Climate Change is here and man made

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

I remember the greenhouse effect getting taught at school 30 years ago, since then the UK has significantly reduced CO2 emissions, and completely cut emissions of some other gases that affect climate (CFCs, etc.). Furthermore, the UK has built several of the worlds largest offshore wind farms, numerous storage projects, brought in regulation to limit and eventually ban emissions from cars, and more. In addition, household energy use has been falling for the last 15ish years on the back of better insulation and energy saving technology like LEDs.

I understand people want to push back against outright sceptics but this idea that there is an emergency that has been wilfully ignored, with nothing done, for 30 years is nonsense. Massive progress has already been made although much is left to be done.

We could decide to stop using all carbon based fuels within five years, of course, if we want to follow the lead of extinction rebellion and the like. However, this would mean massive loss of life when winter comes, a massive collapse of the economy, and probably chaos that causes more emissions than before.

Changing a nation’s entire energy system is a large and complex undertaking. The current system we have took many, many decades to construct. This isn’t largely about the will to change, but is more about the how to change without breaking what we all depend on everyday to keep us alive.

It would be helpful if we were all reading from the same set of figures, but figures are often purposefully misquoted or taken out of context. I remember seeing one report (which I can't for the life of me find now) where it quoted energy use as going down, but what it didn't say was the measure was per person which didn't take in to account population growth. The actual net figure of energy use had risen.

 

[Bazzmand Show]

For some insight into these issues and whats being done/the gravity I would suggest a couple of good documentaries for people:

Racing Extinction



Chasing Coral



It might bring a bit of perspective to a few in this thread who don't seem to think 'it's such a big issue'.

 

[mancity1]

I'm a dual national, I was at the Great Barrier Reef around 18 months ago - it's not in 'great shape'. 1/5th of the worlds coral reefs have been destroyed since 2015, what do you not understand? There is no coming back from bleeching, it takes hundreds of thousands of years.

Go and speak to anyone who is an expert and or studies coral around the world and they paint a vastly different picture, from the bullshit the Australian government has fed to you via the media.

I will tell my kids (should I choose to have them), that the previous generations fucked up and it's going to be up to me and them to improve things. I will show them the value of nature and why it must be preserved and why empathy towards animals is critical.

Whatever, I'm typing and made a couple of typos.

I am not getting my info from the government Bazz I have seen it recently for myself and I know some of the reef experts that actually look at the health or the reef and make a considered and factual assessment.

The bleaching which is a natural occurrence is due to algae expulsion and the coral in the great barrier reef can and does survive this event.

You would be surprised how much white living coral was around when one of your greatest navigators Captain James Cook chartered the waters.

I suggest you look at the weather patterns and solar cycles that have been around since Adam was a boy Bazz.

El Nino and La Nina would be a good start.

the IPCC reports talks about longer lives , greener planet better food production due to a warmer climate.

What are in fact the difference between models and the observations I wonder?

Look up Prof John Christy.

is that a death knell on us Bazz.

how did rising seas cut off Australia from New Guinea Bazz?

Surely you would not put that in the man made CO2 basket albeit we could solve co2 emissions quickly as far as man is concerned by stopping to exhale.

The latest reports on droughts , fires , wind intensity , tornadoes , cyclones by number by the IPPC and mans influence on them might surprise you.

More heat waves suggests fewer shorter cold snaps and its well known that in the US cold weather kills more people than hot weather.

Climate change is not a death sentence for humanity.

 

[hilts]

At last the voice of reason appears on this thread and just like we developed a vaccine for covid in record time we will cope with any adverse impacts from changes in the climate.

I remember when Y2K was going to set the world into a tail spin and for me I got a well paid job involved in the response however to be truthful it was an unnecessary one.

Don't get me wrong we have challenging issues like the emergence of China and their agenda which I think is a bigger threat to world order then Climate Change and the fact China will largely turn a blind eye to climate change while it remains under CCP rule but the future is much brighter than this fear mongering of some with an agenda to do so would have you believe.

the next 100 years could see some here to unimaginable developments in AI , medical cures for cancer and other disease just a pity chippy boy and myself won't be around to see them.

