How Bad Is Global Warming?

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Re: How Bad Is Global Warming?

Postby brainpanhandler » Sun Jan 26, 2014 2:39 pm



Oh, that is cruel you evil fucker.
"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." - Martin Luther King Jr.
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Re: How Bad Is Global Warming?

Postby conniption » Mon Feb 17, 2014 8:19 pm

driftglass

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Sunday Morning Comin' Down

Image

H/T Tengrain for the story of the day:


Billy Nye Vs Gregory and Blackburn


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z199u0ra1ZE

There is no "debate" here: there is one side that is right, and one side that is criminally, treasonously wrong and putting them on stage together and treating them as equally valid points of view only serves the interests of the deniers.

Unfortunately in this Universe access to our electronic public square is zealously guarded by millionaire meatpuppets like David Gregory, and so, on "Meet the Press" -- a show which has devoted, oh, let's say 11 seconds to climate change coverage in the last five years -- Exxon/Mobile Puppet Theater is what we get instead of actual news and actual debate.

However over in the Better Universe, the problem of David Gregory was dealt with years ago by the Department of Poetic Justice.

One day they just gave up trying to reason with him and duct taped him to a chair.

Then his ribs were broken. One at a time. With a ball-peen hammer. On camera.

And as each rib shattered the Department of Poetic Justice had a "Rib Breakage Denialist" on hand to argue the other side of the issue.

As Mr. Gregory shrieked in pain, the DPJ representative patiently explained how the downward pressure of hammers often does not result in rib-breakage at all so there goes all your fancy science out the window Mr. Smartypants!

As Mr. Gregory coughed up blood, the DPJ representative calmly countered that all of Mr. Gregory's so-called "pain" and "injury" might very well be something that he was making up (Perhaps for some of that sweet-sweet rib-breakage science grant money!)

As Mr. Gregory begged for it to stop, DPJ representative reminded everyone tsk-tsk-tskily of how reckless and irresponsible it would be to take action or pass laws based on one man's "hypothesis or theories or unproven science" about the breaking of ribs.

But that was over in the Better Universe.

Back here where we live I am quite confident that Mr. Gregory and everyone like him will continue to be allowed -- nay, encouraged -- to ply their trade and destroy any semblance of intelligent public discourse on behalf of their corporate owners for many, many years to come. And so this Sunday on American's premier public interest program, we were treated to Actual Republican Representative Marsha Blackburn oscillate between insisting that climate change is: --

1. Not real, so shut up!
2. Real, but inevitable and there isn't nuthin' nobody can do anyway.
3. Real but Beneficial because Carbon is Awesome!

-- all while never losing her big, excreted-human-carbon-waste-product-eating-grin.

Meanwhile, Chuckles the Clown begs Americans to please stop making the Right look stupid by "debating" this stuff. After all what fucking difference does it who's right and who's wrong as long NBC's sponsors don't catch any of the blame and the American taxpayer picks up the tab for making sure Chuckle's wine cellar isn't flooded:

MR. TODD:
Well, it is-- 41 billion, I think that you get at this 41 billion-dollar weather events in 2013 around the world. 41 of them, that was an all-time record. And that is-- I think it’s not just Podesta that believes that. There are a lot of people that say okay, let’s not debate who’s right, manmade or is it just nature that’s happening. The fact of the matter, it’s happening. And I wonder if there’s too much-- you know, I know some environmentalists are frustrated with that portion of the debate. But maybe you steer away from it and say, it doesn’t matter. We have to tackle this infrastructure problem. You got to build different higher seawalls in some places. We’re going to have to figure out a different way to distribute water in California. The fact of the matter-- and the Federal government is going to have to pay for this.

GREGORY: Right.

MR. TODD: And pay for all these things. And so I wonder if everybody should say, you know what? Let’s table this debate. We know what’s happening. Table that part of the debate because when you do that, then it becomes this like clubbing each other with-- with-- with political argument that takes away from what we have to do.
...


There were plenty of other horrors at The Mouse Circus today, just as there are every Sunday, but this one I wanted to out of my head and onto a page before I started laughing a very scary laugh only to find that I could not stop until I set fire to my laptop and drop-kicked my teevee into the next county.

