IPCC Report on Climate Change

Science and Technology
41
It constantly amazes me the casualness with which folks watch the destruction of this incredible cornucopia and wonderland of an planet we inherited.
Who inherited? Who has how much of it and how did they get it? Maybe we need to lighten up a bit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU-YMmUGrJ0 $4000 for a car? 1973 He mentions carbon dioxide but no climate change. :lol: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXbyzxw7oqI 40 years, my god. We just had an anniversary, 50 years for the Ford Mustang. http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/15/living/gallery/50-years-of-mustang/ psik
42

If actual policy changes that can ameliorate global warming are going to happen in the US, the most critical factor, I think, is that the economically elite want those policy changes.
In this regard, it probably matters little what other citizens believe or want. So I would suggest that the thrust of efforts (otherwise essentially wasted) be in attempts to change what the economically elite want to happen re: slowing down global warming.

43

Here is a Forbes article from just a year ago: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/02/13/peer-reviewed-survey-finds-majority-of-scientists-skeptical-of-global-warming-crisis/

44
Here is a Forbes article from just a year ago: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/02/13/peer-reviewed-survey-finds-majority-of-scientists-skeptical-of-global-warming-crisis/
Sounds like verbal BS to me. What constitutes a CRISIS versus not a CRISIS? Where do you draw the line when you are talking about seven billion people? If people starve in some country you never heard of is it a crisis? Is it only a crisis if you starve? I am sorry but the first half of that article is so mealy-mouthed I refuse to finish it. But it seems to expect the term "peer-reviewed" to be impressive. What is a peer-reviewed crisis? psik
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Like psikey I only got halfway through the article. The so-called scientists they cited were geologists and engineers of an unknown discipline. Convincing only to those wanting to validate their ideology.

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Like psikey I only got halfway through the article. The so-called scientists they cited were geologists and engineers of an unknown discipline. Convincing only to those wanting to validate their ideology.
Just in case someone gets the wrong impression, I did not present it as a scholarly article, but as an example of what wealthy folks might be reading and attending to.
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Just in case someone gets the wrong impression, I did not present it as a scholarly article, but as an example of what wealthy folks might be reading and attending to.
That's what I thought.
48