Fair play that’s one of the funniest posts I have read on here, good wumming sir, my cap is doffed.

 

[inbetween]

I was replying to you comment, and I quote: "temperatures have been rising since 1910 consistently year on year'

I merely pointed out to you that your comment was wrong, by highlight that for a period of 30 years, not just one year - 30 years from 1945 to 75 - temperatures went down.

The problem we have here is people constantly sensationalising things for dramatic effect. It's not just your throw-away line, it's incessant drip, drip, drip until the point people genuinely believe things which are simply not true. And then get all animated that the world is coming to an end, when of course it is not.

The temperature argument is often used interchangeably but it's an incredibly stupid scientific cop out. We see temperature changes as a direct threat to us because they might give us crazy weather etc but we can cope with that. I'm not worried about it raining more or summers being 2° hotter. We as humans can cope with it because we'll just build more flood defences and in the summer we'll just have to get air con for our houses.

However, what we cannot cope with is the subtle changes that are being brought forward by our destruction of the natural environment. Did you know that insects are dying at a rate of around 10% per decade and numbers have already dropped by something like 50% in just 30 years? This is something that has never ever happened before in history. Not even global extinction events like meteorite strikes or volcano eruptions have killed off the insects in 100 years.

The reason for it is not because the climate is changing but because entire habitats are being destroyed, trees are being destroyed, previously green and unused lands are being replaced by concrete and farms. On this subject it's totally irrelevant if those farms are sustainable or don't have any farting cows. The effects of climate therefore are miniscule compared to what these changes will quietly do over the next 50 years.

Basically what we will see is that thousands of years of complex interdependent biosystems will effectively fall apart and we will be left with dead concrete wastelands where nothing is alive and nothing can grow. Forget sustainable farming, forget technology, we will not be able to eat because the land will not be farmable and who knows if all of the little remaining fresh water will of dried up anyway.

To deny this is happening is silly, to somehow relegate it as not important is silly because it's not a case of whether it's happening, it's already happened. The only thing I will agree with anyone on is it's too late to do anything about it.

Insect decline in the Anthropocene: Death by a thousand cuts

Nature is under siege. In the last 10,000 y the human population has grown from 1 million to 7.8 billion. Much of Earth’s arable lands are already in agriculture (1), millions of acres of tropical forest are cleared each year (2, 3), atmospheric CO2 levels are at their highest concentrations in...

www.pnas.org

 

[Chippy_boy]

Absolutely downplaying it and again highlights a limited understanding of what is happening.

I suggest having a look at the Living Planet Report from last year, as the whole situation goes well beyond 'sea levels' and 'temperatures'. This is a dominoe effect of temperates, deforestation, loss of animal life, loss of plant life, rising sea levels, rising sea temperatures.

Living Planet Report 2022

The Living Planet Report 2022 is WWF’s most comprehensive study to date of trends in global biodiversity and the health of our planet. The latest flagship publication reveals global wildlife populations have plummeted by 69% on average since 1970.

www.wwf.org.uk

Deforestation you say?

Another post of mine from 2 years ago (quoting the Spectator): "according to Nasa. Deforestation, too, is happening less and less. The United Nations’ ‘state of the world’s forests’report concluded last year that ‘the net loss of forest area continues to slow, from 0.18 per cent [a year] in the 1990s to 0.08 per cent over the last five-year period’. A study in Nature last year by scientists from the University of Maryland concluded that even this is too pessimistic: ‘We show that — contrary to the prevailing view that forest area has declined globally — tree cover has increased by 2.24 million km2(+7.1 per cent relative to the 1982 level).

The trouble with the apocalyptic rhetoric is that it can seem to justify drastic but dangerous solutions. The obsession with climate change has slowed the decline of deforestation. An estimated 700,000 hectares of forest has been felled in South-East Asia to grow palm oil to add to supposedly green ‘bio-diesel’ fuel in Europe, while the world is feeding 5 per cent of its grain crop to motor cars rather than people,’

I am not trying to downplay climate change, merely to point out some misconceptions. If believe believe that we are losing rainforest at an alarming rate, when actually that is not true, then I think that is kind of important. Of course people can be excused for believing it because once again, such misinformation is pumped out constantly by a media whose presenters know no better.