Around the horn:

Huffington Post: 'Meet The Press' Shows Us Exactly How Not To Cover Climate Change

Mother Jones: Watch Bill Nye Explain Climate Change to GOP Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn

Business Insider: Bill Nye 'The Science Guy' Debated A GOP Congresswoman On Climate Change, And It Was Surreal

And, of course, the inevitable dispatches from Dogpatch Mordor: Meet the Press to Host Climate Change Debate Featuring a Guy Who Played a Scientist on TV and Rep. Marsha Blackburn Smacks Around Bill Nye On Meet The Press


And, of course, of course C.P.P. - "While England drowns and Australia burns and California dies of thirst..."
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Re: How Bad Is Global Warming?

Postby Iamwhomiam » Thu Feb 27, 2014 7:59 pm

Ben D » Sat Jan 18, 2014 6:34 pm wrote:
Iamwhomiam » Sun Jan 19, 2014 5:07 am wrote:Sure they're looking for the missing heat.

It's being transferred to the oceans deeps. Which many are aware of.

No,,the idea of missing heat hiding in the deep ocean in unknown locations proposed by Trenberth is just that..a speculation, and to some, a fanciful one at that...no proof...other climate scientists are speculating that the cessation of warming is the result of a change in Sun activity, others again on the result of volcanic activity...no one really knows at this time. Surprise, surprise, the science is not settled! But what we can all agree on is that global warming has stalled for now, albeit at the high levels of the late 1990's.

Oh, Ben... come out, come out from wherever you are:
The report said that while the rate of warming is slower in the 2000s than it was in the 1990s it doesn't negate the 150 years of observations that show the world is warming. The report also says that more the 90 percent of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases lately has been absorbed into the oceans' deep water, which for a while slows surface warming but not the long-term trend.

There is enough evidence on the science to warrant action, said Sir Paul Nurse of the Royal Society.

"We've changed the chemical composition of the atmosphere; that's not a belief system. We know that beyond shadow of a doubt," Santer said. "We ignore this at our peril."

Link^ :
http://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Global-warming-worsening-5271527.php

Download the joint US National Academy of Sciences / The Royal Academy report:
http://nas-sites.org/americasclimatechoices/events/a-discussion-on-climate-change-evidence-and-causes/
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Re: How Bad Is Global Warming?

Postby DrEvil » Thu Feb 27, 2014 8:55 pm

Ben D » Sun Jan 26, 2014 2:56 am wrote:To Mods...so long as members like Rory are allowed to go unchallenged on their continuous disregard for RI board rules..there is no point in my posting what I consider relevant research and information on the state of planetary climate that is of interest to many readers who visit this thread.

...Adios


Oh happy day!

And Ben - if you're still reading this thread - you do not post relevant research. You are a PR-goon for big oil (intentionally or not). You post the same shit from the same lying bastards over and over again, interspersed with the occasional off-topic post about the weather (because you know there's a few people here dumb enough to confuse weather and climate), and every now and then an actually relevant article, which serves to give you the benefit of the doubt, so you can keep doing your thing a little while longer.
You're a troll, and not a very good one. Please don't come back.

Namaste. Bitch. :angelwings:
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Re: How Bad Is Global Warming?

Postby Bruce Dazzling » Fri Feb 28, 2014 9:56 am

"Arrogance is experiential and environmental in cause. Human experience can make and unmake arrogance. Ours is about to get unmade."

~ Joe Bageant R.I.P.

OWS Photo Essay

OWS Photo Essay - Part 2
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Re: How Bad Is Global Warming?

Postby NeonLX » Fri Feb 28, 2014 10:23 am

Bruce D! Good to see you around. Seems like it's been a long time. Of course, yesterday seems like a long time ago to me.

We are enjoying the whee out of the split polar vortex 'round these parts. So is the utility company. Sudden warming of the stratosphere is to die for.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/1 ... ex-in-Two#
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Re: How Bad Is Global Warming?

Postby seemslikeadream » Fri Feb 28, 2014 5:43 pm

UN report sees $1.45 tn global warming cost: media
11 hours ago

Global warming will reduce the world's crop production by up to two percent every decade and wreak $1.45 trillion of economic damage by the end of this century, according to a draft UN report, Japanese media said Friday.

