Climate Change

Reno said:
President, Iceland does not have a monarch.
Having a Prime Minister does not mean there is a Monarch. Prime Ministers are, as the the name suggests, the most senior minister. Whether there is a Prime Minister or not depends entirely on the structure of government houses. Some nations have a President and Prime Minister.
 
rmsharpe said:
Normal weather patterns. Even if it has been getting warmer for the last 100 years, it's proof of nothing.
Can you comment on the ash in the atmosphere?
 
rmsharpe said:
Normal weather patterns. Even if it has been getting warmer for the last 100 years, it's proof of nothing.
Now I know how to get you to reply :p
I do read reports on climate and related areas. Yes there are shifts in climate from warm to cold. Yes it is possible that the gap between min and max temperatures is increasing due to normal climate changes (although then it would make more sence if the "range" of temperatures was going up or down and not incrasing). However there are many factors that affect the environment including the pollution itself. Production pollution causes the disruption of many climatic processes and habitations of living beings. If there was no pollution and related problems I could accept this "normal weather patterns" theory.
 
storealex said:
It used to snow here all winter. Snow would be everywhere, for months. Now snow is rare, comes a few times in the winter, and quickly melts away.
Every year the summer get's warmer, and every year the weather get's more extreme. Storms and Hurricanes used to be something in other countries, or once a decade...

Every year we pollute more...

Blair is very cool. His work to help out Africa, and especially his work to slow down the climate change, has made me forgive anything else I had against him.

My number one quarrel with America (Including Canada) is their pollution, which is too high, and especially their indifference. Sure, they have lot's of land where they can live, but we don't! Lot's of us Europeans supported you in both Afghanistan and Iraq, but where is our reward? We helped you out, now please help us and stop polluting so much!
That's an excellent post storealex! I agree with everything you've said. It seems the weather change we are experiencing here is Europe wide. Also, yes, Blair has redeemed much of his bad name with his recent actions, together with Gordon Brown on the debt initiative.

And let me reiterate this, albeit with some additions: "Lot's of us Europeans supported you in both Afghanistan and Iraq, but where is our reward? We helped you out, now please help us and stop polluting so much!"

I don't see it completley as a 'now where's our reward?', although that is a very good point. I see it mainly as 'we need to do it now for everyone's good. This is URGENT and IRREVERSIBLE and AFFECTS EVERYONE'.

And I don't see this as a issue specific to America. All nations have a responsibility, for we all face the consequence. America just gets mentioned a lot because it pollutes the most and does least about it. China is equally questioned about its rising energy needs and greenhouse gas output but they are largely towing the responsible line and still don't pollute anywhere near the amount the US does. And if there really are Americans who believe that all this is some conspiracy to shave 0.5% off their GDP off over the next 20 years, well then it simply confirms that the US is using Civ to train its best brains. That's akin to the 'liberals made Catholic priests paedophiles' tin foil hat.

I have no interest in discussing anything with RMS. Comments such as his are treated in the same way as the village drunk's. In one and out the other.

@ Reno: Took me a long while to get that map and all the other info but I will try to find more.

@ Stormbind: Thanks for the clarification on Iceland's constitution. :D
 
As much as I like China and don't see any reason why they should not be allowed the same standards of living we have in the "West" I must say their booming economy (which they need to prevent social unrest as well) is definitely not energy-savvy so I hope they get rich enough soon enough to use their energy in a better way. Otherwise with their population and developing economy they will soon pass the US in this Hall of (In)Fame...

I read at the moment they use 7 times more energy for producing the same stuff as Japan...

Edit : BTW nothing personal against the US. It is just I saw things there that got me both puzzled and frightened (like a woman in a suburbs DRIVING to post one letter in a mailbox about 200 meters away from her home). I don't even want to precise she was on an extreme diet.... :lol as that would "spoil" the fun of it. And this is just one exemple. But she was actually a very nice person as most US citizens I have met.
 
Reno said:
Intresting, but the Kyoto treaty will have no value if many more industrial nations don't sign it.

@Ram Can you find more estimated maps for what Europe or the World will look like if the 84 meter water level rise will happen?

Lots of American cities are meant to have signed up to it even if their country hasn't.
 
Ready for some graphs?

Emissions
82138.jpg


Rise of Global Temperatures:
82135.jpg


Global Annual Temps
82134.jpg


Comparative Warming Predictions
82136.jpg


All from what seems to be an Australian / Pacific group of scientists. At this website: http://whyfiles.org/158glowarm_evid/5.html

In this pdf: http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/wg1TARtechsum.pdf
 
There seems to be growing evidence and certainty as to global warming: Truth.

1. Even the pentagon has studies/reports/projections re impact to USA.

2. The Chairman of Shell corporation has stated in public conference his opinion that we need to do something now, if we are to have a chance, and not later.