 

[Chippy_boy]

The temperature argument is often used interchangeably but it's an incredibly stupid scientific cop out. We see temperature changes as a direct threat to us because they might give us crazy weather etc but we can cope with that. I'm not worried about it raining more or summers being 2° hotter. We as humans can cope with it because we'll just build more flood defences and in the summer we'll just have to get air con for our houses.

However, what we cannot cope with is the subtle changes that are being brought forward by our destruction of the natural environment. Did you know that insects are dying at a rate of around 10% per decade and numbers have already dropped by something like 50% in just 30 years? This is something that has never ever happened before in history. Not even global extinction events like meteorite strikes or volcano eruptions have killed off the insects.

The reason for it is not because the climate is changing but because entire habitats are being destroyed, trees are being destroyed, previously green and unused lands are being replaced by concrete and farms. On this subject it's totally irrelevant if those farms are sustainable or don't have any farting cows. The effects of climate therefore are miniscule compared to what these changes will quietly do over the next 50 years.

Basically what we will is that thousands of years of complex interdependent biosystems will effectively fall apart and we will be left with dead wastelands where nothing is alive and nothing can grow. Forget sustainable farming, forget technology, we will not be able to eat because the land will not be farmable.

To deny this is happening is silly, to somehow relegate it as not important is silly because it's not a case of whether it's happening, it's already happened. The only thing I will agree with anyone on is it's too late to do anything about it.

That's a fair post. Not specifically warming related as you point out, but concerning nevertheless. The decline in bee and butterfly populations just here in the UK is all too obvious.

But I don't extrapolate it to unavoidable Armageddon. Faced with either (a) extinction or (b) figuring out how to artificially pollinate crops, I would imagine we can think of something over the next century.

 

[Chris B]

It would be helpful if we were all reading from the same set of figures, but figures are often purposefully misquoted or taken out of context. I remember seeing one report (which I can't for the life of me find now) where it quoted energy use as going down, but what it didn't say was the measure was per person which didn't take in to account population growth. The actual net figure of energy use had risen.

On my account I was referring to domestic electricity use, total, which has fallen despite more households and a bigger population. This doesn’t include most of our heat and transport which are the two sectors where less progress has been made.

My general point is that by pushing the message that nothing has been done we’re ignoring a lot of good progress. We should look at what has worked and do more of it. This progress has been fairly painless for society and is a good message to sell future progress. This is a contrast to the “we’ve done nothing and need to stop heating our houses and going on holiday” type argument that is too often employed and amplified by the media, which is actually a sure fire way to turn many people against taking action.

 

[MadchesterCity]

Up in the North Scotland we're all praying for global warming

 

[MadchesterCity]

Only if China, India, US, Brazil and Indonesia do somthing will we avoid carastrophe. Anybody else's efforts will ust a drop in the ocean in resolving the problem.

Exactly this

 

[MadchesterCity]

The quickest and easiest impact we could make almost overnight would be to impose shipping regulations on the massive container ships.

something like the 16 largest container ships give off more pollution than every car combined, this is mostly down to there being no regulations on international waters about what fuel can be used so they all use cheap shit fuel that kicks out insane levels of pollution.

That being said, there is no easy fix here overall. its been proven there is pretty much zero chance the global population will work together on it.

I personally see our only realistic way out of climate change is by getting Fusion power up and running asap and making sure that no one company/country can hold that technology to ransom and its available to all countries.

that would be abundant clean cheap power for all, and even have entire banks of them powering atmosphere scrubbing to try to reverse the damage we have made.

While waiting for Fusion we need to hit Solar/Wind + gravity power stores hard.

Gravity power stores are really needed for things like Solar / Wind as they are not constant. it uses the excess power produced when sunny/windy and in effect stores that energy by lifting heavy blocks using that power. then using gravity to turn turbines when no sun/wind. there are hydro dams that do this already but new Dam's are not easy and can be very damaging in there own right.

Example of gravity storage.