The document is the second volume in a long-awaited trilogy by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a Nobel-winning group of scientists, which is set to be issued next month after a five-day meeting in Japan, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported.
The trilogy is the IPCC's first great overview of the causes and effects of global warming, and options for dealing with it, since 2007.
According to the draft, if global temperatures rise by 2.5 degrees Celsius (4.5 Fahrenheit), the world's aggregated gross domestic production will fall by 0.2 to 2 percent, the mass circulation paper said.
That would translate into 15 trillion yen to 148 trillion yen ($147 billion to $1.45 trillion) in economic losses, calculated against the world's total GDP in 2012, it said.
The planet's crop production will decline by up to two percent every decade as rainfall patterns shift and droughts batter farmland, even as demand for food rises a projected 14 percent, it said.
Other effects from global warming include the loss of land to rising sea levels, forcing hundreds of millions of people to migrate from coastal areas, with the most vulnerable regions including East, South and Southeast Asia, it said.
Hereford cattle roam dirt-brown fields on a farm in California's Central Valley, on February 3, 2014, which would at this time o
Hereford cattle roam dirt-brown fields on a farm in California's Central Valley, on February 3, 2014, which would at this time of the year normally be covered in lush green grass
The draft report, which will be reviewed in the March 25-29 meeting in Yokohama, calls for mitigation measures to reduce the vulnerability of environments to climate change such as flood protection projects and research on the prevention of infectious diseases, it said.
In the first volume of the trilogy, the IPCC said it was more certain than ever that humans were the cause of global warming and predicted temperatures would rise another 0.3 to 4.8 degrees Celsius (0.5-8.6 degrees Fahrenheit) this century.
Heatwaves, floods, droughts and rising seas are among the threats that will intensify through warming, it said in in the report released in September in Stockholm.
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: How Bad Is Global Warming?

Postby coffin_dodger » Mon Mar 31, 2014 3:09 am

Climate impacts 'overwhelming' - UN
BBC News 31 Mar 2014

The impacts of global warming are likely to be "severe, pervasive and irreversible", a major report by the UN has warned.

Scientists and officials meeting in Japan say the document is the most comprehensive assessment to date of the impacts of climate change on the world.

Members of the UN's climate panel say it provides overwhelming evidence of the scale of these effects.

Natural systems now bear the brunt, but a growing impact on humans is feared.

Our health, homes, food and safety are all likely to be threatened by rising temperatures, the summary says.

cont - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26810559
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Re: How Bad Is Global Warming?

Postby stillrobertpaulsen » Thu Apr 10, 2014 1:57 pm

Carbon Dioxide Levels Just Hit Their Highest Point In 800,000 Years

By Kiley Kroh on April 9, 2014 at 11:51 am

Image

The concentration of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that drives climate change, hit 402 parts per million this week — the highest level recorded in at least 800,000 years.

The recordings came from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, which marked another ominous milestone last May when the 400 ppm threshold was crossed for the first time in recorded history.

Image

Carbon dioxide (CO2) levels spike every spring but this year the threshold was crossed in March, two months earlier than last year. In fact, it’s happening “at faster rates virtually every decade,” according to James Butler, Director of NOAA’s Global Monitoring Division, a trend that “is consistent with rising fossil fuel emissions.”

400 ppm was long considered a very serious measurement but it isn’t the end — it’s just a marker on the road to ever-increasing carbon pollution levels, Butler explained in an interview on NOAA’s website. “It is a milestone, marking the fact that humans have caused carbon dioxide concentrations to rise 120 ppm since pre-industrial times, with over 90 percent of that in the past century alone. We don’t know where the tipping points are.”

When asked if the 400 ppm will be reached even earlier next year, Butler responded simply, “Yes. Every year going forward for a long time.”

While atmospheric CO2 levels never approached 400 ppm in the 800,000 years of detailed records scientists have, there is evidence that the last time the Earth experienced such high concentrations was actually several million years ago. Writing about the 400 ppm recording last year, climatologist Peter Gleick pointed to UCLA research “that suggested we would have to go back at least 15 million years to find carbon dioxide levels approaching today’s levels” and another article in the journal Paleoceanography “on paleoclimatic records that suggest CO2 concentrations (at least in the Northern Hemisphere) may have been around 400 ppm between 2 and 4.6 million years ago.”

But whether it’s 800,000 years ago or 15 million years ago, Gleick emphasizes that “the more important point to remember is that never in the history of the planet have humans altered the atmosphere as radically as we are doing so now.”

And this uncharted territory is something humans will have to navigate for quite some time because once its emitted, carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere. In fact, Andrew Freedman explains, “a single molecule of carbon dioxide can remain aloft for hundreds of years, which means that the effects of today’s industrial activities will be felt for the next several centuries, if not thousands of years.”
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Re: How Bad Is Global Warming?