And here I thought Rocinante and Mid Atlantic had converted you. :lol:
Occam

49
but presumably there will still be life after that, which may be effected by what we believe and do now and during the proximal decades.
I have no doubt that humans will survive this. I do wonder how many will be killed in wars that start as side effects of crop failures. That is the only really interesting part of that video. I almost hate to admit it but I actually find that palm oil business quite funny. psik Where's the evidence for that, faith is a poor substitute for facts and the facts indicate that in a wildly fluxuating environment, many species will go extinct and past extinctions indicate that individual size is a good indicator of which species are vulnerable. Being larger is a risk in this kind of situation, and the sophisticated societies that most people now depend on for their existence are far more vulnerable to collapse than most people seem aware. Just consider how devastating poor banking practices were for the global community in 2008 and then magnify that by 100 or more times as we try and quantify the effect of climate change that will severely impact the supply of food, water and habitable land. This, "we're going to make it because we're so smart" philosophy that some people seem to have ignores the fact of how stupidly we're acting collectively right now.
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Here is a Forbes article from just a year ago: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/02/13/peer-reviewed-survey-finds-majority-of-scientists-skeptical-of-global-warming-crisis/
Sounds like verbal BS to me. What constitutes a CRISIS versus not a CRISIS? Where do you draw the line when you are talking about seven billion people? If people starve in some country you never heard of is it a crisis? Is it only a crisis if you starve? I am sorry but the first half of that article is so mealy-mouthed I refuse to finish it. But it seems to expect the term "peer-reviewed" to be impressive. What is a peer-reviewed crisis? psik I'm pretty sure that not having enough food, water and habitable space for 7 billion people in the near term qualifies as a crisis and in the mid to long term the ecological collapse that will almost certainly accompany a rapid shift in conditions will be at an extinction event level. You'd effectively have to be brain dead to not see that as a crisis.
51
I have no doubt that humans will survive this.
Where's the evidence for that, faith is a poor substitute for facts and the facts indicate that in a wildly fluxuating environment, many species will go extinct and past extinctions indicate that individual size is a good indicator of which species are vulnerable. This, "we're going to make it because we're so smart" philosophy that some people seem to have ignores the fact of how stupidly we're acting collectively right now. What large species has survived over as wide a variety of environments as human beings? The population could go down to less than 500,000,000 without the threat of extinction. That would reduce the amount of competitive pressure on human beings tremendously. The banking system is an artificial complexity we created. But we can't do something as simple as making double-entry accounting mandatory in our schools. That is what is really funny. I had an accountant tell me that he had no objection as long as it was done after he retired in six years. I had a high school teacher in Sweden tell me that he objected to the idea on the grounds that it would make Capitalism seem logical because of the math. Humans create stupid artificial complexities but I suspect desperation would cause the artificial crap to be ignored just because it is simpler to put a shotgun in someone's face and blow them away. But eliminating 6.5 billion people will do that. psik
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What large species has survived over as wide a variety of environments as human beings? The population could go down to less than 500,000,000 without the threat of extinction. That would reduce the amount of competitive pressure on human beings tremendously. The banking system is an artificial complexity we created. But we can't do something as simple as making double-entry accounting mandatory in our schools. That is what is really funny. I had an accountant tell me that he had no objection as long as it was done after he retired in six years. I had a high school teacher in Sweden tell me that he objected to the idea on the grounds that it would make Capitalism seem logical because of the math. Humans create stupid artificial complexities but I suspect desperation would cause the artificial crap to be ignored just because it is simpler to put a shotgun in someone's face and blow them away. But eliminating 6.5 billion people will do that. psik
Meanwhile in the real world, the collapses on the scale we're discussing will be of such a chaotic nature that surviving them on a society wide scale becomes virtually impossible and at an individual level almost as challenging. Our existence at this population level and with the kind of ever-increasing impact on the natural world is rapidly re-writing the conditions that favoured our existence in the first place. It's pure hubris to think that we can be so destructive and still not be threatened with extinction ourselves.
53

Will the weirdness never cease?
Smell of forest pine can limit climate change - researchers

Scientists say they've found a mechanism by which these scented vapours turn into aerosols above boreal forests. These particles promote cooling by reflecting sunlight back into space and helping clouds to form. The research, published in the journal Nature, fills in a major gap in our understanding, researchers say. One of the biggest holes in scientific knowledge about climate change relates to the scale of the impact of atmospheric aerosols on temperatures.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26340038 psik
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Will the weirdness never cease? Smell of forest pine can limit climate change - researchers
Scientists say they've found a mechanism by which these scented vapours turn into aerosols above boreal forests. These particles promote cooling by reflecting sunlight back into space and helping clouds to form. The research, published in the journal Nature, fills in a major gap in our understanding, researchers say. One of the biggest holes in scientific knowledge about climate change relates to the scale of the impact of atmospheric aerosols on temperatures.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26340038 psik
Too bad that climate change is already wiping out millions of pine trees releasing millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. http://www.livescience.com/18797-beetle-outbreaks-forests-carbon-nsf-bts.html
Insects are essential to a healthy forest environment, but bad bugs are bad news for forests. Throughout North America and the world, forests are experiencing some of the worst outbreaks of insects and diseases in recorded history. As for the forests' future, researcher Jeffrey Hicke quips: "I'd rather be a beetle than a tree."
Nice try with your ongoing, "there's really nothing to worry about" campaign, I'm looking forward to your next tack.
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Nice try with your ongoing, "there's really nothing to worry about" campaign, I'm looking forward to your next tack.
Is that what it was? I thought I was just posting something weird and interesting that I had never heard of before. psik
56
Here is a Forbes article from just a year ago: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/02/13/peer-reviewed-survey-finds-majority-of-scientists-skeptical-of-global-warming-crisis/
Sounds like verbal BS to me. What constitutes a CRISIS versus not a CRISIS? Where do you draw the line when you are talking about seven billion people? If people starve in some country you never heard of is it a crisis? Is it only a crisis if you starve? I am sorry but the first half of that article is so mealy-mouthed I refuse to finish it. But it seems to expect the term "peer-reviewed" to be impressive. What is a peer-reviewed crisis? psik I'm pretty sure that not having enough food, water and habitable space for 7 billion people in the near term qualifies as a crisis and in the mid to long term the ecological collapse that will almost certainly accompany a rapid shift in conditions will be at an extinction event level. You'd effectively have to be brain dead to not see that as a crisis. Climate change deniers ARE brain dead. Lois
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Nice try with your ongoing, "there's really nothing to worry about" campaign, I'm looking forward to your next tack.
Is that what it was? I thought I was just posting something weird and interesting that I had never heard of before. psik It's still pretty much detached from reality like a lot of the other stuff you've posted here. How about reading some of the links people have posted here dealing with the actual science instead of throwing out red herrings that just divert any real discussion.
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It's still pretty much detached from reality like a lot of the other stuff you've posted here. How about reading some of the links people have posted here dealing with the actual science instead of throwing out red herrings that just divert any real discussion.
Well I think you are just too fuzzy for reality. This is what the article said:
The scientists stress that the new understanding is not a panacea for climate change as forests will stop emitting vapours if they become too stressed from heat or lack of water. However, Dr Ehn believes the vapours could have a significant impact in the medium term. "If you go into a pine forest and notice that pine forest smell, that could be the smell that actually limits climate change from reaching such levels that it could become really a problem in the world."
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26340038 psik
59