3. Apparently, also, and in reference to Day After Tomorrow - even if it is largely hokey, though, apparently, roughly, sound - 5 of the 7 Arctic/Greenland temperature/sea water elevators are no longer operating - and this change has taken place in less than 30 years.

4. Also to the USA, it seems government thought even agrees with 'global warming' as fact, but declines to address it due to the vulnerability of the economy.

I notice RMSharpe playing devil's advocate asserting, roughly, that changes over just 100 years are nonesense - it seems a fair point to be cautious, given many earlier assertions to global warming were based on university exchanges of global mean temperature data - however, there is a great deal of further data available - and considering the issue over, even, millions of years.

It appears to me, on the face of evidence, that global warming is fact, and increasing in it's time/change velocity. It appears that, far from current trend of warming, we should probably be into a period of cooling.

Ultimately, I would say when corporations such as Shell are on the band-wagon, the issue should be taken seriously.

The alternative seems the grubbiest kind of theft - from our children. And money won't do my son any good if he has to use so much of it simply coping with the affects of our laziness/ idiocy/ greed.

EDIT for clarity/syntax
 
rmsharpe said:
Normal weather patterns. Even if it has been getting warmer for the last 100 years, it's proof of nothing.

Exactly

the ice age and extermination of 98% of all life on earthwas a perfectly natural occurance.

Thats why floods, bushfires, storms and hurricans are all pefectly normal and we humans should not do anything about it. :goodjob:
 
Gelion said:
If there was no pollution and related problems I could accept this "normal weather patterns" theory.

At some point it comes down to a very basic understanding of chemistry - all those emissions Whether anyone likes it or not, they will have an affect.

LouLong said:
As much as I like China and don't see any reason why they should not be allowed the same standards of living we have in the "West".

There seems a big complaint - 'if China doesn't have to, why should I?'

I think China should be held accountable - but while people also complain that the Kyoto Protocol isn't enough, I think it is at least a step.

At some point in the future it seems entirely possible that the nations who do something about the problem, could well be in a position to force the others, including China.
 
Tell me, how did you gather evidence of the amount of carbon dioxide in the air from 1000 AD? I wasn't aware they had modern day labs a thousand years ago. :crazyeye:

Oh no! The global temperature has risen 1.6 degrees! That's so important it may even be worth two exclamation marks!! :lol:
 
Elrohir said:
Tell me, how did you gather evidence of the amount of carbon dioxide in the air from 1000 AD? I wasn't aware they had modern day labs a thousand years ago. :crazyeye:

Oh no! The global temperature has risen 1.6 degrees! That's so important it may even be worth two exclamation marks!! :lol:

ROFLMAO

Yes they been drilling into ice shelfs beneath ice to measure carbon dioxide level and other composite gases.

Yes they have been taking samples of ice from mountain from all around the world and have been dateing them.

---

lol

Yeah cause you know the difference between fine weather and weather in which hurricans and violent storms occure is 3o degress

Cause a mear 3 degrees will render (vast) lands into unproductive barren and unliveable habitates.
 
A more urgent worry than flooding in my view would be that the Gulf Stream might shift south. Great Britain would become a second Iceland in not very much time at all.

As history advances, the stakes go up. Eden and Babylon drained their wetlands and cut down their forests. Easter Islanders cut down their last tree to help build giant stone statues; as their ecosystem failed they fell to tribal warfare and knocked over all of each other's statues anyway. We build Wal-Marts, and drive SUVs, and create gigantic plastics dumps in the Pacific Ocean, and fill the air with debris, and destroy habitats, and buy useless garbage, and grow monocultured crops, and use chemicals to annihilate entire ecosystems (Vietnam, for example), and bury waste that will be radioactive for 50000 years. If we don't clean up our act, the world order will fall in this century due to poor resource management, pollution, and widespread ravages of climate change.
 
Reno: this was posted in the User-designed Maps thread, generated based on Cornell University projections of sea-level changes (assuming all ice melts, the level would rise by 80m). It's a little more extreme than this scenario, but you can get the idea.
earthicefree.jpg


And a helpful summary of the results from Cuivienen:
Major (i.e. large) cities that would SURVIVE the melting of the polar caps:

Beijing, China (Not so sure on this one, it might be coastal or just off the coast underwater)
Shanghai, China (Would be partially flooded)
Paris, France
Delhi/New Delhi, India
Tehran, Iran
Rome, Italy
Mexico City, Mexico
Moscow, Russia
Atlanta, USA
Chicago, USA

…And that’s pretty much every city of significant size that would survive.

Bangladesh and the Netherlands would also be completely and totally submerged (with the exception of a few hills in the south of the Netherlands). Considering that Bangladesh is the ninth most populous nation in the world despite its small size, those two alone would be a huge loss of life.
 
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