Postby slimmouse » Thu Apr 10, 2014 2:40 pm

So we've had a 180 parts per million increase in CO2 emmissions over the last 54 years and this is going to send the climate out of control?

Or, to put this into another mathematical perspective, the evidently indisputable fact is that that we have had 0.000018% increase in CO2 (as a percentage of the entire atmosphere)

I fully appreciate that this is a whopping 50% increase.

Nonetheless Im having a hard time buying it

Because to me, thats a 50 percent increase in a Gas who 54 years ago apparently formed a total , constituent 0.0000 28 percent of our atmosphere..

Which actually equates to what?

Not very much.

Id definitely be interested however in the percentage increases in the amounts of microparticulate Aluminium, along with Barium and other goodies that are in there within the same period.

To say nothing of the percentage increase in radiation bombardment - You know, Fukishima, Cell Towers, Wi-Fi etc.
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Re: How Bad Is Global Warming?

Postby DrEvil » Thu Apr 10, 2014 4:30 pm

slimmouse » Thu Apr 10, 2014 8:40 pm wrote:So we've had a 180 parts per million increase in CO2 emmissions over the last 54 years and this is going to send the climate out of control?

Or, to put this into another mathematical perspective, the evidently indisputable fact is that that we have had 0.000018% increase in CO2 (as a percentage of the entire atmosphere)

I fully appreciate that this is a whopping 50% increase.

Nonetheless Im having a hard time buying it

Because to me, thats a 50 percent increase in a Gas who 54 years ago apparently formed a total , constituent 0.0000 28 percent of our atmosphere..

Which actually equates to what?

Not very much.


Funny, that's what the frog in the pot of boiling water said too!
It's also stated in the article: "We don’t know where the tipping points are".

Id definitely be interested however in the percentage increases in the amounts of microparticulate Aluminium, along with Barium and other goodies that are in there within the same period.


Sooo.. chemtrails?

To say nothing of the percentage increase in radiation bombardment - You know, Fukishima, Cell Towers, Wi-Fi etc.


Radiation might destroy us in an absolute worst case scenario. That scenario is becoming more likely because of changes in the climate. More extreme weather = bad.
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Re: How Bad Is Global Warming?

Postby Ben D » Thu Apr 10, 2014 5:04 pm

DrEvil » Fri Apr 11, 2014 6:30 am wrote:
slimmouse » Thu Apr 10, 2014 8:40 pm wrote:So we've had a 180 parts per million increase in CO2 emmissions over the last 54 years and this is going to send the climate out of control?

Or, to put this into another mathematical perspective, the evidently indisputable fact is that that we have had 0.000018% increase in CO2 (as a percentage of the entire atmosphere)

I fully appreciate that this is a whopping 50% increase.

Nonetheless Im having a hard time buying it

Because to me, thats a 50 percent increase in a Gas who 54 years ago apparently formed a total , constituent 0.0000 28 percent of our atmosphere..

Which actually equates to what?

Not very much.

Funny, that's what the frog in the pot of boiling water said too!

The frog can relax, the warming is in hiatus, and that the ongoing 17 year pause has occurred during a period of record increases in CO2 emissions...in fact one third of all human derived CO2 emissions have occurred since 1998..is causing all real scientists to question the 'A' in AGW climate science!!!
There is That which was not born, nor created, nor evolved. If it were not so, there would never be any refuge from being born, or created, or evolving. That is the end of suffering. That is God**.

** or Nirvana, Allah, Brahman, Tao, etc...
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Re: How Bad Is Global Warming?

Postby Rory » Thu Apr 10, 2014 5:18 pm

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/2299 ... disruption

Crossposting - thanks, SLaD

Anthropogenic Climate Disruption on All Fronts
Thursday, 10 April 2014 00:00
By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | News Analysis