Wind Turbine Recycling Plus Energy Storage Mashup Is A Green Win-Win

A new wind turbine blade recycling strategy deploys gravity-based energy storage technology for maximum circular economy impact.

cleantechnica.com

wow quite unbelievable really

 

[Chippy_boy]

For some insight into these issues and whats being done/the gravity I would suggest a couple of good documentaries for people:

Racing Extinction



Chasing Coral



It might bring a bit of perspective to a few in this thread who don't seem to think 'it's such a big issue'.

Look, what you or I do personally with respect to climate change is going to make fuck all difference. I venture to say unless you have a daughter called Greta then what anyone who come into contact with, will make fuck all difference either. It is what it is. What is going to unfold, is going to unfold no matter what you want to say or do.

Now, you can either (a) spend the rest of your life being miserable and worrying about the end of the world, something you can do nothing about. Or (b) - as I do - do your bit, make positive changes where you can, and think that maybe just maybe things won't turn out as badly as many predict. I am actually very positive about the outlook for future generations. I think we will see incredible advances in technology and the world will be an immeasurably better place with fewer wars, less disease, fewer premature deaths and technology beyond our wildest dreams. I think the effects of climate change will be far less catastrophic than the many hyperbolic projections suggest. Maybe I am wrong. But I would rather spend my life being positive that being depressed.

 

[BobKowalski]

Climate change is clearly an issue and the last few months seem to have caught everyone’s attention. I don‘t get the denialism anymore that I get Covid denialism because why wouldn’t it be in our interests in seeking to ‘green’ the economy and our energy use irrespective of the risk of climate change.

It’s like wearing a quality mask in a crowded enclosed space during a pandemic. You may or may not catch Covid if you went mask less, but why risk it?

Same with climate change, pumping pollutants into the planet may or may not cause climate change, but it definitely isn’t healthy for us so why risk it? What is the argument for carrying on and doing nothing? Should we pump out more pollutants and live in a sewer? Are denialists against clean air, and for putting lead in petrol and drinking murky water?

 

[MadchesterCity]

Shows who needs to do what!

wow China in the last 15 years

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

On my account I was referring to domestic electricity use, total, which has fallen despite more households and a bigger population. This doesn’t include most of our heat and transport which are the two sectors where less progress has been made.

My general point is that by pushing the message that nothing has been done we’re ignoring a lot of good progress. We should look at what has worked and do more of it. This progress has been fairly painless for society and is a good message to sell future progress. This is a contrast to the “we’ve done nothing and need to stop heating our houses and going on holiday” type argument that is too often employed and amplified by the media, which is actually a sure fire way to turn many people against taking action.

We certainly have made progress, but not enough. Newer tech is much more efficient (in most cases). We just seem to have more of it. 40 years ago we had a single TV and top loading VCR and a hifi system in our house, plus a washing machine, a hoover and a couple of lamps (along with the main lights) that were regularly plugged in. Now I haven't got enough sockets for all the sh*t we have in our house.

 

[Bazzmand Show]

Look, what you or I do personally with respect to climate change is going to make fuck all difference. I venture to say unless you have a daughter called Greta then what anyone who come into contact with, will make fuck all difference either. It is what it is. What is going to unfold, is going to unfold no matter what you want to say or do.

Now, you can either (a) spend the rest of your life being miserable and worrying about the end of the world, something you can do nothing about. Or (b) - as I do - do your bit, make positive changes where you can, and think that maybe just maybe things won't turn out as badly as many predict. I am actually very positive about the outlook for future generations. I think we will see incredible advanced in technology and the world will be an immeasurably better place with fewer wars, less disease, fewer premature deaths and technology beyond our wildest dreams. Maybe I am wrong. But I would rather spend my life being positive that being depressed.

If you'd read my post history you'd have a greater understanding of what "doing my bit is".

I'll heading to Glasgow in November for a start with XR and Animal Rebellion to be heavily involved in a lot of the organisation of the protests.

Mate, none of us want to be negative - but we are fighting for something bigger than a of us here. If you want to be optimistic all power to you - but it's clear to most of us nowhere near enough is being done and the public has to put more pressure on government. I think it's naive to say there will be "less disease" when most scientists predict the next pandemic to be closer between drinks between the last few and that is in a large part due to how much we are encroaching on nature.

 

[mancity1]

Looking at years in isolate provides absolutely zero value mate, this is about a year in year assessment. The planet is heating up and it's clear what the cause is.


