

What we really, really need is for the human race to stop growing beyond the means of our environment to support us. But almost everything in every culture is obsessed with the idea that growth is good. Look at the businesses that can't be happy when they're at the break-even point, or on marginal growth. Look at all the analysts that have a coniption whenever the economy isn't growing. Look at all the new, improved ways we have of bringing yet more children into the world, and extending the lives of those that are already here. More humans = more carbon emissions. Personally I think one of the most important things we could do to help reduce our impact on the environment would be to start educating people about having fewer children.

I think a lot of people don't seem to feel like there is a population problem, or they don't care, or they don't want to realize it because they want kids and we must go forth and multiply... c_c

 

The problem with addressing population growth is the issues people run into when trying to do so and I think people are afraid we'd end up implementing a child limitation policy like China has. (Which isn't a bad idea if done right.) People just don't like to be faced with the fact that we are the problem, not the planet, and that we all have to take responsibility for it (...which happens to be another thing a lot of people aren't good at, taking responsibility).

 

And either way what Tikindi and Sock were saying about family planning and stuff will greatly help as well.

 

I actually think China has the right idea in terms of population.

 

They would have the right idea if they had a two child policy instead of a one child policy. Because their policy is one child only, China's own sexist cultural norms have caused them to have a shortage of women, which is really sad. :c

 

So when we think about limiting children by law the minimum should always be two to avoid problems like this (to allow, ideally, for one male and one female child), especially when taking into consideration cultures in which one sex is favored over the other.

 

Staying slightly more on topic I'd be interested to know people's opinions of nuclear energy as an alternative to carbon-heavy fossil fuel plants.

 

Nuclear. Tough one. The waste is always the issue (I live too close to Sellafield for comfort.) That said - while we get on and develop a LOT more in the way of wind and hydro/wave power, not to mention geothermal (Iceland could supply the whole of Europe, given a cable connection !!!!) nuclear is the only short term solution in the UK.

 

Nuclear waste isn't much of an issue, really, at least not for the first few decades because it's stored in pools of water that are actually really good at impeding irradiated stuff from getting into the atmosphere. This xkcd What If article kind of explains it, it's pretty cool

 

Nuclear is actually a fine energy option - especially when you start thinking about thorium reactors instead of uranium reactors (because the finity of uranium is probably the biggest issue with nuclear at the present time).

 

I don't really ever see wind power as becoming a widespread energy source to help reduce carbon emissions and global warming. It's so unreliable because wind is, by nature, unreliable. It's a nice source for when the wind is there but it can only go so far. And the same goes for solar panels - the sun isn't around 24/7. Geothermal, nuclear, and hydro are the only ones I can really see making the kind of impact we need to have.

 

Well, if we consider global warming at its base, technical definition to just be a global rise in temperature, the Permian-Triassic is certainly a period of global warming (and a large one), but I don't believe it would technically be the only one. =p

 

I never meant to say it was the only instance of global warming in the basest sense, but if we talk about global warming as it's happening now the one back then was the one that went to completion, so to speak. Either way warming on that kind of scale is still a far way off if we ever get there.

 

...Hopefully this was at least somewhat on topic x_X

[esnym]

Actually, the world doesn't have an overpopulation problem. It has a wealth distribution problem, as well as a lack of environmental common sense.

[TikindiDragon]

Actually, the world doesn't have an overpopulation problem. It has a wealth distribution problem, as well as a lack of environmental common sense.

...

 

Look out of America. Trust me, the world has an overpopulation problem. It does, to be fair, also have a wealth distribution problem, but there have been several estimates that put global population above theoretical global carrying capacity.

 

Just because there doesn't seem to be an issue in your local area doesn't mean there isn't one.

 

Edit to add: *ahem*

There is wide variability both in the definition and in the proposed size of the Earth's carrying capacity, with estimates ranging from less than 1 to 1000 billion humans (1 trillion).[73] A 2001 UN report said that two-thirds of the estimates fall in the range of 4 billion to 16 billion (with unspecified standard errors), with a median of about 10 billion.[74] More recent estimates are much lower, particularly if resource depletion and increased world affluence are considered.

You can double check that if you like. Please note that the lower estimates are the more recent ones, and that the population of the earth was estimated to have passed the 7 billion mark in 2011. We're expected to hit that 'median estimate' 10 billion within my lifetime.

Edited February 22, 2013 by TikindiDragon