Evidence of Acceleration on all Fronts of Anthropogenic Climate Disruption

"The frog does not drink up the pond
in which he lives."
~ Sioux Proverb

This month's dispatch comes on the heels of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) recent report, and the news is not good.
"No one on this planet will be untouched by climate change," IPCC Chair Rajendra Pachauri announced. The report warned that climate impacts are already "severe, pervasive, and irreversible."
The IPCC report was one of many released in recent weeks, and all of them bring dire predictions of what is coming. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) issued a report warning that "the rate of climate change now may be as fast as any extended warming period over the past 65 million years, and it is projected to accelerate in the coming decades." The report went on to warn of the risk "of abrupt, unpredictable, and potentially irreversible changes in the Earth's climate system with massively disruptive impacts," including the possible "large scale collapse of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, collapse of part of the Gulf Stream, loss of the Amazon rain forest, die-off of coral reefs, and mass extinctions."
To read more about anthropomorphic climate disruption, click here.
Just prior to the release of the IPCC report, the UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported that 13 of the 14 warmest years on record had all occurred since 2000. The agency's secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, described the global trend: "Every decade has been warmer than the preceding one over the last 40 years. In other words, the decade 2001-2010 was warmer than the '90s, which in turn were warmer than the '80s, which were warmer than the '70s. All the best models were used for this study, and the conclusion is actually very interesting and of concern. The conclusion is that these heat waves, it is not possible to reproduce these heat waves in the models if you don't take into account human influence." Jarraud also noted greenhouse gases are now at a record high, which guarantees the Earth's atmosphere and oceans will continue to warm for centuries to come. Arctic sea ice in 2013 did not reach the record lows seen in 2012 for minimum extent in the summer, but nevertheless reached its sixth lowest extent on record. The WMO noted all seven of the lowest Arctic sea-ice extents took place in the past seven years, starting with 2007, which scientists were "stunned" by at the time.
NASA released the results of a study showing that long-term planetary warming is continuing along the higher end of many projections. "All the evidence now agrees that future warming is likely to be towards the high end of our estimates, so it's more clear than ever that we need large, rapid emissions reductions to avoid the worst damages from climate change," lead author and NASA climatologist Drew Shindell said. If he sounds alarmist, it's because he is, and with good reason. The NASA study shows a global increase in temperatures of nine degrees by the end of the century.
This is consistent with a January Nature study on climate sensitivity, which found we are headed toward a "most-likely warming of roughly 5C (9 F) above current temperatures, which is 6C (11 F) above preindustrial" temperatures by 2100. Bear in mind that humans have never lived on a planet at temperatures 3.5C above our preindustrial baseline.
Hence, as contemporary studies continue to provide ever-higher temperature projections, they are beginning to approach higher estimates from previous studies. A 2011 paper authored by Jeffrey Kiehl from the National Center for Atmospheric Research and published in the journal Science "found that carbon dioxide may have at least twice the effect on global temperatures than currently projected by computer models of global climate." Contrary to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) worst-case scenario of a 6C rise by 2100, which itself would result in a virtually uninhabitable planet, Kiehl's paper distressingly concludes that, at current emission rates, we may actually see an unimaginable 16C rise by the end of the century.
"The last time it was 6C there were snakes the size of yellow school buses in the Amazon," Guy McPherson, professor emeritus of evolutionary biology, natural resources, and ecology at the University of Arizona, told Truthout. McPherson, a climate change expert of 25 years, maintains the blog Nature Bats Last. "The largest mammal was the size of a shrew," he said. "And the rise in temperature occurred over thousands of years, not decades. I doubt mammals survive - and certainly not large-bodied mammals - at 6C."
Dr McPherson went on to explain further what the planet would look like as temperatures increase.
"Rapid rise to 4C eliminates all or nearly all plankton in the ocean, along with a majority of land plants," he said. "The latter cannot keep up with rapid change. The former will be acidified out of existence. At 16C, your guess is as good as mine. But humans will not be involved."
Bear in mind that the "current" emission rates in Kiehl's study were significantly lower than those of today, as they were from more than three years ago. Emission rates have grown in each succeeding year.
Evidence is mounting that we are in the midst of a great extinction of species. An "ecocide" is occurring, as the human race is in the process of destroying life on the planet. This sobering thought becomes clearer now as we take our monthly tour of significant global pollution and anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) related events.
Earth
Ongoing drought and other ACD-related impacts have caused the Amargosa vole, one of the rarest mammals in North America, to become an endangered species. This saddening occurrence shouldn't come as a big surprise, given that chronic drought and shifting weather patterns are causing things like a wall of dust 1,000 feet tall and 200 miles wide to roar across parts of West Texas and New Mexico.
Evidencing warnings from the IPCC report about ACD's dramatic impact on wide-scale food production, the president of the World Bank warned that battles over water and food will erupt within the next five to ten years. As if on cue, hungry monkeys in northern India have begun raiding farms as their forest habitats shrink.
Meanwhile, on the coastal areas of Alaska, melting permafrost and stronger storms are combining to erode coastline and cause greater numbers of villages to begin contemplating evacuation.
Water
A new NASA study shows that the length of the melt season for Arctic sea ice is growing by several days each decade, allowing the Arctic Ocean to absorb enough additional solar radiation to melt as much as four feet of the Arctic ice cap's thickness in some places.