Go back through this post and have a look into the history books and it's well documented that oil companies and the fossil fuel industgry deliberatly downplayed the impact humans were having for years. It started aggressively in the 90s and basically put us back a few decades.

I agree its heating up but the consequences are what needs to be discussed both good and bad its not all bad Bazz.

I agree China's emissions are a problem for the climate and I suggest that is where we need some focus on.

But I ask you do you wish 1 billion of them stay in poverty and deny them what your ancestors were part of.

A bit selfish don't you think?

 

[west didsblue]

I remember the greenhouse effect getting taught at school 30 years ago, since then the UK has significantly reduced CO2 emissions, and completely cut emissions of some other gases that affect climate (CFCs, etc.). Furthermore, the UK has built several of the worlds largest offshore wind farms, numerous storage projects, brought in regulation to limit and eventually ban emissions from cars, and more. In addition, household energy use has been falling for the last 15ish years on the back of better insulation and energy saving technology like LEDs.

I understand people want to push back against outright sceptics but this idea that there is an emergency that has been wilfully ignored, with nothing done, for 30 years is nonsense. Massive progress has already been made although much is left to be done.

We could decide to stop using all carbon based fuels within five years, of course, if we want to follow the lead of extinction rebellion and the like. However, this would mean massive loss of life when winter comes, a massive collapse of the economy, and probably chaos that causes more emissions than before.

Changing a nation’s entire energy system is a large and complex undertaking. The current system we have took many, many decades to construct. This isn’t largely about the will to change, but is more about the how to change without breaking what we all depend on everyday to keep us alive.

That's some fair points you've made and there's no doubt we've done our bit over the last 20 or 30 years. It doesn't mean that we don't have to step it up even more along with the rest of the world. As someone else has already said, our efforts alone will be meaningless unless there is a concerted global approach with the five largest countries taking a full active role in reducing their carbon emissions.

 

[west didsblue]

Climate change is clearly an issue and the last few months seem to have caught everyone’s attention. I don‘t get the denialism anymore that I get Covid denialism because why wouldn’t it be in our interests in seeking to ‘green’ the economy and our energy use irrespective of the risk of climate change.

It’s like wearing a quality mask in a crowded enclosed space during a pandemic. You may or may not catch Covid if you went mask less, but why risk it?

Same with climate change, pumping pollutants into the planet may or may not cause climate change, but it definitely isn’t healthy for us so why risk it? What is the argument for carrying on and doing nothing? Should we pump out more pollutants and live in a sewer? Are denialists against clean air, and for putting lead in petrol and drinking murky water?

I think you'll find that the climate change deniers are largely the same people as the Covid deniers. Thankfully Covid is doing its best to deplete their numbers.

 

[inbetween]

That's a fair post. Not specifically warming related as you point out, but concerning nevertheless. The decline in bee and butterfly populations just here in the UK is all too obvious.

But I don't extrapolate it to unavoidable Armageddon. Faced with either (a) extinction or (b) figuring out how to artificially pollinate crops, I would imagine we can think of something over the next century.

The crazy thing about it is we see XR and all the others marching day by day but they have the wrong answers to the wrong questions. They want us to do something now about changes to global temperature and let's say we did, great. What do we do though whilst we are still converting land to farms, fields to houses etc? The worlds population will hit 10 billion over the next 20 years, where are these people going to live and what are they going to eat?

There's a reason all of this is happening and it purely comes down to the fact that humans exist. We can't do anything about that and it's not exactly a mainstream argument to limit the number of children that people can have or to halt any growth in consumption by banning consumption.

Boris is going on about moving us towards electric cars for example but that just moves the goalposts to another form of consumer consumption which has different implications for the environment compared to petrol cars. Electric cars still necessitate roads, they still require factories and they still therefore contribute to the problem no differently. Increase the population by 10% in 15 years and the impact is absolutely the same as petrol cars.

Eventually in 100 years time this question won't be about banning cars, instead it will be about whether we should ban people from eating today because we don't have enough food... That sounds insane but that's where we are headed. The climate emergency thing is a bit of a joke compared to the real emergency that's happening and we don't even know about it.