CC:

Then regular folk like Gary pick up on the theme toss out claims and insinuations, they refuse to discuss instead making it personal, dismissing rather than address and lots hand waving, but do you ever see them stand up a defend an claim down to it’s foundation?
This is a complete misrepresentation of my position, I thought I had made clear that I understand that climate change is a serious problem that needs to be dealt with. Our difference is not about that fact, but about the reality that it is not a problem that affects us "regular folk" in our immediate everyday life, and therefore we "regular people" cannot be expected to drop all our immediate concerns and problems, (i.e.) college tuition, medical expense, unsafe railways, etc. and read seven books on climate change as you suggested. The problem that any of us concerned with climate change is dealing with, is a political one and that is what must be dealt with. In my experience far the best way to get us "regular folk" to become concerned with any problem of this sort is to help them with their immediate every day problems and in that way earn the respect and trust so the "regular folk" will not only listen and understand the problem, but take action to resolve it. To get the "regular folk" to take any action we must also show practical solutions that don't damage their lifestyles. What are your solutions to the problem. Warning – if you mention windmills, there are environmental groups here opposed to them. They claim they damage the great lakes wildlife, and will eventually just rust out and become more industrial waste. Here is another Economist article that may hold a partial solution to the problem. http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21601231-researchers-find-advantages-floating-nuclear-power-stations-all-sea. Also Foreign Affairs this month has a couple of lead articles on fracking and electric cars that may be useful.
Who the hell insisted that we go back to hunter-gatherers ?!? - another right wing propaganda bludgeon
! That may sound like right wing propaganda but it how I (and many other "regular folk") see the solutions being proposed by the well scientists and university professors. Keep in mind to influence successfully society you need more than just dictate factual arguments, Tonight's news has several weather disasters reported, perhaps we should lose the academic qualms and tell people that these are the type of things that we are facing from climate change. The world may be a school but it is not a lecture hall.
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Well I think you are just too fuzzy for reality. This is what the article said:
And as I've already posted I seriously doubt that forests of dead and decaying trees are going to have much impact on slowing global warming as they contribute billions of tons more of CO2 in the coming decade. I'm from BC, and hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of that province are covered in dead pine, the estimated contribution to atmospheric CO2 is over 1 billion tons in the coming years. Like with the WTC thread where you want the towers to act as solid blocks to confirm your theories, your opinions on this subject are pretty much meaningless. Read some of the science instead of assuming it's all wrong or cherry picking a tiny sampling that may seem on the surface to support your opinions.