Going into wildfire season, California is coming off its warmest winter on record, aggravating its enduring drought, which has caused the Sacramento River to drop so low that the state may need to truck 30 million salmon from hatcheries to the sea. California's central valley farmland was in trouble prior to the historic drought, but now it appears to be on its last legs. The area, critical to the US supply of fruit and vegetables, was suffering from decades of irrigation that leached salts and toxic minerals from the soil, which then had nowhere to go, thus threatening both crops and wildlife. Now, to make matters worse, remaining aquifers are being drained at an alarming pace, with some farmers even drilling more than 1,200 feet down in their ongoing search for ever-more-rare water for their struggling farms.
Meanwhile, Texas and New Mexico have been waging an interstate legal battle over water from the ever-shrinking Rio Grande. Both states struggle with ongoing drought, while farmers in Texas are still reeling from the historic 2011 drought as moderate to exceptional drought continues to affect 64 percent of that state. Fierce legal and political battles over who controls the water are now becoming the norm in California, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico and other western states.
Drought-parched Wichita Falls, Texas, is so desperate for water that officials there are currently awaiting state regulatory approval for a project that will recycle effluent from their wastewater treatment plant, which means residents would begin drinking "potty water."
The severe drought across the west has forced the Mount Ashland Ski area in Oregon to remain closed for its entire season, something it has not had to do for 50 years.
"Higher food prices, water bills and utility rates," the Las Vegas Sun reported recently of the cascade of crises impacting the US West due to drought:
Greater wildfire risk. Shrinking communities, fewer jobs and weakening economies. Amid growing concern that the drought gripping the West isn't history repeating itself but instead is a new normal brought about by climate change, the effects of the dwindling water supply in the region are beginning to become all too clear. As a pattern of longer dry periods and shorter wet cycles continues, the effects will be felt across the region by millions of people from farms to cities, faucets to wallets. More than 70 percent of the West - a zone spreading across 15 states - is experiencing some form of abnormal dryness or drought, with 11 drought-affected western and central states designated as primary natural disaster areas by the Agriculture Department.
In Canada, the mining of the tar sands continues to destroy vast areas of sensitive wetlands in Alberta, with scientists warning that it is impossible to rebuild or rehabilitate the complex ecosystems there after the industrial assault of the mining process.
A recent report underscores the impact of the oil and gas industry heyday in Canada on the indigenous populations there, as "industrial development" and warming temperatures are leading to growing hunger and malnutrition in Canada's Arctic.
Rising seas and coastal erosion problems are persisting and spreading around the globe as ACD progresses. 18 months after Hurricane Sandy lashed the northeast coast of the US, homeowners living on the coast have to decide whether to rebuild or move inland...a decision everyone living on a coast will eventually have to make.
China now estimates it has lost $2.6 billion from ACD-linked storms and rising sea levels since 2008, while a new report has confirmed that people living in the coastal regions of Asia will face some of the worst impacts of ACD as it continues to progress.
Continuing rising temperatures have caused scientists to warn of "disturbing" rates of ice melt on Africa's highest peaks like Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya, saying that within two decades even the highest peaks on the continent will no longer have any ice - only bare rock.
Meanwhile, the rate of ice melt on the Greenland ice sheet has researchers alarmed. It was long believed that the interior of Greenland's huge ice sheet was resilient to the impacts of ACD, but no more. Greenland recorded its highest temperatures ever in 2013, and the equivalent of three Chesapeake Bays' worth of water is melting off the island every single year, raising global sea levels.
Along with storing over 90 percent of the heat, the planet's oceans continue to bear the brunt of the impacts from ACD. More than 24 million metric tons of CO2 from the industrial-growth society are absorbed into the seas every single day, and are causing seawater to become more acidic, a phenomenon that is already producing dire consequences.
Fishermen in British Columbia are struggling to deal with catastrophic financial losses as millions of oysters and scallops are dying off in record numbers along the West Coast. Experts suggest, of course, that this is caused by increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere, which leads to rising ocean acidity.
Recent research shows that as ACD continues to warm the oceans, fish growth is being stunted: a variety of North Sea fish species have shrunk in size by as much as 29 percent over the past four decades. Off the coast of Australia, warming oceans are causing jellyfish blooms to increase in size to vast levels, causing them to inhibit both the environment and fishing and tourism industries.
The final and likely the most important note on water this month: A new study published in Nature Climate Change has revealed a very troubling fact - that the deep ocean current near Antarctica is changing due to ACD. "Our observations are showing us that there is less formation of these deep waters near Antarctica," one of the scientists/authors said. "This is worrisome because, if this is the case, we're likely going to see less uptake of human produced, or anthropogenic, heat and carbon dioxide by the ocean, making this a positive feedback loop for climate change." Given that the Southern Ocean is critical in terms of regulating climate, the slowing current is an ominous sign for our future.
Air
Air pollution and its related problems seem to be increasing exponentially.
Toxic smog engulfing Britain caused more than 1.6 million people (30 percent of the population) to suffer asthma attacks.
After exceeding safe levels for five days, air pollution prompted a Paris car ban.
In North Dakota, gas flaring related to fracking has doubled, pumping even more CO2 into the atmosphere.
In India, where being a traffic cop is a life-threatening occupation due to air pollution, people are suffering from some of the worst air pollution in the world. It is so bad that diesel fumes there are even impacting glacier melt in the Himalayas.
Pollution haze in Sumatra has blanketed several provinces there over the last two months, causing thousands to suffer from various pollution-related illnesses as the air quality continues to decline.
Tons of toxic materials are being released in Virginia, including millions of pounds of aromatic chemicals.
The World Health Organization now estimates that air pollution killed seven million people in 2012, adding that one in eight deaths worldwide were tied to air pollution, making it the single largest environmental health risk on the planet.
Not surprisingly, scientists in Boulder are reporting record-early CO2 readings at their key reading site at the NOAA Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. The readings hit the key benchmark of 400 parts per million (ppm) for CO2 at least five days in a row recently. 400 ppm was recorded for the first time only last year, and that level was not recorded until May 19th.
Atmospheric CO2 levels have seasonal swings which tend to peak in May. "Each year it creeps up," the director of the global monitoring division at NOAA, said. "Eventually, we'll see where it isn't below 400 parts per million anywhere in the world. We're on our way to doing that."
Fire
The New York Times reported: "'Out of work? Nowhere to live? Nowhere to go? Nothing to eat?' the online ad reads. 'Come to Fukushima.' That grim posting targeting the destitute, by a company seeking laborers for the ravaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, is one of the starkest indications yet of an increasingly troubled search for workers willing to carry out the hazardous decommissioning at the site."
However, those working directly at Fukushima are not the only ones exposed to its lingering effects. As radioactive water from the Fukushima disaster continues to leak into the Pacific Ocean, the FDA has added testing of Alaska salmon to its radiation monitoring program due to possible contamination. And US sailors who were aboard the Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier, which was involved in the Fukushima relief effort, are suing TEPCO over illnesses they say were caused by being exposed to radioactive plumes from the nuclear meltdown.
Scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute have crowd-sourced a network of volunteers taking water samples at beaches along the US West Coast in an effort to capture a detailed look at the levels of radiation drifting across the ocean from Fukushima. "We know there's contaminated water coming out of there, even today," Ken Buesseler, a senior scientist at Woods Hole, said. "In fact, it is the biggest pulse of radioactive liquid ever dropped in the ocean."
This is of particular concern because it is an example of ramifications and chronic problems resulting from meltdowns occurring at one nuclear power plant.
Given the IPCC's report of how worsening ACD will cause disruptions to our infrastructure and generate greater social unrest, it is clear that power disruptions are very likely in our not-so-distant future.
Nuclear power plants are intensely dependent on the power grid to function, and to keep the fuel rods and power cells cooled. Without a steady stream of large amounts of electricity, the 450 active nuclear power plants around the globe will all go into meltdown.
Fukushima is but one example.
Denial and Reality
While the pollution insults to the planet and ever-increasing and obvious signs of advancing ACD continue to mount, the urge for many people to bury their heads in the sand, often at the request or manipulation of industry and its media arms, continues apace as well.
The state of Wyoming has become the first state to block new science standards, because the standards include an expectation that students will understand that humans have significantly altered the planet's biosphere.
Corporate media's ability to misinform and manipulate the masses should never be underestimated, as a recent Gallup poll found that only 36 percent of US citizens believe that ACD would seriously impact their lives.
Recently the Republican-led US House of Representatives advanced a bill that would require federal weather agencies to focus more on predicting storms and less on climate studies... hence promoting denial of ACD.
The aforementioned efforts are the modern equivalent of passengers on the Titanic who opted to stay in the bar.
Meanwhile, it is becoming increasingly challenging to even keep pace with all the signs.
While the eastern and central US experienced a colder-than-average winter this year, the National Climatic Center released data showing that most of the rest of the planet registered the eighth-warmest winter on record.
Penn State climatologist Michael Mann wrote in Scientific American recently that a climate crisis looms in the very near future, saying that if humanity continues burning fossil fuels as we are, we will cross the threshold into environmental ruin by 2036.
As noted earlier, one of the world's largest and most knowledgeable scientific bodies, the AAAS, wants to make the reality of ACD very clear: Just as smoking causes cancer, so too are humanity's CO2 emissions causing Earth to change, with potentially unknown and unalterable impacts. The AAAS's Alan Leshner said, "What we are trying to do is to move the debate from whether human-induced climate change is reality."
The group's full report, an important read, adds: "The overwhelming evidence of human-caused climate change documents both current impacts with significant costs and extraordinary future risks to society and natural systems. The scientific community has convened conferences, published reports, spoken out at forums and proclaimed, through statements by virtually every national scientific academy and relevant major scientific organization including the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) that climate change puts the well-being of people of all nations at risk."
Upon request, Dr McPherson provided Truthout his latest writings, which address the likelihood of abrupt climate disruption and even the possibility of near-term human extinction:
Gradual change is not guaranteed, as pointed out by the US National Academy of Sciences in December 2013: "The history of climate on the planet - as read in archives such as tree rings, ocean sediments, and ice cores - is punctuated with large changes that occurred rapidly, over the course of decades to as little as a few years." The December 2013 report echoes one from Wood Hole Oceanographic Institution more than a decade earlier. Writing for the 3 September 2012 issue of Global Policy, Michael Jennings concludes that "a suite of amplifying feedback mechanisms, such as massive methane leaks from the sub-sea Arctic Ocean, have engaged and are probably unstoppable." During a follow-up interview with Alex Smith on Radio Ecoshock, Jennings admits that "Earth's climate is already beyond the worst scenarios." Skeptical Science finally catches up to reality on 2 April 2014 with an essay titled, "Alarming new study makes today's climate change more comparable to Earth's worst mass extinction." The conclusion from this conservative source: "Until recently the scale of the Permian Mass Extinction was seen as just too massive, its duration far too long, and dating too imprecise for a sensible comparison to be made with today's climate change. No longer.
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Re: How Bad Is Global Warming?

Postby stillrobertpaulsen » Thu Apr 10, 2014 5:44 pm

slimmouse » Thu Apr 10, 2014 1:40 pm wrote:So we've had a 180 parts per million increase in CO2 emmissions over the last 54 years and this is going to send the climate out of control?


Really, slimmouse, do you think the IPCC and Al Gore were so wrong in their predictions presented in An Inconvenient Truth eight years ago regarding ice-free summers at the North Pole (they predicted between 2055-2080, the US Navy says 2016) because they were focused on carbon dioxide instead of aluminum or barium? Aluminum and barium aren't even greenhouse gasses. I'm not sure I understand where you're coming from on this. Are you objecting to the theory of greenhouse gasses? Are you denying human responsibility for global warming? Or are you saying we are responsible, just not through our carbon consumption?
"Huey Long once said, “Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism.” I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security."
-Jim Garrison 1967
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Re: How Bad Is Global Warming?

Postby slimmouse » Thu Apr 10, 2014 5:56 pm

I sometimes wonder if were on the eve on destruction myself.

Probably yet another "advanced civilisation" that has fallen on this fair planet due to any amount of catastrophes, be they man-made or otherwise.

Never did replicate the Great Pyramid, this time around. Thus far this appears to have become a civilisation with different priorities, as are dictated to them.

Oh well.

Hey SRP

All of what you said. And I wouldnt hold us responsible. If everyone really fucking knew what was going on, their would be none of it.
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